A Christmas to Remember

by Jenny Hale

  When they entered the playroom, Carrie pulled the canvas from the spot on the shelf where she’d put it to dry and set it onto the art table. Two big, red handprints were the only color against the stark white background. Carrie tapped one of the hands to see if the paint was dry, and her finger came back empty of paint. She tapped a few more places—all dry. She remembered the confidence Adam showed in his hands, how still they’d been when he’d pressed them down. Carefully, she put her hand on top of his, noting how his handprint almost swallowed her own. She wondered what it would be like to hold the hand that had made this red print in front of her. Would his touch be as confident?

  “Is it dry?” David asked.

  Carrie pulled her hand from Adam’s print and looked at her skin. No paint. “Yep. All dry. Here’s what we need to do,” she said, refocusing on the task at hand. “I’m going to get a teal blue color for you, David, and I’m going to paint your left hand. Then, I want you to let me guide it onto your daddy’s left hand, so your print will be inside his.” David held out his hand as Olivia clacked around on the hardwoods in her princess high heels. With a grin in her direction, Carrie dipped the brush into the teal paint. “I’m going to paint your hand just like you painted your daddy’s, okay?”

  “It’s cold,” David said, smiling, as she brushed his fingers with the paint. “It tickles.”

  When she got his hand sufficiently painted, she took David’s hand, gently placed it inside his father’s print, pressed, and then pulled it off. It was a perfect fit, like when she used to put her hand up to her own father’s to see how much bigger his was than hers. They’d press their hands together, and he’d bend the tips of his fingers around hers. It made her wonder if David had ever held his daddy’s hand.

  “Is it my turn?” Olivia asked. She had picked up one of David’s toy train cars, and she was spinning the wheels with her fingers.

  Carrie picked up the damp towel that she’d rinsed and hung over the back of the chair after Adam had finished his handprints, and handed it to David. “I can help you if you can’t get the paint off,” she said, reaching out for Olivia’s hand and grabbing the purple paint. She popped the top up on the paint and dipped a new brush into the deep purple color. Then, she painted Olivia’s right hand and placed it on top of Adam’s print. When she pulled Olivia’s tiny hand from Adam’s, she had a perfect print.

  “I had fun painting with Daddy,” Olivia said, looking up just before she squeezed her hand into a fist to watch the paint squirt through her fingers.

  Satisfaction tickled Carrie’s chest as she realized that she’d done it. She’d made a moment for them. As she looked at those tiny handprints nestled in the palms of Adam’s, she felt hope that she could make more moments like that, and suddenly, she couldn’t wait—no matter what Adam said or did.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Surround yourself with those who support you. Carrie said that line to herself as she pulled a casserole from the oven.

  “Sorry I had to dart off like I did earlier today,” Joyce said. “Sharon is… dealing with some things.” She craned her neck to peer into the living room as if she didn’t want the others to hear. Walter and Bruce were watching football. “Would you help me wash the lettuce, please?”

  Carrie was glad to help. Even though Adam probably didn’t want her there socializing with his family, the rest of them seemed to welcome her. Joyce had actually gotten her from her room tonight after the children had gone to bed and asked if she’d help prepare supper. Since her arrival, Carrie had made late suppers to accommodate Adam’s work schedule. She didn’t like that they didn’t eat as a family, but the children needed to go to bed. It made for great leftovers the next day, but Carrie wondered if Joyce, too, was secretly waiting for Adam.

  Carrie pulled the lettuce leaves off the head and ran them under the stream of water at the tap. “Is she okay?” she asked. Sharon’s response to Adam had worried Carrie all day. There was so much emotion behind it that she’d tried to pick it apart over and over. Sharon had looked angry, but her tears showed the hurt she felt—that much was clear. Carrie didn’t have any sisters, and, as an only child, she’d always wanted one. Her mother was of a different generation than she was, and while she was very close with her father, it wasn’t the same as having another girl with whom she could share her secrets. When she was little, Carrie would write in her diary and pretend she was talking to an imaginary sister. She always wanted someone who would listen to her, who would understand whatever she was going through. Carrie didn’t understand what Sharon was going through, but she wanted to try.

  “I honestly can’t say if she’s okay,” Joyce said. She was chopping cucumbers into thin slices, the peel already grated to make a striped design. Just like her own mother, Joyce spent a lot of time and effort on the preparation of her suppers. They weren’t just thrown together; they were meticulously made with the utmost care and attention to detail. It all made Carrie a little homesick. In her adult life, she’d spent some Christmases with her parents—not every Christmas, depending on her work schedule—but she’d always been able to visit sometime around the holidays. Since she wasn’t even in the state, she wouldn’t be able to come home this Christmas.

  She missed seeing the porch light all the way down the road as soon as she turned the corner onto her street, she missed the way her mother opened the door to greet her before her car had come to a complete stop in the driveway, and she missed her dad’s smile from his favorite chair when she dropped her bags at the front door. She’d called her mother and explained the situation, and her mom had been gracious and sympathetic, but it didn’t ease the weight she felt because she couldn’t celebrate Christmas with the people she loved.

  Carrie had thought about what Christmas would be like this year, and she had many questions after the way Adam had behaved last night. Would she spend Christmas morning in her room while the entire family opened gifts? Certainly she shouldn’t impose by being there. Not to mention she had no gifts to share. Maybe she could go somewhere. Were coffee shops open on Christmas day? Probably not. Why did Adam even want her there on Christmas when his entire family would be with the children? He’d taken time off, but was he actually going to be present?

  “It smells fantastic in here,” Walter said, coming into the room behind his walker and changing the course of the conversation. Without his hat, he was bald on the top of his head, the only remnants of his youthful hair were a few haphazard strands that still lingered. The rest of his hair was kept short around the sides. Carrie tried to look past the aging skin and other traits that came with old age, like his overly bushy eyebrows, to see what he may have looked like in his younger years. There was a slight resemblance to Bruce, but it was difficult to tell, not knowing them very well.

  “What’s for supper?” Walter smiled at Carrie, setting her mind at ease a little.

  She enjoyed the family so much, and Walter was lovely. He was kind and quiet but direct at times. When they’d been playing cards, he was quick to tell everyone whose go it was, prodding them if they dared to make conversation instead of taking their turn. It was all in good fun, and he did keep the game going, that was for sure. Although Carrie would have preferred it to go on longer. He was patient as Bruce and Eric helped him up and down the stairs, smiling in their direction and thanking them when he was safely on flat ground again. She kept thinking about Pappy and how having Walter there was a little bit like having Pappy back.

  “Beef and cheddar casserole and salad,” Joyce said. She opened a drawer, studied the contents and shut it again. Then she opened another. “Where does Adam keep his serving spoons?” she asked herself out loud.

  “Oh, here,” Carrie batted at a drawer pull with her elbow, her hands wet and full of lettuce. She dropped the leaves into a large, striped bowl and flicked the water off her hands into the sink. That bowl looked far too pretty and delicate for Adam’s taste, and she wondered if it had been a remnant from his now dissolved marriage.

>   “How’s Sharon?” Walter asked. Carrie was glad to get back to the topic of Sharon’s wellbeing. She wanted to know what was going on with her, but it wasn’t her place to ask.

  “She was resting when I left her.” Joyce dug the serving spoon into the casserole. “I thought bringing her here would get her out, get her mind off it all.” The worry on Joyce’s face was striking, and Carrie thought to herself how that particular look could only come from a mother’s love. She’d come close herself when things had happened to children to whom she’d been very attached, but the only person who could really show that type of worry was a mother protecting her children. Joyce’s thin lips, which were usually turned up into a friendly grin, were pressed together, turned down, the skin between her eyes creased in a way that made it seem like those creases came easily—they’d been there before this moment. Three long lines—years of concern for the wellbeing of her children—were etched across her forehead.

  Carrie considered leaving the room to give them privacy, but Joyce handed her a cutting board and a tomato, so she walked to an area of the counter where she could have her back to them and pretend not to listen. She was definitely pretending not to listen because she wanted to hang on every word, find out why Sharon had been so hurt and angry with Adam, and why Adam seemed to anticipate it. Surely, something big had gone on between them, and she was dying to know what it was, even though it was so clearly none of her business.

  “It’s not like when the kids were little,” Joyce said. “If we’d had a tough week, Bruce and I would pile Adam and Sharon into the car, and we’d go on a trip somewhere, just the four of us—all our worries gone for the weekend.” She added the cucumber to the lettuce by scraping her knife along the cucumber-filled plate, each slice sliding down until it dropped into the bowl. “It’s different now. Sharon’s experiencing adult problems, not kid ones, and a trip away won’t solve them. As a mother, I want to fix it, and I can’t,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Almost as a reflex, Carrie turned around to console her but caught herself. She had no business prying into their lives, but the urge to help was strong for Carrie. Joyce had noticed and she smiled weakly, her eyes showing thanks. Carrie had had a relatively easy life—she hadn’t had any major obstacles other than her working life interfering with her social life. She’d had nothing that would put a look on her face like Sharon had had. What could possibly make her like that? Her family was all so supportive and sweet, she couldn’t imagine they’d done anything. Even Adam, who clearly preferred to work, couldn’t possibly be hurtful enough to cause the kind of pain on her face. It just didn’t seem in his character.

  “Hello-o,” Adam’s voice called from the hallway, and excitement tingled down her spine. It was barely eight o’clock—early by Adam’s standards. Carrie was glad because the snow that was melting during the day had frozen into patches of black ice on the roads. Why he had to go into work in those conditions was beyond her. She understood that as the owner of such a large brewery and restaurant, he would have a lot of work to do, but couldn’t he find some way to divvy that work out to allow himself more of a life?

  “Hey, honey!” Joyce called from her spot at the counter where she was getting glasses from the cupboard and filling them all with ice. “How was work?”

  “Good,” he said emerging and clapping Walter on the back. “How are you, Gramps?”

  “Not too bad. My knees have seen better days, but I can’t complain.”

  There it was: that grin that completely wrecked her nerves. Carrie could feel the jitters returning, and she busied her hands by cutting more tomatoes. She didn’t want to look at him because his blue eyes on her made the shaking in her hands worse. She worried that he didn’t want her at supper, and she was there again when he got home, talking to his family. Did it bother him? She wished there was some way that she could tell him that Joyce had invited her, but as usual, her thoughts were all running wild with the excitement of seeing him, and she couldn’t focus enough to start a general conversation, let alone weave in something like that. Last time she’d tried, she’d critiqued his beer labels. She’d better not try again. As she chopped, she wondered if she still had blush on her cheeks and if her hair looked nice. She glanced down at her shirt just to be sure it didn’t have anything on it from cooking. A tiny spot of tomato juice had splashed on her chest and made a spot. She should’ve worn an apron.

  “My goodness, child!” Joyce laughed. “That’s a lot of tomatoes! You don’t need to cut any more. Thank you for doing it.” She’d converted her nervous energy into chopping, and only then did she realize that she’d just chopped enough tomatoes for an entire army. Joyce set the bowl that reminded her of his ex-wife down next to her. It taunted her, reminding her that she wasn’t even in his league.

  “How were the kids today?” Adam asked, and she jumped a little at how close he was.

  She swallowed. “They were fine.”

  She knew he was fatigued by the way he blinked his eyes, but his face was friendly and alive despite how tired he was. That all-too-familiar curiosity was there in his face as he looked at her. He was finally here again, in the moment. She drank it up like a warm mug of hot chocolate on an icy day—savoring every minute. She got so jumpy around him, because she worried that he could sense her feelings, and she knew that she wasn’t successful enough, polished enough for him. She tripped in high heels, she preferred to tuck her feet underneath herself on the sofa rather than crossing her legs, she took long walks on the street lining the meadow back home for fun. There was nothing about her that was high-powered, businesslike—nothing he probably encountered at the office.

  He pulled a glass from the counter beside her and filled it with tea from a pitcher a little farther down. “Want some?” he asked, holding the pitcher up in offering.

  She didn’t know what to do. He was asking her if she wanted iced tea. That seemed simple enough. But the way he’d acted yesterday had made her feel like he didn’t want her there, so she didn’t know if it was a trick question. Was he just offering to be polite, but she was supposed to decline? Or did he really just want to know if she’d like iced tea? She felt her mouth drying out and her hands starting to shake again. This time, she didn’t have anything to do with her hands, so she put them in her pockets.

  “Would you like something else?” he asked, the skin between his eyes wrinkling the way it had when he was reading at his desk.

  She shook her head.

  “So… you want tea?”

  Carrie watched his eyes for any indication that he wasn’t legitimately asking her what she wanted to drink, but she couldn’t find anything there. “Tea would be nice,” she said, “As long as it’s okay with you.” She drew out the word “you,” her gaze on him in a direct way.

  He pulled back as if trying to focus on her, a grin playing at his lips. “I’m perfectly fine if you have tea.” His amusement was clear, causing a tickling inside her stomach. “We have an entire pitcher of it here, and I have more tea bags in the pantry.” Carrie pulled her eyes away from him to try and calm her beating heart, and she happened to glance at Joyce. The look on her face was completely unexpected. She was watching them, her lower back against the counter, her arms crossed in a relaxed way, her eyes warm and her lips set in a smile. She looked positively happy.

  “Sharon and Eric are in the living room with your dad. Supper’s ready,” Joyce said. “I’ll just call them in.” Walter, who hadn’t moved from the table, had a game of Solitaire spread out in front of him. He flipped a card and looked up.

  Adam handed Carrie a glass of iced tea. It was filled so full that she worried her unsteady hands would spill it all over him. She took it just as he said, “Sorry to have to go so quickly, but I have a few things to work on that I have to get done if I’m going to take time off at Christmas. I’m gonna eat my supper in the office.”

  The look on Joyce’s face—that loving smile she’d seen—withered into disappointment, her mouth turning down,
her hands dropping by her sides. Carrie watched her chest rise as she took in a slow, deep breath. She’d seen a look like that before once on her own mother’s face. When she was sixteen, she’d told her mother that she was going to her friend’s house to study, but she really went to see her boyfriend. What she hadn’t anticipated was that her friend was away for the weekend and hadn’t returned her mother’s calls, so, when Carrie got home, her mother had that same look on her face—she was saddened, defeated, her reality changed. That was the only time she’d ever lied to her mother, and she never did it again. That look was still burned into her memory, and to this day, she felt remorse for having upset her mother. Adam didn’t seem to have that response at all, even though he’d clearly let Joyce down. His face was empty of emotion, matter-of-fact, unaffected.

  “We have come a long way to see you, Adam,” Joyce said. “I would appreciate it if you would eat supper with us at least.”

  “I told you not to come before the twenty-first. I’m not trying to be rude, I just don’t have the time…”

  “I know that’s what you told us.” She walked closer, looking up at him to make eye contact. “I just thought you may feel differently once we were all here.”

  Carrie took a step back, leaving the two of them still facing each other, their expressions set, their eyes on one another like some sort of standoff. Carrie was glad that Joyce was finally bringing to light all the thoughts Carrie herself had had regarding his absence.

  “Do you think I can just not work?” he said. “That it’s something I can put down any time that I choose? There’s no one else to run the brewery but me. I can barely take the four days off that I have. Do you know how busy this time of year is?”

  “You don’t want to stop working. The brewery has been very successful for you, and you love the success, even more than your family. That’s what I think.”