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

by Anna DeStefano

  They’d just see about that, too, she cautioned herself, slipping out of bed and into her slippers. She walked down her hallway, more worried than ever that she was beyond the point of being able to turn away from the Lombards, even to save them all from the ugly way experience told her this would end.

  The sight of Polly standing in front of her tree made Mallory’s knees weak. Because she was remembering earlier that day at the shelter, yes. But also because she wanted so badly for this moment to be the breakthrough that it promised to be for the child. Please, she silently prayed, please let me make at least this much right.

  Pete had said Polly was okay now, after catching him kissing Mallory. But if the kid was okay, what was she doing out of bed again so late at night?

  Polly was sniffling a little as Mallory walked to her side, both of them staring silently at the tree. The little girl was holding another of the pins she’d brought over every day that week after school. She hadn’t let Mallory get a good look at any of them since Whiskers, and as promised Mallory hadn’t peeked inside the cookie jar.

  “This is Bambi,” Polly said, looking down at the piece of metal and glass sparkling beneath Mallory’s Christmas lights. “He reminded my mommy of how much she wanted a baby of her own, until she and Daddy got me. Then he reminded her of how small I’d once been, after I started getting big.”

  Mallory knelt, taking a closer look. The artistry of the pin was quite good, just like Whiskers. She’d bet they were from the same designer, and both very old. Which fit Pete’s story that they’d either come from Polly’s great-grandmother or from vintage booths at flea markets. Either way, they’d both clearly been chosen with a discerning eye for elegance and beauty.

  “I love that his body’s made out of crystal.” Mallory marveled at the delicacy of its construction.

  “You can see right through him.” Polly held the little trinket up to the tree, light twinkling through the glass. “Mommy liked to wear it with her pretty scarf—the one Daddy bought her—’cause everyone could see the flowers on the scarf through Bambi’s tummy. Mommy loved flowers almost as much as she loved Bambi.”

  Polly looked so wistful as she remembered.

  “Your mommy must have loved you very much,” Mallory said, “to give you something so special.”

  Polly nodded fiercely “She said”—her tiny fists clenched around Bambi, making Mallory wince at the thought of her accidentally breaking something that was so special to her—“she said nothing would ever matter more to her than me and Daddy. That’s what she wanted me to remember, every time…”

  She shoved the pin at Mallory, the motion stiff and jerky.

  “Every time you looked at her pins?” Mallory cupped the little fawn in the palm of one hand. “That’s what she wanted you to remember?” When Polly nodded again, Mallory was more confused than ever. “Then why give Whiskers and Bambi and the rest away? What did you come here tonight to tell me?”

  Polly glared down at Bambi. “Were you little when your mommy went away?”

  So she had processed at least something of what Mallory had said at the shelter.

  “I was twelve,” Mallory answered. “Twice your age now, but still way too young. It was very hard.”

  “Were you mad?”

  She’d been furious for a long time—at everyone and everything, especially herself. “At my mommy, you mean?”

  Polly nodded. “’Cause she went away and never came back.”

  “It’s hard not to be mad when we’re the ones left behind. Even when the person leaving can’t help it.”

  “Your mommy couldn’t help it, either?”

  Mallory shook her head. She glanced under the tree at the doll she’d brought home with her and hadn’t been able to take any farther than her living room. It was the only thing lying on the tree skirt, all alone, propped up against where the tree trunk came out of its stand, a reminder that there’d be no other presents for Mallory to enjoy—and that she’d been telling herself for years she didn’t mind.

  Mad didn’t begin to describe what it felt like to know her mother had dragged a doll around with her all this time, but she’d never once come looking for Mallory.

  “She was sick, too?” Polly’s eyes scrunched up as she tried to understand. She followed Mallory’s gaze to the doll, then looked to where Bambi still lay in Mallory’s open palm.

  “Not like yours,” Mallory said. “She was sick in the way she thought about things and people and places.”

  “You mean like she left you again today, without even saying hello? That wasn’t right, you know. She should have stayed with you. Daddy and I won’t tell anyone about it, so don’t worry. I won’t tell anybody about your mommy and what she did. But I guess if she was sick, maybe she couldn’t help it.”

  Mallory nodded, conflicting emotions warring for control. Amazement that Polly felt the need to protect her from anyone knowing about her own mother. Annoyance at how desperately Mallory still wanted to believe that it hadn’t been her mother today. That her mama wouldn’t have just disappeared again as if she hadn’t recognized Mallory at all.

  So then why had she brought the doll home? And why weren’t the street lady’s shopping bags and news clippings in the trash instead of the trunk of Mallory’s car? Why was a part of her desperate for this to be some kind of storybook second chance she knew wasn’t going to happen?

  “My mommy’s never coming back.” Polly pointed at Bambi, her finger shaking, her voice sharply accusing as if it were somehow the little deer’s fault. “That’s why she gave me all her pins, so I’d remember her. But remembering is ruining everything. She’s ruining everything because everybody’s so sad still, and it’s Christmas, and…Is that why Daddy kissed you?”

  Mallory blinked at the unexpected shift in Polly’s reasoning. A mommy kiss, Pete had called it. She looked down at the costume jewelry in her palm—it was a transcendent link between mother and daughter, no matter how bittersweet having it might be to Polly right now.

  “I’m not trying to take the place of your mommy,” Mallory insisted.

  “But you were making Daddy happy, weren’t you?”

  “I…” Dancing with him in this child’s foyer, kissing him earlier, both had been the closest Mallory could remember to feeling like she belonged anywhere.

  “It’s okay,” Polly said with as much conviction as she’d said she wasn’t mad anymore back at the shelter, and just now when she’d said she’d have Mallory’s back with their Mimosa Lane neighbors. “I want Daddy to be happy. That’s why…”

  “That’s why you wanted to forget your mommy?” Mallory remembered her saying that. “But all these special memories…Letting them go forever would make you sad, Polly. And I don’t think your daddy can be happy knowing that you’re making yourself sad.”

  Polly looked at the closed door to the kitchen, the room where she’d left so many other treasures that week. She turned back to the shabby doll beneath the tree.

  “Do you have any memories of your mommy?” she asked.

  Mallory rubbed a gentle hand over Bambi. “Not like yours, sweetie. I didn’t have that kind of mommy.”

  “Because yours didn’t die? Because she left you, like today?”

  This kid was going to be the death of her.

  But when Polly threw her arms around Mallory’s neck, giving her a tight hug, Mallory suspected all over again that Polly and Pete might just be her salvation instead. If only she could let herself reach for that kind of dream and really hold on.

  She hugged Polly’s sweet little body. Behind them, outside her patio doors, stars twinkled in a cloudless, freezing sky like tiny jewels, each a perfect promise that the world was a beautiful place—promises Mallory normally sat up on sleepless nights staring at alone.

  “It’s okay if you’re not ready to remember yet.” She let Polly go and handed Bambi back. The design on the little girl’s fluffy bathrobe was of a mermaid princess who was willing to sacrifice everything she valued m
ost for love. “But I would give anything for the memories you made with your mommy. Don’t give up on them, Polly. They’re beautiful things, just like every minute you have with your daddy now.”

  “And with you? Like today, being the good witch for the kids and letting me help you keep them from getting sick? That’s beautiful, too, right?”

  So much of the day had been beautiful. They’d made the best memories together. Then she’d had Pete and his cozy house to come home to instead of her empty one. And now her sleepless night and cheap, store-bought tree were beautiful, too, because she was sharing them with Polly.

  “If every day could be like today”—she wiped at the tears in Polly’s eyes, then at her own—“I would be a happy woman. You and your daddy made today very special for me, because you were there to share it.”

  Polly wiped her tiny hand across Mallory’s cheek. Then she grabbed Mallory’s hand and led her toward the kitchen. They pushed against the door together and stepped inside, Mallory hanging slightly back and letting her young friend lead the way.

  Polly laid Bambi on the kitchen table after asking Mallory to bring the cookie jar over.

  “Are you sure, sweetie?” her friend asked.

  That’s what Mallory was.

  A friend.

  Even if she had kissed Daddy the way mommies did, Mallory was still a friend. ’Cause they were the same, her and Polly. They were. Even though their mommies were different, they’d lost them just the same. Maybe that’s why Polly had always known she could talk to Mallory. That’s why Mallory had always seemed to understand the way nobody else did.

  “It’s so late, and you’re already upset…” Mallory put Mickey Mouse on the table, then sat beside Polly.

  She didn’t rub Polly’s hair or try to pull her into her lap or hug her again or try to talk her out of it. Mallory just waited, like no matter how long it took she’d still be sitting there. The same way she hadn’t sent Polly home when she’d found her in the living room again after bedtime.

  “I called your daddy when I saw you coming through the back gate,” Mallory said.

  She did that a lot, too—she always seemed to know what Polly was thinking, which made it easier, because then Polly didn’t have to explain so much. Mallory always understood. Like how Polly could still be sad after having such a fun day and talking with Daddy the way she had on the way home and feeling better with him, the way he was feeling better with her.

  It was probably wrong to still be so upset, because Daddy feeling better was what she’d wanted, and Christmas would be okay now that he was. So why was it still so hard?

  “He said it was okay for you to sleep over,” Mallory said. “He’s going to stop by in the morning for breakfast. You don’t have to do this now, sweetie. There’s no rush.”

  They could have a sleepover, because Mallory wanted her to stay even though Polly had been mad for a while at the shelter and Mallory was still sad about her own mommy. Polly could tell that her friend was kinda lonely too. And that having Polly there was making it feel better, just like it was for Polly.

  She reached for Mickey’s ear and pulled his head off. She reached inside his tummy and pulled out her own mommy’s favorite things. They were so shiny and sparkly like she was holding a bunch of tiny Christmas ornaments that had lights inside them, shining out. They were pretty and perfect and everything she hadn’t wanted to feel when she’d put them away. Because how did she feel that way and not miss Mommy so much she couldn’t think about anything else?

  But Mallory was there with her now, and friends could feel sad things together and maybe even talk about them, so maybe it wouldn’t feel so lonely anymore. Polly had been sitting in her room tonight thinking of Mallory’s mommy leaving and her mommy leaving and all the pretty things Polly had left in Mallory’s house as if she didn’t care about them anymore. Only she really, really did care, even if she hadn’t wanted to talk about them yet.

  “They’re beautiful,” Mallory said. “How many do you have?”

  “A whole box. And there are more in Mommy’s room. The whole bottom drawer of her dresser is full of her nana’s jewelry, like a treasure chest.”

  “Is that a pony?” Mallory touched each pin as Polly laid them out, picking up the first one and smiling as she looked at it.

  “It’s a horse,” Polly said, “from a car…a cara…”

  “A carousel?”

  “Like at the fair. The horses that go round and round. Mommy met my Daddy on a merry-go-round when they were really young. After they got married, her nana gave her this horse…and the swan.”

  The horse had lots of colors on it, and tiny, shiny stones. The swan Mallory picked up next was all gold. Real gold, Polly had kept saying whenever Mommy tried to say it was fake. Its beak and eyes were painted black. It was so much prettier than even the sparkly horse, because it looked like a real golden bird that was getting ready to fly away.

  “You can see every feather.” She touched the pin, her fingers touching Mallory’s hand, too.

  She didn’t pull away, and neither did Mallory. So she left her hand there, holding on to her friend and the pin she could remember Mommy smiling at every time she showed it to Polly, all happy and lit up, just like Mallory was smiling now.

  “It’s like it’ll always be floating on the water,” Polly said. “I saw a real swan once, and she had babies. They went everywhere together, all over this lake that’s not too far from here. Mommy said that swans never leave their families. Even once they’re grown, they stay together. That’s why her nana made this a wedding present. Because Mommy and Daddy were going to be together forever.”

  There was a boy pin and a girl pin made out of red glass and sparkles, the boy in long pants and a long shirt and a hat, the girl in a skirt with some kind of crown on her head. Polly moved the rest away until the boy and girl were side by side on Mallory’s table.

  “Mommy said Daddy got these for her their first Christmas after they got married. She wore them every year after that, to every party. She never told anybody where they came from, not till people noticed and asked where they could get them, too. Then she let me tell the story. How she and Daddy had danced in front of their tree that Christmas. How she’d dreamed of having a baby like me.”

  Mallory nodded. She picked Polly’s favorite pin out of the ones she’d pushed aside. A Christmas tree, all lit up like Mallory’s. She put it beside the dancing man and woman, then smiled and wiped her eyes. She didn’t like to cry, Polly had figured out. Not in front of anybody, just like Polly didn’t want people to see when she did. Even now, even Mallory, even though her nose and eyes were stinging.

  “Do you miss your mommy at Christmas?” Polly asked, because maybe Mallory needed to talk some, too.

  “I think I’ve been missing her a lot this year.” Mallory touched the tree again, then the man and woman and all the rest of the pins, one by one. “Even though I don’t have the same memories as you do, I’ve always wanted a magical Christmas with my mama. It never seemed to work out that way.”

  “Never? But you have the best tree on the whole lane.”

  Mallory laughed, giving her quick hug. “Thanks, sweetie. I think so, too.”

  But she didn’t sound like she thought so.

  “Was it hard?” Polly asked. “Seeing that lady today?”

  Mallory nodded, picking up several more of the pins and looking at them for a long time. “These are beautiful, too.”

  Polly thought of all the times Mallory hadn’t made her talk about anything she didn’t want to. That’s what Mallory needed now, about the lady she thought was her mommy and the Christmases she never had and how she’d said she’d grown up without a home.

  Polly looked around her friend’s fun kitchen and thought of the pink cereal they’d eat in the morning and of the tree she wanted to sleep next to on Mallory’s big couch. She wanted to make her friend see all the amazing things Polly saw about her life and the Christmas they were going to have together now, b
ut she didn’t want to make Mallory sad talking about herself when she wasn’t ready.

  “Those are all the kinds of flowers my mommy used to grow with her nana,” Polly said instead. “She said she couldn’t remember whether they’d find the pins first and then go find flowers to plant to match ’em. Or if her nana would give her a pin each time my mommy grew a new kind of flower she liked. But it’s like a garden every time I look at all them together. See?”

  Polly laid the flower pins out. Not side by side, but spread around each other like a real garden, like she used to at night after she was supposed to go to bed, but Mommy would catch her and tell her more stories while they played with the flowers together. Next to them Polly put the puppy she’d brought over and Bambi and Whiskers and a frog and a silly-looking bee.

  “Now they have a place to play,” she said, “like the bunny I saw in mommy’s garden last year, before she stopped planting flowers…”

  “You were growing flowers with her, the way she did with her nana?”

  Polly nodded, but she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The flower pins were pretty, but she missed the real ones, like she’d missed having a real Thanksgiving and wanted a real Christmas, only how could any holiday be real when you kept feeling so sad no matter how good a day you’d had?

  “How are you doing, sweetie?” Mallory asked when it had been quiet for a long time.

  How was she doing?

  Polly wanted to break every pin and Christmas and the entire world into a million pieces until it all stopped hurting. She grabbed the pins up in her fists and shoved them back into Mallory’s jar, then she picked up Mickey’s head and slammed it on top with a clank that sounded bad. When she looked closer at what she’d done, she saw that it was bad. Really bad.

  A crack ran up Mickey’s head now. She’d broken it, the special cookie jar Mallory had said she’d never even used yet. She’d let Polly put her mommy’s things in it, and now it was broken. She started crying when she’d told herself she wouldn’t. But she couldn’t stop, like she couldn’t stop shaking, either. She’d messed everything up, after Mallory had said she could stay all night, and she was so—