“It’s not funny!” Dom cried, making everything worse by touching it. “How do I get this out?”
“Cut it!” Max said with a straight face.
Dom gasped like a scandalized eighty-year old. “Never.”
“It’s just hair,” Josie said.
“To you,” he said.
“What is it to you?” Josie asked. “A crown?”
“Hockey hair,” Max whispered. “He’s been growing it out so that it blows behind him from underneath his helmet when he skates.”
“That’s why he’s growing a mullet?” Josie asked. “I thought he just didn’t realize how bad it looks.”
“This isn’t funny!” Dom yelled and then climbed into the truck and shut the door.
“It’s really funny,” Max said. “The kid went from not showering to, like, Hair Care King in the span of a week. Your mom still has whiplash. Come on,” he said, tugging on the tree they’d just chopped down. “Help me pull this to the truck.”
The bigger tree was already tied down and strapped to the truck. The smaller tree was soon wedged into the truck bed underneath the larger one.
Josie helped slam the truck gate and then braced herself, panting, against it.
“You need to get in shape,” Max said.
“I am in shape,” Josie cried. “Do you have any idea how many miles I walk in a day?”
“That’s city shape. You need to get in country shape.”
Josie rolled her eyes at him, but when she straightened up, her back protesting, she thought he might have a point. She pulled in big breaths of air that smelled so much like pine it left a taste in the back of her throat.
“Remember when Mom and I first moved here?” she asked.
“Of course.” He pulled off his gloves. They were new ones, a present from Josie on his birthday. She gave him a new pair every year. It was a thing. She remembered suddenly the feel of her small hands inside of his gloves the first winter that she and Mom had been here. The soft rawhide and the warmth. They were just gloves on a cold day, but they’d made her feel so safe.
And her giving him gloves every year was a thank-you for that feeling. For making her and Mom safe. For loving them so well.
“You were building the shed. And you let me work with you even though it freaked Mom out,” Josie said.
“You and I both needed to do something or we were going to lose our minds.”
“Well…” She shot him an arch look, indicating he’d already lost his mind.
“Fair,” he said with a smile.
“It was…it was the nicest thing anyone had done for me,” she told him.
“Josie,” he whispered, and Josie smiled.
“Have I said thank you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, thank you again.”
“It’s me that needs to thank you,” Max said. “You’re an adult now, so maybe you’ll understand it better or from a different angle, but…you saved me, too, kid.”
“Well, Mom—”
“You.”
“No crying, Max.” He probably wasn’t going to, but she smiled at him because she felt her own tears threaten.
They got into the truck, Dom in the back seat, having forgotten his hair emergency, seemed to be sound asleep. It was remarkable, all the things a teenage boy could do.
Max sat in the driver’s seat, his hands on the wheel. But he didn’t start the truck.
“What’s wrong?” Josie asked, her breath making plumes in the cold air.
“I know what I’m going to say isn’t going to make a difference. And I know that because nothing will make a difference until you decide that it will.”
Oh lord. Could he be any more Max?
“Max—”
He looked over at her and she stared straight out the window, not wanting to meet his eyes. To see what he so badly wanted her to see. “It’s not your fault Cameron left. It’s mine.”
Max had tried this before. To explain his anger when he found Cameron kissing her on her bed. Cameron’s hand on her knee, Josie so bombed.
He’d pushed Cameron out the door. And Cameron, embarrassed and desperate to make the Mitchell family happy, had gone.
But none of that would have happened if she hadn’t instigated the whole thing.
And it didn’t change the fact that Cameron hadn’t answered a single one of her emails. Or calls.
His voice was low and it was him—her found father. The man she’d decided to love as a father. It had been a choice on her part as much as it was on Max’s part to love her like a daughter and the power of that…it was life-changing.
“You know it’s not that simple,” she said.
“Well, it’s also not as simple as it all being your fault.”
“I know.”
“Then why haven’t you been back?”
“Work. Life. I mean…I’m kind of a big deal.” She made it a joke, hoping he’d laugh and tease her.
His silence stretched and stretched, and she knew this game of his. This silent waiting game. When she was a teenager and had come home late for curfew or smelling of beer or some other teenage infraction, Mom would lose her shit all over the place. They’d yell and push each other’s buttons until it was just total pandemonium. And then once Josie had been sent to her room, Max would wait a few minutes and come up and just…stand in the doorway. Silently waiting for her to talk. And she would yell and yell and then cry…and then ultimately…she would talk.
But she didn’t want to tell him how every square inch of this place was haunted with some memory of Cameron. Of them. Of how she felt about him. It was humiliating to still feel so much when he so clearly felt nothing. And never had.
How was she supposed to say that?
So instead she laughed and bumped her shoulder against his.
“It’s not going to work,” she said.
“It always works.”
“I’m not fifteen.”
Another beat of silence and then he started the car. “I’m here,” he said. “When you’re ready.”
They dropped the big tree first, and just as if the whole family had been waiting for them to show up with trees, they came out with gloves on, ready to help pull it inside. Patrick, Jonah, and Daphne, too. Alice gave instructions from the stairway.
“Further left,” she said, and everyone shifted in a different direction.
“Love of my life,” Gabe said. “Our left or yours?”
“Oh. Mine.” Alice winced and everyone shuffled in the right direction. Dom set up the industrial tree stand and Iris was there with the ropes they’d use to stand the thing up and secure it to the wall, so there wouldn’t be a repeat of the tree-falling-down incident of 2012.
“Count of three,” Max said.
“Wait,” Alice said. “Would it be better by the windows?”
“No!” everyone yelled in unison.
“One. Two,” Max said. “Three.” And there was a chorus of groans and a showering of pine needles, and the tree weaved and then stood straight. And every Mitchell there cheered.
“Okay,” Alice said. “Who is going to help decorate?”
And like mice, everyone scattered.
It used to be Cameron’s job. Cameron and Alice for years, and then Josie joined. The three of them had spent hours on the tree. Getting the lights right. Hanging the ornaments just so. Cameron did it, in the beginning, for Alice. Because in the beginning he would do anything for Alice.
But Josie did it for Cameron. To be near him.
And at some point, she liked to believe that Cameron enjoyed being with her, too. She’d convinced herself that he felt the same way she did, but was shy. And worried about the age difference. And what the family would think.
She’d convinced herself of so much.
It’s not your fault.
That was bullshit. She’d been the only other person in that room the night of her birthday. And when she’d woken up, he was gone. He’d decided to leave the only
home he knew rather than stay and talk to her. Be with her. Love her.
And—more importantly—her Christmas Survival Plan was rooted firmly on her decision to not think about him.
“Josie!” Alice cried and Josie stopped in her mad dash to hide in the kitchen. Which, really, if you were going to hide from Alice was kind of a crap hiding spot.
“Busted,” Helen said as she smiled and started to slide on past her to freedom. Josie put out her hand and stopped Helen.
“Hey, you were going to tell me something last night. You didn’t want me to be surprised…?”
The smile dropped from Helen’s face.
“Is everything okay? You’re kind of freaking me out,” Josie said.
“It’s fine. All is totally fine. I’ll tell you later. Go help Alice.”
“Come with me,” Josie begged. “Please…”
“No way. You haven’t been here for five years. Who do you think has been hanging all those ornaments to her exact specifications?”
Alice’s exact specifications were exactly what turned something that should have been fun into a hair-pulling event. But that wasn’t why Josie didn’t want to do this alone, and one look at Helen’s face and she knew her cousin got it.
But Helen shook her head, still unwilling to sacrifice the next few hours trying to make Alice happy.
“I will, however, save you some cookies and milk,” Helen offered as a consolation prize.
“Make it cookies and wine and you’re on.”
“It’s not even noon,” Helen said, feigning shock.
“Josie!” Alice shouted.
“Cookies and wine it is,” Helen said, and Josie turned around to meet her fate.
5
ALICE
Alice had some regrets in her life. The Snapsein wedding when she’d agreed on cupcakes for dessert. (Cupcakes, honestly. Was she ever glad that craze was over.) The soufflé misery of last year. The vegetarian Thanksgiving that was delicious, but that the old-guard Mitchell carnivores could not get their heads around.
She would have regretted her first marriage to Gabe, but without it they wouldn’t have ended up here, so she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Though she regretted her behavior at the end. The things she’d said to him. The way they’d left things…so bitter. So scorched earth.
Thank god they’d gotten a second chance.
The years she’d lost to drinking. She regretted those more than she could say.
And that night with Josie and Cameron.
She’d tried to save both of them and ended up losing them instead.
It’s now or never to fix it.
Alice pushed a hand against her heart and took a deep breath.
She’d already messed this conversation up once; she didn’t want to do it again.
Just let her know you don’t blame her. That none of it was her fault.
That’s what Gabe had told her last night. She’d gone to bed sick to her stomach over the look in Josie’s eyes in the kitchen, and Gabe, as he always did, wrapped his arms around her and read her mind.
“Honey,” Gabe had said, kissing her head. Her shoulder. “She was seventeen. Doing what seventeen-year-olds do. You were the adult. You and Max…you made your choices. And, frankly, so did Cameron.”
She wanted to bristle. Argue in defense of the twenty-two-year-old boy she hadn’t argued for hard enough at the time.
And Alice wanted to protest that she’d done all that. She’d had that conversation with Josie in the weeks that followed her birthday.
But Alice was fifty years old and she could now admit this to herself, if not out loud. When she’d had that conversation with Josie all those years ago—Alice had blamed the girl. Just enough that everything she’d said probably sounded like a lie.
And she was embarrassed by it. But she’d been worried and scared and so very, very angry. And she’d tried to swallow it all down and be the adult in the room but…well, she’d never been very good at that.
But it was Christmas now.
And Helen was having a baby and Josie hadn’t been home in years and Alice didn’t even know where Cameron was right now.
And Josie was hurting. Was still hurting.
Last night in the kitchen, seeing the tears in Josie’s eyes had been a shock. That Cameron had never been in touch with her…well, shit. That spoke to a pain on Cameron’s part that Alice didn’t even know about. The past wasn’t quite in the past for Josie, as it was for Alice. The postcards from Cameron helped. And seeing him once a year—always away from the inn, but still. Knowing he was out there and doing well. The same Cameron he’d always been. That Cameron and Josie hadn’t been in touch in all these years—that was just wrong in a lot of ways.
And Alice felt pretty responsible for that.
Josie backed up out from underneath the landing with a plastic smile on her face, and Alice wanted to hug her and tell her she wasn’t fooling anyone. She wanted to hug Josie and tell her everything was okay. But the girl could hardly stand to be around her; she practically jumped out of her skin every time Alice glanced her way.
It was lemon in a cut.
God, I messed this up.
Alice picked up the stepladder and started down the stairs toward the tree.
Josie followed with as many of the boxes as she could carry into the large windowed area where the tree was set up. Usually this place was full of comfortable seating, all arranged so people could look out the window or stare into the giant stone fireplace, but the couches and chairs had been pushed back to make room for the tree.
Gabe would come and take some of the chairs away and arrange the rest of them to face the Christmas tree that now dominated the space.
“You know,” Alice said. “I never sit in this room after dinner unless it’s Christmas.”
“You like looking at the tree?”
“Yeah, it’s like I wait all year for those weeks when I can turn on the Christmas lights and play ‘Carol of the Bells.’”
“Oh my god,” Josie said with a smile. “I forgot about you and that song.”
“The single best Christmas carol ever written.”
“’O Holy Night.’”
“Not even close.”
“’Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’?”
“No way.”
“Sung by Springsteen.”
“Well…that might be second.” Alice smiled at the girl, and for a second, one quick second, everything was all right.
“I can’t believe you waited for me to put up the tree,” Josie said, setting down the boxes of ornaments.
“Really?” Alice said. “Once we got word you were coming home, your mom put a hold on Christmas. No preparations until you got here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not…you don’t have to be sorry.” Alice took a breath. “We’re so happy to have you home. It’s been so long, Josie.”
Josie made some noise in her throat and went up for more boxes. Alice hung her head for a second.
“Do you have any guests for the holiday?” Josie asked, coming down the stairs with the last of the ornaments. Her cheer was bulletproof, and Alice understood that the poor, ravaged girl from the dark kitchen last night would not be coming out again. Not around Alice.
Unless Alice pushed.
And that seemed so mean.
And un-Christmassy.
And hard.
“We have some of the cabins booked on Christmas Eve through the New Year,” Alice answered. Happy to step back into familiar conversation. Easy conversation.
“That’s nice. Is the restaurant doing Christmas dinner for everyone?”
“Not this year. Boxing Day brunch. The family is getting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. Helen was kind of a pest about it.”
Josie laughed. “Classic Helen.”
“Well, honey, you weren’t much better,” Alice said, as the memories rolled over her. She smiled at Josie. An easy smile. And Josie smiled back and hope blink
ed on in Alice’s chest like the Christmas lights in her hand. “I swear the two of you and that school lunch program. The way you manipulated everyone in charge. And Cameron…”
And just saying his name ended it. The moment dissolved and Josie was still smiling, but her eyes were cold.
Alice took a deep breath, prepared to bite the bullet.
“Colored lights this year?” Josie asked, cutting in before Alice could say anything. The girl had been raised at the foot of Delia, a butter-wouldn’t-melt master of nonconfrontation who Alice loved like a sister, and it was obvious Josie wasn’t going to be finessed into a conversation.
Alice was going to have run right at her.
“I thought we’d change it up,” Alice said and dropped the lights she’d pulled out of the box. “We need to talk, Josie.”
“Sure,” Josie said, looking up at Alice with a bright smile. “I suppose we need to plan some kind of baby shower for Helen. Here, or even in the city. I could host for change. That might be fun for you, right? I mean, not that I would be hosting, that’s not…you know…fun for you. But being a guest. Not having to always be the one cooking and everything.”
Josie was winding herself up good and Alice put her hands on her hips.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“We could do a high tea,” Josie said as if Alice hadn’t even spoken. “Oh! At The Plaza, wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Stop.”
“We could rent a suite—“
“Josie, for God’s sake, stop!” Alice cried and pulled the lights Josie was playing with out of her hands. Josie let the lights go but didn’t look up. “It’s not your fault. What happened—”
“You didn’t believe that then,” Josie said, and Alice winced. “I mean, you said that but… you didn’t believe it.”
“I was hurt, too,” Alice said, lifting her arms out to the sides. It wasn’t fair; she’d been supposed to be the adult in that situation. But it was the truth. And Josie deserved the truth.
Josie tried to smile, but it was a flat grimace of pain. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing.”
Josie shook her head and stood up straight, the little girl Alice always saw when she looked at Josie. The troubled eleven-year-old, the smart and passionate and clever teenager who kept her eye on everything. Like she was waiting for this new life she’d stepped into to be yanked away. That beautiful young woman, that girl, had grown into the woman who was walking the world with such confidence and smarts.
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 6