This Christmas

by Olivia Miles

  There was a beep. Her heart raced. She thought on her feet. Split second decision.

  “Hey, Tess, it’s Jules, your favorite sister.” Shoot. Why had she said that? Carrie had always been closer to Tess, up until recent events, not just because of their similar interests but their birth order. Being only two years apart, they’d forged their friendship long before Jules had arrived in the world five years after Carrie. They were a pack, a team, two girls with blonde hair as opposed to Jules’s dark curls. Two girls who liked to play boring games like house and teacher while Jules wanted to jump off the rocks into the cool, murky lake. Jules was the little sister, the tagalong, the one that Tess looked after, like a child not as a peer, especially when their mother couldn’t be relied on half the time. Why draw attention to the fact that, thanks to Carrie’s recent behavior, Jules had slid into the position by default?

  She continued. “Anyway, just wanted to let you know that Carrie and I were thinking of coming to Winter Lake for the holiday. The bus gets in at two tomorrow. We can’t wait to see you and Phoebe!”

  She hung up and threw her head back against the sofa. Tess might be happy that Carrie was finally visiting, or maybe she’d call, insist that Carrie not come. Or that Jules not come.

  Jules thought about that for a moment. Both scenarios were entirely possible, after all. Tess and Carrie hadn’t spoken in nearly a year, and the majority of Jules’s calls to Tess went unanswered. Neither of them had exactly been invited. But they were family. Winter Lake was their hometown. And it was Christmas.

  If Tess called, Jules decided, she would just give her a taste of her own medicine. She’d let it go to voicemail.

  If she was going to show up in Winter Lake for a week (or two?), then Jules supposed she had better not show up empty-handed.

  The problem, of course, was that she really didn’t know what to buy her sister. Or even Phoebe, for that matter. Tess was always the quietest of the three sisters. Carrie was the most creative. Jules wondered where she fit into this equation, what single adjective her sisters might use to sum up her personality?

  Irresponsible, she settled on. That’s how they saw her back when they were kids, and that’s how they still saw her. Even when Jules was in college, on a scholarship that she had earned from good grades and a killer essay, her chats with Tess often felt more like trial by fire. Was she attending her classes? Had she thought about what jobs she might pursue? And later, when she started freelancing, she’d been lectured on the merits of a retirement plan.

  All the more reason not to mention that she had just lost her latest gig, and that she’d been passed over for a full-time position.

  One glance out the window told her that the snow hadn’t let up and probably wouldn’t. She bundled into her warmed coat and scarf, and only realized that she had forgotten her gloves when she was already in the vestibule of her brownstone, next to the mailboxes. She paused, considered going back upstairs, but she already felt frustrated and overheated as it was. Besides, if she went back upstairs, she might change her mind; she might push off the whole present-buying thing until she was in Winter Lake, and tell Aaron to meet her at the pub instead. Christmas was a week from tomorrow, after all. She had time…

  But it was this exact mentality that gave her a bad rap in the family. No, she would buy all the gifts today, and wrap them, and then everyone would be surprised, and not just by her appearance in Winter Lake. She was twenty-eight years old. It was time to stop being treated like a kid once and for all.

  Still without a clue as to what anyone might like for Christmas, she took the T to the Prudential Center, and decided that inspiration would strike when she saw it. It usually worked that way in life, didn’t it? You didn’t know what you liked until you saw it, and it became so obvious, like it had been right there all along, just waiting for you.

  It was that way with her jobs. Some gigs she thought she would love turned out to be major busts. Others that she was dreading except for the pay grade turned out to be pleasantly surprising.

  And it was that way with love, too. Well, not that she’d ever been in love, per se, but she had been in her share of relationships. Sometimes it just clicked. Sometimes it didn’t. It shouldn’t have to be weighed and considered. When you knew, you knew!

  And she knew that she and Aaron were only friends.

  Happy for a seat, she scanned her phone while she waited to reach her destination. No response from Tess yet. She’d take that as a good sign today.

  She texted Aaron to let him know she was, as usual, running five minutes late. Normally this would be met with a snarky response, but today, none came back.

  She waited a beat, and then put the phone into her pocket. No need to over think things. She would focus on shopping. Gift-giving. Tis the season and all that.

  Except, despite the snow and the decorations that seemed to wrap every lamppost and flank every front door, she couldn’t drum up much Christmas spirit at the moment.

  Her life felt uncertain, and not just because of her employment situation. But it would all be better when she saw Aaron and everything went back to normal again, she told herself.

  Aaron was late.

  Jules tried not to read into this too much. After all, it was snowing hard, the roads were bad, the sidewalks worse and…Well, it was just a coincidence. Surely it had nothing to do with that weird little moment last night.

  Jules had just polished off her second hot pretzel when she saw him, coming up the escalator, in his charcoal grey coat. His hair was again dusted in snow, and his eyes were scanning his surroundings. Her heart soared with relief.

  He was here. Of course he was here. She could always count on him.

  She tossed the buttery pretzel wrapper and grease-stained napkins in the nearest trash can and waved her arms over her head, trying to get his attention without calling out his name. It took a few moments, but finally he caught her, his face breaking out into a smile as he hurried his pace to meet her.

  “Hey, you!” She hesitated for a minute before leaning in to give him their usual hug, not sure if she should, but thinking it would be worse if she didn’t. Just act normal, she told herself. Then everything would be right again.

  He held her a beat longer than usual, and she stiffened, alarmed, and pulled back more abruptly than she’d intended. His face seemed to drop into a frown but she quickly recovered the moment, linking his arm as she led him to the bookstore. Phoebe could read, and a child could never have too many books, in her opinion. And Tess would approve.

  “You just missed out on the hot pretzels,” she said. “But for you, I might be able to eat another.”

  He laughed, and then grinned over at her. “You have butter on your lips.”

  “Do I?” Butter stained. She remembered this from the time that her mother had brought all three girls out to celebrate Tess’s birthday—a rare occurrence that Tess had lobbied for. They’d gone to a diner that had long since closed, wearing their best dresses and feeling special. It was one of those fleeting, spontaneous times that their mother had made a real effort, encouraging them to order whatever they wanted, and that was a baked potato with extra butter for Jules. Jules had been about six and didn’t heed Tess’s warnings about the melted butter that was dripping off her fork, insisting that she was fine, that she did not need to tuck her napkin into the neckline of the beautiful pink dress that she had lobbied for on her birthday one month earlier, and of course, minutes later managed to get three great big spots on the front of the skirt. She could still picture the dismay in her mother’s eyes, and the accusation in Tess’s stare. Even now, it hurt. It hurt a lot more than maybe it should.

  She licked her lips quickly, not exactly liking the way that Aaron was watching her as she did, and said, “I decided to go back to Winter Lake for the holiday. I can’t think of what to buy Tess, though.”

  “That’s a tough one,” Aaron agreed, but he seemed distant as they walked into the store. “How long are you gone for?”
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  “Oh, a week,” she said. She picked up a book on the display table, even though it was for an adult, not a child, and actually, it was something that she’d been interested in reading for a while now.

  She set it back. It was the time for giving, not treating herself.

  “Maybe two.” She moved over to a stack of toys, but they all seemed too young for an eight-year-old.

  “Two weeks?” Aaron looked disappointed.

  “Think you can survive without me?” Jules joked, but she sensed something amiss between them. Something that didn’t sit right. “I’m glad you came,” she said, looking at him guardedly. “I wasn’t sure if—”

  Aaron’s brow pinched. “If what?”

  She thought fast. No sense in bringing up the events of last night if he wasn’t going to. “I wasn’t sure if you were willing to brave the storm.”

  “A snowstorm couldn’t stop me from seeing you. Besides, you and I always hang out together on the weekends. Where else would I be?” Aaron gave her a knowing grin.

  Jules relaxed. Really, all this could be forgotten. He was probably just as uncomfortable as she was. He might want to apologize. She seriously hoped he wouldn’t. No, it would be better to never broach the topic again, and to let things evolve naturally, until, by the end of today, everything would return to normal. In fact, they were already normal. She was just being…touchy.

  “And we usually spend holidays together, too,” he said.

  Jules said nothing as she stared at a wall of books. True. All of this was true. And she had a bad feeling that Aaron was getting at something. For the past four years she’d gone up to his parents’ cabin in Maine for Christmas. They played cards at the big table near the picture window with a view of the fire and watched cheesy holiday movies, huddled under blankets. While they hadn’t made any official plans yet, he might have assumed it was a given.

  “It’s Tess’s first Christmas since…” She still couldn’t bring herself to say it. Andrew had been special. One of a kind. More like a father figure than a brother-in-law, and someone that she could turn to, someone who knew how to fix things and make it all better, like the time that she’d maxed out her first credit card because she thought that the credit limit was monthly, not in total. Oh, how Andrew had laughed and laughed, but he’d sent her a check to get her through for a few weeks. She was fairly sure that to this day, Tess hadn’t learned about that. And now, she never would.

  “No, of course. I get it. Tess is your family. You should be with her.” Aaron cut a hand through the air, but his smile was strained. “You’ll be missed, that’s all.”

  “And I’ll miss your mother’s mashed potatoes,” Jules sighed, thinking of the woman who always greeted her with a warm smile and a tight hug. “And her.”

  “There’s always next year,” Aaron said, forcing a smile.

  “You’re welcome to come to Winter Lake with me,” Jules offered. It would be fun. A lot of fun. And it would help break up the dynamic with her sisters. With Aaron there, Tess couldn’t exactly throttle Carrie, after all. She’d have to be polite, seeing as she’d only met him once, years back at Jules’s college graduation. Phoebe had only been a toddler then, and Tess had spent most of the two-day visit doling out crackers and explaining the need to duck back to the hotel for nap time. “We can go skating. I can show you all around the town where I grew up.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. He stopped walking, and Jules had the uneasy feeling that he was waiting for her to turn and look at him.

  Finally, reluctantly, she did.

  “I meant what I said last night,” he said, his voice low, his eyes earnest and searching. “Don’t you ever think about it?”

  She sighed. She couldn’t deny that she hadn’t.

  “You know me, Aaron,” Jules pleaded. “I don’t…commit.”

  “You do,” he said, an edge creeping into his tone. It was an edge of hurt, she realized with sadness. “When it’s something you really want.”

  “But I want this. You. Me. Just like it’s always been.”

  “And I want more.” His words were firm. Clear. And mildly threatening.

  She blinked at him, unsure what this could mean. “I don’t know, Aaron. I haven’t thought about this. You’ve taken me off guard.”

  He held up a hand, and for a moment her Aaron, her best friend, her closest companion, was back in full form. “I know, and I’m sorry. I just…I needed to say it. I love you, Jules. You know that.”

  She stared at him. Her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel the rise and fall of her chest. She knew he loved her, of course she knew that. But loving someone and being in love with them were two very different things.

  “And it’s just become too hard for me,” he continued, shaking his head.

  Wait. What?

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice raising a notch.

  “I mean I love you, Jules. But if you don’t love me, then I…I need to move on. I need to…protect myself.”

  Protect himself? From her? But she was his best friend! This was crazy. It made no sense! She almost laughed out loud, until she saw the pain in his eyes and she knew he was serious. He meant it.

  “I can’t lose you,” she said in an urgent whisper.

  “You don’t need to,” he said. He reached out and held her hand, and even though it was a hand she had held casually a hundred times before, as recently as three nights ago when she slipped on a patch of ice coming out of a cab and he had reached for her, today it felt different. And she didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

  “I’m afraid of losing what we have,” she said, hoping to make a reasonable argument here.

  “We don’t have to.”

  Jules was aware that her heart was beating and that the store clerk who had clearly been watching the entire exchange now dashed away, pretending to straighten an already straight pile of books on a nearby table, but her face was tilted so that she could still overhear the end of the conversation.

  Only Jules didn’t know how the conversation would end. She didn’t know where they went from here.

  “Think it over while you’re away,” Aaron said. He gave her a long, heartbreaking look and then leaned in, pecked her cheek and walked away, leaving her standing in the middle of the bookstore, feeling completely alone.

  So much for Winter Lake being a place to clear her head, Jules thought miserably. It was now officially a place to hide.

  Chapter Six

  Tess

  As promised, Jeff called on Saturday morning and suggested that they meet at the tree lot off Lake Street at two sharp. “And don’t even think of coming up with a lame excuse,” he warned, which, she had to admit, made her grin.

  After all, she’d been tempted.

  The tree lot he was referring to was the only lot in all of Winter Lake, family-owned for three generations and a tradition amongst long-time residents. Tess had grown up with a fake tree (at least the years that her mother was willing to put it up, or until Tess was big and strong enough to do it herself), and every year she vowed to have a real tree in her house when she was old enough, like the one in her friend Natalie’s living room, and when they were married, each year she and Andrew would come to this lot and pick out a tree, pay some kid to strap it to the top of their car, and then lug it into the house, sweating and laughing.

  Tess smiled at the memory when she pulled into the small parking lot, next to Jeff’s truck.

  “Why are you smiling, Mommy?” Phoebe asked from the backseat.

  “Oh.” Tess hesitated, not sure if she should mention the reason. She didn’t know how to handle the subject of Andrew, even now, after all these months, when she’d naively assumed she’d be used to it, maybe even recovered, when his absence wouldn’t be so noticeable. But it was. Painfully so. How many times did Phoebe do something cute and she would want to pick up the phone, dial the number she still had stored in her phone? How many times did she stil
l call the number anyway, just to hear his voice, sometimes even leaving a message? But he would never call back. And that…well, that was something she still couldn’t quite believe.

  She wanted Phoebe to remember her father. But she didn’t want to upset her. “I was just thinking about Daddy. He’d be happy that we’re carrying on the tradition of picking out our tree from this lot.”

  The truth was that she didn’t want a tree this year. Didn’t want to celebrate the holiday at all. All those traditions were from a different time, another life. Would she bother with a turkey and the cornbread stuffing and the homemade bread this year? It wouldn’t be the same. Just like going to Jeff’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving hadn’t been the same. Everything was different. And Christmas would be too. She would much prefer to just stay in bed, the curtains drawn, emerging on December 26 with a sense of relief.

  But that was something her mother would have done, and had done, more than once. Other times, she went overboard, trying to make up for lost time with smiles and cheer that never lasted long and were gone all too soon. And Tess had made a promise to herself—and to Andrew, that horrible winter day when she said her final good-bye to him—that she would take care of their daughter. And she would.

  “Daddy would be proud of us,” Phoebe agreed. She released her seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Now, come on, before all the good trees are gone!”

  Tess climbed out of the car, bracing herself for slim pickings. It was the weekend before Christmas; most people had probably had their trees up since Thanksgiving, like she used to do. Each year she and Andrew would step back and admire their handiwork, say they’d outdone themselves, each year declaring that this Christmas they had the most beautiful tree, and then each year after that, they’d say the same.

  This Christmas, Tess wasn’t betting on that. She’d settle for modest. She’d settle for bare. She’d settle for just having something with branches that might hold an ornament or two to keep Phoebe happy.