There were a series of messages from Zach Howard, one of the company dancers. He was thirty, kind of old for me; although anything went these days when it came to relationships. One of the other dancer’s fathers had married a young woman the same age as his daughter. The troupe girls had rolled our eyes and shuddered. Could you imagine being with a man who was old enough to be your father?
Even though Zach had the most muscular body of any dancer I’d ever seen—and was not old enough to be my father, just a big brother, I still wasn’t interested. Despite the flirting. The phone calls. The multiple invitations for a movie or coffee.
His emails were filled with a couple of silly holiday jokes. Stories about his family in Houston. A quick mention that he was missing the company—which I took to mean he was insinuating that he missed me. I honestly hadn’t given him a single thought since the ballet company holiday party.
“Welcome to my world,” I quickly wrote back, tapping the keys with my freshly painted long nails, done in pale, sugary cotton pink for the Sugar Plum Fairy performance. “Family Drama. Pestering Moms. Bossy older sisters. Although fairly cool younger brother.”
I kept the email short and sweet, despite Zach having typed his phone number in a bolded font, asking me to call. “When you get back to New Orleans it’s time for us to have a real date, Jessica. We’ll have fun. I promise.”
He may have been sincere. And then again, he may be using innuendos that were creeping me out. Hard to tell in email.
Despite his rugged good looks, I wasn’t interested. Never had been, never would.
Thanks goodness Snow Valley, Montana was a long ways from Houston. “Bet you don’t have two feet of snow on your front lawn,” I typed. “See you in a few weeks,” I ended airily.
Hit send. Done. I deleted the junk mail and closed the computer lid, my body eager to move while I cast traitorous thoughts toward James Douglas. I wondered if Pastor John would let him give a guest sermon today.
Quickly, I dressed in some leggings, thick socks, and a sweatshirt. Pulled my uncombed hair into a pony tail and brushed my teeth.
Then slid down the polished banister downstairs just like I used to as a teenager.
I stood at the picture window, drinking hot raspberry tea and eating one of my mother’s homemade cinnamon rolls, warm from the microwave and dripping icing.
White sugar. Worst thing for me, but it was hard to resist. It was Christmas after all. And my mom was an excellent baker. Her specialty: breads and pies.
After licking my fingers I stretched in front of the tree—bare of decorations. The boxes were stuffed along the wall under the drapes waiting to be hung. Mom was easily distracted. I’d probably have to help her finish. Growing up, I’d always done the Christmas decorating. My sister Catherine was useless in that department.
Selecting Christmas tunes on my iPod, I went through my warm-up routine as best I could. Maybe I should find a gym while I was here until New Year’s. Between the holiday food and no regular dance classes, I was going to go backward in agility and skills.
Every dancer’s constant battle—staying limber. My muscles ached a bit. Bones creaked. Golly, had I turned forty overnight?
I did a series of pliés and then a few turns in place, using the tree angel for spotting, my neck swiveling.
I was bent over my knees, head down, holding the stretch when the front door opened. In burst Catherine and the kids and my brother, Sam.
“Thought you’d still be in bed,” Catherine said, tossing coats, knit caps, and mittens all over the couch and armchair. She was such a slob.
I gave her a faint smile, filled with sarcasm. “Yeah, well, you thought wrong.”
“Girls!” Mom scolded.
Every time I saw my older sister, I was suddenly back in high school bickering with her like we were thirteen again. No matter how old we got. Pathetic.
My two nieces crashed into me for hugs and I swung them up and kissed each one on their faces, snuggling into their necks. Joanie was four and Amber was two and they were counting the days until Christmas with the Advent Calendar my mother had put on the refrigerator.
“You missed church!” Amber cried, immediately slipping out of my arms to run to the tree and check for any new gifts.
“Yeah, well, I had to work late last night.” I said lamely.
My mother pursed her lips at my excuse and then asked, “Did you put the roast in the oven?”
I gave her a blank stare. “Didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“I left a note on the cupboard.”
“Sorry, Mom, I didn’t see it.”
She sighed and trotted off to the kitchen. I followed for penance, Amber hanging onto my legs and beginning to wail. “Joanie won’t let me play with her doll!”
Catherine pulled her off me and dragged the girls off to change out of their frilly church dresses. Wails followed, but she quickly cut them off. “Cookies after lunch for everyone who cooperates!”
“Does that include me?” Sam asked, heading to the computer in the corner.
Catherine patted his head. “If you’re a good boy.”
Sam shook his head. “Girls! There are too many of them in this house.”
As I entered the kitchen, Mom was already shoving the slab of pot roast and veggies in a roasting pan into the oven. “Guess dinner will be late. Of course, your father won’t be home for a couple of hours. He stayed on to talk with Pastor John about the upcoming fundraisers for the hospital. He’s on the board now, you know. ”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
“You’d remember if you came to church with us.”
I hid a grimace as I freshened my tea with more hot water from the kettle.
Mom continued, pulling out a mixing bowl and the ingredients to create cookie dough. “Pastor John will think you’re ignoring him when you don’t come to church.”
“Maybe I am,” I answered vaguely. There was that incident in high school with Kazz and Paisley and Molly at Bible Camp when we set the outhouse on fire.
“But everyone needs church—or something—to ground them.”
“Snow Valley is just too freaking cheerful for me. This town is small and gossipy. I hate everyone knowing my business. All those hugs when Michael—at the funeral, then the cemetery—you know.” I shook my head. “I felt stifled. Claustrophobic. I just wanted to scream at everyone to stop looking at me.”
Now my mother looked hurt. “I didn’t realize you felt that way. The people here care about you. We all hurt terribly when Michael passed away.”
I stuck my hands over my ears. “Don’t say it like that! He died. He was killed. It was my fault!”
Mom reared back as if I’d struck her. Then her face fell, stricken. She tried to wrap her arms around me, but I flung her off. “It was not your fault, Jessica. It was stormy that night and the roads were icy and the brakes locked as you skidded through that intersection. We were blessed that you didn’t die that night, too.”
“Oh, it’s okay that Michael died as long as I didn’t. Tell that to his mother.”
“You know I don’t mean it like that. That’s not fair.”
“Please. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I headed for the door, but Mom stopped me. I didn’t turn around as she spoke, quietly and forcefully. “I know you think I interfere with your life too much. That I’m cloying and probably much too sappy. But your father and I care deeply about you. We see how much you’ve been hurting the last three years. Even if you hid yourself away in New Orleans, we know why you left. I’m also proud of you for trying to live your life. For trying to make it on your own. But,” she took a deep breath. As though gathering her courage.
“But ever since you got home you’ve spent most of your free time at the cemetery. It hurts that you seem to resent us. Most of all, it hurts me to see how much you’re hurting.”
I chewed on my lips, tears threatening to spill, arms crossed over my chest to hold myself together.
“It’s been three years, honey. You need to forgive yourself.”
“That’s impossible,” I shuddered.
“I promise you’ll feel better if you throw yourself into the Christmas festivities or a service project like the bake sale fundraiser tomorrow. Your old friend, Paisley, has done a remarkable job organizing. She has real talent.”
“Good for her. But she never had the guts to leave this town.”
“That was cold, Jessica. Very unchristian.”
I shrugged.
“Perhaps you and Paisley could get reacquainted and work together? I’ll just make a phone call. Getting involved in something will help you quit moping around the house. Or telephone Kazlyn, your old classmate from ballet school, and go out on the town.”
“Don’t!” I turned around, wiping a stiff hand across my face. “Just don’t. A bake sale will not fix this. Or a “night on the town. In Snow Valley—are you kidding me?” I stormed out of the kitchen. “Hey Sam, want to get out of the house for a couple hours? See if Big C’s has milkshakes on sale?”
“Not on the Sabbath, you two,” Mom said behind us in her strict voice.
“Mother,” I said evenly. “Sometimes you have to let your children make their own decisions and let them make their own mistakes. Going out for a little while isn’t going to send me to hell.”
I could see pain behind my mother’s eyes. It didn’t make me feel any better to defy her, but I had to get out of the house for awhile.
“I won’t go to hell, either!” Sam cried, a little too joyfully, as he pulled on his jacket and stuffed one of mom’s hand knit caps on his head. I pounded upstairs to grab my stuff so I could catch up to him.
Chapter Eight
WHEN I SLID INTO THE CAR—inordinately grateful that I’d driven my own car from New Orleans because I didn’t have to beg for keys every time I wanted to go somewhere—Sam gave me a sheepish look.
He held up a plate of cookies tied with red Christmas ribbon and taped in the center with a cheap green Walgreen’s bow. “Sorry. Mom stuck it in my hands. Said we have to deliver it to Pastor John’s house.”
I gave him a sideways grin, trying to shake off the argument in the kitchen. “Mom is a piece of work, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So tell me Mom’s trick. How’d she get cookies mixed up, baked, and on a plate so fast?”
“There are two dozen plates just like this in the deep freeze in the garage.”
“Mom must be a Boy Scout. Always Prepared.”
“Prepared is her middle name.”
“Or cookies. She thinks the world can be made better with the band-aid of chocolate chip cookies.”
“Well, she does have a point,” Sam said, sneaking one of the cookies out from under the plastic wrap.
I give him a look. “Everybody in this town is too damn cheerful—even you!”
“Sorry, sis.”
We got to Big C’s a few minutes later. The roads had been cleared and salted so it was an easy drive.
The squat gray brick building was clustered with tables and chairs, now iced over with a thick layer of snow from the previous night’s storm.
“They really should bring these in for the winter,” I said as we skirted around them and shoved the glass door open. Warmth bathed my cold face from the grill and ovens. The smell of fresh baked hamburger buns and onion rings made me realize that I was starving.
“I think I could use some lunch,” Sam hinted.
I grinned. “Order anything you want. My treat.”
“I always knew I loved you best.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
After getting big sloppy burgers, a basket of hot deep-fried onion rings and Cokes, we made our way to a table in the corner near the plastic Christmas tree strung with droopy tinsel.
We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes while silly Christmas jingles from the radio bruised our ears.
“Man, this is soooo good,” Sam said, gulping the last of the onion rings and wiping his mouth with a napkin. “But now I’m feeling bad about eating so much. Mom home cooking Sunday dinner and all.”
“You are a big old bear, you know that?”
He leaned back in his seat and gazed at me. “You’re kind of hard on her.”
“She’s hard on me, too,” I protested, not wanting him to take her side.
“I’m on both your sides,” Sam said, as if reading my mind. “But even when Mom drives me insane I know she means well.”
I sighed. There were no words right now. My stomach was full, and I was sleepy from all the fabulous, greasy food.
“You’re wound so tight, Jess,” he went on tentatively. As if feeling his way and hoping I wouldn’t bite his head off.
A lump came into my throat as I stared back at him. “What am I supposed to do, Sam? I’m stuck in this weird place. I can’t even describe it. Michael was—my whole life.”
My younger brother glanced down, then around the café, and then back at me. “You sure about that? Or is that a guilt trip?”
“When did you get to be a shrink?”
“I used to watch you guys all the time. Michael was like a hero, a big brother to me.”
“He was supposed to be. Your future brother-in-law.”
Sam shrugged, chewing on his lips just like I chewed on mine. “But watching you guys. For a while you were all kissy and romantic. And then, about a year before the accident, you guys stopped. You seemed more like cousins or something, best buddies—just like you were when we were all kids.”
“How would you know? You were only fifteen.”
“I got eyes. And I’m not stupid.”
This conversation was very disconcerting.
“We were going to get married.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not really. And I think you feel like you’re to blame.”
“Of course I do! I—I didn’t stop him from driving that night!”
“No. No. I mean—I mean you feel bad, but mostly because you didn’t love Michael enough. You were thinking about breaking up with him.”
“No, I wasn’t! What kind of fantasy are you spinning about us?”
“Okay, I don’t think you were actually thinking about breaking up, but you were starting to watch other guys. Talking about leaving home for college. Or audition for a dance group—or company—or whatever you call it. And that’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t answer him. He was hitting a nerve.
“I see it happening with my friends now that we’re seniors. We’ve been together since elementary school and now our lives are kind of like splitting. We’re all going to do different things after graduation.”
I nodded slowly. The accident had changed everything, even though I’d still left home. Michael and I were going to wait for each other and get married after college. I tried to remember the last time Michael and I had actually discussed those plans. I think it was back during our sophomore year. Not after that at all . . .
“You do realize, Samuel Mason, that you’re the only person I’d allow to talk to me like this.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah.”
“Let’s talk about something else. Like your girlfriend.”
“Who says I have a girlfriend?”
“I think Mom let it slip on the phone a couple weeks ago before I came home for the holidays.”
He rolled his eyes.
“So? What’s her name?”
“Lydia.”
“And?”
“She’s pretty amazing. She might be the one. Know what I mean?”
I was stunned to hear that come out of his mouth. “You’re way too young, Sam! You’ve hardly dated any girls. How could you possibly know you want to spend your whole life with her already?”
“Wow, you sound like Mom now.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. “Sorry, I did.”
“Besides, you didn’t date anybody but Michael since you were a ki
d.”
Was I letting my experience with Michael color my opinions on relationships? It was a thought that made me squirm.
“Anybody in New Orleans?” he asked next, studying me.
I thought about Zach Howard and cringed. “Nope, nobody.”
“That new pastor dude is pretty cool, don’t you think?”
I feigned ignorance. “Who?”
Sam just laughed at me. “I saw a little eye action going on last night.”
“Did not.”
“Did, too. He asked you out, didn’t he?”
“I hardly call having cocoa with the family asking me out. Besides, it completely fizzled. End of story.”
“Nope, beginning of story. He was concerned about you. I could tell. He kept looking at you. Like a lot.”
Those annoying prickly feelings were running rampant down my neck and legs. Even my fingers were twitching now.
“Believe me, I am not interested in a pastor. And won’t ever be.”
My brother laughed again. “What’s wrong with a pastor? Pastor John is pretty cool.”
I made a noise in my throat. “If you don’t set his outhouse on fire.”
“No way. You serious?”
“Drop the subject,” I said with a sugary smile. “You ready to go?”
“But we’re not done with Pastor what’s-his-name.”
“I’m done.”
Sam crumpled up the wrapping to his burger and stuffed it in the empty basket. “I’m trying to picture you and Pastor Dude getting married. I gotta tell you – I’m seeing it. I am.”
His eyes glittered with mischief.
“You are so full of it. There is no way I would ever marry some religious guy. I swore off religion when Michael died.”
“Only because you’re mad at God.”
“I think an alien is now inhabiting your body.”
My brother didn’t crack a smile. He was dead serious. “I mean it, Jess. You keep crying and getting mad at everyone, walking around like somebody should shoot you, but it’s only because you’re mad at yourself. And you’re mad at God for taking Michael and messing up your life.”
“It sounds so selfish when you put it like that.”
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