Page 3 of The Holidays with Mr. Mitchell
Her shoulders sagged. “Everyone says I should just leave, but I?—”
“Sweetie, you’re surviving,” I cut in. “That’s not weakness. That’s reality.”
Tears slid down her cheeks, and she whispered, “Then what do I do?”
“Why don’t you come back?” I said. “Not to stay. Not until you’re ready for that, but come for the free counseling that is offered by psychologists from Saint John’s. We’ll all be here tohelp you remember who you are and help build the muscle you need to walk when you’re ready. And when you are? We’ll have a room ready.”
For the first time, she smiled, fragile but genuine. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just promise me you’ll come back and take advantage of the therapy sessions.”
She nodded, clutching her bag tighter, and walked out.
I stood there in the quiet, watching the door close behind her. Every part of me wanted to chase her down, lock her in this room, and keep her safe until the scars faded. But that wasn’t how it worked.
You couldn’t rescue someone by force.
You could only hand them the tools, open the doors, and wait for the day they were ready to walk through.
By the time I left the shelter, the sun had started to dip, painting the sky in smudges of orange and pink over the hills. It had been a good day. Not perfect, they never were, but good. I’d watched a handful of kids laugh themselves silly in the playroom, saw a woman smile for the first time in weeks during art therapy, and walked Claire through the doors even if she wasn’t ready to take the key.
That part stung. It always did. But I’d learned not to measure success by who stayed. Sometimes victory was just getting them to show up, sit down, and talk. She’d be back. I had to believe that.
I smiled when I took the turn that headed into the Hollywood Hills. The traffic thinned as the city gave way to winding roads carved into the mountain. The trees thickened, streetlights grew sparse, and the noise of LA fell away like someone had turned down the volume on the world.
The iron gates pulled slowly open when I pressed the button, and I drove up our winding driveway, taking in the beautifulplace Jim and I called home with our two girls. Jim had called it an architectural masterpiece when he first brought me here. He wasn’t wrong. The sharp angles softened by stone, the sweeping glass walls that transformed every view into art, and the infinity pool that wrapped around the main level, as if it had grown out of the hillside, were a marvel.
Back then, I’d called it a resort carved into a mountain. Now, it was just our home.
I pulled into the drive, past the garage that still looked like a damn car museum, and parked beside Jim’s favorite toy of the week. Stepping out, the air was cooler here, crisper, carrying the faint scent of pine mixed with chlorine from the pool. The house glowed from within, every wall of glass catching the last light of sunset.
I paused at the steps, taking it in the way I always did. I would never get over the view stretching from the San Gabriels to downtown to the Pacific, the place that still felt a little too surreal for the girl who used to count nickels and pennies at a fast-food drive-thru.
I exhaled, letting the weight of the day fall off my shoulders. I pushed through the glass doors, and the first thing that hit me wasn’t the view. It was the smell. Garlic, rosemary, a hint of wine simmering…the kind of scent that wrapped around you and made your stomach growl even when you weren’t hungry.
I thanked all the gods daily that Jim loved to cook. He called it his therapy, and we girls called eating his delicious food our therapy.
The man could run a billion-dollar empire in the morning and plate a five-star meal at night. It was one of those things about him that had floored me from the start. The man didn’t just cook, he created. Like he couldn’t help but pour precision and passion into everything he touched.
I followed the sound of music, jazz, low and smooth, and walked into the kitchen. Jim stood at the range in rolled-up sleeves, moving like he belonged in a Michelin-starred restaurant, not our kitchen in the hills. He glanced over his shoulder, caught me watching, and gave me that crooked grin that still punched me straight in the chest.
“You’re home!” he said, like it was the best part of his day.
“The only thing better than this view would be you cooking without your shirt on,” I said, arching an eyebrow at him.
“I heard that,” Addy hollered from the study.
Jim turned and held a wooden spoon of sauce to my lips. “Taste it, my love. The shirt will be removed by you later,” he finished with a wink and a tender kiss to my lips before turning back to the sauce he was stirring.
My heart did the stupid flutter thing it always did, but before I could respond, I heard Addy’s voice float back in from the study. “Mom, you’re late. Again.”
“Homework before sass, kiddo,” Jim called back without turning from the pan he was stirring.
Izzy’s little laugh followed, and I pictured her curled over her worksheet with a pencil, dimples flashing.
I dropped my bag by the counter and leaned against it, watching him work, the house humming with the sounds of pencils scratching, pots sizzling, and the soft comfort of normalcy. The day’s weight slid off my shoulders, one layer at a time.
It was a perfect ending to a hell of a start on this new fall morning. The kids were back in school, my husband had returned from being overseas after a week, and I was now ready to fully immerse myself in the changes of my very favorite season.
