Christmas on Mimosa Lane (A Seasons of the Heart Novel)

by Anna DeStefano

  “Maybe Grams and Papa would help,” Mal said to herself.

  She rubbed Mama’s back when she coughed again, and tried not to panic. She had to do somethin’. She couldn’t let Mama stay sick. She reached into the plastic shopping bag that stored her stuff, careful not to untie one of Mama’s special knots that kept everyone else out. She found her doll and tucked it under her arm, even though it was stupid for a twelve-year-old to need a baby doll to calm herself down.

  “Just for a while,” she said, “maybe Grams and Papa would come and help until you’re better.” She didn’t know what else to do, and she really, really didn’t want her mama to die. “Or they could send us money. Or maybe—”

  “They’d make us go back.” Mama coughed again, harsh and scratchy and makin’ Mal’s chest hurt, too, as she tried not to cry. Mama huddled deeper into the old orange coat she never took off, even when it got warm outside. “We don’t want to go back, and they won’t help if we don’t. We’re doin’ just fine. This is where we belong. We don’t want to go back.”

  Mama thought they could do this forever.

  But Mal was twelve now, and twelve wasn’t six. She could see things better. The craziness. Mama’s sickness. It was worse. All of it was more worse than ever.

  Even if Mama hadn’t caught the flu, things were never gonna be fine no matter how many Christmases went by, or how many memories and dreams and trashy dolls Mal held on to. There was no fixing what was scaring Mal most—that feeling safe was never really gonna happen for them. Not unless she went back on the promise she’d made Mama the day they’d run away—that they’d stay together always and never go back to Grams and Papa’s.

  She dug her hand into the pocket of her too-short jeans and closed her fingers around the quarter she kept hidden there instead of in their bags, where Mama would find it when she sifted through everything looking for money or to make sure nothing had gotten stolen. She clutched her doll close. She wanted to scream as Mama coughed into her arm to muffle the sound so no one would hear.

  “Of course we don’t wanna go back,” Mal said, still patting her mama’s back. She leaned her head against the wall behind the cot, making a thudding sound. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and stared through the dark room full of cots and other street people who’d come out of the cold, looking out the grimy window high up on the wall she was facing, at the snow still falling through the moonlight.

  The tiny window made her feel better. It made the little town’s night seem more like a fantasy than a scary place where she kept wondering if her mama might really die this time. It almost made Mal want to sleep, so she could dream and forget how bad things were and how scared she felt and how much she wanted this to end.

  What would it be like? Christmas morning with Mama and Grams and Papa again. Clean and safe and nothin’ to worry about, even though Christmas had never really been like that with her crazy mama messing things up, not even before they ran.

  But in her perfect Christmas dream, everyone she loved would be there with her, and there’d be nothin’ but smiles and presents and everything special Grams would buy for Mal to eat, even the silly pink cereal Grams thought was bad for her but got anyway. There’d be no worrying about now or tomorrow. Just family and belonging and no one being sick ever again, because Mal had been brave enough to call, and Mama had loved her enough to get better and stay.

  Except Mama would run if they went back, and she wouldn’t take Mal this time, not if Mal acted like a baby and went back on the promise she’d made.

  So Mal stared into the snow globe world outside the shelter’s dirty windows. It all looked gray now, the same as the walls around her. The white of the snow wasn’t for her and Mama. It was for other people with better windows to look out of and real homes to live in and no worries about whether anyone would ever steal their treasures. She held on to her doll and her quarter, and she tried to believe that she could get through this Christmas, too, like a big girl.

  Mal didn’t need Grams and Papa. She wasn’t gonna be scared, not anymore. Maybe it would get warmer tomorrow and the snow would go away, and when they had to go back outside Mama would be able to breathe better. Maybe they could keep doin’ this forever.

  They were gonna make it.

  Mal was gonna make sure of it.

  Chapter Eight

  We dream, it is good we are dreaming,

  It would hurt us, were we awake…

  “How are things going this fine Saturday?” Julia Davis asked as she rushed across the cul-de-sac.

  She picked up speed when Pete didn’t immediately respond, practically sprinting toward where he was strapping Polly into her car seat in the back of his four-door Jeep Extreme. The woman’s taupe-and-brown, leopard-printed tracksuit made swishing sounds with each stride.

  “Daddy?” Polly eyed their neighbor nervously. “We’re going to be late to meet Mallory.”

  “Just a few minutes, sweetie.” He gave her cheek a kiss and made sure her heavy jacket was tucked snugly around her so the colder weather that had moved in didn’t give her a chill before he could turn the heat on. Then he shut the door and turned to greet the friend he’d been avoiding since Emma’s death, along with everyone else in their neighborhood.

  “Hey, Julia,” he said, taking in her tastefully applied makeup and perfectly arranged hair. He’d never seen her without makeup. He wondered sometimes if Walter ever had. How often had he and Emma wondered if their friend actually slept that way—in case a community emergency required her attention in the middle of the night? “It’s gotten cold, hasn’t it?”

  Julia wrapped her arms around herself and gave an exaggerated shiver. She smiled in agreement, but the aura of perpetual sparkle that usually surrounded her wasn’t there.

  “I’ve stopped by to check on Polly a few times,” she said. “Everyone’s missed her at the bus stop. Sam’s boys say they’ve seen her at school. I can never seem to catch you at home, even though your Jeep’s in the drive all day now. We were hoping everything’s all right.”

  “It’s been an unusual week, but we’re fine.” He’d been home each time Julia had rung the doorbell. Then knocked. Then phoned after she got back to her place. “Polly’s fine,” he added, checking behind him to find his daughter staring at him like she had so many times before when he’d said the same thing to people, not realizing the pressure he was putting on her to be okay. “She just needs a little time to herself right now when she’s not at school. We both do. I hope everyone understands. The whole lane’s been amazing to us. But I’ve decided to take the rest of the holiday of from work, just for us, you know? I want her to have as good a Christmas as we can.”

  “I…I didn’t mean to upset her the other morning in the clinic.” Julia looked close to tears, reminding Pete of just how big a heart lay beneath her well-intentioned pushiness.

  That was the thing about communities like theirs. You became so entrenched in one another’s lives, the lines people drew around their worlds to keep some things in and other things out began to blur. You became an extended family, which was an amazing thing in an increasingly cynical world.

  He and Emma had moved to Mimosa Lane because they’d wanted to be in a place where everyone cared for and understood everyone else. But the downside of that kind of life was the temptation to see things only the way everyone around you did. It could grab at your consciousness before you really noticed it—until it felt normal to be doing and enjoying and experiencing practically everything as a whole rather than as an individual.

  Which worked just fine, until your world blew apart and that commonality began to feel like a threat instead of a blessing. Because you were on the outside looking in at it, and even people you’d known for years started to seem like strangers.

  His thoughts flashed to how Mallory, from the moment she’d moved in, had seemed uncomfortable with all of them. He marveled all over again at how he and his daughter seemed to have more in common with her now than with the nei
ghbors they’d once socialized with on a daily basis. Lost without Emma’s knack for charming and befriending anyone in any situation, he’d pulled completely back from the safety net the lane could have been for him and his daughter—depriving his child of seeing that the people who loved her would always love her, no matter how hard a time she was having.

  “I’m going to need your help this Christmas,” he said to the friend Emma had trusted implicitly, when trust wasn’t something Pete came to nearly as easily. “I think we’re all going to have to get used to Polly being upset for a while.” He made sure his voice was loud enough for it to carry to the brave little girl behind him. “You actually did us a favor Monday, by letting her vent some of what she’s been holding inside for too long. I wish I’d realized what she needed sooner. I’m sorry if she made a scene at school and embarrassed you, but I need you to help everyone on the lane understand that it might happen again, and it’s exactly what Polly needs to do so she can deal with losing Emma.”

  “Embarrassed me…” Julia’s eyes filled with dismay. “Pete, please tell me you haven’t been avoiding me all week, for the last six months, because you think I’m going to scold you about your child missing her mother so badly she can’t be nice to a nosy woman who doesn’t keep her opinions to herself when they’re not wanted. Of course Polly should feel and say whatever she needs to. We’re all here for her. For you. Whatever you need, you don’t have to ask. It’s yours.”

  He reached out a hand to squeeze her shoulder. The smooth material of Julia’s tracksuit was ice cold, rustling beneath his touch. Her hand came up to cover his before slipping away.

  “Is that why you two haven’t been at the bus stop all week?” she asked. “Because you’re worried what everyone’s thinking?”

  Pete cleared his throat, beating back the instinct to say that he wasn’t worried about a thing.

  “I’m not sure what anyone’s thinking anymore,” he admitted. “Least of all me and Polly. But that’s going to change, starting now. She asked me to drive her to school Tuesday morning, like her mother used to. It’s one of the only times she’s asked me for anything since Emma died. I’ve been so busy rushing around taking care of everything I haven’t stopped to see what she really needs.”

  “She just needs her daddy. That’s all.” Julia’s heartfelt encouragement was another type of hug, full of the pride his wife used to shower him with as he doted on her and Polly. “You sound better than I’ve heard you since Emma passed. That’s wonderful, really.”

  “Yeah,” he said, staring down at the crack in the driveway where grass would sprout again come spring.

  In a single week their new morning routine riding to and from school, mostly in silence, had begun to feel more real than anything they’d shared since losing Emma. Dinner and bath time and bedtime were no longer rushed ordeals, since he wasn’t crashing into them at the end of a long day or after picking Polly up early from school, which he hadn’t once had to do. They were slowly building a new life together to replace what they’d lost. All because of an enigmatic woman his daughter saw every day at school and found a reason to visit before dinner each night.

  He’d only caught fleeting glimpses of Mallory through the gate in their back fence, never grabbing her attention for longer than it took to wave a friendly hello. He’d phoned her once or twice to say it was time for Polly to come home for dinner. But other than that he hadn’t pushed her for more interaction, no matter how badly he’d longed to see her again.

  “She’s beautiful,” Julia said.

  “What?” Pete’s attention snapped back his neighbor, who was oblivious that the beautiful face springing to his mind belonged to a leggy blonde with a healer’s nurturing soul, a spitfire attitude, and a penchant for bright colors and clothes spotted with cartoon characters that he’d never think of the same way again.

  “Polly’s so beautiful. She looks so much like her mother. So things have settled down since Monday?”

  “A little.”

  Neither of them was getting much sleep still. But thanks to Mallory’s insight he and his daughter were curling up on the couch each night, where instead of reading stories like always they’d found a new pattern—watching silly cartoon videos, both of them finally nodding off until the morning alarm started blaring. They still had a long way to go, but they were finding their way through it together now.

  “Is she eating better?”

  He nodded. “Mostly when she visits Mallory in the afternoons,” he added, wincing as soon as the words were out of his mouth and he saw the combined look of astonishment and interest on Julia’s face.

  “Mallory Phillips?”

  “Polly’s grown very attached to her through school. She’s spending afternoons at her house now. It seems to help—having someone to talk with who isn’t part of everything that happened with Emma.”

  “Well, that…That’s wonderful, too.” Julia stole a glance toward Mallory’s house.

  Wonderful?

  He thought of her urgency to help Polly when she couldn’t seem to handle the rest of the community, then her obvious panic at the thought of them visiting her in town today. He was beginning to wonder if having Polly barge into her isolated life might not be doing Mallory as much good as it was his daughter.

  “She’s more than any of us expected,” he admitted.

  “It would seem so.” Julia’s smile widened at his offhand compliment.

  “We’re headed into the city to see her now, as a matter of fact. Polly’s excited to get down there.”

  “Downtown Atlanta?”

  “Midtown. She volunteers clinic services on weekends for some of the shelters.”

  “Every weekend?” Julia’s expression filled with the same admiration Pete had experienced.

  “She was down there over Thanksgiving.”

  “She pulled out of her driveway around six this morning,” Julia reported, “just like every other weekend. After tangling with the flu all week at school.”

  “Polly’s dying to see what she does in the city—I’m pretty sure our neighbor’s achieved superhero status in her mind. She’s determined to help out. Which will probably create even more work for Mallory. But I hate to discourage anything that gets Polly this excited…”

  Julia squeezed his arm again. Wind kicked up, circling dried lives around them—a brusque reminder that they were well into what should be winter months, even if everyone on the lane had been wearing shorts and T-shirts up until a week ago.

  “She sounds absolutely wonderful,” Julia said. “I was hoping…All I was hoping all this time was to be a friend, and maybe a distraction for Polly, if she’d let me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry we’ve been so distant. Just give us a little more time to sort things out, okay?”

  “You’re doing just fine.”

  Pete’s throat tightened at her simple praise. “We’ll see how today goes, and the last week of school before break.”

  Something told him that the closer they got to Christmas, the more precarious his and Polly’s unspoken truce might become.

  “I’ve almost talked Brian Perry into hosting the neighborhood holiday party,” Julia said. “I was hoping you and Polly would come.”

  Pete couldn’t respond. It was the community event Emma had loved most. Beautiful memories came back to him, every one of them dripping with the acid of knowing their life together had been cut too short.

  “I know it can’t be an easy time,” Julia pressed on. “But you said you wanted to give Polly a good Christmas. And everyone—”

  “I don’t think so,” he bit out.

  The rage and hopelessness rushing through him must have registered on his face, because Julia was moving closer, an unwanted hug looming. He brushed against the side of the Jeep, stepping out of her reach. Julia stopped dead in her tracks, clearly hurt.

  “Why don’t you and Polly talk it over?” she said. “The party won’t be until next weekend, so you have time. Maybe she can invite
Mallory if that would help Polly enjoy things more. I know people would love to get to know our new neighbor better and to hear more about the wonderful things she’s doing in the city. You don’t need to RSVP or anything,” she rushed to say. “Just pop over. It wouldn’t be the same without your family there.”

  His family. The family he still had, instead of the one he’d lost—a family that included loving, understanding neighbors who’d known Polly her entire life. That’s what he’d promised himself he’d stay focused on now. That’s what his daughter needed him to make his priority.

  “All right. I’ll let Polly decide what she wants to do,” he said, loud enough to make sure his daughter understood the choice was completely hers. “Thank you for inviting us, Julia. Really. And thank Brian and Sam, too, if they end up hosting.”

  Julia smiled. “I’ll be thinking about the two of you. I really do hope things are getting better. There’s not a family I know who deserves a happier holiday. Why don’t you bring Polly by the bus stop next week, before you drive her to school? She used to love doing that with Emma.”

  He turned from watching her walk away to find his daughter staring at him, her eyes wide with worry instead of the excitement that had been shimmering through her since she’d woken up that morning and wolfed down the sugary whole-grain cereal that was her new favorite, even if it wasn’t cotton candy pink like Mallory’s.

  His first instinct was to pretend Julia’s disturbing invitation hadn’t been a big deal. Instead, he opened Polly’s door and soaked in her frown.

  “How are you doing, sweet pea?”

  “Do we have to go?” Polly pulled the strings to her jacket’s hood until the material bunched behind her head like a pink pillow. “To the Christmas party?”

  “Like I told Mrs. Davis, that’s entirely up to you. We won’t go if you don’t want to. This is our first Christmas without Mommy, and Thanksgiving was hard. I have to stop expecting all the old stuff we used to like to be just fine. We don’t have to do anything for Christmas that you don’t want to, okay?”