Page 45 of Wishing for Christmas
“That fire out there looks nice; I think I’ll go sit for a minute.”
Brent said nothing as she hurried to the back door.
She stepped out into the backyard. The fire blazed with heat. She sat down and sank deep into a chair, her head falling backward. She was relieved nobody else was out there. She needed a minute alone to wrap her mind around everything. She couldn’t keep doing this. They couldn’t possibly pick up where they left off last year, especially now that they were on entirely different timelines.
What would happen to their relationship if this Christmas magic thing didn’t make her fall in love? They were in two totally different places, and she had no idea how to get them back to a shared reality.
Clara knew shecouldfall in love with Brent. If this was a normal relationship, it would probably happen anyway, all on its own time. But she didn’t have that option anymore. No, she needed Gram’s magic ornament to finish what it started and see this thing through to the end.
“Transitions are hard,” said a voice from behind her.
Clara turned around to see Christine, a plaid blanket wrapped around her. She handed Clara a new cup of eggnog.
“Thank you,” Clara said, taking the cup. “Is it obvious?”
“Let’s say I know a thing or two about it. I dealt with plenty of tough transitions in the twenty years that my husband was in the Air Force.” She sat down in the chair beside Clara. “Sometimes we build up their return in our minds. We have this expectation that it will be all romance and roses once they’re back, that it’ll all be easy again. But the reality is that, initially, you’re just out of sync sometimes.” She took a sip of her eggnog and looked up at the sky. “And it takes some time to get back on the same wavelength.”
You have no idea. “Thanks,” Clara said. “I think you’re right.”
“You know, Clara,” she continued, “when you drove out here to see us when Brent had been injured?—”
Clara sat up straight in her chair. He had been injured?
“It meant a lot to us that you came to be with us. It was hard in those first few hours when we had no idea if he was even alive.”
Clara leaned forward, her eyes widening.
“When we finally got the call that he was okay—with only a few bumps and bruises—there was nobody we would have wanted there with us more than you.”
Clara only nodded, but her mind was racing. Brent had been injured. He had been in actual harm’s way for a whole year. Clara took a moment to think about all he must have endured during his deployment. Meanwhile, there she’d been, back homesafe and sound, complaining to him about something as trivial as crickets in her Christmas tree.
And now, here she was, finding herself frustrated withhim. And for what—having memories? For the first time since she’d heard the worddeployment, Clara began to think about what she should have thought about much earlier—what it would mean for Brent. She had been so focused on herself and how this experience would affecther. She had never stopped to think about what it must have been like for him. Whathadhe gone through over the past year?
How could she have been so self-centered? She wished she could have been more supportive of him and all his deployment involved. She wished she had been there to help him through it.
“Room for one more?” Brent’s voice sounded behind them. He took another seat by the fire.
Christine stood up. “I should probably go inside and make sure everyone’s good on drinks.” She touched Clara gently on the shoulder before turning toward the house, leaving the blanket behind for her.
It was just the two of them by the fire. Clara reached over and took his hand.
“Brent,” she said, placing the blanket across both of their laps. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged.
“I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting lately. I know I’ve been out of sorts since you’ve been back.”
He nodded, gazing at the fire.
“I don’t want to talk about me though. I want to know what you went through over there while you were deployed. I mean, like really know.”
Brent was quiet, his eyes focused on his lap. He seemed deep in thought.
Clara waited patiently in silence. The crackle of the fire was the only sound.
She was surprised at the heaviness of his back as she watched him ponder something. Brent had always seemed so self-assured, so optimistic. He’d never seemed particularly stressed to her. Probably because he planned everything out so perfectly. His checklists seemed to provide him with stability and confidence. Now, he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He appeared to be wrestling with whatever was on his mind, feelings he couldn’t control. To see something push against him so strongly like this caught her off guard.
She wondered if the deployment version of herself had known about all he’d been carrying around with him. She wondered if she had helped him through any of it. At that moment, she wished she’d been the one to do it.
