Christmas in Cambria

by Linda Seed

  “Oh. Good morning. May I help you?” Delilah was still wearing her bathrobe at ten a.m., and she pulled the robe more closely around her body.

  “I just wanted to come by and say hello. I’m Dolly. My husband and I live in the gray house across the street. I noticed you have some adorable boys.”

  “I … yes. Jesse and Gavin. They’re six and four.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely. Would you like some muffins? I baked them myself.” She thrust the basket at Delilah, who accepted it.

  “Thank you. That’s so nice of you. Would you like to come in?”

  Dolly waved her off. “Oh, no, I can see that you’re not expecting company. But if you come by later I can tell you all of the things there are to do in Cambria with kids. People think this is just a community for grownups, but no. There’s so much for the little ones. I can make a list.”

  Delilah had been in a bad mood, as she was so often these days, but now she couldn’t help smiling—and not just the polite, sociable smile that came to her lips in situations that required it. She couldn’t remember ever encountering this kind of neighborliness in her old neighborhood. There, if someone came to your door, they were selling something.

  Gavin came up beside Delilah and clung to her thigh, his thumb in his mouth. He’d given up thumb-sucking when he was three, but the stress of the divorce had brought the habit back.

  Delilah smoothed his hair with her hand. “This is our neighbor—her name is Dolly. Say hello, sweetheart.”

  Gavin waved at Dolly with three fingers of the hand that wasn’t busy with the thumb-sucking.

  “Why, hello. And what’s your name?” Dolly leaned down, her hands on her thighs.

  Gavin didn’t answer, so Delilah stepped in. “This is Gavin. He’s a little shy.”

  “Oh, that’s just fine. I have a grandson about your age, and he’s shy, too.”

  Gavin allowed her a smile around the thumb.

  After a little more chitchat, Delilah said her goodbyes, closed the door, and brought the basket into the kitchen. Jesse was just emerging from his bedroom, where he’d been watching a show on his iPad.

  “We need to invite Dolly over for tea,” she told the boys.

  “How come?” Gavin wanted to know.

  “Because it’s polite. When somebody does something nice for you, it’s polite to invite them over for tea.”

  “Could there be cookies, too?” Jesse asked.

  “Well, I suppose so,” Delilah told him.

  “Okay.” He shrugged.

  She put two of Dolly’s muffins on plates for the boys’ snack, feeling a tiny stirring whisper of something she hadn’t felt in some time.

  Optimism.

  Quinn woke to the sound of birds in the trees outside his van. The sun had just risen, and the cool dawn air was soft with fog. He dragged himself out of bed, found the hidden key, and used the diner’s bathroom. He washed his hands and splashed water on his face.

  It was just after six, and the diner didn’t open until eight. He couldn’t wait that long for coffee, so he locked up, put the key back where he’d found it, and went to his van.

  He fired up the stove, boiled some water in a kettle, then used his single-cup pour-over setup to make coffee.

  When it was done, he took his mug to an Adirondack chair set up on the diner’s patio and drank the hot, strong brew while watching the fog move through the pines.

  Not a bad life, all things considered.

  Sure, the tourists could be a pain in the ass sometimes, and his work didn’t pay enough. But he got to wake up to this in the morning instead of putting on a suit and driving to some generic office building where he’d spend eight hours in a cubicle.

  And, hell, even the tourists were okay sometimes. Every now and then he got one—somebody who was so moved by the natural beauty they were seeing that they practically buzzed with excitement.

  Knowing he was the one who brought them that? Yeah, that was all right.

  He finished his coffee, put his van back in order, ate a PowerBar, then started the drive south.

  Delilah baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies, brewed a pot of tea, and invited Dolly over to share them, partly because of courtesy and partly because she was so starved for adult interaction she thought she might start howling at the moon.

  They’d been in Cambria two days, and Delilah was still so wound up over everything that had been happening in her life that she felt like her shoulders had been permanently relocated to a spot just beside her ears. She’d been trying to hide it for the boys’ sake, but she snapped at them too often, and they were probably so used to seeing a fake smile on her face that they no longer knew what a real one looked like.

  Maybe a chat over tea with someone who wasn’t under ten years old would raise her spirits. It certainly couldn’t bring them any lower than they already were.

  “Can I have a cookie?” Jesse hovered over the plate Delilah was arranging in anticipation of her neighbor’s visit.

  “Me too,” Gavin said.

  “We have company coming,” she told them. “It’s polite to wait.”

  They both looked so horrified that she relented.

  “All right. Take one each and save the rest until Dolly gets here.” Jesse extended a hand toward the plate, but Delilah raised it out of his reach. “Wash your hands first.”

  “Aw, Mom.”

  “Both of you.”

  When the boys’ hands were clean, Delilah sent them off with their cookies. They both ran into Delilah’s room because it had a television. Delilah knew she should get them out of the house, limit their screen time—but sometimes she needed that distraction just to get through the day.

  She’d thought she would feel better once her divorce was finalized, but she’d never felt more exhausted, more defeated.

  For now, she was faking being okay. And part of faking it involved socializing with others the way people did when they hadn’t been emotionally traumatized.

  She arranged the tea and cookies on the table and waited for Dolly’s knock.

  “You’re here until the first of the year, then? Oh, that’s marvelous.” Dolly was sitting at the kitchen table at Otter Bluff with a cup of tea and a small plate bearing a cookie in front of her. She’d brought Delilah some fresh basil she’d transplanted from her garden into a small terra cotta pot. The basil sat on the kitchen counter looking green and cheerful.

  “The thing is … I’m not sure where we’re going after this.” She hadn’t wanted to blurt out her troubles, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Our house was sold in the divorce, and we don’t have anywhere to go come January first.”

  “Oh.” Dolly’s brow furrowed. “What do you think you’ll do?”

  “I don’t want to think at all.” Delilah sipped from her mug and set it back down on the table, wrapping her hands around it. “I just want to take some time and not think. The divorce was awful. It was a year of … of emotional torture. And now it’s over, and I just need to take some time to not feel that way anymore. If I don’t have something figured out by the first of the year, we can stay with my family. My sister has already offered. Until then … I just want to pretend everything’s okay until it is.”

  Dolly reached out a hand and squeezed Delilah’s arm. “Well, then you do that. What about your ex and the boys? Is he in the picture?”

  That was a long story, one she didn’t want to get into in detail. She stuck to the basics. “He moved to Paris. He’ll have the boys for two weeks in the summer.”

  “And how are the kids dealing with that?”

  “They’re doing the best they can. We all are.”

  By the time Dolly left, Delilah had her new basil plant, a plan to have lunch with Dolly on Saturday, and a list of local activities for children, ranging from beach-going to parks, libraries, and museums—ideas Dolly had gleaned from years of visits by her grandchildren.

  She got started that day.

  Delilah packed snacks along with the bea
ch towels, sand toys, beach chairs, and Frisbee she’d found in the garage at Otter Bluff, and she took the boys to the beach at San Simeon Cove.

  It was a chilly November day—too cold for the boys to go swimming—but coming from Connecticut, they were used to much harsher weather than this. Delilah set herself up in a chair near the pier while Jesse and Gavin ran around chasing each other and looking for interesting rocks and shells.

  The overcast sky brooded overhead, and tendrils of fog moved through the tops of the trees that lined the bluffs. A flock of pelicans glided above the water, looking for their next meal.

  Don’t think about what’s next, Delilah reminded herself. Just think about today.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in the ocean air. Over the whoosh of the waves, she heard Gavin’s laugh, and that was one thing she could focus on.

  One good thing.

  Sometimes that was enough.

  Quinn was trying not to think about the holidays, but the town of Cambria was making it damned hard.

  First there had been the Scarecrow Festival, which, thankfully, had ended October 31. Now, he couldn’t turn his head sideways without seeing some kind of Thanksgiving decoration, ranging from decorative metal turkeys to paper-mache cornucopias to banners proclaiming the community Thanksgiving dinner or some holiday-themed art show.

  For God’s sake, couldn’t a man live in peace without the pressure of having to give thanks or bring goodwill to mankind?

  As he browsed the aisles of the Cookie Crock for his weekly grocery run, the upcoming holidays continued to taunt him.

  Turkeys on sale! Get your premade mashed potatoes and stuffing, just place your order now! Canned pumpkin, two for four dollars! Marshmallow fluff, on special!

  Don't even get him started on the goddamned cranberry sauce.

  He hadn't always been this way. He hadn't always hated the holidays with the fiery passion of a true convert. He hadn't really loved them since he was a kid—Christmas and Thanksgiving and all of that were for kids, after all—but the hatred had come later. After everything had gone to hell with his family.

  First there'd been his uncle's death. Then there'd been the reading of the will. Then, finally, the explosion of anger, resentment, and recrimination that came when Quinn had inherited the bulk of his uncle's estate.

  And, hell, it hadn't even been that much. He'd been able to make a nice down payment on his house in Cambria, but that was about it. It wasn't like he'd been set for life.

  His two brothers had insisted that he split the money with them, and his mom and stepfather had sided with them. Quinn had refused, mainly because his two brothers were assholes.

  Quinn's uncle Nate had thought so, too, and that's why he'd written them out of his will.

  Why should Quinn give them anything after the way they'd treated Nate? After the way they'd shown their asses?

  They'd threatened a lawsuit that hadn't materialized. The lack of legal entanglement was good, but it hadn't stopped Quinn's family from turning on him.

  Most of the time, having them out of his life was okay. Things were more peaceful that way. But at certain times, it was hard. At certain times, it hurt like hell. And those times tended to coincide with the entire damned holiday season, starting with Halloween and stretching right on through New Year's.

  Well, he’d do what he always did around this time of year. He'd stay home a lot, and when he did go out, he'd drink too much and find someone to bring home with him.

  It had worked in the past. Why mess with a winning formula?

  He was picking up some Granny Smith apples in the produce section when someone called his name.

  "Hey, Quinn. How you doin'?" Jerry, the produce guy, was coming toward him with a cart full of romaine lettuce ready to be put on display.

  “Not bad. You?”

  They chatted a little bit about football—Jerry was a 49ers fan, and they’d crapped the bed in their last game—and then a little bit about Jerry’s wife, who was expecting their third child.

  One nice thing about a small town was you could always find someone to shoot the shit with, even when all you were doing was buying apples.

  When that was done, Quinn thought he was going to make a clean getaway, but Jerry ruined everything.

  “You gonna be seeing family for Thanksgiving?” he asked.

  Jerry was an acquaintance—Quinn wouldn’t really call him a friend—so he didn’t know about Quinn’s circumstances, and Quinn wasn’t about to tell him now. Instead, he made some noncommittal noises.

  “I’m just gonna see how it goes.” Which didn’t mean anything—that was the very beauty of the sentence.

  “You need somewhere to go, you can come to our place,” Jerry offered. “We’re having Emma’s family, my family, the next-door neighbors, and the next-door neighbor’s family. We’re gonna have so many people one more won’t make a difference.”

  Quinn was simultaneously touched and horrified. It was genuinely kind of Jerry to make the offer, and the idea that someone wanted him at their Thanksgiving table made him feel unexpectedly emotional—a feeling he mercilessly suppressed as soon as it emerged. At the same time, he couldn’t imagine himself actually sitting there eating sweet potato casserole with a crowd of people who were probably far more emotionally functional than he was.

  “That’s nice of you, man,” he said. “Really. But I think I’m gonna just keep it loose and see what happens.” Another sentence that conveniently didn’t mean anything.

  He said goodbye, paid for his groceries, and got out of there before he could admit something embarrassing—like the fact that he was lonely.

  He’d rather drive nails into his kneecaps than pour out his heart to Jerry, or to anyone else, for that matter.

  As far as he was concerned, January first couldn’t come soon enough.

  Chapter 3

  The idea of hiking had been Delilah’s. Well, Dolly’s, really. It had been on the list of things to do that Dolly had offered Delilah during their get-together. Neither of the boys had been interested, but Delilah had pushed the issue.

  Which made her feel even worse when everything went wrong.

  They’d been in Cambria four days, and Jesse and Gavin were already complaining about being bored.

  When their house had sold, Delilah had pulled Jesse out of kindergarten—something that was allowed in the state of Connecticut with a signed parental waiver—and at first he’d thought it was a fun novelty that he wouldn’t have to go to school. But it hadn’t taken long for him to start protesting the lack of things to do, and Gavin had soon joined in.

  So, Delilah had researched hiking trails, packed snacks, water bottles, and bug spray, and ordered her two reluctant and whining kids to get in the car.

  “I don’t want to go.” Jesse shoved his lower lip out in a pout.

  “Me neither.” Gavin tended to agree with Jesse on most things, especially when he was in opposition to whatever it was Delilah wanted.

  “Why not?” She kept her tone upbeat, her face open and enthusiastic. “It’ll be fun. The article on the Internet says there’s a waterfall at the end of the trail.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “It’s water. I’ve seen water.”

  “Well, you haven’t seen this water. Besides, we all need the exercise.” She shooed them out of the house and into the car, her day pack full of supplies.

  “You said this trip was going to be fun. It’s not fun. I miss Dad,” Jesse said.

  All at once, Delilah’s composure slipped, and she felt her throat clog with emotion. She blinked her eyes to hold off tears, cleared her throat, and forced her lips into a smile. “I know you do, honey. I do, too. But we have each other. So, let’s try to have a good time, all right?”

  It started okay, despite the kids’ protests. Delilah drove north to where the map indicated, parked at a turnout off Highway 1, slung her pack over her shoulders, and got the kids out of their booster seats.

  The first part of the trail wa
s wide and relatively level, and the landscape was lovely, with towering pines, dramatic hills, and the ocean stretched out into eternity below the bluffs. The boys chatted happily as they walked, and Delilah breathed in the clean fall air, congratulating herself on her excellent plan for a wholesome family outing.

  Things were still okay as the trail narrowed and began to climb into the hills. Delilah wasn’t in the best shape—she could admit that—but the exertion felt good. The boys had forgotten to be opposed to the outing and were exclaiming over the squirrels, the birds, even a small, harmless snake that slithered over the path.

  As it turned out, she was worried about the wrong things. She was worried about sunburn, poison oak, bug bites, possible dehydration if they went too far and too long without remembering to drink their water.

  She wasn’t worried that one of her boys would leave the trail and fall into a ravine, but that was what happened.

  Jesse had brought a small rubber ball that he’d gotten from a vending machine in Morro Bay. He was tossing it into the air and catching it as they walked—something Delilah had thought nothing of, never imagining that it might lead to potential disaster.

  “Throw it to me,” Gavin said. Jesse threw it to him, and Gavin caught it.

  Then Gavin threw the ball back to Jesse, but it went high, sailing over Jesse’s head and off the path.

  They could see it from where they were—the ball, a bright, neon orange, lay in a clump of bushes a few feet down the hill from where they stood.

  Jesse stepped off the path to get it, and Delilah warned him to be careful. At the time, getting the ball seemed like a reasonable thing to do, as the incline wasn’t too steep where it lay, and it was only a few feet away.

  Jesse picked up the ball, and it seemed like the whole thing was going to be a momentary, easily forgettable blip in their day.

  Then his feet slipped, and Delilah watched helplessly as her son slid down to where the earth fell away. He plummeted, screaming, into a brush-filled ravine so far below the path that Delilah could no longer see him.