Josie smiled at the man who had become the kind of father any girl would be lucky to have. He’d picked up and dropped off Josie and Helen from dances and band practice and dates and school seven million times over the course of their teenage years. Never complaining. Always tuning the radio to their station. Often stopping for contraband McDonald’s on the way home.
“I’ll give you a ride, Helen,” Max said and then smiled, that flickery half smile of his, at Josie. “You, Dom, and I are going tree chopping tomorrow so you need to get some sleep.”
Josie looked around the giant dining room and realized there wasn’t a tree. It was four days before Christmas and there wasn’t a fresh pine tree brushing the ceiling and covered with lights and ornaments.
“Were you waiting—?”
“For you?” Max said. “Of course.” At the door Helen was shoving her feet into her boots and wrapping a scarf around her neck. “You gonna stay here for old times’ sake or do you want to come back with us?”
“I’m coming,” Josie said and put out the fire the way Max taught her and turned off the Christmas lights on the mantel. She blew out the candles on the table and then stepped to the door to put on her stuff and grab her bag.
“That’s my girl,” Max said and kissed her forehead. And she wished, with a longing she hadn’t had in a long time, that the night of her high school graduation hadn’t happened and they could be the family they were supposed to be.
4
The cabin that Max had built for his family—Delia, Josie, and then Dom—was on the back corner of the property. Walking between the main lodge and the cabin took about ten minutes, and the drive took about fifteen. Which was just the kind of logic the Riverview was known for.
Mom was legendarily a morning person. And Max had built the whole house to serve that. The kitchen and small breakfast area were wall-to-wall windows and faced the sunrise. There were comfy chairs and a professional coffee machine and even a place for Delia to put out her yoga mat so she could actually salute the sun.
Sitting in this kitchen felt like sitting in her mother’s soul in so many ways.
Work, however, was not letting her enjoy it. Josie had been up since five, answering emails and putting out fires. And the “solid Wi-Fi” that Helen had promised to convince her to come home had been a lie.
It was sporadic, at best. She was using her phone as a hot spot but that wasn’t a solution that was going to last this whole week.
She and the team were deep into casting for next season of I Do/I Don’t and Belinda, the casting director, was forwarding her headshots.
This guy looks like an excellent asshole, what do you think? Belinda texted.
The asshole character was one they had to have every year. People loved jerky, privileged muscle-bound men with their Yankees hats on backward.
And this guy was even wearing pookah-shell necklace.
It was enough to make her doubt humanity.
Maybe, Belinda the casting director wrote, we should have nothing but assholes this season.
Josie’s soul crumpled.
Counterpoint, Josie wrote back. We do a nothing but nice guys season.
You know, Belinda wrote, I can never tell when you’re joking.
Josie ran through the girls’ headshots and résumés. Lots of social media influencers and marketers, which was always good for ratings and the long-term health of the series. She checked off three she liked. And then she picked an emergency-room nurse who looked like she might chew up and spit out the backward-hat-wearing dude-bros.
And then, because she could never help herself, a male chef. Because caregiving and competency were always a crowd favorite.
Yeah. That’s why she picked the male chefs.
Hey, she texted Belinda. Has anyone been talking about the pitch I sent Joe and Maryanne last week?
Yeah. Belinda wrote back.
Josie’s heart sputtered. And?
So far just water cooler talk. It’s a good idea.
“Right?” she said out loud. To her phone. But there was still a season of I Do/I Don’t to create and work was work.
Looking at the pictures and the backgrounds she wrote up a few loose story notes, ideas about where relationships could go. Yes, it was a reality TV show, and most of the story work happened in editing, but you couldn’t leave everything up to chance. You know what happened when you left everything up to chance? Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s tomb.
“Wow, look at the early bird,” Mom said, coming into the kitchen in her pajamas and one of Max’s old sweaters. Josie quickly shut her laptop and turned her phone over on the table between the two comfy chairs facing the view. It felt like she was hiding something, and maybe she was. Mom was not an I Do/I Don’t fan and Josie didn’t want to get her mother’s hopes up by telling her about the new idea. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine,” Josie lied with a smile. It was so quiet out here in the country, she missed the police sirens and the subway noise and the drunk who yelled on her corner at midnight every night.
The snow-blanketed countryside was so quiet it was loud.
“I’m so glad you’re home, honey,” Mom said and kissed the top of her head before walking over to the coffeepot.
Josie’s phone binged again. And then again.
“Who are you talking to so early in the morning?” Mom asked as she filled up her coffee cup and headed back over to the chairs.
“It’s just work,” Josie said.
“Just work?”
“Oh Mom, you can’t read into everything I say.” Josie laughed.
“Well, I’m just reflecting your energy back to you.”
“Of course you are, Mom,” Josie said with a grin. There were two cosy chairs set up facing the windows with their view of the Catskills and the main lodge, and Mom sat down in the other one.
“Wow, it really snowed last night,” Mom said. “We’re supposed to get more this week.”
“A white Christmas,” Josie said.
“Oh my gosh—remember that first Christmas we were here?” Mom asked. “We were so excited about that snow.”
“For, like, two seconds, until we realized our Texas winter coats were not going to cut it up here.”
“I think my toes were numb for months.”
They sipped their coffee and Mom sighed, closing her eyes and letting the sunlight warm her face.
Josie watched her and felt such tenderness for her mom. Such pride that she was this woman’s daughter. A survivor. Fierce and brave. “I’m so glad you found this place,” Josie said. “The Riverview.”
“What a long shot that was, huh?” Mom said with a laugh.
That, when Josie thought about it, was kind of how fate worked. It worked in small ways, sure, but every once in a while, you got this huge flyer. This absolute odds-breaker. And the Riverview and Max were that for Mom. And to some extent for herself—Josie knew that.
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if we didn’t end up here?” Josie asked.
“Only in nightmares,” Mom whispered. Josie’s birth father had been a dirty cop, and after getting full custody of Josie, had tried to kill Mom. It was like something out of a movie. And honestly, if it hadn’t happened to them, she wouldn’t have believed the story. Mom had escaped and taken Josie with her. They’d hopscotched all over the place before landing here. Where Mom didn’t explain to Josie what was going on, and also didn’t tell the Mitchells what might be following her.
It took Josie a while to forgive her mom for keeping the secret of the kind of man her father really was and why they were running. But she got it now. Mom had been trying to preserve something for Josie—innocence.
And maybe she just hadn’t known how to talk about it.
If there was one thing Josie understood as an adult, it was that it was hard to talk about the hard things. Easier to leave those things alone and hope that everyone could live their lives around the ache and the pain. Like a bruise you just didn’t
poke, but also a bruise that never healed.
Yeah. She got that.
In the end Max found out what Delia was hiding and managed to keep all of them safe, but not before wounding Josie’s birth father in a shoot-out right in the middle of the lodge.
Max and Delia fell in love in the middle of all that drama, and when the time came for Mom to pick a place to settle, her heart made the decision. And the Riverview became their home.
“Are you still loving life in the city?” Mom asked, changing the subject.
“It’s exciting,” Josie said, which was her pat answer. And it was true—there was always something going on. What she didn’t say was that she was too busy to enjoy any of it.
“You know…you can tell me if it’s not.”
Josie scowled. “Mom, I don’t know why you want me to be unhappy.”
Delia scowled right back. “There’s a difference between wanting you to be unhappy and wanting you to admit you’re unhappy.”
“That’s a pretty fine hair you’re splitting.” Josie took a sip of her coffee in an effort to drown this weird rage in her stomach. This, she thought, this is why I don’t come back to the Riverview. And usually she let it all go—that bruise she never poked. But this morning, exhausted and busy, she felt like poking it.
She put her cup down.
“Is it that you don’t like the show? Or that you can’t be proud of me because you don’t like it?” Josie asked. “I’m the youngest executive producer at the network.”
She didn’t say anything about how the network chewed up producers like they were gum and somehow—through the sheer stubbornness she’d inherited from her mother, perhaps—she had been the last one standing.
“That’s not it. I just feel like you punish yourself with your job. With a job you don’t really even like.”
Oh, that hit her weird. Like, in her belly. Was that true? It felt true in a way.
“Well, I just feel like all the stuff I’ve accomplished isn’t the right stuff for you,” she said. “Like you’d be more proud of me—”
“Stop. Right there. I am proud. So proud.” Mom put her hand over Josie’s. “I’ve messed this up. Honey…” She took a deep breath. “I only want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy.”
A smile teased Mom’s lips and Josie understood why. Nothing about the way she’d said those words was convincing. But Josie refused to smile and Mom’s smile slowly vanished. And they went back to sipping coffee and looking out over mountains.
“Can I say one more thing?” Delia asked.
“Can I stop you?” Now she was smiling. God. Mom did not change. The phrase dog with a bone came to mind.
“You’re too good for that show. Too talented. You have big, beautiful ideas and a big, beautiful brain and heart, and you always have.”
“That’s a nice vote of confidence, Mom, but there are a thousand of me in the city.”
“Never,” Mom said fiercely and grabbed Josie’s hand to kiss it. “Never.”
Oh, in staying away from the Riverview she’d also been staying away from her mom, which was a little like starving herself of faith and affection. No one believed in her like her mother, and that kind of power source was sadly lacking in her Queens apartment.
Everyone’s mom thought they were extraordinary and she’d gotten used to not having the pressure of living up to that.
“I remember when Max and I dropped you at NYU, and it was like watching your whole life just expand right in front of our eyes. I was so excited for you. You have always been meant for more than the Riverview.”
Josie remembered that day, too. The way the three of them had looked at each other with such awareness and excitement. All of them on the edge of a moment.
“I always appreciated how you didn’t cry,” Josie said.
“Cried like a baby when we got in the car.”
“I figured.” The secret about the show was on the tip of her tongue. And she realized Mom would be happy for her whether her idea was made real or not. She’d be proud of Josie for trying. For pushing for more. So, what was the harm in telling Mom? It would only make Mom happy. An early Christmas present. “Mom?”
Max came out of the long hallway leading to the bedrooms and stopped. “Well, that’s a sight,” he said, putting his hands on his hips.
“No crying, Max,” Mom said. She rolled her eyes at Josie and got up to kiss Max like they hadn’t seen each other in days.
Josie looked back out the window. Tomorrow. I’ll tell her tomorrow, she thought, listening to them whisper to each other the way they always did.
How’d you sleep?
Good. You?
Weird dream about foxes all over the property. They kept trying to get in the house.
That is weird. Freudian.
You think everything is Freudian.
Coffee?
Please.
All she’d ever wanted was what Max and Delia had. Gabe and Alice, Daphne and Jonah. Even Grandma and Grandpa.
A purposeful life.
And a love that could survive everything that got thrown at it.
The great curveball that fate had thrown her way was that she really believed she’d met that person when she was just a kid.
An hour later Max, Dom, and Josie were headed out into the woods to find a Christmas tree. Mom had loaned Josie some boots and a thick winter coat after determining that what Josie had brought from the city was not enough. She was grateful for the boots. And the coat was one of those long ones that went down to her ankles like a giant sleeping bag.
“We need two trees,” Max said.
“For what?” Dom asked. He was in the back seat, hood up, head against door, eyes closed. He’d woken up about ten minutes ago and looked like he could go right back to sleep. God. To be a teenager again. Josie was lucky if she got five good hours a night.
“Well, son,” Max said, glancing in the rearview mirror as they bounced over the uneven dirt road. “Not sure if you noticed, but we don’t have a tree up in our place, either.”
“We don’t?” Dom asked, cracking one eye.
Max and Josie shared a laughing look. Dom was fourteen, and unless it was food or hockey related, he didn’t seem to notice it.
“How’s school?” Josie asked her brother, reaching back to shake his knee.
“Fine.” He shifted out of the way. “How is New York City?”
“Amazing. You should come visit me.”
Dom opened one eye again. “For real?”
“For real,” Josie said. Dom could use a little New York in his life. And it had been a very long time since she’d spent any time with him, one on one. The perils of being born so many years apart. They were like strangers who looked alike.
“Hold on,” Max said. “The two of you running around New York City unchaperoned—”
“Max, I’m twenty-four.”
“And I’m fourteen.”
“You’re not helping, Dom.” Josie laughed at her brother, who grinned at her.
“I’d love to come. We could see a Rangers game.”
“Well, I was thinking maybe a Broadway show. Go to some museums.”
“And then a Rangers game. And a hot dog. From a cart.”
“Oh my god, Alice would die,” Josie said. They bounced down a gravel road covered with snow, heading deeper into the forest. Boughs of pine trees slapped against the sides of the truck.
“What we eat in New York, stays in New York,” Dom said.
“Particularly if it’s street meat,” Max said.
“How is hockey?” Josie asked, having put off the only question that really mattered in her brother’s life.
He perked right up, and for the next ten minutes Josie got a rundown on hockey stuff she barely understood—but looking at her brother’s happy, smiling face was more than enough information.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “We’ll go to a Rangers game.”
“I want to come too,” Max said.
; “You’re not invited.”
He pretended to be aghast. But she knew he was thrilled. He and Mom worried about the two of them being born so far apart and never being able to figure out their common ground.
“How is the city treating you?” Max asked.
She laughed. “Like it doesn’t know I’m there? How is a city supposed to treat me?”
He glanced over, his eyes smiling. “Just making sure you still like it.”
What she liked about it she didn’t get to experience much anymore. When she was younger there had always been something new to see. Something completely different. Fun. Neighborhoods and markets. Book readings and Off-Off-Broadway plays. Museums. She even used to do those walking tours, visiting historic crime scenes. Or those food tours through Chinatown. She’d jumped into all of it.
“I’m just really busy,” she said, looking out the window. Max let it go.
Finally, they stopped, surrounded by snow and pine trees. The sky was slate gray above them. The trees so green they were nearly black. “All right,” he said. “We need a ten-footer for the lodge and a smaller one for our house. I’ve got—”
“That one and that one,” Dom said, pointing out two different trees, one on each side of the truck.
“You think that’s ten feet?’ Max asked, looking out the window.
“Measure it, but it’s ten feet.” Dom got out of the truck.
Josie looked at Max who could only shrug. “It’s weird, and I don’t know how we can make money on it, but he’s always right about this stuff.”
“It’s too bad you can’t sell him to the carnival.” Josie said.
“You might be on to something. The incredible sleeping, measuring, eating teenage boy.”
“Come see him with your own eyes as he guesses how tall you are and then eats your weight in peanut butter sandwiches.”
“I can hear you!” Dom yelled from outside the truck.
Josie laughed and Max patted her hand. “It’s good to have you home.”
It was, in that moment, incredibly good to be home.
Josie, unused to any kind of outside labor, much less chopping down trees, immediately got a palmful of blisters and Dom, having pulled off his hoodie, got pine sap in his hair.
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 5