Page 8 of Free to Rejoice
“Feel better?” Phil whispers, his head tipping to rest against mine.
“Always. I have you.” I turn my head to brush my lips gently against his. And it’s true. With Phil by my side, I know I’ll heal from the loss of a woman I knew for only a few moments, and the words scoring my soul:“How could you be right there and not manage to save her?”
Because I can’t save them all, no matter how much I wish I could. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do it this time.
In the shelter of this magical tree, I try to find the absolution I need to move on and be who I am another day. Dr. Jason Ross.
Pulling back from my kiss with Phillip, I smile.
“Excuse me, sir?” I hear a nasally voice I don’t recognize say from behind me. Surprised, I turn and find Keene looking at me as if he doesn’t know me. “Would you like us to take a photo for you both? Something for you to remember the tree by?”
I grin at Phil. His devil’s smile lets loose. “All right. Do you require a donation before you’ll take the picture?” Phil’s really getting into his role, remembering that many of the photographers around Rockefeller Center do require a donation for their services.
“Consider this one an early Christmas gift,” Keene grumbles. He swings a camera around that looks remarkably like something Holly would use, and takes a few photos. “Do you have a cell phone you’d like for me to use as well?”
“Here.” Phil holds his out.
After snapping a few photos, Keene hands the phone back. Stepping closer, so he’s not overheard, he murmurs, “Caleb’s going to follow you back to the car. I’ll see you both at the farm.” I shake my head as he seamlessly merges back into the crowd.
“Are you going to tell me what you wished for?” Years ago, I began telling Phil what I had wished for. Keeping my wishes a secret never made any difference on whether or not they came true.
Cupping my husband’s cheek, I press a soft kiss to his lips, letting it linger before I answer. “For every member of our family to find a love like ours.”
Phil’s eyes sparkle in the twinkling light. He swallows as he fights to keep the tears at bay. “Sounds like a perfect wish.”
I nod. I thought so too.
4
“How did you get your presents wrapped? Did you stay up all night?” I grumble at Phil as I sit at our kitchen table fighting with the scissors, paper, and tape.
Phil shoots me a disdainful look. “Please, let’s be real. I paid for the store to wrap them. When I asked Ali to go pick up my gifts, even she wouldn’t know the difference between her gift and yours.”
I gape at my husband both for his audacity and his genius. Instead of being frustrated with plastic-tape contraptions that claim to cut tape but instead cut your fingers, he’s sipping a latte he picked up at The Coffee Shop while watching the weather forecast to determine if we’re having a white Christmas.
“You realize there’s going to be some pretty insane gift giving this year,” I comment absently, trying to make certain the snowmen’s heads on my packages line up. Quickly realizing the futility of this effort, I decide time is more important than beauty as I slap another piece of tape on. “I mean, not only is there the regular gift exchange and the white elephant contest, there’s now a Secret Santa on top of it.” Pausing to admire the way I managed to wrap my entry for the white elephant gift exchange, I sincerely hope that what I bought is considered so grotesque an item that Phil and I only have to host one of theseobjets d’horreurin our home for the following three hundred sixty-four days.
There are a few rules to the annual Freeman white elephant contest. First, the item has to be purchased at HomeGoods. No exceptions. Second, it has to be under fifty dollars, including tax. Third, if you buy the same item as someone else, you’re automatically disqualified from winning. Fourth, all family members play—even spouses. I tried to object vehemently to that rule when Phil and I first got married. I was obviously overruled.
But it’s the final rule that makes this contest so damn competitive. Whatever object you end up with has to remain on prominent display in your house until the next Christmas Eve when one of the siblings will come around and collect it to be donated after the New Year. Fortunately, Phil pulled off a miracle last year by finding a brownish mustard-yellow magazine bag embroidered with pigs using hot-pink threads. The look on Cassidy’s face when she opened it said she knew she was a goner. Until that point, she was in the lead. I wince whenever I pass her entry from last year, a baby-puke-green ceramic lamp in the shape of a guppy resting on our corner table.
With Caleb and Keene now in the running, competition is going to get fierce.
“Babe,” I call absently. “Did you wrap your white elephant gift?”
Phil lets out a snort. “I haven’t even gone shopping for it yet. You know as well I do, the worst shit is always left for the twenty-third. I thought we’d go today.”
I groan, not only knowing he’s right but realizing I may have purchased too soon. Eyeing the package I just spent twenty minutes fighting to wrap, I wonder if I should bring it with me in case I need to return it.
Or in case I run into a sibling and they have the same thing in their cart.
* * *
I don’t carewhat store you’re in, shopping for Christmas on December 23 is a mistake—even if you’re looking for the tackiest shit you can find in HomeGoods. Phil and I go up and down every single aisle. My genius husband saw a throw on a display chair as we walked in and snagged it. “Just in case we run into one of the others,” he warns.
Good thing he did.
We’re down the clearance aisle where the worst and cheapest crap is shoved when we run into Corinna. She’s holding a surprisingly normal hot-pink cashmere throw in her hands and admiring it. I pull Phil back behind a display by the back of his jeans. “Shit. I think you just gave me a wedgie,” he complains.
