Page 49 of The Christmas Keepsake
I expected him to rise to his feet to look at me, but instead, he dropped to one knee and fumbled for something in his pocket.
“Mickey? What—what are you doing? For heaven’s sake, get up.”
Then he raised a small velvet box toward me. “You and your baby should have a man to provide and protect.” He shook his head. “I know you can do it alone, Nan, but you are a star. I don’t want you to burn out. I want to help you shine.”
My jaw must have been on the floor. “I won’t marry for money.”
“Then marry for love. The possibility of it.” He rose to his feet now, standing a foot taller than me. He was so close, and I felt a flutter. A tiny flutter with the possibility of becoming more.
“You want to marry a swollen pregnant woman?”
“Only if she’s you,” he said, his voice dipping low. This was a very different Mickey than who I’d always assumed him to be.
“You’ll be souring your good name, marrying someone who’s pregnant with another man’s child. I know what people are saying about me. They’re talking.”
Mickey shrugged. “Let’s change the narrative. Give ’em something else to discuss.”
“Like?” I asked, that fluttering feeling growing stronger.
“Like a wedding.”
Time sped up from there. Suddenly, it was our wedding day, and the baby kicked wildly as I stepped intomy rose-colored wedding dress. My mother wouldn’t hear of me wearing white when it was plain as day that I hadn’t saved myself for my wedding night. She was old-fashioned that way, and said if I did wear white, all everyone would be talking about was that I wore a color that represented purity.
The gazebo was special. Everyone who’d ever married there was still together. Marriages in Bloom Gardens under that gazebo lasted forever. “Here Comes the Bride” played and my father walked me down the aisle, which was a series of stepping-stones into the garden. I held Mickey’s hands, and my heart was full. Under that gazebo, in front of our friends and family, including Ralph, we made vows and shared our first kiss as man and wife. Then we danced. We ate. We celebrated. And after all was said and done, we retreated to the honeymoon cottage. It was expensive, but Mickey’s family had money. They had clout. And I knew that he would trade all of it for me and my child.
We made love that night, and it was, well, awkward. I was pregnant after all. It was also special. I initiated because Mickey was a gentleman. He was so many things I’d never realized. Afterward, lying in bed exhausted from it all, he laid a hand on my belly, and I closed my eyes. Soon, he moved his face to my stomach, and he began to whisper to our baby.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I listened. He was going to be an amazing father to our child.
“You haven’t even done anything yet,” I heard him say. “But even so, you are loved. You are cherished. You are enough, no matter what this life brings.”
I laid my hand on my stomach too, wanting toconnect with my baby. Our baby. In that moment, Mickey became the father, biological or not. As he fell asleep, I reached for my little pad of paper and my pen and finished my first stage play. It was the messy story of Santa and Mrs. Claus. A love story that wasn’t perfect. And as much as I wished I felt differently, the hero in the play that took place in my mind was still Ralph.
I couldn’t help my feelings, amplified by my baby hormones. But I also had feelings for Mickey, slow-growing but real. Love wasn’t what I thought it was. That narrative of there only being one—The One… Maybe there were two. Or there could be.
My hand shook as I wrote these two words. The End. Looking back at my husband, I returned to bed for a new beginning.
Chapter Fifteen
The theater is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak.
—Iris Murdoch
Mallory tried to read a page in Nan’s journal, but the words blurred in front of her tired eyes. She’d spent most of the night before gazing up into the darkness, replaying her date with Hollis. She chewed her bottom lip as she sat in the office chair at the theater with Nan’s journal in her lap.
Mallory had come to the theater early this morning to meet with a property inspector. It was a precursor to selling the theater. Her phone buzzed from the desk where she’d placed it. She set Nan’s journal down and reached for it, reading a text from her sister.
Maddie:Is the inspector there yet?
Mallory:Still waiting. How’s your morning hike with Renee?
Mallory couldn’t fault Maddie for ditching her for the great outdoors. It was Maddie’s passion. The fact that she was rediscovering it made Mallory’s heart full.
Maddie:You won’t believe what Renee wants to do. She’s trying to open a whole adaptive sports business. For Bloom and surrounding towns.
Mallory grinned as she watched a series of emojis fill her phone screen.
Mallory:Sounds cool.
