by Liz Schulte
“Oh sorry. You just look cold.”
“Because I am. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the cookies.” Her pale fingers clutched the plate.
I started down the walkway. I’d have to dig deeper and see what was really happening. When I got to the street, I turned back. “You want a cup coffee?” I called.
Frown line creased her forehead.
I flashed a smile. “I live across the street, if you change your mind.”
I went back inside and hung up my coat, then headed to the kitchen and filled the reservoir on the espresso machine to let it heat. Just when the machine was getting nice and warm, there was a knock on the door. I smiled to myself. She’d come. I walked slowly toward the front door and opened it. Parker stood trembling on the porch, hands jammed into her pockets.
“Your offer for coffee still good?”
“Of course.” I stepped back and let her inside.
She trailed after me as I went back toward the kitchen. Though I didn’t really live here, I had never actually brought someone I was helping home with me. It was a strange blend of my worlds: work life and private life.
“Wow, you really did a lot with the place, didn’t you? It doesn’t look the same at all.”
“It just needed a little attention.”
“I’ll say. I thought the house was condemned and was supposed to be torn down this year.”
“Oh really?” I pulled out the Italian espresso beans and look at her. “Espresso or Americano?”
“Americano,” she said, eyes narrowing. “So … you married?”
I laughed as I ground the beans and made the espresso in a large cup and added water. She watched me as I worked. “What do you do? Why are you alone on Christmas?”
I slid her beverage over to her, then started on my own coffee. “I’m new to the area and I‘m a counselor. I don’t have any family.”
“And yet you decorated for Christmas?” She raised an eyebrow as she sipped her coffee. She looked back at me surprised. “This is really good.”
“Of course it is. I’m Italian.”
She smiled just a little. “And the decorations? Clearly there’s a woman’s touch. So where’s your girlfriend?”
I started to deny that there was anyone, but I stopped. Olivia wanted Parker to see me for a reason. She wanted us to talk and for me to gain this girl’s trust. “She chose another man. What about you? Where’s your boyfriend?”
Parker rolled her eyes and let out a bitter laugh. “I hate Christmas.” Her hands absentmindedly fluffed her purple hair as she looked back at me. “He’s in LA. I come home once a year and he wouldn’t come with me. Now he’s pissed that I’m here at all. Won’t answer my texts.”
“You only see your dad once a year?”
She glanced toward the front door. “We were never really close, but then my mom died and I don’t know … Things sort of fell apart. Every year it’s harder to come back.”
I nodded. “Because of the drinking?”
“The what?” She seemed seriously confused.
My mouth fell open. I’d seen her father passed out and the aura of sickness and pallor of death surrounding him. “You said he stopped drinking and dumped out all the alcohol. I assumed…”
“Oooohh. No, that’s not what I meant. He only drinks at Christmas. That’s when my mom died. It’s just a hard time of year for him. Honestly the drinking helps. Without it he nags me constantly about how my mother wouldn’t approve of my life choices and how Justin is a narcissistic asshole who isn’t good enough for me. So he cheated on me once. How is that any of his business?” She took another drink of her coffee. “Why am I telling you all of this? You don’t care.”
“No. I do. I mean I get it.” I leaned against the counter. “No matter how well intentioned people are, matters of the heart have to be settled on their own terms.”
She scrunched her nose. “You’re kinda stuffy, aren’t you? The guy your girlfriend left you for … he’s fun, isn’t he? I bet he never uses the phrase ‘matters of the heart.’”
“Something like that. You want to move to the living room?” I walked out without waiting for her to answer.
“I hit a nerve, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I know it sounded like it, but I didn’t mean you aren’t fun. I don’t even know you. You could be a laugh a minute sort of guy.”
“Who would want to laugh every minute?” I mumbled, sitting down. “And for the record, he isn’t funny either.”
Parker smoothed her skirt as she sat across from me on the couch, one leg tucked beneath her. “Then what was it? How did you lose your perfect girl?”
Well, we certainly weren’t here to talk about me. “I never said she was perfect. Is Justin perfect?”
She snorted. “Hardly. He’s … addictive. Maybe someday we’ll be good fit.” She didn’t look like she believed it. “Your turn. If she isn’t perfect, what is she?”
“Olivia is vibrant.” And very nearly perfect, but what good would it do to say that out loud. I shook my head. “She’s just not in love with me.”
“But she sends you Christmas gifts.” She nodded to the tree. “Sorry, but it’s the only package beneath the tree.”
“We’re still friends.”
She whistled. “Bet that’s easy.”
I smiled. “Actually with her it is.” The snow was coming down hard enough outside I couldn’t see the house across the street. “I bet your father’s worried.”
She followed by gaze. “What makes you think so?”
“If you were my daughter, I would be.”
She took a couple deep breaths and stood up. “Thanks for the coffee.” She offered me her hand and I took it. Her whole face softened as her skin met mine. One of the more pleasant side effects of being a guardian. “And the chat.”
“I’m very glad I met you.”
She gave me a wave and started for the door.
“Wait,” I told her. I got my coat and handed it to her. “It’s too cold not to have a coat.”
She bit her lip as she slipped it on. “Would you like to have dinner with my father and me? I can’t promise we’ll be civil, but we may be entertaining.”
“I’d love to.”
I waited until she was back home, then I transported to their house, once again staying hidden from them. Parker was untying her boots when her dad came out of the kitchen.
“Where’d you go?”
“The bar.”
“One week a year, Parker. That’s all I get and you can’t even be respectful or appreciative—”
She whipped up, one shoe still on, eyes blazing. “Appreciative? Of what?” Her voice rose an octave. “Of you never being here? Of taking care of Mom until she couldn’t bear the pain another moment when you couldn’t be bothered to come home? Or maybe I should appreciate all the advice you try to give me, but you know what, I just can’t. You don’t know me at all and it’s too late for you to be my father.”
She yarded off the last boot and started up the stairs, then stopped abruptly and turned around. “I invited a neighbor for dinner.” She slammed her door.
Her father swore under his breath and went back into the kitchen. He opened the nearly empty, now that Parker had cleaned it out, refrigerator.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly from the doorway.
“It’s my fault. I just don’t—”
“I know. It’s okay.” She leaned her head against the jamb. “We don’t have any food do we?”
He smiled grimly. “I meant to go to the grocery store. You think anything’s open?”
“A few restaurants maybe.”
I transported to the porch and knocked on the door. Parker opened it. “Quintus. What are you doing here?”
“You know, I was thinking that rather than make the two of you cook, when you’ve already so generously offered to spend your holiday with me, you should come to my house. Let’s say 7:00? I’ll cook.”
Parker smiled widely, though the dark lines in her aura hadn’
t budged. “That sounds perfect.”
Her dad wasn’t the problem. If Olivia and Holden taught me anything about the human condition it was that fighting and hurting each other didn’t mean you didn’t love each other. Even if they couldn’t communicate well—and despite any bitterness she had about his being absent when she needed him in childhood—she came home faithfully every year to spend time with him. It had to be something else.
The boyfriend.
It was slightly more difficult with Justin not being here, but not insurmountable, though she was sensitive about the subject. I’d have to tread lightly. Perhaps whisper a few suggestions to her throughout the day, planting the seed of thought that she could do better than him.
I made a quick trip home to Italy get what I needed for our Christmas feast, then throughout the remainder of the afternoon I cooked and prepared—and made occasional visits to her house to help foster the idea that Justin wasn’t right for her.
Minutes before they were due to arrive, I heaved a happy sigh and smiled at my handiwork: an antipasto plate with cured meats, a selection of olives, and a myriad of cheeses. A lasagne verdi alla Bolognese with homemade noodles bubbling away on the top shelf of the oven, and a chicken and potatoes roasting beneath. The glorious smell of food filled the house and I sipped my wine as I surveyed the mess in the kitchen. Every inch of counter space was either dirty or covered with used dishes. Though it was cheating, a flash of light later, the mess was gone.
Promptly at seven, there was a knock on my door. Parker and her father came in out of the cold. Parker handed me back my coat. “Thank for this.”
“What sort of gentleman would send a lady home without a coat?”
“It’s really coming down,” her dad said, brushing snow off his shoulders. “We could barely see your house until we were on top of it.”
“Quintus, this is my dad, William Wells. Dad, this is Quintus.” We shook hands.
“Call me Bill. It’s good of you to have us.”
“You’re doing me the favor. I hate spending Christmas alone.” I smiled at them. “I hope you’re hungry.”
The first course was painfully silent. This would never do. I served the lasagna and was met with more silence.
“What do the two of you do for a living?” I asked.
“Road construction,” Bill answered. “This is damn fine pasta.”
“Thank you. It’s an old recipe.” All my recipes were old recipes.
Parker didn’t look up from her plate and poked at her food.
“Not enjoying it?” I asked.
Her large brown eyes shot up. “No, it’s wonderful. I’m sorry.”
“She had a fight with her boyfriend,” Billy said.
“Don’t start,” Parker ground out.
I took a bite, looking back and forth between the two of them. “Would either of you like a glass of wine?”
“Yes, please,” Parker said. Bill shook his head.
I went to the kitchen, collected two glasses and a bottle of chianti, then went back to the dining room. It was on the tip of my tongue to bring up Justin, but when Parker’s mouth inched toward a smile, I couldn’t do it. Dinner wasn’t the time to discuss this. We needed a subject change.
“When did you move in, Quintus? I can’t honestly say I saw a moving van,” Bill asked.
Any subject but that subject. “It was gradual. I had to do a lot of renovations and moved things in a little at time.” I gave them my best smile and let a little light of goodwill off in their direction. Lying wasn’t a strength.
“Why do you like Christmas?” Parker asked. “I mean it’s sort of weird. I don’t think many single people put up all these decorations or invite perfect strangers to their house.”
She wasn’t wrong. Had Olivia not sent me here, or done all of this on her own, I wouldn’t have done anything. I couldn’t even remember the last time I celebrated a holiday, but rather than lie, I dug deep down into the wells of my past. “When I was a boy, my village used to hold a large feast every year around this time. There would be a banquet, gift giving, and a carnival afterward. Every year I would get so excited for the festivities that when the festival finally came around it was nearly impossible for it to live up to what I imagined it would be. But somehow it just managed. Every year the festival was a little bit more exciting than the last until one year when it never happened.”
“Why?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Originally the festival was about celebrating all that we had, but over time it became something else, trying to be bigger and better every year than the one before. We lost our way and it was taken from us.”
“Isn’t that what’s happening to Christmas?” Parker took a bite.
“Only if you let it. Yes, I am alone and yes I still decorate because I’m celebrating not the gifts I get on this one day, but the gifts I receive all year long. And I invite strangers into my house because right now, especially on this day, we are all children of the earth and that makes us family, separated by nothing but our own insecurities.”
Parker ran the back of her thumb over her bottom lip as she stared at me.
“Very well said,” Bill said. “I put up the tree every year.”
“It’s not the same. Yours is a shrine to the past,” Parker said.
He frowned and opened his mouth to argue, but I intercepted. “What’s your favorite Christmas memory?”
He blinked a few times, but his shoulders lowered. “Parker’s first Christmas. I always enjoyed the holidays, but when Emma and I had Parker it changed everything. Suddenly everything was bursting at the seams with newness and magic that we lose with adulthood.”
I nodded. “It’s hard to hold on. No matter how tight your grip, time coaxes it from your hand. How about you, Parker?”
“Nothing comes to mind,” she said, looking hard at her plate.
I cleared the second course and served the third. Her father and I kept the conversation going through the chicken. Parker mostly pushed the food around on her plate, deep in her own thoughts.
I walked them to the door much later, and Parker was still only answering direct questions and even those took some nudging. Her father shook my hand. “I’m glad to have met you. We should do this again.”
“Absolutely. Have a good night.” The two of them left and I was no closer to figuring out how to help Parker.
I had just cleared the dishes from the table and finished the last of the wine, when there was another soft knock on the door, a thump-thump, thump-thump, thump I now recognized as Parker’s signature knock.
“Did you forget something?” I asked as I opened the door.
She stood on the porch wearing a hat pulled down over her ears, a large puffy coat, snow boots, and thick mittens. “Would you like to go for a walk?” Her cheeks were pink and her eyes soulful, but something was bothering her.
I frowned. “In the middle of snowstorm?”
“It is kind of crazy, isn’t it?” She nodded and looked at the ground. “Never mind. Have a good night.”
I still needed to talk to her about Justin. “Wait. I didn’t say no. But are you sure you wouldn’t rather just come inside?”
“I feel cooped up.”
I dressed for the elements and accompanied her outside. We strolled down the center of the road t toward Main Street. Every building and tree was covered in white lights that led the way through the fresh snowfall.
“What happened with Justin?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“I suspect just the opposite is true. It has been my experience that women can almost always pinpoint where they think things went wrong.”
“He doesn’t love me. Not really. Everything’s always about him and he expects that to continue—but it’s my fault too. I went along with it. But now, I don’t know if I can anymore.”
“There’s nothing wrong with standing up for yourself. You deserve more.”
“Do I really?” Her voice was flat and
indifferent.
“Yes, really. You’re bright and honest. You should be cherished.”
She pressed her lips together and looked in the other direction, but not before I caught the glistening in her eyes. “So I should leave him?”
“What does your heart say?”
“It’s not that simple. I live with Justin. We have a shared lease, money is a huge factor, and … it’s hard.”
“I think you know what you should do. You just want to hear someone else say it.”
“Then say it,” she pleaded.
I shook my head. “Leave him and find a better life.”
We turned back toward home and walked in silence for several minutes.
“Everything is so much clearer here,” she finally said when she was standing on her porch again.
“You could stay.”
Tears threatened to spill over as the dark paths in her aura grew. “I can’t.”
I was failing again and I had no idea how to fix it.
“Olivia, I could use your help,” I said, but she didn’t come. I sat in my chair and went over the long day and everything I’d tried so far. I’d been so certain I could fix this in less than twenty-four hours. Where had I gone wrong?
“I’m sure you’re not doing as bad as you think,” Olivia said from the couch, apparently deciding to make an appearance after all.
I looked over at her. “I made it worse. I was trying to fix things and only made them worse.”
She crossed her legs beneath her and pulled her hands into the sleeves of her oversized sweater. “By ‘fix things’ you mean what exactly?”
I sighed. “At first I thought the problem was that her dad was an alcoholic, but when I stopped him from drinking, she didn’t improve. Then I thought her boyfriend was the problem. So I aided her in seeing that she can do better than him.”
Olivia nodded, her face carefully blank. “But that didn’t work either.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
Olivia stared at the fire for several moments before she spoke. “Did you listen to me at all when I gave you this assignment?”
“Of course I listened. I’m here, aren’t I?”