by M K Hardy
Holly smirked a little. “Well to be fair, the power’s on here,” she observed. After a hesitation, she lifted her glass toward Brooke in a toast. “To warmth and light?” she suggested.
Brooke nodded and gave her a shy smile, which she soon hid with her glass as she took a sip of wine. For a moment Holly couldn’t quite find words, but then, after clearing her throat again (were they both coming down with something?), “Dinner’s essentially ready, if you are?”
“Sure. Is, um, Maya joining us or…”
As if summoned by the sound of her name Maya came down the stairs like a herd of horses. “Mom, is it time to eat yet?”
“I dunno. Have you laid the table?”
“Um…almost! Brooke, can you help me? It’ll go quicker with two of us.”
“Uh, sure, but you’ll have to show me where everything is.”
Dinner went smoothly. It quickly became apparent there would be no time for discussion between the two adults in the room with Maya present, in turn chattering away at Brooke and being chivvied along by Holly to actually eat her food. Even after she had finished a decent amount of her meal, she didn’t want to go and spent the next fifteen minutes quizzing Brooke all about her life.
Holly learned that Brooke was an advertising executive and lived in Boston, where her hobbies included running and going to art galleries. Although she’d been completely ignorant of all of this, she didn’t find herself overly surprised by any of it—Brooke was clearly well-off, cultured and fit, after all. She felt cowardly for simply allowing the conversation to continue, letting Maya interrogate Brooke and soaking in the information as it came.
“Are you going to be here for Christmas?” Maya was asking now.
“It looks like it, yes—the snow’s so bad I probably can’t fly home until after.”
Maya huffed impatiently. This apparently was not the correct answer. “No, I mean are you going to be here, with me and Mom and Grandpa and Grammy and Uncle Matty?”
“Oh, honey, no,” Holly said, reaching to pat Maya’s hand. “It’s an important day and…Brooke may have plans.” Holly shot Brooke an apologetic smile at this. They both knew, of course, that Brooke would have no plans whatsoever, but how else could she explain to Maya that asking someone you’d more or less just met to Christmas dinner wasn’t something you did?
“That’s a nice offer, though. I’m sure it’ll be a nice day,” Brooke said—a little wistfully, maybe? Or still awkward? Holly couldn’t tell at this point whether she was imagining things.
By the end of the meal Holly and Brooke had not spent a single second discussing their future plans for the bakery, and Brooke was growing both increasingly fond of Maya (it was hard not to like somebody so adoring) and increasingly exhausted with answering questions. Thus, she was quite relieved when Holly gave her the choice between helping clear up or leaving Brooke and Holly to do it and watching some TV before bed instead, and Maya made a beeline for the living room. Then she realised this would mean being alone in the kitchen with Holly again. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
She busied herself carrying dishes from the table to the sink, giving Holly a wide berth. She told herself it was to avoid any plate-shattering incidents but in truth she didn’t want to risk any contact that might cause her blushing cheeks to give her away. The crockery was rinsed and placed in the dishwasher quickly enough, and the pans left to soak, but Holly didn’t alert her daughter in the other room, instead retrieving the wine bottle from the fridge and gesturing them back toward the small dining table.
“So, what did you want to iron out?” she asked as they sat down with their topped-up glasses.
You came here on business, remember? Brooke nodded, trying to buy a little time while she got her thoughts in order. “I guess to make sure we were on the same page about the deal. I’ve made some calls and Heartspring aren’t happy, but I have a feeling they’ll still take the property if we don’t manage to find someone else to buy it.”
If Holly noticed that Brooke had said “we” and not “you”, she didn’t remark on it. She nodded, her face a picture of sincerity and solemnity. “Right, okay. Well, there are a couple people who also own property around town who might be interested, and some folks who’ve helped me out in the past, and I might look into fundraising possibilities for a deposit if I try to buy myself. Um. If you need to put the rent up to cover any legal costs from this, I’m good for it,” she said then, and Brooke thought she heard the tiniest hint of the defensiveness and stubbornness she’d experienced back in those first few meetings creeping into her tone. Unlike then, the thought of ignoring that pride in favour of what was easiest seemed unthinkable.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not trying to make a profit out of this. I just want things sorted.”
Holly didn’t seem to know what to say to this. She nodded again, and took a long sip of her wine, face half hidden. Brooke noticed her cheeks were a little pink, but then, wine did that to some people. When she eventually re-emerged from her glass, she said, in a tone far too casual to actually be casual, “Y’know, if you haven’t made plans, you would be welcome here. For Christmas, I mean. I know it was a little weird at the dinner table—Maya cuts to the chase even harder than I do, but um. We’d be happy to have you. Here. All of us.” Brooke was sure it wasn’t the wine now: Holly was blushing.
Brooke’s stomach gave a flip, and not at the prospect of an assuredly tasty Christmas dinner. “That’s a very generous offer,” she murmured, mostly to cover the sudden thickness in her throat. “It sounds like a family affair, though. I don’t want to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t be,” Holly said. “Mom and Dad are falling over themselves to thank you anyway. Mom was trying to figure out how to get hold of a bouquet for me to give you tonight,” she added.
“Uh, wow. I mean, I don’t know what I’d do with flowers,” Brooke said with a wry smile.
“Well, exactly.” Holly’s lips twitched in amusement. “But…dinner you would work with, right? It’s just here, no fancy traditions or anything, simply…good food and company.”
“Sure. If you’re sure, I mean. I’d love to join you.”
“Then—” Holly appeared to think better of whatever she’d been about to say. “Good. Great. Um.”
“Mom!”
Holly gave a start, a guilty look crossing her face as she pushed away from the breakfast bar and glanced toward the door.
“Yes, honey?”
“Are you done?” The voice was getting closer, and soon Maya had appeared in the doorway. “Can we watch a movie?”
“You know we can’t. There isn’t time before bed.”
“Can we play a game?”
“That’s up to Brooke—she might have to go.”
Immediately, Maya shifted focus. “Do you have to go yet, Brooke? Can we play a game?”
“Sure, a game sounds fun. What do you want to do?”
“Monopoly?” Maya suggested hopefully, and both women scowled at her. “Okay, okay, something shorter. UNO?”
“Mm, all right, but if it drags out too long, we’re gonna have to stop, okay?”
“Ugh. Okay.”
By the end of the game, Brooke and Maya were getting on like a house on fire. Thinking back to Brooke’s awkwardness when she’d arrived compared to her ease and laughter now, Holly found it hard to believe the difference, and when Maya asked if Brooke would come tuck her in and she agreed without hesitation, Holly felt as though her heart swelled, just a little. Maya disappeared off to get ready for bed at breakneck speed. She called Brooke through almost as soon as she and Holly had finished clearing the game away, leaving Holly alone for a few minutes to gather herself together—though it was hard to imagine that any amount of time alone was going to shed light on current events.
Less than a week ago she was ruining your life. Today she’s putting your kid to bed, and in two days you’re spending Chris
tmas together. You know that’s not usual.
By the time Brooke returned to the living room Holly was feeling no less bemused, but she had managed to swap their wine glasses out for tumblers containing generous sloshes of bourbon, laid out side by side on the coffee table, Holly perched on the couch.
“Wasn’t sure how you take it,” she said quickly as Brooke took in the scene. “I do have ice if you need it…” She rose a little from her seat to signal her willingness to fetch said ice, but Brooke waved the offer away.
“Neat is perfect,” Brooke said, sinking down next to her. She looked somewhat tired, but also more content than Holly could ever recall. “Thanks.”
“So did Maya ask about your day, or demand general knowledge trivia questions?”
“I think she considered my time here the most interesting part of my day, so it was trivia.”
“Did you catch her out?”
Brooke chuckled. “She needs to brush up on her Impressionists.”
“Hah, yeah, she’s weak on Cubism too,” Holly said with a smirk, enjoying their easy banter. “So, uh…did you keep up with art? Making as well as enjoying, I mean? Back in school you used to win prizes and stuff, didn’t you?”
“Mm. I don’t really have time for that anymore. I haven’t made anything in years.”
Though Maya would no doubt have had a hundred follow-up questions to this, Holly couldn’t think of a single one that didn’t seem like prying, and so she settled down onto the couch, cradling her glass in her hands and leaning onto her shoulder so she could look at Brooke. Brooke appeared focused on her own glass, smoothing her slim fingers over the sides in a repetitive, almost hypnotic motion. Holly focused on it, if only so she didn’t look like a creep by continuing to stare at Brooke’s eyes, her lips, her jaw, and so she was surprised when Brooke broke the silence.
“My mom and I fought. A lot. Sometimes I thought she should have never had kids. Hell, I still think that.”
Holly blinked. Then nodded. “Couldn’t’ve been easy. Your dad…”
“Left.”
“Right. I thought I remembered that.”
“She wasn’t an easy person to live with. Narcissistic. Controlling.”
Holly nodded again, making a generic sound to indicate “I’m listening”. She was fairly sure her verbal input wasn’t required right now—and even if it had been, she wouldn’t have known what to say. She had known Karen Hawkins only as a landlord, and in that role, she’d been nothing but straightforward and fair—to Holly, at least.
“She needed to be liked,” Brooke said, as if reading her mind. “Most people only saw what she wanted them to see. But if you could see through that…she hated it. And if you were some sort of deviant whose very existence would make her look bad…well, she hated that even more.”
Holly was already reaching for Brooke’s hand as she spoke, their fingers touching just as she said “deviant”, meaning Brooke must have felt the start she gave—the hesitation not at its implications but at how harsh the word itself was, how jarring. In her eagerness to make sure Brooke knew she hadn’t flinched from discomfort she probably moved too fast, then, in sliding her hand over Brooke’s, the gesture clumsy, her fingers all thumbs, her grip a little too tight.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and she was, for everything—sorry for Brooke growing up, trying to live with a controlling, manipulative woman who didn’t care for her and couldn’t accept her. Sorry for Brooke now, dragged back here once again, unable to grieve the way everyone expected. Sorry for causing Brooke more trouble and perhaps even pain, guilting her into holding onto a place she had tried to leave behind. Sorry for her own inability to do the right thing without messing it up, sowing more confusion, creating awkwardness. Sorry for letting her own roiling, uncertain emotions spill into this moment, when all she really needed to do was listen, and care. “Sorry,” she said again.
Brooke merely shook her head, though she balled her hand into a fist and then turned it in Holly’s grasp to unfold her palm against Holly’s. “It’s okay. I’ve dealt with it. Accepted it. Mostly. Coming back here was…hard.” She sighed. “I wasn’t ready for it. But…I’m glad I did.”
Holly managed a smile, sure Brooke must be able to see the pulse racing in her neck. She remembered last night’s party, what Brooke had said about the town. “You realised Noelle wasn’t the place you remembered.”
“It wasn’t the place my mom told me it was. I held myself apart so much, I don’t even know if what I remembered was the reality then. It certainly isn’t now.” Brooke turned toward Holly now, daring to meet her eyes. “The people here are kind. It’s a small town, but I can’t see them turning against one of their own, no matter how…different they might be.”
Squeezing Brooke’s hand, Holly shook her head. “There’s prejudice everywhere,” she said. “But there’s also acceptance. I’m sorry your mom managed to isolate you from it. That’s not fair, it’s not right.”
“That’s why when I see you with Maya…she’s a good kid. It’s nice to know she won’t have to go through that. At least…I hope she won’t.” She took another deep breath, her gaze darting away from and back to Holly’s eyes. “I’m gay. I don’t know if you already knew, or not. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Oh, it isn’t!” Holly caught herself, shook her head. “I mean, it…wasn’t? I mean, I…” A hot blush crept up her neck. “I figured, from…but before that, I wouldn’t’ve known. Not that it would matter, at all. But… Jesus, I’m messing this up…” She retrieved her hand from Brooke’s and ran it across her face in her embarrassment.
“No, you’re not. It’s me, I’m making this weird,” Brooke insisted. “I’m sorry. I just thought, before you invited me for Christmas, with your parents and stuff, and Maya, I should put that out there. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“What? No, oh, no, it doesn’t matter at all. Why would that matter? You’re fine. It’s fine.” It didn’t feel fine. The confirmation of what Holly had come to suspect only moments before had solidified in her stomach, a leaden weight. It almost hurt. What is wrong with you? Why would this change anything? You have never cared about this. “Really,” Holly said, as if further confirmation would help even slightly given her obvious discomfort. “There’ll be no trouble. My parents, they’re fine—I mean, I don’t even see why it would come up. But if it did, they’d be fine. Honestly. It’s fine.”
Brooke nodded slowly, perhaps a bit put off by Holly’s repeated insistence. “Okay.”
Holly released her breath in an audible whoosh, and sat back a little, lifting her bourbon to her lips for a long draught. “Sorry,” she almost gasped when she was done. “I’m being weird, I know I am. I don’t know—”
“Mom? Can I have a glass of water?”
Maya took her time getting back to bed, clearly reluctant to leave the room once she realised Brooke was still around. Holly seemed to Brooke to be relieved by the distraction, turning her attention entirely to the matter at hand. That deep blush had left her cheeks—indeed, she looked almost paler than usual when she returned to the living room via the bathroom.
“It’s—um—snowing kinda heavily again,” she said.
“Oh, right. I should probably get going, then.” In truth, Brooke was glad of the excuse; she wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she had been expecting to her revelation, but Holly’s nervous babbling and pulling away certainly hadn’t felt very reassuring. “Don’t want Janet calling the rescue patrol on me.”
“Right, yeah. Listen, Brooke…” Holly knew she hadn’t exactly taken Brooke’s revelation in her stride, and it was clear she didn’t know what to say to make things better again. She stepped closer to Brooke as she began to pull her coat on as if to help but stopped short. Eventually she shot Brooke a watery smile. “I’ll see you in a couple of days? If not before, I mean.”
“Yep, sure. Um, have a good one.” Brooke raised a hand in an awkward wave
before shoving it back into her pocket; she didn’t want Holly to think she was trying to hug her. “Tell Maya thanks for the game.”
“I will. G’night.”
Christmas Eve
“So yeah, since she’s stuck here and doesn’t really have any connections here anymore, I asked—”
“Mo-ommmm, I asked!”
“Sorry, yes, I suppose Maya asked her if she’d like to come to us. I figured you wouldn’t mind what with her being your favourite person.”
“Oh, but that’s lovely!” Pat said as she stuffed the last present into the duffel bag and zipped it closed with some effort. “Careful!” she admonished Holly as she slung the bag across her shoulder.
“Y’know, Mom, you don’t have to keep buying presents for all the Jacksons every year.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her mother laid a hand on her arm to still her. “Yes, we do. Of course, we do.” She looked a little teary—it didn’t take much, and usually Holly wouldn’t be far behind once she saw someone else’s bright, welling eyes, but she wasn’t sure she had the fluids to spare this morning.
Holly managed to wait until Brooke was safely down the drive and onto the sidewalk before bursting into tears. With Maya only just back to bed she didn’t dare make any noise, and so it was with her hand clamped firmly over her mouth that she found her way back to the sofa for a good long crying jag. She cried until she had nothing left, cried like she hadn’t since Chris died, like the world was ending, and in the calm that followed, that drained, puffy, messy calm, she found clarity. A clarity she then tried to chase away with the remainder of the bourbon, and after that, some more tears, and after that a sleep high in neither quantity nor quality.
“Holly?”
“Huh?”
“I said, d’you think one tub of cookies will be enough? Actually, never mind, take two,” Pat said decisively, bagging the second tub along with the first and entrusting the bag to Maya’s tender care. “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something? You don’t seem right.”