Page 9 of The Santa Situation
It was Jemma and I standing side by side, laughing at something out of frame. My hand was resting on the small of her back like it was the most natural thing in the world to touch her. Her face was tipped up toward mine, and I—God help me—looked happier than I’d looked in years.
For a second, my throat went tight.
“You see it now, don’t you?” Maggie asked softly.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the photo. “I look…” I sat back, rubbing a hand over my jaw as if that could disguise the sudden warmth creeping up my neck. “I look happy.”
What Ilookedlike was a man in love, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“Exactly,” Lilah said, crossing her arms over her chest with a nod that said “case closed.”
I reached for my mending to give myself something to focus on besides the hopeful look in my daughter’s eyes. “Okay, that was one reason,” I said gruffly. “Two more to go.”
I didn’t have to wait long for the second one to come.
“You know I love Mom,” Lilah began as Maggie shot her a sideways glance that held a tinge of disbelief. Maggie had neverquite forgiven Vanessa for leaving us the way she did. “But youneverlooked at her the way you look at Mrs. Price.”
“How would—” I cut myself off.
I’d been about to ask Lilah how she could possibly remember the way I used to look at Vanessa, but caught myself in time. I tried not to badmouth their mom—even when the words seemed to burn the back of my throat—but she wastwowhen Vanessa left. I doubted she had any real memories of us as a couple.
What she did have, though, was a front-row seat to how I looked at Jemma now.
“And reason number three?” I asked, setting my now-mended costume aside.
Maggie hesitated to answer just long enough for me to know she was about to say something I wouldn’t be able to shake off or pretend to misunderstand. “Because you already loved her once.”
My heart seemed to stop beating, and my throat went dry. “Who said anything about love?”
She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug, a casual gesture on the surface, but her gaze was intense. “Eli and I found her senior yearbook a couple of weeks ago when we were looking for pictures for that time capsule thing they’re making us do at school. You two were in it—a lot.” Her voice softened. “And then we saw what you wrote on the last page.”
My stomach tightened. “You read that?”
She had the good grace to at least look embarrassed. “Yeah, Dad. We did.”
“Oh god.”
She glanced at her sister and then back at me, licking her lips. “You told her she was your favorite person and always would be. You told her youlovedher.
Time seemed to stop. The only reason I knew it hadn’t was because the clock on the mantel continued to tick loudly, filling the room with its steady beat.
I’d forgotten about that note—or maybe I’d just made myself forget. My seventeen-year-old scrawl, the sincerity of it. The way, at the time, I meant every damn word.
“People say stupid things when they’re kids,” I said finally, because it was the only thing that didn’t sound like a confession.
“Sometimes,” Maggie agreed softly. “But sometimes they say exactly what they mean. What’s in their heart.”
She pushed up from the couch and tugged her sister to her feet. “We’re meeting Eli for the tree lighting. Don’t forget your hat, Santa.”
A minute later, the front door clicked shut, cutting off the sound of my girls’ voices and leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My fingers tapped against my thigh as I traveled back to the afternoon they’d distributed our yearbooks, my shoulders hunched as I tried to hide what I was writing in hers, while Jemma sat next to me writing in mine.
I shot to my feet and took the stairs two at a time, my heart racing faster than my legs.
In my office, I dragged a cardboard box down from the top of my bookcase, sending dust flying everywhere and making me sneeze. Opening the lid, I dug through the layers of memorabilia until I found what I was looking for.
I sank into my desk chair and set the yearbook in front of me, its pages yellowed with time. As I flipped through them, familiar faces smiled up at me—some I still saw around town, others I hadn’t thought about in years.
