A Cliché Christmas(5)

“There is no one else,” the women said in unison.

I rolled my eyes and stuck my spoon into a large vat of vanilla custard.

As I brought it to my lips, Nan said, “Just wait till you meet Savannah. She’s worth whatever effort you put into this. I promise. You’re doing it for her.”

Sugar sweetened my tongue while bitterness soured my gut.



As I was searching through Nan’s overstuffed hall closet for a clean towel, something hard and heavy fell from a shelf. A pink ceramic heart skittered across the old hardwood. I picked it up and cradled it in my hand, clearing away a layer of dust and grime with the tip of my finger. I swallowed the ageless hurt that bubbled up in my throat.

I could easily picture my sixth-grade art class where I’d painted the heart for my mother’s birthday. And yet, here it was. Forgotten. Left behind.

I heard her words again, hovering like a haunted memory. “Don’t be like me, Georgia. Go somewhere. Be somebody. Leave this town and never look back.”

Through all the different retellings of the story about the drunken night I was conceived, or the gory details surrounding my birth just days after her seventeenth birthday, my mother’s message to me remained crystal clear. It never faltered. No matter how old I became. No matter what goals I achieved.

In fact, she liked the mantra so much that she followed her own advice the spring before my sophomore year in high school.

Move to Florida—Check.

Get married—Check.

And never look back—Check.

I slid down the wall and pulled my knees to my chin. The smell of musty sweaters and blankets lingered in the air around me.

Even when her home address had read Lenox, Oregon, there was always something about my mother that was never truly home. Not really. Not with me.

I wasn’t surprised when her new marriage took priority.

I wasn’t surprised when the birth of her twins filled her days.

I wasn’t even surprised when the long silences that spanned three thousand miles and stretched across a dozen states became the rule, not the exception.

But I was surprised by all the happiness this new life had brought her.

It was as if the years we’d spent together crammed into Nan’s tiny cottage were only the dress rehearsal. And finally, my mother was living her real life.

With a real husband and real children.

My unplanned birth had stolen her youth, her dreams, her freedom. And though Nan had always been the one to check up on me, tuck me in at night, and kiss my tears away, Summer Cole—my mother—was still the whisper that echoed in my soul.

“Make my sacrifice worth something, Georgia.”



“Pass the rice, please!” Eddy shouted at Franklin, her husband. Apparently, in addition to losing his memory, his hearing was also on the fritz. It seemed likely it was related to Eddy’s always speaking at a shrill, glass-breaking volume.

It was no surprise that she still held the throne as Lenox’s top bingo caller.

A large bowl of rice was passed around the table by Nan’s friends, all of them three times my age. I carried Nan’s Thanksgiving platter of spicy chicken masala to the table. And no one said a negative word about it. In this crowd, her unconventional ways were accepted—even appreciated. Her friends would eat here before heading over to the center at five for their traditional meal. They had the best of both worlds.

“I saw that Hallmark movie you made,” a woman named Pearl with a beak-like nose and tight poodle curls said. “The one about the couple who met on a skating rink, with the guy who had a prosthetic foot.”

“Leg,” I corrected.

“Yeah, that was a good one. I loved her family—and that Christmas Eve scene—I blubbered like an old fool.”

“Thank you, but I just wrote the screenplay. I didn’t actually make the movie.”

Pearl stared at me blankly. “I just wonder how you write all those things.”

I opened my mouth to answer my most asked interview question, “How do you come up with so many good Christmas stories?” But as it turned out, that was not what Pearl was asking.

“I mean, all that holiday love and romance stuff. Nan tells us you never go out on dates, so how can you write about something you don’t know?”

I choked on an ice cube, and Eddy slammed my back—repeatedly.

Everyone waited for my reply, even Nan. What was this? An intervention for my pathetic love life?

I lifted my chin and met the eyes of each of Nan’s guests. “Ever heard of Jane Austen?”

Eddy leaned toward me, eyebrows drawn so tightly it would take pliers to separate them. “You do realize that things didn’t turn out quite so well for her in that department, right?”

Okay, fine. Bad example.

Pearl piped up, “Well, there’s an eligible bachelor in Lenox that you—”

“More chapati bread, anyone?” Nan asked, standing abruptly.

Thank you, Nan. I owe you one.

Though I smiled at her, her gaze never met mine as she passed the bread basket to her right.

And knowing her like I did, I could tell she was up to something.





CHAPTER THREE

Begrudgingly, I grabbed my satchel off the chair and shoved my laptop inside it. Though the ground was still covered with dirty slush from last week’s snowfall, the sun was shining brightly. The temperature was a balmy forty-four degrees. But I needed to walk. Clear my head. Prepare for whatever awaited me at the community theater.