Coming Home to You

by M. K. Stelmack

  Mel thumbed the rim of his full glass. “I know I pushed for us to be more than friends on Sunday. But I—I was talking with Cal—”

  “You talked to him about us?”

  “No. Not about us. When he visited me the other night, he was looking for a way to get into my life—for my money, probably. After he left, I realized that was the way I’ve become with you, always looking for a way in. Trying to stretch our days together to weeks, then months, then into a lifetime. Only...how? I don’t see myself moving lock, stock and barrel to Halifax. There’s the baby coming in March, and they’ll need an extra hand on the farm and the business... And if I’m not willing to give up my life, why should I expect you to do the same for me?”

  Exactly what she’d been thinking. Yet...yet it hurt to hear him say he’d given up on them. The guy who’d pushed a car for her. She’d hoped he’d make it harder for her to say goodbye. Somehow she’d believed he’d come up with an insane plan for them to live happily ever after. “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t suppose you can.”

  “Fact of the matter is, neither one of us are risk takers,” he said. “And the only way for it to work is if one of us cashes in all their chips.”

  Daphne idly stirred the lemonade, the specks of her ingredients spinning together in a slow whirlpool. “I will always appreciate how you made my life better, but I can’t change it completely for you. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  In the silence that followed, Mel finally turned to his lemonade and drank half. “I’ve never tasted better,” he said. “Your idea to add white pepper?”

  He finished his drink, probably not realizing that he was the prince that Daphne’s best friend had wished for her. But there would be no happily-ever-after for them. Another busted fairy tale.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FIVE DAYS LATER, Daphne returned the books she’d borrowed from the library and paid for the one Fran had defaced by underlining sentences and scrawling the word awkward in the margins and noting where the writer’s arguments were tepid, unsubstantiated, slanderous. Daphne planned to keep the book.

  Judy latched onto her right away. “There you are!”

  “Evidently,” Daphne said.

  “Come on,” Judy said, already heading to the rear of the library. The front lounge area was packed with toddlers stripping a fake Christmas tree of its decorations even as their mothers rehung them. Judy ushered Daphne into the head librarian’s office, where her Mrs. Claus costume hung from a hook on the back of the door. “You got three minutes to get into that and back up to the front.” She rapped a stack of books. “You’re reading these to them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The reading. You’re Mrs. Claus, so you have to read Christmas stories to the kids. Didn’t Connie tell you?”

  “No, she—” Oh. Her phone had lost its charge during Fran’s escapade, and she’d forgotten to plug it in since. That explained why Mel had shown up yesterday without texting.

  “After the reading, there’ll be gingerbread cookies and milk with a gluten-free, dairy-free alternative of juice and potato chips.”

  “But—” Tom Baxter was waiting outside. With his report to the investors due in two days, he’d driven her the short distance to the library to hurry her back so she could edit it. Well, there was no dodging her Mrs. Claus commitment. A roomful of destructive toddlers trumped one anxious man. Now that she had her laptop back, she could work later on Tom’s report. Her own writing would have to wait for another day.

  “Hold on. I need to tell my ride not to wait.”

  Judy reached for the door. “I’ll tell Mel. You dress.”

  Daphne’s hand froze on the white-haired wig. “It’s not Mel. It’s Tom. Tom Baxter.”

  “You!” Judy’s face turned an angry red. “You’re cheating on Mel.”

  “What? No.” Was this really happening to her? “I have no idea how to even catch a man, much less cheat on him.”

  Judy wasn’t listening. “And Tom. Linda’s daughter is here, you know, and Linda’s grandchildren. The man has balls.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but it’s not what you think.”

  “I’ve been married three times. I think I know what it is I’m thinking.” She whirled out and Daphne could only hope that Tom’s persuasive powers were mightier than hers.

  With a full house waiting, Daphne did a speedy switch into her outfit and clamped on her wig. She gathered up the Christmas picture books, settled her fake half-glasses into position, plastered on her best Mrs. Claus smile and sallied forth. One look at the jam-packed, jingly bunch and her courage waned. A girl with glasses jumped to her feet and waved to Mrs. Claus. Daphne recognized her mother—Alexi.

  “Callie!” Daphne said, and then remembering she was in costume, disguised her voice with a sweet tremble. “I was just speaking to Mr. Claus this morning about you. So glad you could come with your mom today.”

  “Did you talk to Santa about me?” demanded another girl with long blond hair and a princess dress. Linda’s granddaughter. Lydia. By the Christmas tree, Lydia’s mother, Brittany, fired Daphne a venomous glare. Whatever for?

  “Yes, we spoke about you at length,” Daphne said and then assumed the rocking chair intended for her. “Now, I’ve come,” she said quickly, addressing the entire room, a skill she’d perfected during her years of undergraduate teaching, “with a few of my favorite books.”

  “They are not yours. They’re from the library.” This from a boy in a Santa hat.

  Even kids half her size found a way to make her feel small. “And who do you think came down the chimney and gave them to the library?” Before she had to field an answer, Daphne held up a book and read the title. “‘Christmas Cricket.’”

  Daphne flipped to the opening page of a scene where a cricket huddled in a dark and rainy backyard. “‘It was cold in the garden. Cricket felt small and worthless in the bigness of night.’”

  The children studied the cricket and her, waiting. A room filled with smallness with even the parents sitting eye level with their kids. Daphne turned to the next page, where cricket began his adventure toward the light.

  The story was short; the message, simple. The cricket discovered that, though small, he had a voice. So, hidden in the Christmas tree, he sang, along with the father and the daughter, ‘Joy to the World.’ Wasn’t that what Fran had told her at the hospital? To remember to sing. To remember who she was and could still yet be.

  Fran, this is for you.

  Daphne said to the small people around her, “Let’s sing right now.” She drew a breath and let go with the opening line to ‘Joy to the World,’ and everyone joined in.

  By the end of the carol, all the children, moms and one confident dad were raising the library roof. All except for Brittany, who still stared at Mrs. Claus as if she were the Grinch. Daphne could only suppose that she’d seen her and Tom in the truck. An unfortunate coincidence Tom would have to sort out.

  Daphne held the attention of the squirming bunch for another two books before there was no holding them back from treats.

  It occurred to Daphne that, this, right now, might be her Christmas. She and Fran had always celebrated Christmas together, especially important since Moshe’s Jewish observations prevented him from participating.

  Without Fran, she’d have nowhere to go this year.

  Could she fly out to be with Mel, who already had his own family? Like with Moshe’s family, she’d only be happily tolerated, and with the Greenes, she wouldn’t even have the status of godsister. Mel might well have found someone else by then. No, she could not have Halifax and Mel, too.

  A tug on her skirt. It was Lydia, still in the princess dress but now sporting a chocolate-milk moustache. “Does Santa’s beard tickle when you kiss him?”

  “I’d be curious to know the answer mysel
f,” Mel said from behind her.

  Daphne hadn’t seen him since Friday, and suddenly here he was. She had but to think of him and he appeared. Her genie. “What are you doing here?”

  He tilted his head to the girl. “Lydia wants to know if Santa tickles when he kisses.”

  “Find out Saturday,” Daphne told Lydia. “Are you coming to see me and Santa at Christmas-in-the-Summer? You can kiss him on the cheek and see if it tickles.”

  “I’m not kissing Santa!”

  “That’s fine,” Mel said, “for every kid who doesn’t kiss Santa, Mrs. Claus kisses her husband twice.”

  When the princess skipped off to relate her findings to anyone who would listen, Daphne pulled her half-glasses to the tip of her nose and bestowed Mel a full-on glare. “I don’t remember any such agreement.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Judy, coming around the corner with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk she passed to Mel. “We don’t want anyone suspecting Mrs. Claus of sneaking around behind Santa’s back, do we?”

  Apparently, Tom hadn’t persuaded Judy of their innocence. “Could you explain to your friend,” Daphne said to Mel, “that just because I arrived in Tom’s vehicle does not mean I’m having an affair with him?”

  Mel offered the cookies to Daphne and she took two. If this was her Christmas, she might as well live it up.

  “Technically you could be,” he said, “but you’re not. Tom’s with Linda now,” he said to Judy.

  “I know who’s supposed to be with who,” Judy said. She tilted her head at Linda’s daughter, Brittany. “But does she know that?”

  Mel held the plate of cookies and glass of milk, but he had yet to partake. Daphne saw the problem and took the plate, freeing one of Mel’s hands so he could dip a cookie in his milk. Munching, he said quietly to Judy, “You think it has to do with her dad?”

  “I’m sure it does.” Judy fiddled with a Christmas ornament and said out of the side of her mouth to Daphne, “One of my exes and Linda’s husband shared the same woman.”

  “Who happened to be one of my exes,” Mel said around a milk-soaked cookie.

  “Oh.”

  “And Linda’s daughter went to the same school as Judy’s ex’s daughter, who was Judy’s stepdaughter back then and they got into a catfight.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know,” Judy said, still managing to talk without moving her lips. “Worse than a daytime soap opera.”

  “So,” Mel said, “Linda’s daughter is a little bit sensitive on the subject.”

  Daphne glanced over at Brittany, the levelheaded one who had seemed so carefully neutral the only other time they’d met. Goodness, this was shaping up to be a very merry Christmas.

  “You’d better straighten this out,” Judy side-mouthed, “because, of all Mel’s girlfriends, I like you the best. And I’m getting sick of liking people I have to despise later.”

  “Thanks, Judy, but I’ll let Tom speak to Brittany.”

  After all, why get involved in town drama when she was leaving right after the Christmas event?

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, Mel watched from his usual table at Tim Hortons as workers installed a new plate-glass window.

  Jim Creasley came over to his table, today in regular clothes. “Bring back memories?”

  No, Daphne brought back memories. “Yep.”

  Jim took a seat. “I heard the woman who was driving was none too well. That right?”

  “What makes you think I know?”

  “Tom said you’re friendly with the woman’s goddaughter.”

  Tom must have become friendly with Jim after Craig’s funeral. “No, her godmother is not well. She left for Halifax with her son.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” Jim spoke with the sincerity that ensured he had repeat customers. Well, the families of his customers.

  “Yes, but she’s lived well.” He doubted the same would be said about him. Breakfasts at a chain restaurant instead of at home with his wife. With Daphne.

  “The old ‘no regrets’ thing,” Jim said. “Nothing like being with the dying to figure out how to go about living. Unless, of course, it’s being with kids and babies.”

  Mel cupped his hand around his coffee for warmth and solidness. “Yes, I know what you mean.”

  “Even if there’s a reason for a person’s passing,” Jim said quietly. “it still doesn’t make sense.”

  That summed up the passing of little Isaac. “Yep.”

  The doors of the restaurant sucked open and in walked Connie, all in a swirl of bold stripes and clackety jewelry.

  “There you are,” Connie said to Mel. “Hey, Jim. How are you keeping?”

  “Good. Yourself?”

  Connie pointed at her green eyes with eyelashes thicker than a doll’s. “Up to my eyeballs.” She plunked down in a seat with them and flipped open a folder about as thick as The Complete Works of Jane Austen. “I need to talk to you about Santa’s workshop, Mel.”

  Jim rose. “I’d best be on my way.”

  Mel didn’t appreciate Connie’s intrusion. “Couldn’t we talk later, Con?”

  Connie looked at Jim, at him. Really looked at them. “Oh. I’m sorry. Is it...Daphne’s godmother? I’ll go.” Connie slapped shut her folder and grabbed her purse. “I’m so sorry, really. Call me later. If you can.”

  “Nothing’s happening,” Mel said. “Jim and I were just talking.”

  “You’re always talking,” Connie said, “And so’s Jim. Everyone who comes in here is just talking. How was I to guess that your talking was more than talking?”

  Jim took a couple of steps away. “Good luck, Mel.” He gave Connie a wide and genuine smile because everybody, no matter how annoyed they were with her, eventually gave in to Connie.

  “What was that all about?” she whispered to Mel as Jim, lucky man, escaped to the fresh air.

  A dead baby was not up for discussion with Connie. “Nothing.” To throw her off the scent, he said, “Santa’s workshop?”

  Connie’s hand hovered over the folder, then she whipped it open. “Yes, I need your help. Santa’s workshop is supposed to be a market where we sell items people have donated to us. The proceeds go to the Christmas Bureau to buy gifts for kids. But only six—six!—people have contributed anything, and one of the items was a bag of soap.”

  Mel waited because that was all you ever had to do with Connie. “So...you remember how you mentioned a while back that you had some of Mom’s stuff in a storage locker?”

  Mel saw where this was going. “We are not giving away her stuff. She spent a lifetime collecting some of those ornaments.”

  “Not giving away, selling. For a good cause. And I’ll give you a charitable tax receipt. And let’s face it. She bought tons of stuff. Some of those things she never even set out. She had, like, four wreaths, but she always used the same one. And she bought nice stuff. Or vintage, at least. All I’m saying is that I’m kinda desperate here and maybe—”

  “Hello there. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  It was Cal. He was dressed in shorts and a polo shirt, like a wealthy retired golfer. He extended his hand to Connie. “You must be Connie Greene.”

  “Uh, I am.”

  An awkward pause occurred as Cal and Connie waited for Mel to introduce them. He’d not informed any of his family that Cal was in town, hoping that his father would shuffle off so he could keep his two lives separate forever. He’d almost thought his wish had come true, given he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Cal since coming to his apartment last week.

  “Connie, this is Cal Grant.”

  “I’m Mel’s father,” Cal said, interpreting her confused expression correctly. “His real father.”

  Connie stared at Mel, her doll’s eyes impossibly wide. “Oh. Wow.” She took Cal’s hand. “I�
�� Well, pleased to meet you.”

  “Mel didn’t tell you I was in town, I take it.”

  Connie kept the smile plastered on. “No, no, he didn’t. Please. Have a seat.”

  That, of course, suited Cal just fine. “I’m in town to visit with Mel. Lots of catching up to do.”

  “I bet,” Connie said. “Must be at least thirty-five years. Unless—” she eyed Mel “—you’ve visited before.”

  “No,” Mel said. “He hasn’t. Connie, we done here?”

  “What? No, no.” She tapped her folder. “So, what do you say? Do you think you could select a few items from storage and re-love them?”

  Cal gave a bark of laughter. “Storage, you say? And here I thought he was over his hoarding. Good luck with him, Connie. This is the kid who slit the sides of his running shoes when they got too small so he could keep on wearing them.”

  “That,” Mel said, “wasn’t a choice.”

  “You telling me you don’t still cling to stuff for dear life?”

  Connie’s expression became studiously neutral. No doubt she agreed with Cal, but didn’t want to get involved. Sure enough, she scraped back her chair. “I take it,” she said, “I need to search for solutions elsewhere.”

  He wasn’t a hoarder, and he’d prove it to them. “Fine, I’ll do it. Only—only let me pick out some things. I’ll deliver them to you.”

  “When?”

  “When do you need them?”

  “Like, yesterday.”

  “Okay, I’ll go to the storage place first thing tomorrow morning before work.”

  “How about tonight?”

  “Can’t. It’s Wednesday night, remember? Family at the farm.”

  “Shoot, I forgot. Tomorrow, then.” She paused. “Nice to meet you, Cal. I guess we’ll see you out at the farm tonight?” She sent Mel a questioning look.

  Mel choked out one word. “No.”

  “He hadn’t got around to asking me,” Cal said.

  Implying that it was a mere slip of courtesy on Mel’s part.

  Connie snatched up her folder and purse as if another RV was heading for the restaurant. “Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Grant. I hope you can make it out tonight—”