One Walk in Winter

by Georgia Beers

  “I can do that.” Olivia snagged one of the finished meatballs off the pile on a nearby plate.

  “I smacked your brother for that. I’ll smack you, too.”

  “No, you won’t. I’m your favorite.”

  “I heard that!” Tony’s voice cane from the living room.

  “Not news, little brother.” Olivia laughed as she pulled the cork from a bottle of Merlot and poured two glasses. “Priya? Wine?”

  “Yes, please,” was the response.

  Tony entered the kitchen to drop off his empty beer bottle and pick up his girlfriend’s wine. He wandered toward the plate of meatballs when his mother’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

  “I swear to God, Anthony Michael, you will lose a hand.”

  His eyes went wide as he met Olivia’s gaze, and just like that, despite their stifled grins, they were twelve and six again.

  “I’m just kidding, sweetie,” their mother said, a gleam in her eye. “Why am I making them if I’m not going to let you eat them?”

  “That was my question, but you Mom Voiced me, so I wasn’t about to ask.”

  It was something Olivia loved about her family. It might seem old-fashioned to some, but there was a level of respect between the children and their mother. They never mouthed off. They always listened to her, even if they didn’t agree with her advice. Angela Santini had worked hard, sacrificed so much, to raise her kids on her own, and they knew it.

  “What time did you tell Hayley?” Angela asked.

  Tony stopped in his tracks on his way out of the kitchen, meatball halfway to his mouth. “Hayley’s coming?”

  “She was going to be alone for the holiday,” Angela said by way of explanation.

  “Oh. Well. Can’t have that.” He said it seriously and gave a shrug, but waggled his thick eyebrows at Olivia before exiting the kitchen. Olivia shook her head at him before turning back to her mom.

  “Any time now. I told her six thirty.”

  “Perfect. Oh, damn it.” Her mother used the tongs to take a meatball that had split into two pieces out of the pan and placed it on a paper towel with other pieces to cool off.

  “Is that the Walter pile?”

  “Sure is.” Angela looked down at the dog, who hadn’t moved an inch since Olivia arrived. “Right, my sweet boy?”

  Walter’s tail wagged and he looked at Olivia’s mom with such love, she couldn’t hold in her laughter. “Grandma spoils you.”

  “That’s what grandmas do,” Angela said, breaking off a piece of meatball and blowing on it until it was no longer hot. She held it out to Walter, who very gently took it from her.

  “So spoiled.” Olivia shook her head, but with affection, and held up her wineglass. “Cheer me.”

  Angela picked hers up from the counter and touched it to Olivia’s.

  “Merry Christmas, Mama.”

  They each sipped, tandem Mmms emanating from their throats as they savored the smooth red.

  The doorbell rang, interrupting their wine tasting and causing Walter to tremble in his spot, obviously torn between running to the door and the possibility of more meatballs. Olivia met her mother’s gaze and there was something there, something in that one moment, that told Olivia her mother understood every single conflicting emotion she was having over Hayley. That her mother got it, and a weird sense of what could only be described as relief settled over her.

  Olivia swallowed hard.

  Her mother gave her a very slight nod.

  She went to get the door.

  * * *

  Were her knees knocking together?

  Hayley was pretty sure they were, like a nervous teenage boy picking up his first date. At least she wasn’t sweating—the drop in temperature had taken care of that.

  She stood on the front stoop of Angela Santini’s adorable little house, wine and gifts in hand, and—despite being a little jittery—felt oddly like she was exactly where she was supposed to be in that moment. Which was a nice feeling, because her world had felt slightly off-kilter ever since talking with her father yesterday. He had always been able to have that effect and he usually used it to his advantage. This time felt different, though.

  Before she could dwell on it more—please, it was all she’d done for the past thirty six hours—the door was pulled open and Tony Santini stood there with a big smile on his handsome face.

  “Hayley. Good to see you again. Merry Christmas.” He pulled her into a hug before she even realized he was about to, and she gave an awkward chuckle. “Come in,” he said, once he’d let her go.

  She stepped through the front door and caught her breath. She’d walked into exactly what a perfect Christmas should look like.

  The first thing she noticed was the warmth, both literal and figurative. It was literally warm because a fire burned in the fireplace, but it was also figuratively warm; all the dark wood and Christmas decorations joined with the delicious smell of food to create an atmosphere that Hayley hadn’t felt since her mother died. Not at Christmas. Not at any time during the year. It wrapped around her like a soft blanket, made her feel welcome.

  “Here, let me take those.” Tony’s girlfriend—Priya?—took the wine and the gifts from Hayley’s hands while Tony helped her out of her coat.

  “Thank you,” she said to both of them, then followed Tony when he gestured for her to come on into the house. Just when she felt like she’d found her footing and the nerves had stopped vibrating in her spine, her entire world screeched to a halt.

  Olivia stood in the doorway.

  For the first time in her life, Hayley totally understood the phrase “time stood still,” because that’s exactly what happened. Time stopped, and the rest of the room and the people in it faded out of existence. There was only her and the gorgeous woman standing before her. She wore a black dress made of lightweight sweater material, and it clung to every single curve Olivia had like it was showing them off. Like the dress was talking to Hayley, saying things like, “See these hips? How they’re rounded in exactly the right way? And what about these breasts? Aren’t they the most perfect breasts you’ve ever seen?” Hayley would’ve liked the dress to shut up because she was staring and she knew she was staring and she couldn’t seem to stop staring.

  Thank God for Walter, who came skidding in happily from behind Olivia and immediately put his front paws up on Hayley in greeting. That snapped her out of the trance she’d been stuck in, and she looked down at his furry face, his happy expression, and dug her fingers into his fur. “Hi, buddy,” she said softly. “Thanks for that.”

  “Hey,” Olivia said, and when Hayley looked up, she was grinning tenderly at her.

  “Merry Christmas,” Hayley said, and they stood there for a moment before Angela came into the room, walked straight across to Hayley, and wrapped her in a huge hug. Over her shoulder, Hayley looked at Olivia. “Your family are huggers.”

  Olivia’s smiled widened. “Oh, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Angela pulled away to look Hayley in the face. “I never think. I just hug.”

  Hayley instantly wanted to reassure her. “No, no. Please. It’s wonderful. Just not something I’m used to.”

  “Your dad isn’t a hugger, huh?”

  Hayley snorted. “God, no.”

  “Was your mom?” Angela’s dark eyes—so much like Olivia’s—held her gaze. How did she do that? How did she get information out of people so easily? Because Hayley was absolutely going to answer.

  “She was. She was very affectionate.”

  Angela hooked her arm around Hayley’s and led her all the way into the living room to an overstuffed chair. “Well, we are so glad you’re here. Have a seat and make yourself at home. Wine?” Priya handed her the bottle Hayley had brought. “We have a Merlot opened or I can open this one…”

  “The open one is fine.” Hayley cleared her throat. “Thank you so much for having me. This is great already.”

  Olivia appeared with a glass of wine she handed to Hayl
ey.

  “Wow. Fast service.”

  “I aim to please.” Was that a mischievous twinkle in Olivia’s eye? They touched their glasses together and sipped.

  The front door blew open, startling everybody in the room.

  “I’m home! Christmas can start now!” Ann Marie kicked the door shut behind her. She wore a thick winter coat and a gray knit hat, and was covered with snow that she shook off. “And just in time. It’s getting nasty out there.” She dropped a pile of bags on the foyer floor and, as Olivia took a step in her direction, held up a halting hand. “Nope. Nope. Stay over there. I don’t want you seeing what I bought.”

  “Were you Christmas shopping?” Hayley asked, amused.

  “I was.”

  “On Christmas Eve?”

  “Best time to shop.” Ann Marie shucked her coat and tossed her gloves and hat into the coat closet Hayley hadn’t even seen when she’d arrived. “I found that out by accident.” At Hayley’s furrowed brow, she went on. “I was coming home from school. It was a weird year date-wise, and I ended up coming home for Christmas much later than usual. I’d been so busy that I hadn’t done any shopping and my only option was to go on Christmas Eve.” She snorted a laugh. “It was me and a bunch of men in the mall that evening. But they had the best deals! Like Black Friday without the insanity of the crowds.”

  “So, she decided to shop on Christmas Eve every year.” Angela shook her head, but her expression was soft as she sipped her wine. She gestured to the bags with her chin. “If you’re going to wrap those, go do it. We’re going to eat soon.”

  Ann Marie swooped up all her bags and disappeared up the stairs.

  “She’s going to wrap all of those now?” Priya asked from her seat on the couch next to Tony.

  “Yup,” he said. “And then she’ll bring them down and we’ll unwrap them.”

  “Seems like a waste of paper.” Priya shrugged, seemingly resigned to not understanding at all and being totally okay with it.

  Hayley watched the whole exchange with a grin on her face and warmth in her heart. She’d had wonderful Christmases before her mother had passed, but not like this. Her brothers were quite a bit older, so they didn’t have the same kind of relationship that Olivia had with her siblings.

  As if reading her mind, Olivia sat on the arm of the chair, so close Hayley could feel her body heat, smell her perfume, and asked, “You have brothers, right?”

  “Half brothers,” Hayley said, with a nod. “Two.”

  “You don’t spend Christmas with them? You’re not close?”

  Hayley took a sip of her wine. “It’s not that we’re not close, but there’s a big age difference. They were grown and moved out by the time I was five, so we didn’t really have…” She waved her hand to encompass the room. “This. Plus, they had their own mom to visit on holidays. And once they were married, in-laws. So we didn’t really have a lot of Christmases together like this. It’s nice to watch, though. I’m envious.”

  The evening went on just like that: warm, inviting, delicious. Just like the lunch of pasta Angela had shared with Hayley not so long ago, her baked ziti was amazing and her meatballs were better than any Hayley had ever had. In her life. She was pretty sure she’d died and gone to heaven every time she put a bite of one into her mouth.

  None of the Santinis would let Hayley help clean up the dining room or do the dishes. Instead, her wine was refilled and she was ushered back into the living room where, rather than sit in the overstuffed chair again, she took a seat on the hearth next to it so she could soak up the fire’s warmth and ambience. Walter lay down at her feet and let out a big doggy sigh, as if he’d worked incredibly hard today.

  “Did you have as many meatballs as I did?” she asked him.

  He raised his head, his brown eyes soft, and seemed to understand exactly what she’d said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I should’ve stopped three balls ago, but I just couldn’t.”

  He laid his head back down on his front paws, and Hayley petted him as her gaze moved to the Christmas tree. More specifically, the ornaments. There were so many. The majority of them looked homemade, like children’s crafts. She reached out to a ceramic…was it holly leaves and berries? She wasn’t sure, as it was a lump of green with some red on it. She unhooked it from the branch and turned it over in her hand.

  Olivia, 1993

  Hayley rolled her lips in and bit down on them, suddenly filled with joy at the small ornament in her hands. Olivia had made it when she was seven years old, and something about the thought of elementary school Olivia, tongue sticking out in concentration as she painted, made Hayley go all mushy inside.

  This is bad.

  The thought ran through her head then, followed immediately by another one.

  Isn’t it?

  Because…was it? This attraction she was finally accepting? Was it a bad thing? Hayley wasn’t really a cautious person. She was a go-for-it type. A seize-the-day kind of girl. She didn’t like to look way out into the future just so she could worry about possible—but not necessarily probable—outcomes.

  “Need more wine?” Olivia’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and when she looked up, Olivia was smiling down at her. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, probably from the warmth and the wine, and she looked more relaxed than Hayley had ever seen her.

  “No, I’m good. Thanks.” She held up the ornament and raised her eyebrows in question.

  Olivia laughed and took a seat in the overstuffed chair as the others filed into the room. She reached for the ornament, her fingertips warm as she brushed Hayley’s. “Oh, I was only seven when I made this,” she said as she flipped it over and read the date.

  “Which one?” Ann Marie asked. Olivia held it up for her to see. “Where’s my macaroni Santa?”

  Olivia found it, and soon, the three siblings were picking various ornaments off the tree and telling the stories of how they came to be. Hayley loved every second of it, especially the way Olivia’s brown eyes glittered in the soft lighting, the way her expression was gentle. She took another ornament off and handed it to Hayley. “Mama got me this one last year.”

  It was a plastic molded girl in red footie pajamas, wearing a red stocking hat and holding a sign that said, “Oldest. Mom’s Favorite.” Hayley’s laugh burst out of her as Tony and Ann Marie held up the same ornaments, only Ann Marie’s said, “Middle Child. Mom’s Favorite.” And Tony’s, which was a boy, read, “Youngest. Mom’s Favorite.”

  Angela sat on the couch, wineglass in hand, and a smile on her face that radiated a beautiful combination of love and pride. “Presents?” she asked, and suddenly, her kids were just that again: kids. They scrambled around on the floor, reaching for gifts wrapped in silver and gold and red and green, handed them to each other, and the tearing of paper began.

  Hayley was perfectly content to watch this lovely family, sitting on the hearth, Walter at her feet, feeling more comfortable and welcome than she could remember feeling, and it was a little bittersweet.

  Angela spoiled her children as much as a woman who headed up a middle-class, one-income house could. Clothes and socks and a cookbook for Ann Marie— “What are you trying to say, Mama?”—heavy duty gloves for Tony, and a Crock-Pot for Olivia.

  “You use the slow cooker often?” Hayley asked.

  “I make a killer beef stew. Mine bit the dust last month and I was specifically told”—she said the last two words loudly as she glanced at her mother—“I was not to buy a new one. So, I have been stew-less for nearly five weeks.”

  “A tragedy,” Hayley said with a grin.

  “You have no idea.”

  The conversation was a steady buzz as the Santinis chatted amongst themselves.

  Hayley leaned sideways, reached under the tree, and pulled out the gift she’d brought. When she sat back up, Olivia had a square box in her hand and was looking at her. Their gazes held for a moment before they both laughed.

  “This is for you,” Olivia said s
oftly.

  “And this is for you,” Hayley countered, handing her the large rectangular package.

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” Olivia said, as she held the gift on her knees.

  “And you didn’t have to get me anything.” Hayley grinned at her from the hearth.

  “Okay, okay, nobody had to get anybody anything. We get it.” Ann Marie stood with her hands on her hips. “Maybe just open them? The suspense is killing me.”

  “You first,” Olivia said with a jerk of her chin.

  Hayley nodded and carefully unwrapped the box, which was simple, plain, and white. It was a little bit unnerving, having an entire family she really didn’t know terribly well watch her unwrap a gift, but she kept her focus on the task, sliding her finger under the tape to unseal the lid, then pulling it open to reveal white tissue paper. Gently, she reached into the box and pulled the bundle out, then peeled away the tissue. And stared, wide-eyed.

  In her hand was a miniature replica of a fairy house. Specifically, the one at the bridge. It came complete with a purple door, a post to represent the bridge behind it, and a little sign that warned “Beware of Trolls.”

  Hayley brought her fingers to her lips as she lifted the tiny house higher so she could get a better look. “Oh, my God. Olivia. This is beautiful.” When she finally looked up and met those brown eyes, Olivia was smiling tenderly down at her.

  “You like it?”

  “Are you kidding? I love it. It will always remind me of our walk.” Hayley turned the little house in her hands, admiring all the tiny detail, the little touches like the weathering of the wood and the round eyes painted on one of the windows, as if a fairy was watching from inside. “It’s so intricate.”

  “There’s a local artist who creates all of them. Replicas of all the fairy houses. I went back to the gift shop after our walk hoping they had the troll one, because that seemed to be your favorite.”

  “It absolutely was.”

  “You should’ve seen her,” Olivia said to the room. “She got right down on her stomach in the snow to get the right photograph.”

  “This is beautiful, Olivia,” Hayley repeated. “Thank you.”