Page 76 of Seeds of Christmas
The branch is perfect. Full and green and only slightly lopsided. I test its weight, then start working it back and forth to loosen it from the trunk.
“Need help?” Rhi asks.
“I got it.” One more twist and it breaks free with a satisfying crack. “See? Easy.”
“You made that look way harder than it needed to be.”
“That’s just my natural technique. Very dramatic.”
“Very something.”
I hoist the branch over my shoulder, and we head back to the cabin. Snow is falling harder now, catching in Rhi’s hair, and she’s trying not to smile, but I can see it at the corners of her mouth.
Twenty minutes later—okay,so it took longer than five minutes, but who’s counting—we’ve dragged the branch inside and propped it up in the empty vase by the window.
It’s lopsided. It’s dropping needles everywhere. The vase is definitely not big enough and we had to stabilize it with rocks from outside.
It’s perfect.
“It smells incredible,” Rhi says, and she actually sounds pleased.
“Right? This is what Christmas should smell like. Not those fake candles. Real pine.”
“It’s very...” She tilts her head, studying our handiwork. “Asymmetrical.”
“She has character.”
“She’s falling over.”
She’s trying not to laugh.
“Okay,” I announce, stepping back to admire our work. “Now we need ornaments.”
“We don’t have ornaments.”
“So we make them.” I’m already pulling out paper from my field notebook—the pages in the back that I haven’t used for actual notes. “Come on. Help me.”
I sit down cross-legged on the floor and start folding. I have zero idea what I’m doing. I’m trying to make a star, but it looks more like a crumpled envelope.
Rhi watches me before she sighs and lowers herself to the floor beside me, careful with her ankle.
“You’re terrible at this,” she observes.
“I’m doing my best.”
“Your best is questionable.”
“Harsh but fair.” I hold up my creation. “What do you think?”
“I think that’s a triangle.”
“It’s a star.”
“It has three points.”
“It’s a minimalist star.”
She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now. Actually smiling. She takes a piece of paper and starts folding with the kind of precision I’ve come to expect from her. Within thirty seconds, she’s made a perfect five-pointed star.
