All Hearts Come Home for Christmas

by Annalisa Russo

  “Is it far enough away?” Isaiah asked.

  “Far enough. Now, get ready. Take only what you can carry. We have to go now.” He rose and turned back once he reached the door. “I joined the gang to protect us for as long as we lived here. That was the only reason. You understand, right?”

  “Yeah. I get it. I hope the new place has a school where I fit in.”

  “You don’t have to fit in, Isaiah. You just need to be yourself.”

  “Okay.” The boy turned to stuff what he needed into his backpack as his brother started down the stairs.

  “Whew,” Jillian said. “Are they going to make it, or will the gang catch up with them?”

  “Funny how things work out,” Melah said, pointing to follow James down the steps. “Mr. Williams, he has a car, and when James tries to return the Jar, he’ll offer to take them to their new destination. He’ll offer them the money in the Jar, but they’ll refuse. Then he’ll offer it again as a loan, payable when they get back on their feet. There’s $265.38 in your Christmas Jar, Shug. Enough to tide them over until the first paycheck from their new jobs. Isaiah, he’ll make a new friend on his first day of school, and they’ll be friends for life. Mr. Williams, he gonna find a job on his next interview and will always keep in touch with the Elmore family.” She disappeared through the front door of the house.

  Jillian stared at the door. No way would she try to step through the door. She’d probably knock herself silly. Melah poked her head back through the wood. “You comin’, or what?”

  “I’ll do it like a normal person,” Jillian said. She yanked the door open and stepped out into the cold. “I guess the Christmas Jar worked its magic for their family.”

  “Ain’t no magic, Jillie girl. It’s Christmas love.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The phone rang just as Jillian was about to take a shower. She wrapped herself in her bathrobe and picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hi, Jillie,” the voice said, ‘it’s me, Tristán.”

  Jillian rolled her eyes, like she could ever forget his voice. Was he calling to cancel? He had more responsibilities than she did, but it wouldn’t do to appear too anxious. “Hi, Tristán, what’s up?”

  “Ah…I thought I’d better mention where we’re going tonight. Women like to dress for the occasion, right?”

  “Ha, ha. But, yeah, we do. So where did you make reservations? Are we’re still going to take in a movie afterwards?”

  “Ah…sort of, but first I thought we’d go to your favorite restaurant. Can you guess?”

  Jillian gulped audibly. He couldn’t mean… Harborside. Green Earth, Minnesota, didn’t have many fine restaurants, but Minneapolis did—forty minutes away—where Tristán had taken her after senior prom and whenever he came home from UW at Madison, Wisconsin.

  “Harborside?”

  “Yes. Unless you’d rather not. I just thought…”

  “Oh, no. It’s very thoughtful you remembered. Are you sure you want to leave Sadie for so long?”

  “She’s ecstatic. Gracie and her older sister are babysitting. Trust me. She won’t miss me at all. I’ll be lucky if she still remembers my name by the time we get back.”

  Jillian laughed. “Well, okay, then. I’ll be ready at six. See you later.” When they hung up, she plopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Harborview on the Mississippi was a four-star restaurant with a lovely view, and the place she’d spent a magical night with her prom date—magical at least for her.

  Tristán always stayed in college over the summers, plying his trade with a small group of buddies struggling to make a name for their band. Near the end of senior year, they were offered a contract with one of the biggest names in the music business. He left a month before he graduated and never looked back. His letters had arrived more and more sporadically until they stopped altogether. She’d been a college sophomore then, the worst year of her life.

  He hadn’t been rude or mean, just focused on his dream to the exclusion of all else, which left no room for a serious relationship. But Sadie was evidence he’d had time for someone. As hard as she tried to tamp it down, jealousy reared its ugly little head. Her head hurt to think about it, so she decided to give it a rest and enjoy Harborview and whatever came next.

  When the phone rang, she was in her underwear in front of the mirror with her fourth choice of clothing for the evening held against her body. “Hey, Cleo.”

  “Did you hear from Tristán, sweetie?”

  “Yep. Date is still on, and we’re going to eat at Harborview on the Mississippi in Minneapolis.”

  “Holy cow! This is big. Now, tell me what you’re going to wear.”

  Jillian had only gotten one word out of her mouth before Cleo interrupted. “Noooo…not the blazer. Even though you’ve known him for years, wear what you would if this were a first date. Something comfortable, so you won’t fidget, but sexy, so he notices, yet elegant enough for Harborview.” The phone went quiet until, “ ‘Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.’ ”

  “Ha! Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Correctomundo. And so true.”

  Jillian blew out a longsuffering sigh. “He’s only a friend now, Cleo. I don’t have to put on airs for a friend.”

  “You and I know he’s more than that,” Cleo said, softening her voice with understanding. “And, lucky you, I’m free at the moment for fashion consultation. Plus, you know I have plenty of expertise in makeup application. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  She hung up the phone before Jillian could reply, but that was the idea: Don’t give her time to be talked out of it. Oh, well, Jillian thought, she did seem to be muddled-headed lately, and maybe she needed someone with fashion sense to help pick out an outfit, since her brain was fried from a New Orleans chef, who just happened to be dead, popping up when she least expected it.

  An hour later, Jillian twirled in front of her mirror. Cleo had assembled a long black skirt and a sparkly fuchsia cashmere sweater. High heels, and a side split in the skirt to mid-thigh, set off her legs. Ropes of pearls and crystal stopped right above her cleavage—helped by a Victoria’s Secret pushup bra and the sweater’s neckline. Cleo spritzed Obsession behind Jillian’s ears and loaned her a pair of earrings that dangled an inch below her lobes.

  Her new short haircut emphasized her slender neck and décolletage. Funny, before Cleo arrived, she didn’t even know she had a décolletage. Her friend had schlepped along a giant, multi-leveled cosmetic case from her acting days and had morphed Jillian’s face into smoky eyes, contoured cheekbones, and delectable lips. Was it really her in the mirror? Who knew she was this sultry femme fatale underneath her teacherly holiday sweaters?

  “You, my friend,” Cleo began, “will knock his socks off.” She stood back, like an artist checking the canvas for flaws, and flicked a bit of fuzz off Jillian’s sweater.

  “Done,” Cleo announced dramatically, with a sweep of her arm. She leaned in to buss Jillian on the cheek. “Now, go have fun. Got to run. Can’t be here for the big reveal. See ya.” She snapped her case shut and headed for the stairs.

  Cleo insisted on leaving by the back door, even though Jillian was sure if Tristán happened to glance out his front window he’d realize the car in her driveway was Cleo’s. But she had to admit, left to her own devices, she would have settled for simple wool slacks and a blazer. She glanced in the foyer mirror again. She did look good, even…sexy, maybe…jeez… maybe it was too much. Her thinking went along those lines until a long, black limo pulled up in front of her house and Tristán, in an expertly tailored dark suit and tie with a classy woolen overcoat over his arm, walked across the street.

  ****

  Jillian reveled in delight when Tristán’s gaze tracked up and down as he took a good look at what Cleo’s magic had accomplished. For the first time in a long time, she felt attractive and alluring. Had she really set her dreams aside and accepted the status quo? By the second date, she had known Br
ian wasn’t a long-haul kind of guy, and still she had procrastinated.

  Tristán held out a hand and twirled her around. “Wow! You look lovely. But then, you always were a knockout.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I never told you how beautiful you were. One of my many regrets.” He waved one hand toward the door. “The limo’s waiting. Ready to go?”

  His question drew her back to the moment. Tristán Solano thought she was beautiful. Thanks to Cleo, the blazer and wool slacks still hung in her closet. A must do—buy Cleo lunch at the first opportunity. “Pretty fancy, Tris,” she noted, pointing to their ride. “This is a first for me. The limo, I mean.”

  “It’s a means to an end and laziness on my part. I didn’t want to fight traffic.” He took the coat she held out and set it around her shoulders. He rubbed the soft velvet between his fingers. “Talk about fancy.”

  She laughed. “Cleo’s sense of drama.”

  “Cleo would know.” He put her hand in his and pulled the door shut behind him.

  ****

  Harborside’s Winterlicious five-course, prix-fixe dinner menu was obviously a hit with the locals, if the crowded restaurant was any indication. Excellent food and impeccable service drew people in for a festive evening of gourmet food and wine pairings. When Tristán made the reservation, he had used a false name, probably a necessity for his way of life. She wondered how the private man she had known dealt with the lack of privacy. Music had always been at the core of his dream. Fame, which was the result of his talent, would have been secondary.

  “How did you know,” Jillian asked, after the waiter had taken their order.

  “Oh, you mean the snow?” Noticing Jillian’s gaze had turned to the lovely view from their table, Tristán sat back into the plush armchair. “I checked the weather reports. Minneapolis had six inches two days ago.” He picked up his glass of red wine, swirled it, and took a sip.

  While piped-in, big-band Christmas music tinkled softly in the background, tiny white lights strung along the pier cast their glow on the lazy flow of the Mississippi River. Snow banks glistened, diamond-like, in the moonlight, and ducks that Jillian thought should have flown south by now waddled along the banks. It was the most romantic sight she’d ever seen—until a red sleigh pulled by horses with jingle-bell yokes stopped at the top of the pier to unload bundled-up passengers. They hurried into the restaurant and the warmth of one of the many stone fireplaces.

  She sighed and propped her chin on her hand. “Remember the fun we had making snowmen?”

  “Mostly, I remember how you pounded me with snowballs.”

  “Well, a girl must defend her fort, and you guys always outnumbered me. Hence the aggressive behavior. If there had been more girls in the neighborhood—”

  “By girls, you mean tomboys like you,” Tristán interrupted. He laughed and curled his fingers around hers. “I think back to those days a lot now, Jillie. I want Sadie to have the same experiences. I want her to have a best friend, like I had with you, and stability, and love.” He lowered his eyes. “Life on the road was brutal, and I admit, profitable. But I owe Sadie a different life than carting her from one gig to another. I enrolled her at Sheridan School for next fall’s kindergarten program. In the meantime, I’ll try to find a preschool, maybe half-day, if she’s interested.”

  “Wendy attends Bethel Baptist pre-school three afternoons a week. They have a wonderful program for four-year-olds, and the building is close by—Jasper Street—within walking distance in the summer. You and Mel could car pool in bad weather.” And then she laughed at the thought. “Sorry, hard to see you in a stay-at-home-daddy, car-pool situation.” She picked up her wine with her free hand.

  After an incredible meal of Caesar salad with herbed croutons, wild mushroom spaghettini with pecorino cream sauce, Chateaubriand for two, with roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes, Jillian didn’t think she could eat another bite. And since each course was served with a wine pairing, she had a mellow buzz going on.

  “I want to tell you about Sadie…about her mother.”

  Startled for a moment, Jillian realized Tristán’s tone had taken on a serious bent, as if the recounting of what he was about to say would embarrass, or worse, open old wounds. She tried to ease the way. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but I did wonder about Sadie’s mother. On the other hand, it’s none of my business, so don’t feel pressured to explain.” Unless, of course, you’re still married to her.

  “I should probably start at the beginning.” His lips thinned out in a straight line and then morphed into a teeth-grinding grimace. “I was a fool. Period. No, let me amend that. I was a selfish fool. I didn’t do a very good job of explaining myself to you when I left college so abruptly.” He rubbed his thumb over the side of her hand.

  “Music was everything to me back then. I wanted the bright lights, and…I admit, the adoration. But the bright lights can blind you, and I felt myself slip slowly, blindly, into the deception of the life.” He pulled back his hand and continued. “Groupies followed us wherever we went. I never had what you would call a relationship with any one woman. We traveled extensively, not conducive to really getting to know any of them. I was careful not to make any promises I couldn’t keep.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s hard to admit this to you because it shows how careless I had become despite my promise to myself.” He laughed hoarsely. “You wouldn’t have liked me very much in those days, Jillie. What I became…I would have been a disappointment to you, because I was to myself.” He left the sentence hang in the silence.

  “Say something, Jillie.”

  “I want the whole story, Tris. Right now, the man you’ve become still feels like the boy I cared for once. You don’t seem any different to me than the day you left. If you have any sins to confess, I’m not the one you should talk to.”

  “Always the pragmatist, Jillie. You always had a way of cutting through the crap.” His fingers did a quick staccato on the tablecloth and then curled into a fist. “She—Sadie’s mother—was a groupie who traveled with me for a while. Sweet, fun to be with, but not a serious kind of girl. We were together for a couple of months, and then she moved on. I had fond memories, but that was all.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “One day I got a phone call from her, from the hospital. She needed me to help her out. I thought she needed money and would have gladly given her any amount she wanted. We had parted as friends, no hard feelings. So I flew to Dallas, to the hospital, where I expected to find a very ill woman. She was in her room, dressed, with a small duffle bag on the hospital bed. She said she’d had my baby, a little girl, and she planned to move on. She couldn’t afford to take care of the baby, and she didn’t want to be tied down to me, the baby, or to anyone. She was a free spirit—whatever the hell that meant—and she was leaving.”

  “Oh, Tristán…I don’t know what to say. What did you do? Well, I know you didn’t walk away.” Jillian couldn’t imagine a worse scenario. Tristán wasn’t the kind of man who could turn away from his own child. His father hadn’t been a very good role model, but that didn’t mean Tristán wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.

  “She walked away after her speech and never looked back. I don’t know what happened to her or where she is now.”

  “How do you feel about her?”

  His brow furrowed slightly in thought. He took a long sip of his wine. “Sadie is the best thing that ever happened to me. I hired a nanny to travel with us and take care of her. Back then, you could put what I knew about babies in a thimble, so I learned—quickly. I guess I don’t harbor any ill feelings toward Dawn—her name was Dawn. I hope she found happiness in her life. But she gave me Sadie, and I’ll always be grateful to her. Sadie saved my life.”

  Jillian tried to decipher the meaning of the comment for a few seconds and finally abandoned the effort. “What do you mean?”

  “Honestly, when Sadie came into my life, I was barely hanging on. She g
rounded me, gave my life a new meaning. The lifestyle I had would have killed me eventually. I had picked up some bad habits.”

  Jillian’s brows rose. “Not drugs. I won’t believe you got hooked on drugs.”

  “Abuelita always worried about me being in the business, too, but no. Not after Luis died. But I was on a very selfish, narcissistic path, where the world was disappearing except for our musical appearances. I don’t know if you can understand. There was nothing else. Just the music and the fame. I was losing myself—for the money, for the notoriety. Luckily, I made a few good friends along the way. One in particular—my agent, Ross Hollister. He had a come-to-Jesus-talk with me. He encouraged me to step away from the band, even though it meant a huge loss of income for him.”

  He stopped talking and smiled wryly. “I’m doing a great job of entertaining you this evening, Jillie. Quite the silver-tongued fox, huh?”

  She poked him in the arm. “Silly. Sadie’s a wonderful little girl. As for Dawn, I’m afraid it was her loss. She never got to know her beautiful daughter. You can be proud of Sadie, and I think you’ve done a bang-up job raising her for the last three and a half years. I’m proud of you, too.”

  “You wouldn’t give me any credit if you saw some of the places I dragged Sadie to while on the road. I cringe,” he said as he shuddered visibly, “every time I think of those days.”

  “You can make it up to her, Tris, by being the best darn dad anyone ever had.”

  “Maybe I’ll use yours as a role model.”

  “Couldn’t ask for better than mine. Mom and Dad are on a Mediterranean cruise for their dual retirement celebration.”

  “I wondered why they weren’t here. What about Noah?”

  “Married, with a great wife and a brand-new baby girl—living in Boston. Unfortunately for me, that’s the reason why no one is here for Christmas.”

  “Hmmm…” he said as the waiter arrived with their dessert. “I might have to fix your little problem.”