Home for the Holidays

by Sarah Mayberry

  He took another mouthful and thought about Ben. The guilt and grief that had come out in counseling. The heavy weight his son had been carrying. The sadness that was still inside him.

  Then he thought about Ruby, with her infinite trust and craving for connection. She’d forged a bond with Hannah right from the start. How was this going to hit her? How would she cope with knowing that someone else she loved might leave her?

  The glass was empty. He reached for the bottle and poured.

  And then he thought about Hannah. And he thought about Ben. And he thought about Ruby.

  HANNAH SNIFFED LOUDLY. Her mother passed her another handful of tissues, her third since Joe had marched away from their front door.

  “This is the right thing,” she said for the tenth time.

  As always, her mother remained silent. Hannah blew her nose.

  “He sounded angry. I knew he’d be angry, but once he thinks about it he’ll know I’m right,” Hannah said.

  Her mother shifted on the bed beside her. “He was very angry. Scared, too, I think.”

  “Once he calms down and goes over it all in his head, he’ll realize I’m right. This is the best thing for everybody,” Hannah said.

  “Is it the best thing for you?”

  “I want them to be happy.”

  “And what if being with you makes them happy?”

  “For how long?”

  Her mother had no answer to that. Hannah took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Thank you for answering the door. I appreciate it.”

  “He said he’d be back tomorrow.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell him the same thing.”

  “He loves you.”

  Hannah stared at the scrunched tissues in her lap. “He’ll get over it. There are plenty of women out there who would jump at the chance to be with a great guy like him.” She could barely get the words out. The mere thought of Joe with another woman made her want to punch something. So much for her self-sacrificing streak.

  “You always were stubborn. It’s what’s going to get you through this, you know. Nobody this stubborn dies from cancer.”

  “I hope you’re right. Bloody hell, I hope you’re right,” Hannah said. She took a deep breath. “Mom, I’m so scared.”

  Her mom put her arms around her and pulled Hannah against her chest. She soothed a hand over Hannah’s hair and pressed a kiss to her brow.

  “Of course you’re scared. Cancer is scary. But people beat it all the time, Hannah. And you’re going to be one of them.”

  There was so much certainty, so much determination in her voice that Hannah couldn’t help but take heart.

  “If you say so.”

  “I do. Now, we need to make a list of questions we want to ask the surgeon on Monday. All the magazines say you have to be your own medical advocate when you have a serious illness. You have to be informed.”

  Her mother let Hannah go and started searching in Hannah’s bedside table for a pad and pen. Hannah watched her for a moment, touched by her stern earnestness.

  “Thank you, Mom.”

  Her mother looked up, surprised. “What for?”

  “Not falling apart.”

  In truth, Hannah had expected her mother to crumble when she heard the news, but she’d simply stared at Hannah for a long moment before reaching out and taking both her hands. You’ll beat this had been her first words, something Hannah would be eternally grateful for.

  “Oh, there’s plenty of time to fall apart later, sweetheart. Right now we’ve got a fight on our hands.”

  They talked until the small hours, until they’d both run out of things to say. Finally Hannah let her mother tuck her into bed.

  She rolled onto her side and stared into the darkness. She had no tears left, nothing but emptiness. Tomorrow she would wake up and face the first day of her new reality.

  SHE’D EXPECTED to toss and turn, but she slept like a log. The events of the past forty-eight hours had left her so drained, so exhausted, she didn’t even have the energy for dreams. She woke feeling puffy-eyed and heavy. A flutter of dread raced through her as memory descended.

  She had cancer. And Joe and his children were no longer a part of her life.

  She stared at the wall and took a deep breath. If ever there was a day to stay in bed and hide from the world, it was today. She flung back the covers. Hiding from the world wasn’t going to get her anywhere, and she had things to do, plans to make.

  She thought about Ben and Ruby as she showered. She’d do her best to hide her illness from them, but it was inevitable that they would find out. They lived next door, after all. But hopefully by then Hannah would have had the time to create some distance between them. She’d tell Ruby she was too busy at work to finish their latest restoration project, a ’56 Harley they’d bought from the scrap yard. That would keep any contact to a minimum. No more visits to The Watering Hole. No more watching the kids while Joe worked late or taking Ben to cricket practice. The kids would think she and Joe had simply broken up. They’d be hurt for a while, but a little hurt now was preferable to a lot of hurt later.

  And Joe…Joe would move on, too. He might be angry with her for a while, and sad, but she knew he would eventually understand she’d done the best thing for him and his children.

  She’d never thought she could love anyone so much that she would be able to let them go when everything in her screamed for her to cling fast. But she wasn’t free to love them. She had nothing to offer. It was as simple and as painful as that.

  She looked in the mirror as she dried off after her shower, her gaze dropping to her breasts. Slowly she cupped them in her hands, feeling the weight of them, the shape of them, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a scar instead of rounded flesh, to be lopsided and bare.

  It was impossible, but she figured the reality would come soon enough. She let her hands drop. If she was ever in a position to be worried about her vanity again, she figured she’d be one of the luckiest women in the world.

  She dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and wandered out to the kitchen. Her mother was busy juicing oranges.

  “Lots of fresh fruit from now on,” she said. “There’s a cookbook I’ve seen, too, about positive eating.”

  “That sounds good,” Hannah said.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Like it’s the calm before the storm.”

  “I can imagine.”

  There was a knock at the door. Hannah glanced at her mother.

  “Would you mind? In case it’s Joe.”

  “It probably is. He said he’d be back this morning.”

  Her mother simply looked at her. Hannah sighed. She’d always known it would take more than one conversation to convince a man as loyal and loving as Joe to protect himself.

  “Okay, I’ll get it,” she said.

  She took a deep breath, then went to open the door.

  She retreated a step when she saw he wasn’t alone. He was standing hand in hand with his children, Ben on his left, Ruby on his right. Ruby’s eyes were puffy from tears and Ben looked as though he’d been crying, too. Joe held her gaze steadily when she looked at him.

  “I’ve come to give you our answer,” he said. He was pale but his gaze was very direct.

  “I didn’t ask you for one.”

  “That was your first mistake.”

  “Joe, don’t,” she said. “Please. This isn’t fair.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. There was a hardness to his face, a fierceness that she’d never seen there before.

  “The kids and I have been talking. I told them your news,” he said. Ruby sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Hannah looked at her small, pinched face, her heart aching.

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “They deserve to know. They love you.”

  Ben’s eyes didn’t waver from her face. Despite the fact that she’d cried buckets last night, she felt tears welling again.
<
br />   “Joe, please—”

  “The least you can do is hear them out,” he said.

  Ruby stepped forward.

  Oh, God.

  She couldn’t believe he was putting her through this. Didn’t he understand she was walking away because she loved him?

  “I haven’t said it to you before because I was too shy, but I want you to know that I love you,” Ruby said. “And I want you to get better and I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Keep my room clean and help with the cooking and go to bed on time without being asked. Anything you need.”

  Hannah blinked rapidly. This was too much. She glared at Joe but he stared back at her, implacable.

  It was Ben’s turn. He took a step forward, his hands clutched together in front of him.

  “I know I was mean at the start, but I think you’re ace and I really want you to come to Queensland with us because it would be cool to go on the big waterslides with you,” he said, his speech so rapid the words almost ran together. He stepped back by his father’s side.

  She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak.

  “Wait,” Ben said suddenly. “I didn’t finish properly.” He blushed deeply. “I love you, too. And I don’t care if you’re sick.”

  He ducked his head bashfully. Hannah closed her eyes, but the tears spilled out anyway. She heard Joe murmur something, and when she opened her eyes again it was just him standing there. She stared at him, her chest aching with sadness.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” she said.

  “Don’t you get it, Hannah? You think you can protect us but it’s too late. We already love you. We’re committed. You’re a part of our family now, and family doesn’t walk away when the going gets tough.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Can’t you understand that?”

  Joe closed the distance between them. He wiped away her tears with his thumbs.

  “I know, and it’s one of the many reasons I love you. But you’re not doing this without us, Hannah. No way. That’s our choice, and we’ve made it freely, and we’ll camp out on your doorstep if that’s what it takes to make you see sense.”

  To her utter astonishment, Joe dropped down to one knee.

  “But I’m kind of hoping it won’t come to that,” he said.

  “No,” she said, trying to pull him back to his feet. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I think I do. I don’t want you getting any stupid ideas like this again.”

  He reached out and took one of her cold, trembling hands in his.

  “Hannah Louise Napier, will you marry me?”

  “You know my middle name,” she said stupidly.

  “Yes. I know a lot more than that, too. I know I love you, even though I never thought I’d feel this way or even want to feel this way again. I know I want to fight over the remote control with you and make pizzas with you and ride that Thunderbird of yours one day. I know I want to make love to you and wake up with you in my bed each and every day. I know I want to stand by your side while you fight this battle so we can grow old together.”

  “What if I lose?”

  He didn’t break eye contact for a second. “Then I’ll be with you till the end. I’ll take whatever chance I can get, Hannah. If the past two years have taught me anything, it’s that happiness and love are too bloody precious to walk away from, no matter how fleeting they might be.”

  She stared into his face, taking in the clearness of his blue gaze, the proudness of his nose, the strength of his jaw.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I know. Say yes.”

  “It’s crazy. We should wait until we know more.”

  “Until when? I love you now. I want you to be my wife now.”

  He was too strong. Too sure. Too compelling. And it was too close to what her heart craved. “God, I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Joe…”

  “Just say yes.”

  The word seemed to form itself on her lips all on its own.

  “Yes.”

  Joe leaned forward from his kneeling position and wrapped his arms around her waist, his head coming to rest against her belly.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said fiercely.

  She couldn’t believe how brave he was, how determined. And how brave his kids were, how generous. She remembered the way they’d stepped up and said their piece and her heart swelled in her chest.

  After a long moment Joe pushed himself to his feet.

  “Let’s go tell the kids you’ve come to your senses. Then we need to go buy you a ring. Ruby offered her Barbie ring, but I figured you might like to choose your own.”

  “You told the kids you were going to propose to me?”

  “Of course. It’s their family, too, you know. They have minds of their own, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Thought you might have.”

  He slid his hand along her jaw and into her hair. “I love you, Hannah. We’re going to get through this.”

  “I hope so.”

  He kissed her. “I know so.”

  Then he led her out into the street to find the children.

  EPILOGUE

  TWO YEARS LATER, Hannah hovered in the wings with Ruby as she waited for their cue to hit the catwalk. This was their third appearance in the annual mother-daughter fashion parade fundraiser. Last year, Ruby had insisted on shaving her hair because Hannah’s chemo had left her with nothing but baby fuzz. They’d worn matching punk outfits and received a prize for being best dressed. This year they’d opted for a more conservative look, both sporting shoulder-length haircuts and strappy floral dresses.

  Hannah had been lucky. The surgeon had recommended a lumpectomy to treat her tumor and performed a partial reconstruction at the same time. She had scars, and the radiation therapy had left her breast tissue sore and red for months, but she still had a breast.

  The chemo had been harder in many ways, sapping her energy, sending her lurching to the bathroom morning, noon and night, making her hair fall out in handfuls. But she’d gotten through it.

  Joe had rubbed her back and bought her scarves and hats to keep her head warm through winter. Ruby and Ben had played board games with her and educated her in the ways of Spore and The Sims. Her mother had come up with a million different ways to tempt her with food, even when she had next to no appetite at all. Joe’s mother had made sure the house ran smoothly so Hannah and Joe could concentrate their energies where they were needed. And her sister had taken her for regular massages and brought her new niece to visit.

  They’d started talking soon after Hannah’s surgery, in time for her sister to attend her wedding. Hannah had decided that if she was only going to be around for a short time, she wanted her days to be as positive and full of happiness as possible. That meant forgiving and moving on and being a part of the new life her sister had brought into the world.

  But it was looking more and more likely that she was going to be around for a long time. She’d seen her doctor for her regular six-month follow-up last week. Her scans were clear and she was officially in remission. She’d been tested and did not carry the breast cancer gene, which was another point in her favor.

  If her luck held, she would pass the five-year mark and be officially classed as a survivor.

  She was going to get there. She knew it. She already felt like a survivor.

  The music changed and the stage manager pointed at Hannah and Ruby. They smiled at each other and caught each other’s hands. Heads high, they started down the catwalk, strutting their stuff.

  She still got nervous before doing things like this. She still hated fussing over her hair and makeup and much preferred jeans to skirts and dresses. But she enjoyed the sheer fun of it so much more now, the being alive-ness of it. Especially when she looked into the audience at the end of the runway and saw Joe standing
there, arms crossed over his chest, a small, satisfied smile on his face as he watched his wife and daughter.

  Their gazes locked for a long moment and Hannah imagined how the evening might unfold, how they’d go home after the fundraiser and pore over the photographs Ben was taking and tease Ruby about her growing vanity. How Joe and Hannah might wait till the kids were in bed before having a glass of wine then turning in themselves. How Joe might undress her slowly and kiss each newly exposed swath of skin. How they’d make love with tenderness and patience, or passion and urgent need. And how they might then lie in each other’s arms and make plans for the future.

  She smiled, and Joe smiled back, his face full of love and heat and more than a little lust.

  Another good day together, with another to come tomorrow, and another after that.

  It was all anyone could ask for.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4333-4

  HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

  Copyright © 2009 by Small Cow Productions Pty Ltd.

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