Christmas on Honeysuckle Lane

by Mary McDonough

  With a small sigh Daniel turned back to the window. If one of his sisters wanted the painting—and that would probably be Emma—she was welcome to it. It was high time for the siblings to make a decision on the future of the house and its contents—and, as Daniel saw it, the future of the family.

  “Dad, when are Aunt Andie and Aunt Emma getting here?” Sophia asked. Daniel hadn’t heard her come into the room. Unlike her brother, Sophia moved with grace.

  Daniel smiled at his daughter. “When they get here.”

  “Dad!” she protested. “That’s not a real answer.”

  “They said they’d be here sometime this morning. Travel is unpredictable, Sophia. Flights can be delayed and cars can break down.”

  Sophia sighed. “I wish they’d show up so the Christmas season can start. You know I’m impatient.”

  Daniel laughed. “You don’t get that from me.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, very seriously, “I do.”

  Daniel watched as his daughter ran off toward the kitchen where Anna Maria was monitoring the cookies that had gone into the oven about ten minutes earlier. From the wonderful aroma in the air, the cookies were doing just fine.

  Marco now had his nose pressed to the glass. “You’ll steam up the window,” Daniel said.

  Marco moved back an inch or two and with his forefinger drew a heart on the glass where his nose and mouth had been. “But now I’ve got a heart,” he said.

  And in his son’s simple reply Daniel saw an affirmation that he had chosen wisely for his life. After college in Arlington Daniel had gone to California to earn an associate degree with a major in culinary arts from the CIA. While there he had also taken a certificate program in wine and beverage studies. Why not? The campus was in the glorious Napa Valley. His plan had been to go home to Oliver’s Well after completion of his studies and pursue a career in cooking. And then he had met Anna Maria Spinelli in the lobby of the old-fashioned movie house in Westminster; they had both gone to see a screening of Casablanca.

  To say it was love at first sight wouldn’t be far off. There was an immediate physical attraction followed by the discovery of a shared love of food and family and the realization that they truly enjoyed being together, whether it be watching movies on Netflix or sitting quietly side by side on a bench in Oliver’s Grove, the town’s park, or experimenting with recipes. Anna Maria was close to her large family, still living in her hometown of Nichols-borough, and wanted her children—those she hoped to have—to benefit from the presence of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Daniel thought that a wise idea. A life in Oliver’s Well would suit him just fine.

  They were married eight months after their first date and moved into a charming little house on the outskirts of town that had been gifted to them by Anna Maria’s great-aunt and great-uncle. There was a small but manageable mortgage, and if over time the house proved to be a bit tight for a family of four, they were happy there and in the end that was everything.

  Together Daniel and Anna Maria had started a small catering business called Savories and Seasonings. For a time they struggled, but they never wavered in their dedication and desire for success. They borrowed money from parents and the bank, worked hard, spent ridiculously little on extras, paid back the loans as soon as possible, and learned as they went along. Bonnie Eckman, a resident of Oliver’s Well who had once worked as a personal chef as well as a caterer, generously gave Daniel and Anna Maria advice and encouragement. It was a while before they had enough money to convert their garage into a licensed commercial kitchen, but once they did, the business really took off. Now, a year after Caro Reynolds’s death, Savories and Seasonings was firmly in the black with a roster of regular clients to which several new ones were added each season.

  “Dad!” Marco’s still high-pitched voice cried, making Daniel flinch. “Here comes Aunt Emma!”

  Daniel watched as his sister pulled into the driveway in the car she kept spotlessly clean and perfectly maintained. Anna Maria appeared at his side and put a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Daniel turned away from the window and smiled. “Yeah,” he said. But inside he felt not so certain.

  CHAPTER 4

  His eyes are tired, Andie thought. He’s troubled. This was Andie’s first impression of the brother she had not seen since their mother’s funeral. She reached out to hug him, and while Daniel didn’t pull away, she thought she sensed, as she had after the funeral, a slight hesitation in his manner.

  “Emma’s already here,” Daniel told her as they went inside the house that had been their parents’ for so many years. He closed the front door, on which someone—maybe Anna Maria, Andie thought—had hung a large pine wreath decorated with the same velvety blue ribbon Caro had favored, in honor of the Christmas season. “She’s upstairs getting settled.”

  Andie smiled. “The shiny Lexus in the driveway was a hint.”

  “Right. Well, I’m glad you’re here. How was the trip?” he asked.

  Andie glanced at the tall and stately grandfather clock that had stood in the living room at number 32 Honeysuckle Lane for as far back as she could remember. “Long but uneventful,” she said, noting the time.

  Andie headed for the den, located at the rear of the first floor; its windows overlooked the backyard and patio, once the scene of Caro’s famous Labor Day cocktail party, at which she would serve her guests dainty canapés and frosty gin and tonics.

  “Where are you going?” Daniel asked.

  “I’m staying in the den,” she told him.

  Daniel looked confused. “But I made up the bed in your old room,” he said. “I thought you’d want to stay there.”

  Andie smiled. “Thanks, Danny, but I prefer the den. I’ll find some sheets and make up the couch.”

  Andie continued on her way. Obviously, she thought, dropping her slouchy bag onto the carpeted floor of the den, Daniel didn’t know that whenever she visited her parents’ home she bunked down here. She simply couldn’t bear to stay in her childhood bedroom. The room that she had shared with baby Rumi after her divorce. The room that had witnessed her suffering through the final months of a cruel and debilitating postpartum depression.

  At times Andie still felt embarrassed by what she initially had considered the flaws of character that had manifested at that point in her life, even though the flaws—not flaws at all, she had come to see—had to some degree been brought about by her misguided attempt to live a life someone else had planned for her. A life that she, Andie Reynolds, was not meant to live.

  And Andie’s authentic life did not include marriage or full time, hands-on parenthood. Rather, it meant a life of study and prayer, of meditation and writing, of trying to help as many people as she could to achieve a degree of spiritual awareness and inner peace. She hadn’t intended on becoming a popular and fairly famous spiritual advisor and teacher, but that was exactly what she had become. With courage and determination Andie had learned to humbly embrace her gifts; to share those gifts with others was her greatest joy.

  For the past ten years or so, Andie had considered herself a Buddhist, though not exclusively so. She admired and tried to live by the Eightfold Path and to follow what practices she had found personally meaningful and helpful in her work with others, such as regular meditation and the following of ethical practices. She held to the Three Marks of Existence—impermanence, suffering or disquietude, and the not-self. She believed in the wisdom of avoiding the extremes of permanence and nihilism, of inherent existence and nothingness. And these were only some of the ideas she tried to share with those who wanted to listen.

  Once Andie had found sheets in the downstairs linen closet and hastily put them on the couch, she left the den and went to find the family. They were, of course, gathered in the kitchen. The hearth, Andie thought, was always where people gathered, no matter how small or primitive it might be.

  “Emma,” Andie said, going to her sister. “It’s
been too long, and yes, I know, it’s been my fault.”

  “Not your fault, Andie,” Emma said, returning her sister’s hug. “Just life getting in the way of itself.”

  “That’s a creative way of putting it!” Next Andie turned to her sister-in-law. “It’s so good to see you, Anna Maria. You look wonderful. Positively glowing.”

  Anna Maria laughed and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “That’s because I’ve been standing over a hot stove for most of the day!”

  “Oof!” Andie tottered under the assault from her niece and nephew.

  “Hi, Aunt Andie!” Sophia cried, hugging her fiercely. Marco tugged on her arm. “Come see what we’re doing!”

  What Daniel’s children were doing was decorating cookies at a small table set up near the rear of the kitchen. There were at least eight or nine tubes of icing and plastic containers of colored sugar and sprinkles piled on the tabletop. “Did you help bake them?” Andie asked, suddenly remembering as if it were only yesterday the many times she and Emma had helped their mother bake Christmas cookies and pans of spicy gingerbread. She felt a wave of sadness, the intensity of which surprised her.

  “Yup,” Marco said. “I stirred the batter.”

  “And I added some of the ingredients,” Sophia said. “You have to measure really exactly when you’re baking. That’s what Dad says.”

  Andie smiled. “Your father’s a smart man.” She joined the other adults, sitting at the main table. Anna Maria was pouring coffee from a press pot, and Andie gratefully accepted a cup. “So, Danny, what do you need from us?” she asked.

  Andie had phrased her question carefully. Since Daniel had first pressed his sisters to come home to Oliver’s Well for the Christmas holiday, it had been clear that he needed something more than help sorting through the credenza and taking old clothing to the charity shop, though what that something was Andie still didn’t know.

  Daniel didn’t answer his sister’s question. Instead he took a few sheets of paper from a glossy folder and distributed them around the table. “I’ve made a list of suggestions for what we might do together as a family this holiday season.”

  Emma smiled as she looked down at her paper. “A snowman-building contest? In this neck of the woods? How exactly does that work?”

  “It’s artificial snow,” Daniel explained. “It’s created with one of those machines used at ski resorts when Mother Nature doesn’t come through. The kids love it.”

  “It’s so much fun, Aunt Emma!” Marco called out.

  “I’m sure it is,” Emma replied. “Hey, when are you guys going to be done with those cookies?”

  “Don’t be impatient, Aunt Emma,” Marco told her. “Mom always says good things come to those who wait. Right, Mom?”

  Andie smiled at her sister-in-law. “Children listen more carefully than we give them credit for!” She looked at her own copy of Daniel’s suggestions. A concert at the Catholic Church. The children’s school pageant. The Christmas Parade and Festival. The butterflies took flight again in Andie’s stomach. She was still a bit shy among the people of Oliver’s Well who might not have approved of her decision to leave Rumi with her father when Rumi was eight years old in order to forge a meaningful life on her own. Wasn’t being a mother meaningful enough, some might ask? Wasn’t being present to watch your child grow and learn and become a full person the most important thing a parent could do? Natural enough questions, but ones Andie didn’t want to answer for a merely curious stranger.

  “I just thought that now we’re all here together, we should have some fun,” Daniel said. “We might not get to do everything, but we can’t miss the kids’ school pageant and the Christmas Festival, especially the lighting of the tree at the end. That’s one of the most important local events of the year. Remember all the times we went when we were children? We always had so much fun.”

  “I remember getting my first kiss at the festival when I was thirteen,” Emma said.

  Sophia squealed from the other end of the kitchen. “Really? What was it like?”

  “Don’t go putting ideas into my daughter’s head,” Daniel warned. “I told her no boys whatsoever until she’s sixteen.”

  Emma patted her brother’s arm. “It was only a little kiss, Danny. Nothing to get worked up about.” Emma turned to Sophia. “And your dad’s right,” she said. “There’s no rush where boys are concerned.”

  Sophia shrugged and went back to sprinkling pink sugar on a cookie.

  “How is Rumi?” Andie asked, wondering if Daniel or Anna Maria knew if her daughter was romantically involved. Andie had recently asked via e-mail, but Rumi hadn’t replied to the question. “It would be nice if she’s able to join us for some of these festivities.”

  “Haven’t you two been in touch?” Daniel asked with a frown.

  “Of course we have. But I don’t always know what her daily schedule entails. Young people are so busy, especially in this plugged-in age. It’s hard to keep up with them.”

  “Rumi will be here for dinner tomorrow,” Anna Maria said. “She’s been working as a waitress at the Angry Squire between semesters, and she’s been helping us at Savories and Seasonings, so her schedule has been pretty tight. Still, I know she wouldn’t miss the kids’ pageant at the very least.”

  “And she’s doing really well at school,” Daniel said. “She’ll have finished her degree in dental hygiene by the end of next semester.”

  That her daughter had chosen to work in the medical profession rather than in a creative field was still a bit of a surprise to Andie, though not a disappointment. All that mattered was that Rumi live the life she freely chose. But before Andie could say as much, her brother was going on.

  “Money matters,” Daniel said firmly. “Rumi is a smart young woman. She’s got a good steady head on her shoulders.”

  “Yes,” said Andie. “I know she does.” Daniel’s implication was perfectly clear; he had never quite accepted his sister’s work as something “good” or “steady.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, but are things okay with you and Ian?” Anna Maria asked Emma. “I was surprised when you said you’d be coming for Christmas on your own.”

  “Well, actually . . .” Emma said quietly. “The thing is, I ended the relationship.”

  Andie briefly took her sister’s hand; Emma smiled her thanks.

  “For good this time?” Daniel asked, eyes wide.

  “Yes, Danny,” Emma replied. “For good this time.”

  “You know Mom hoped you two would get married. Dad, too.”

  “And you?” Emma asked her brother.

  “Well,” he said, “you were together for almost a decade, leaving aside your brief split.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” Emma said dryly. “Again.”

  “What finally went wrong?”

  “It’s too complicated to explain,” Emma said quietly. “But it was the right thing to do.”

  Andie nodded. “Ian is a good man, Danny, but that doesn’t mean he was the right man for Emma.”

  “Seriously, Emma, what was it?” Daniel pressed. “Did he suddenly start to drink? Did he take up gambling?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Emma laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic, Danny!”

  “Ian’s been part of the family since Marco was born.” Daniel shot a glance at his children. “The kids consider him an uncle.”

  Anna Maria put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Daniel thinks everyone should be married,” she said softly. “He’s a big fan of marriage, and believe me, I’m grateful for that. But he doesn’t understand that not every couple is meant to live happily ever after.”

  Like Bob and me, Andie thought. Dearest friends but not husband and wife. Something Mom and Dad as well as Danny could never understand.

  Marco and Sophia came over to the table where the adults sat; they were each holding out a plate of heavily decorated cookies. “We’re all done!” Marco announced.

  “And about time!” Andie said.
In spite of the fact she thought she might drop into a sugar coma—the icing on each cookie had to be a quarter of an inch thick—she reached for a cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree.

  “Don’t want to eat the reindeer?” Daniel asked with a grin. “It’s not real meat, you know.”

  “I know,” Andie said. “But I try always to be consistent in my behavior and beliefs.”

  Daniel reached for the reindeer cookie on his daughter’s plate. “As do I,” he said, biting off the animal’s iced head.

  “The fact that we’re all unique,” Andie said, refusing to be riled and speaking in the famed voice she knew so many people found soothing, “is one of the things that makes life so interesting.”

  To that, her brother had nothing to say.

  CHAPTER 5

  Emma and Andie were in the den while Sophia and Marco were playing in the backyard, which Emma could see was in immaculate condition, the lawn mowed and the patio swept clear of leaves and other debris. Daniel and Anna Maria were in the kitchen preparing dinner.

  Andie was sitting comfortably in the large brown leather armchair that had been in the den for as long as Emma could remember. “Remember how Dad used to fall asleep in this chair reading the Sunday paper?” Andie said from its depths. “And how when one of us would find him he’d swear he was just ‘resting his eyes’? I always wondered why he felt he had to make an excuse for taking a nap in the middle of the day.”

  “An overdeveloped sense of responsibility?” Emma guessed. She was roaming the room as they talked, noting things she hadn’t noted for some time, like the small oil painting depicting a brilliant sunset, and the framed embroidered sampler her mother’s great-aunt Abigail had sewn as a small girl. “And a good work ethic. He probably felt he should be doing something productive rather than nodding off.”