Page 18 of The Holiday

"Heather Charlton-Bicks-Hutchens," she whispers to herself. "Too much." There's a tiny television on her kitchen counter and it's tuned to an episode ofHouse Hunterson HGTV. Heather turns her head to watch as a young couple searches for their first home in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and for a moment she's transported to another time and place.

"What do you think of this?" Edward asked, coming up behind his young bride in the breakfast nook of the small house near the Jersey Shore. Heather had been twenty-nine, Edward nearing seventy at this point, but a "young seventy," as she liked to tell herself.

She wrapped her arms around her own waist, setting both hands on Edward's forearms as she let him hug her from behind. The beach house they were looking at was adorable, and just steps from the Atlantic Ocean in Pt. Pleasant. Edward had recently retired from a long and successful career on Wall Street, and with retirement came the desire to split his time between Manhattan and the Jersey shore--not to mention frequent trips to Europe, Palm Beach, and the west coast.

"It's just lovely, Edward," Heather had said with tears in her eyes, rocking back and forth a little bit as she snuggled into the arms of her second husband.

Edward, always a romantic, and completely indulgent of his young wife, squeezed her and let go. "I'll speak to the real estate agent," he said with finality. "By the first day of summer, we'll be here, ready to dig our toes into the sand."

Heather had watched as Edward--still incredibly distinguished and agile--walked through the rest of the downstairs, inspecting every detail. The house was extremely well-appointed: huge windows looking out at the ocean; a giant, white brick-framed fireplace; oak floors; marble countertops and all new appliances throughout—but somehow Heather knew it would all be temporary.

As she watched Edward get on his knees and examine a built-in bookshelf, she already envisioned a time in the not-too-distant future when he wouldn't be able to kneel down, stand up, and get around as easily. Was it wrong to think that way? Maybe, but it was honest. And prescient, as it turned out: just a year later, a stroke took Edward, grabbing him on the golf course, and leaving Heather a thirty-year-old widow with a medicine cabinet full of ovulation kits in her bathroom. Her dream of motherhood had never been realized during her short second marriage.

Now, as the young couple on her television discuss the lack of double vanities in the master bath, Heather rinses a giant colander in her sink and sets it on the drying rack. She doesn't mind doing dishes, and she doesn't mind how her life has played out. Shortly after Edward's passing, she'd married his older brother, Bates, and she'd loved him, too. In fact, she'd loved all of her husbands, and not because they were rich or because they pampered her (though they were, and they did)--she'd loved them all because of the sense of wonder she saw on their faces whenever they looked at her. And maybe every woman who falls for much older men feels this way; maybe they all know the secret of being loved by a man who sees you as a treasure and a gift. For Heather, that's certainly always been the case, and it is with Dave, too. When she first caught his eye on Christmas Key the previous New Year's Eve, he'd winked at her in a way that felt almost fatherly--until it didn't.

She'd gone over to him, introduced herself, and before long, they'd been kissing under the moonlight as they rang in the new year. Or, as Dave liked to say when he told people the story of their meeting, "Bing, bang, boom--we were in love!"

Heather smiles to herself as she thinks of the proud way he says this, and she catches a glimpse of her own reflection in the darkened window above the sink. She looks tired (she is--she's been cooking all day and cleaning all evening), and she looks happy (she is--she's just one week from her wedding day, and it's going to be magical), but the woman looking back at her also looks settled, and that's something Heather has never truly felt before. She feels as though she's not (for the first time ever) just a bit too young to be marrying the man of her dreams. She feels grown-up, experienced, comfortable in her own skin, and it just...it feels right.

Heather dries her hands on a towel and turns off the television right before the young couple chooses between a three-story townhouse in a hip downtown area, or a five-bedroom family home in the suburbs. Whichever one they choose won't matter in the end, and she knows this now. It isn't the house itself that brings happiness, but what kind of life you live inside that house.

And she's ready to live a good life with Dave Hutchens--no matter how many years they have together.

* * *

On Christmas morning Celia takes over kitchen duties, running things like the professional chef that she is. Heather wakes up to find Dave with Finley and Lacey sitting on either side of him, and everyone is wearing matching pajamas--everyone but her, that is.

"Good morning," Heather says as she pulls her robe around her body and tightens the sash. She's overslept and missed the kids waking up to dump out their stockings, and Dave has a pair of reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he reads through an instruction manual for putting together a toy that Finley has unboxed. "I didn't mean to sleep so late. You should have woken me."

"Coffee, Heather?" Celia's husband Matt is standing near the Christmas tree wearing a pair of reindeer antlers on his head as he sips from a mug with the Grinch on it. "Let me pour you a cup. Cream? Sugar?"

Heather blinks a few times, trying to acclimate. She’d been more than happy to have Dave’s family here at her house for the holiday, but now that she’s waking up on Christmas morning to a houseful of near-strangers, it feels a bit strange.

“Coffee would be nice,” she says to Matt. “Thank you. Cream, please.”

“Heather!” Lacey says, standing up from the couch and rushing over to the tree. “I got a new Barbie car!”

Heather is slowly waking up and she desperately needs coffee to feel alert, but she musters the appropriate amount of excitement for this revelation. “Wow!” she says, sitting on the couch next to Dave and accepting the pink plastic car for inspection. “That is amazing. I love it.”

Heather had never been much of a Barbie girl as a kid—she’d been a baby doll girl, through and through. For as long as she can remember, she’d always wanted to be a wife and a mom, and when she played, it was always with dolls in strollers, walks to the park to push her “baby” in the swing, or pretending to bake cakes or make dinner for her imaginary family.

“Here you go,” Matt says, handing her a mug with a flourish.

Heather looks up at him gratefully and mouths the words:Thank you.

“So, it’s Christmas morning,” Dave says cheerily, slapping both of his knees as he watches his grandchildren playing on the floor. “What do you do for the holiday, Heather? Any special traditions?” A frown passes over Dave’s face. “It’s weird that I don’t know that yet, but since we met on New Year’s Eve last year, I guess this is our first official Christmas together.”

Heather takes a long, fortifying sip of hot coffee and lets the sensation coat her from within before she answers. “That’s true,” she says, taking one more quick sip. “It is our first holiday together. And as far as traditions, just the normal ones, I guess. Wake up, open stockings, enjoy the holiday and have breakfast. Then we opened gifts and pretty much just stayed in pajamas unless we were going to see relatives, or if anyone was coming to see us.”

“This is when you were a kid?” Matt asks eagerly. He’s truly a nice guy, and Heather has observed him being incredibly helpful to the people around him on several occasions. He’s Celia’s partner in every sense of the word, and Heather has watched them with admiration, thinking how much fatherhood and marriage have changed over the years.

“Yes,” Heather says, sinking back into the couch with her coffee clutched between both hands. “When I was a kid. How about you?”

Matt smiles and sits on the floor with his children, reindeer antlers still firmly in place. “Well, I’m Jewish,” he says, “so we didn’t really do Christmas when I was a kid, but I love it. Celia introduced me to the traditions, and now we celebrate both.”

“Oh!” Heather had not known that Matt was Jewish. “Happy Hanukkah, Matt!” She frowns. “Wait—did we miss it this year?”Oh, God, this is embarrassing,Heather thinks.I’m such a dunce that I don’t even know if Hanukkah has happened yet!

“Actually,” Matt says with a good-natured grin. “It starts tonight and goes through January second. So your timing is good.”