A Light at Winter’s End

by Julia London

  “Meaning,” she said as she shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, “that I think I could be falling in love with you.” She held her breath, watching him warily, almost as if she were steeling herself to be rejected.

  “Could be?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Could be.”

  Wyatt smiled. He laced his fingers with hers and pulled her close to him. “You’re not the only one, you know,” he muttered, and wrapped her in his embrace and kissed her, right there for all of Cedar Springs to see.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Christmas rushed toward them, Holly could almost believe that Mason was hers and that life would always be like this. She’d finished up the last song for Quincy, who had begun the work of recording them.

  “I think it could be huge,” she’d gushed to Wyatt one night after working in the studio with Quincy. They were sitting on the floor at his house with the kids, playing with giant Legos. “I couldn’t believe how great it sounded in the studio. Quincy thinks so too.”

  “I have no doubt that it is,” Wyatt had said as he poured more wine into her glass. “That’s a great way to arrive in Nashville.”

  Holly had laughed and playfully punched him in the arm. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’m serious, Holly. You’ve got a golden opportunity here. Why don’t you plan a trip to talk to Quincy’s manager?”

  Holly couldn’t even imagine it. Nashville had always seemed so unattainable, such a pipe dream. “Maybe someday. I’ve got lots to do here. Besides, I’d have to find a place to stay and all that …” She’d given the notion a dismissive flick of her wrist. “And anyway, what about you?”

  “Baby, I’d be along for the ride,” he’d said, and had grabbed her up, rolling with her on the floor to the delight of the kids, who’d piled on top of them.

  Holly liked daydreaming about it. She pictured herself as the force behind a huge country-western hit song, arriving in Nashville with Wyatt, Mason, and Grace in tow. She came to town with a two-bit guitar, / But when she left Nashville she was a star … For a few days, after working with Quincy in the studio, it had seemed almost as if it could happen.

  “My manager wants to meet you, Holly,” Quincy had told her when they’d wrapped for the day.

  “Really?” she’d asked, terribly pleased by it. She couldn’t wait to tell Wyatt.

  But then Loren had texted her and Holly had been sent crashing back into reality.

  I want to see my son.

  That was his first bone-jarring text that had made Holly’s heart leap painfully. She hadn’t heard from him since sometime before Thanksgiving. She’d stuck her phone in her purse, tried to ignore it. But Loren had texted again. And again.

  It made no sense for her to be so panic-stricken. She told herself that Loren’s wanting to see Mason and wanting to take Mason were two different things entirely. Mason was still a bother to Loren. She guessed Loren was trying to mitigate whatever guilt he felt.

  But still, Holly didn’t want to do it. She wanted to keep Mason safe from the two people who had failed him so completely, and her anxiety and fear about her ability to do that turned to acid.

  “What should I do?” she’d asked Wyatt.

  “Take him,” Wyatt had said. “Trust me, this guy isn’t any more ready to be a father today than he ever has been. My guess is that he wants something else. Maybe information about your sister.”

  But Loren said nothing about Hannah when he had finally gotten Holly on the phone. He’d only demanded to see his son. “It’s been four months since Mason was left with me, and a month since you even attempted to contact him,” Holly had said to him. “So now you start thinking of Christmas and how you would feel better if you found your conscience somewhere?”

  “Jesus Christ, don’t start with me,” Loren had snapped. “Do you have any idea how much work is involved setting up a satellite office?”

  “Do you have any idea how much work is involved raising your child?” Holly had shot back.

  She could hear Loren’s deep, angry breathing. “Listen to me, Holly Fisher. I could make real trouble for you. Don’t think you can go up against me on this. I want you to bring Mason to Austin so I can see him. I want to see my son!”

  Wyatt was worried about her going alone. He’d stood at the door of the utility room as she folded laundry. He’d looked incredibly sexy propped against the jamb, arms folded over a shirt that was filthy from the day’s work. “I don’t like it,” he’d said simply when she told him about the conversation.

  “I don’t, either,” she’d said. “But what can I do?”

  “He’s full of shit,” Wyatt had said angrily. “If he really wanted to see his son—if he really wanted him—he would have driven out here a long time ago and taken Mason without a lot of people standing around to see it.”

  “God, don’t even say that,” Holly had said, pressing a hand to her abdomen.

  “He isn’t going to take Mason—I’m just saying. But I am coming with you all the same.”

  Holly wanted to believe Wyatt, but her stomach was in knots. If, by some strange miracle, Loren had decided to be a father and tried to take Mason, Holly would kill him. Mason would never understand what was happening. Who knew if Mason even remembered his father? She felt ill imagining Mason’s utter confusion if Loren took him from her.

  But Holly truly did fear what Loren would do if she didn’t bring Mason to him as he’d practically commanded. She should have called Jillian before now, she knew, but she’d had the idea in her head that she could somehow bargain with Hannah for Mason and had let it go, safe in the life she and Wyatt had created. Stupid, Holly.

  Jillian was on her way to court when Holly called, and Holly quickly explained the situation.

  “Tell him you have an attorney,” Jillian said. “He’ll know that a court would intervene, given the time that has passed since either of them saw their son. That should put him off until after the holidays, but if he gives you any reason to think otherwise, call me,” she instructed Holly. “I can’t talk more than that right now, but come see me after the holidays. Merry Christmas!”

  Armed with that, Holly and Wyatt went to Austin. When they reached the parking lot of Central Market where they’d agreed to meet, Wyatt hugged her tightly and kissed her. “Don’t worry.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Around,” he promised her, then got Mason out of the car, handed him to Holly, and draped the diaper bag over her shoulder. “Hey,” he said, stroking her arm. “Go in there like you run the joint. Don’t let him see you looking like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Scared.”

  Loren was waiting for them in the picnic area of the Central Market. He was wearing a suit, as if he’d just come from the office, and leaning against the railing, studying his cell phone. When he saw her and Mason, he checked his watch.

  “There he is,” Loren said, holding out his arms for Mason. “There’s my big boy.” Mason looked out his outstretched hands, then looked to the playscape, where dozens of children were climbing and jumping and running under the shade of live oaks. Loren’s expression turned dark. “Give him to me.”

  It was all Holly could do to hand Mason over, but Mason, bless him, didn’t want to be handed to a father who was essentially a stranger to him now. He grabbed at Holly’s shoulder and began to cry. “It’s all right, Mason. It’s Daddy,” Holly said, managing not to choke on the word. “Daddy wants to say hi.”

  Mason studied Loren’s face a moment, then looked back at Holly. “Lala,” he said. “Lala.”

  “He’s gotten big,” Loren said as he studied his son.

  “Yep.” Holly bit her tongue from pointing out that four months is a very long time in Babyland.

  “Let’s go feed the ducks, son,” Loren said, and began walking without saying anything else to Holly. She followed Loren through the crowded play area like a pack mule.


  In the park, he walked down to the water’s edge and set Mason on his feet. “Duck!” Mason cried happily, and pointed to some swans floating on the opposite end of the lake.

  “Do you have anything we could feed ducks?” Loren asked, turning to Holly with his hand outstretched.

  Was he kidding? “I thought you had something,” she said, and Loren wiggled his fingers at her. She sighed, opened the diaper bag, and handed him a box of animal crackers. Loren spent a few minutes showing Mason how to throw crackers out into the water for the ducks, but Mason was used to eating animal crackers and ignored his father’s example. After a few minutes of that, Loren sighed and pointed Mason toward a play area beneath an enormous old oak.

  He and Holly didn’t speak for several minutes; they stood a few feet apart, watching Mason. The silence was killing her. She told herself to keep her mouth shut, to wait another fifteen minutes and then tell Loren it was time for Mason’s nap, but sometimes Holly was her own worst enemy.

  “Let’s walk up to the playscape,” Loren said. “Come on, buddy,” he said to Mason, holding out his hand. Mason waddled past the outstretched hand and squatted down to look at some rocks.

  “Have you talked to Hannah?” Holly asked.

  Loren kept his gaze on Mason. “A couple of times.”

  The answer stunned her. Hannah had talked to Loren, but not her? “You have? Why didn’t you tell me? What did she say?”

  “We talked a lot about what had happened.”

  He said it so casually, as if it were expected, as if he’d always known what had happened to Hannah. But it was surely not what Holly had expected, and she turned to face him fully. “And?”

  “And? And we talked,” he said, sparing her a glance as he moved after Mason. “Frankly, a lot things were explained.”

  “What things?”

  “Things you wouldn’t understand,” he said dismissively. “Things between me and Hannah.”

  “Is she okay? Is she still in treatment?”

  “She’s okay, Holly. She’s getting the help she needs, and that is the most important thing.”

  He sounded a little too sanguine and reasonable for Loren, and Holly was suspicious. This was a guy who didn’t care about anyone but himself, and if he thought of the problems of others, it was because he was concerned about how they would affect him. “So … did she say when will she be back?”

  “When she’s had enough time to work through the issues that brought this on.” He looked at her. “The best thing you can do is support her in this.”

  “Oh, really? And how are you supporting her, Loren?”

  Loren looked at Mason for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw working against the clench of his teeth. “Here’s another piece of advice: Dial back the attitude. Hannah and I are going to get back together.”

  Holly gasped. Loren could not have stunned her more if he’d said he was the pope. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am very serious,” he said coldly. “I see now that she made mistakes, but so did I. We are both optimistic that we can work through it.”

  “Do you honestly expect me to believe that Hannah is going to welcome the serial cheater home with open arms?” Holly scoffed, but her stomach was already churning. Hannah had taken him back at least twice before.

  “Why am I not surprised that you want to throw stones from the peanut gallery?” Loren said. “What do you know about marriage, Holly? It’s a hell of a lot easier to sit there and criticize when you never get out and take chances, isn’t it? Marriage isn’t a cakewalk. Sometimes it hits a rough patch. But Hannah and I love each other enough to work at it.”

  “If that’s what you call a rough patch, I’d hate to think what constitutes a full-blown crisis. I don’t believe you,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “Don’t be so sure of yourself.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to the office.” He dismissed her again by striding forward to where Mason was playing with rocks. He picked his son up and hugged him, then walked back to where Holly was standing and handed the baby to her. “I want to see him during the holidays,” he said gruffly. “I’ll call you and arrange a time.”

  With that, Loren walked on, leaving Holly standing there, holding Mason tight.

  “You okay?”

  The sound of Wyatt’s voice sluiced warm through her; she turned and smiled gratefully. “Where did you come from?”

  “I was here all along.”

  “Wy,” Mason said. “Wy-wy.”

  Holly gladly handed Mason to Wyatt, and Mason reached for Wyatt’s nose.

  “Hey, there, little buckaroo,” Wyatt said to Mason. He glanced again at Holly. “Everything okay?”

  Okay? Holly was floating in a strange dream. “Yes. Yes, I’m okay. Just confused,” she said, and shook her head.

  Wyatt held out his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s go get a bottle of wine and talk while Mason acquaints himself with a jungle gym.” He wrapped his fingers securely around hers.

  Holly and Wyatt drank wine and nibbled from a plate of cheese while Mason played on the enormous playscape. She told him what Loren had said.

  “Interesting,” Wyatt mused. “Do you think it’s true that they are getting back together?”

  “I don’t know,” Holly answered honestly, and looked at Mason. “But what if it is true? Then what?”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Together or apart, there are a still a lot of issues.”

  “Right,” Holly said, but she wasn’t certain that was true. Hannah and Loren would be a united front against her.

  “Talk to Jillian,” Wyatt urged her again.

  Yes, she would talk to Jillian.

  But the troubling thought that Loren and Hannah might reunite, and all the implications of that, continued to swim around the edges of Holly’s thoughts. That night, when the house was silent and Mason was sleeping, and Wyatt had gone home, Loren loomed large in Holly’s mind once more.

  The very idea of Hannah and Loren starting over made Holly ill with anxiety. She honestly couldn’t guess if Hannah would take him back. What about Mason? Holly rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut. They had abandoned him, they had let months pass without even checking on him regularly. Who would give this child back to them? Someone, somewhere, would side with Holly.

  The next day Holly called Jillian again, only to learn she was already out for the holidays.

  Holly tried to keep her mind off of it by planning for Christmas Day. It would be only her, Mason, and Wyatt, as it was Macy’s turn to have Grace. She flipped through her mother’s cookbook looking for holiday recipes and stumbled on one for apple turnovers. The page, yellowed with age and stained in one corner with what looked like coffee, bore her mother’s handwriting.

  Holly stared at the card; a host of old Christmas memories began to swirl about in her head. Usually, when she thought of her mother and growing up here, she thought of how miserable she’d been. But there had been some good times, too, particularly when she and Hannah were little girls, too young to care about which of them was prettier or smarter.

  They’d had apple turnovers every Christmas morning. Holly could almost smell them.

  They’d always had a real Christmas tree, too, because Peggy Fisher believed it wasn’t really Christmas if the tree was anything less than real. A week before Christmas, the four of them would pile into the Oldsmobile that was still in the barn gathering dust and drive down to the vacant lot next to the hardware store, where, once a year, big tents were set up and trees magically appeared.

  Holly’s father would strap the tree they’d selected on the hood of the car and they would drive it home, where he would set it up in the window of the living room and string the blinking lights while Mom made hot chocolate and sugar cookies shaped like Santa hats and Christmas trees.

  Holly and Hannah had the task of decorating the tree, and took great care to evenly distribute the Popsicle ornaments they’d made at school among the shiny balls and glitter-co
vered Nativity scenes their mother bought every year during the after-Christmas sales. The crowning glory was the star of Bethlehem, which, no matter how many attempts they made, always sat crooked on the top of the tree. The clumps of tinsel—which Holly and Hannah threw on, as their mother suggested, so that it would look like real icicles dripping from the boughs of the tree—looked about as natural as clumps of shiny synthetic silver could look.

  Yet, to Holly, their Christmas trees were beautiful. The blinking red, green, and blue lights mesmerized her. She would lie on the floor of the living room, staring up at the tree, imagining the packages that would begin to accumulate at its base. The magic of the season had existed in this house. It was filled with anticipation: of new toys, of the Christmas pageant at the Presbyterian church, of Christmas morning and apple turnovers.

  Was her memory correct, or had Holly’s mother truly been happy then? Holly could remember her sitting on the couch next to her father, a cigarette dangling from her fingers, laughing and exclaiming as Holly and Hannah opened their gifts. There wasn’t tension then that Holly could recall. When had it all started to change?

  Holly wondered if Hannah remembered Christmases here … if she remembered the trees and the apple turnovers and the hot chocolate, and how Grandma and Grandpa had come later in the afternoon, and how Grandma always smelled a little like Listerine. She wondered if Hannah knew when things began to change, when the tension had crept in to their lives. When Santa had stopped coming to visit.

  Maybe Holly could bring Santa back to this house. Starting with a tree. She and Mason had to get a tree!

  That week, Holly found the old Christmas decorations in the dusty attic crawl space. Some were brittle, others broken, but there were enough to adorn a small tree. She enlisted Wyatt and Grace’s help, and the four of them drove to town, to the tent next to the hardware store, and picked one out.

  At home, Wyatt put the tree up in the window, and they decorated it while carols played on the old CD player, and the toddlers played with plastic Nativity figures. Between Milo’s wagging tail and the four little hands, the tree ended up being decorated about halfway up, but Holly thought it was a beautiful tree.