Page 4 of Triple Tidings
There’s a hint of regret in Wells’ expression as he hands over his credit card and driver’s license. Unlike with August, who was so charming it was almost physically painful, this interaction is making it decidedly easier for me to set aside my fluttery feelings about Wells Davis being here.
He wouldn’t be. Not if he had any other choice. The poor guy probably had to make a tough call: freezing to death, sleeping on the floor of his bookstore over Christmas, or facing his one-night stand.
“You’ll be in room seven,” I report cheerfully as I hand back his cards and slide a key toward him. “It’s right up the stairs and the second door on your right.”
“Thanks,” Wells tells me grimly, shoving his wallet back into his pocket. He doesn’t leave right away, though, hovering on the precise spot August did a few minutes ago. “It’s good to see you again,” he says, every word stiff and uncomfortable. “I’ve been meaning to stop by?—”
I wave him off, and even all my years of hospitality experience aren’t enough to keep my smile in place. “It’s fine, Wells. We got to talking and things, well, you were there.” I break off awkwardly. “I didn’t expect anything.”
“Right.” His expression is inscrutable. “Well, have a good night, Lacey.”
“Have a good night, Mr. Davis.”
I keep it together until his footsteps have hit the upstairs landing before I finally allow myself to retreat to my office and collapse in the rolling chair at my desk.
From their place on the wall, my grandmother’s handmade Christmas stockings loom over me, and seem to have grown larger in the minutes that have passed since I was last in here.
With difficulty, I swallow, diverting my gaze.
I get it, Grandma.
Two
August
My relationship with my brother has always been solid.
Where my friends were bickering with their siblings, picking fights, and driving their parents up a wall, I only ever looked up to Bram.
As a kid, I was forever following him around, trying to insert myself into whatever he was doing, and while it must have been obnoxious to him at times, my brother was good about including me. He never complained when our parents told him to bring me along to the movies with his friends, and always permitted me to tag along when he rode his bike to the comic book store in town.
At three years older than me, he was good at baseball and always seemed to have a pretty girlfriend hanging around. I thought he was the definition of cool.
Then, we grew up.
Bram got his college girlfriend pregnant, and, while I was in medical school, my brother was in the weeds of parenthood. We talked, of course, and got together for holidays, but we were caught up in very different stages in our lives, and it didn’t make for an especially close relationship.
Over the last few years, as my total absence of a personal life began to dawn on me and I buried myself in a mountain of work to avoid it, the distance between us grew to an estrangement.
The worst part, the part I’m most ashamed of, is that I didn’t even realize. Not until about a month ago.
The moment is burned into my memory, a permanent, shameful scar that throbs when I think about it too much.
On that day, I got in my car after a particularly grueling double shift and—too exhausted by the prospect of driving home just yet—I turned on my personal phone for something to do other than fall asleep with my head on the steering wheel.
There was only one message, and it was from my mother.
Mom: Call me when you get a chance, the baby was born this morning! Very cute! 6 pounds, 2 ounces. They’re calling her Clara Noel.
The text was followed by a photograph of my brother perched at the edge of a hospital bed beside a pretty, auburn-haired woman in a hospital gown, both of them beaming down at a pink bundle in Bram’s arms.
It felt like all the air had been sucked from the car as I sat there, dizzy with shock. I’d known Bram had gotten married, of course. He’d eloped a while back with his much younger girlfriend, much to our parents’ chagrin, but had I known they were having a baby?
I had to have known, right? Something that big isn’t something that gets forgotten. Surely, Bram had told me I would have a new niece or nephew.
Exhaustion gone, I drove home, wracking my memory. As I did, though, disbelief gave way to a hollow, gut-wrenching shame, becauseno. Ididn’tknow Bram and his wife were expecting. How could I have, when I couldn’t remember the lasttime I spoke to my brother. All those times I’d seen a missed call from him…
I was getting off work late.
