Page 74 of Three Holidays and a Wedding
Their faces were still close. She whispered against his lips. “But don’t you have plans?”
“I’m going to take some time, just like you. I’ve got a few screenplay ideas percolating, and if there’s anything this week has taught me, it’s that I need to pursue the things that I’m passionate about.” He ran his hands down her back, and she felt sparks and shivers all over. “I definitely need to get home for a few weeks. Then I’ll be heading back to LA to see if I can approach things there a little differently. But right now...” His arms were tight around her. “I kinda just wanna stay in the present, you know?” She lost herself in his kisses once more, but the word “present” was a reminder.
“I have something for you,” she said, suddenly shy. What if he didn’t like it? What if it was too presumptuous? What if it interfered with his plans to head home and see his mom?
She reluctantly disentangled herself from his arms, then stood to fetch the gift, which was in a slender envelope wrapped in gold foil paper. He reached for her and pulled her back into his lap, encircling her within his arms. With her back pressed to his chest and his arms around her, he propped his chin on her shoulder, his breath huffing lightly against her ear and sending shivers down her spine as he opened the envelope.
Out fell two tickets. “Leafs versus Senators in Ottawa on the twenty-seventh!” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have,” Anna said. “I was in It’s the Most Wonderful Time for a Beer picking something up, and heard Ron and Don talking about their Senators season tickets, so I impulsively asked if I could buy a pair. But... that would mean staying around here until then. And you need to get home to see your mom, so you’re probably wanting to get out of Snow Falls as soon as possible—”
He silenced her with a firm kiss. She let herself relaxagainst the warmth of his body. “Anna, my mom loves me and wants me to be happy.” He traced the shape of her lips with one finger. “She already knows how much I care about you and would be annoyed with me if I said no to a few extra days and a hockey game with you. I can’t think of any place I’d rather be—and I’m more than happy to stay here a few days longer. With you.” The next thing Anna knew, they were kissing passionately again, wrapping paper and ribbons scattered around them and all other thoughts forgotten.
Regretfully, Anna pulled away. “I’d love nothing more than to stay here with you all day, but it’s getting late and we have to get to the playhouse.”
“Oh, right,” Josh said, but he kept on kissing her as she playfully swatted at him. “We definitely couldn’t just stay here and let Maryam and the rest of the group down. That would be so wrong...” He kissed her again. “But wouldn’t it feel so right...?”
“Now, come on, I know you don’t really mean that. And we’ll have plenty of time for more of this later. But maybe I could just spare a few more minutes...”
—
After Anna was dressed, she headed downstairs to wait for the rest of the group, who had planned to head to the playhouse together. The first person she saw was Mr. Dadu, waiting by the fire.
“Mr. Dadu! Merry Christmas,” she called out, heading over to join him.
“Merry Christmas to you, my dear! You look awfully happy today.”
“It’s a happy day, isn’t it? There’s so much to celebrate.”
“There certainly is, there certainly is. Can I pour you a coffee?”
“I’ve already had some today, but sure, why not? It’s going to be a busy afternoon.” She sat down beside him and he poured her a steaming mug.
“I received my gift from you, Miss Anna, and it is very much appreciated. But I also must say, I am even more pleased to see you still here. I was rather disappointed to hear you were planning to leave. Seems you had an awful lot of unfinished business?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I did, you’re right. And I’m happy I made a different decision.”
“Sometimes you just need to give yourself a little time to think,” he said. “Even if it seems difficult in the moment.”
She nodded her agreement. “My dad used to say,No wind, no waves.I’m grateful for all the tumult of the past week because it taught me a lot. Like that I wasn’t really stranded at all.”
Mr. Dadu smiled. “None of us really were, were we?”
Anna gazed into the fire, suddenly lost in thought. “There’s still one situation I need to figure out,” she said. She explained to Mr. Dadu about her stepmother’s letter and her invitation to connect. “It’s just I’ve held on to my bitterness for so long, it feels... almost scary to let it go, you know?”
Mr. Dadu nodded and stared into the fire, too. “But surely your father, who was so good at giving you advice that would stick with you, told you the truth about bitterness? That it’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die?”
Anna laughed. “You know, I’m pretty sure he did tell methat one. Or that hanging on to resentment is like holding a knife the wrong way around. The thing about resentment is that it only lets you see one side of things—yourside. After reading Beth’s letter, I realize I’ve been holding on to my resentment so tightly that I couldn’t feel just how much I miss her presence in my life. No matter how I try, I don’t know if I’ll ever understand how she could have married again so quickly after my dad died, but I do know no one deserves to go through what she did. She lost the love of her life.”
Mr. Dadu tended to the fire for a moment with a poker, then leaned it back against the hearth and turned to Anna. “I make no secret of the fact that I am a widower and that I miss my wife very much. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss her and wish she were still here with us. I imagine Beth feels the same way about your father.”
“I know, but I still wonder, if that’s true, how could she have just moved on?”
“Did it ever occur to you that she hasn’t moved on? That when you truly love someone and share a life with them and then you lose them, you never move on, not really?”
“But shedid. She remarried.” Anna was a bit embarrassed to hear how much she sounded like a petulant child, but Mr. Dadu just smiled indulgently.
Then his eyes took on a faraway look. “My wife died three years ago this winter. About a year after she passed, I reconnected with an old friend of our family who had also lost her husband around the same time. We went for a few walks, shared a few coffees, and I began to realize that perhaps it was possible something could blossom between us.” He sighed. “So, I pushed her away. I was convinced that allowing those feelingsto bloom would dishonor my wife’s memory, and that it would not be fair to her. My friend understood. She did not want to rush me, and she herself was dealing with her own grief over her dear husband. The next time I saw her, I realized something—that I was never going to get over my wife, but that my dear Kulsoom would have wanted me to be happy. I had realized moving on did not mean what I thought it meant, that I could still care for another person and hold my wife’s memory dear at the same time. But unfortunately, my friend, she had already remarried another rather lucky man.” He tilted his head and smiled a somewhat sad smile. “I have never told that story to anyone, Anna. You will have to keep my secret. I do not have many regrets in my life, but if I am being honest, that is one of them. I wish I had taken the opportunity for love and happiness when it was presented to me, instead of believing that it was the wrong time. When you lose someone, a ‘right time’ never really comes. You have to take happiness as it comes to you, while accepting that grief will always live with you, too.”
