One More for Christmas(16)

Tab nibbled the corner of a single stalk. “Can we make more Christmas cards this afternoon?”

“I was hoping you’d want to. It’s my favorite thing, and we have all that glitter to use up.” Anticipation warmed her from the inside out. She loved Christmas. Loved everything about it. The chaos, the excitement, the anticipation. Most of all she loved the fact that they all spent time together.

She leaned across and kissed Tab’s hair. “I love you. Do you know that?” It was important to her to say it, and she said it often. She never rationed or withheld her affection.

“Love you, too. Can we get a Christmas tree?”

“Not yet. Soon.”

“Why not now?”

“Because if we get it now, it will be dead by Christmas Day.” And that was the only reason. Given the choice, Ella would have a Christmas tree in their apartment all year round. There was something warming about tiny lights wound through the branches of a fir tree. It was a symbol of family time.

“Can we spend Christmas in a snowy forest?”

“I—No, we can’t. Why would you want to do that?”

“It’s in my book. And it looks snuggly.”

“It will be snuggly here, too, I promise. We’ll have a huge tree, and we’ll light the fire and decorate the whole house. And Aunty Sam will be here, and we’ll bake cookies—” She already had a list of all the things she planned to do. And she and Tab were going to make decorations, which she intended to store carefully and bring out every year until they fell apart.

“Will Aunty Sam be working?”

“She might have her phone because she’s very busy—”

“Daddy says she’s a typhoon.”

“Tycoon, honey, not typhoon. Typhoon is a very big storm. A tycoon is a very powerful person.”

“What’s powerful?”

“It can mean physically strong, but it can also mean influential.”

“What’s influential?”

This went on like a cascade, question after question until Ella started to wonder if someone was testing her to see if she would finally snap.

Finally Tab seemed satisfied. “Aunty Sam is a tycoon.”

And now she was expected to explain irony.

“Daddy was teasing her when he called her that—” explaining the subtleties of the exchange escaped her “—but Aunty Sam is very smart, that’s true.”

“Are you a tycoon?”

“No, I’m your mommy. And that makes me lucky.” She had no desire to climb the corporate ladder, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t proud of her sister.

Fulfilment for her came in a job well done, the knowledge that she’d made a difference to someone’s life, however small. As a teacher, her reward had been seeing the delight and wonder in a child’s eyes the first time they realized that letters could become words—d-o-g dog, it’s dog!! Before that, as a barista, she’d made coffee, taking extra care, knowing that at the very least she was improving the start of someone’s day, at best she was saving a life. Because good coffee was lifesaving, she was sure of it. Before her barista phase she’d worked in a bookstore—read this book, it will change your life. The world was often a challenging place—she knew that. She couldn’t change the big things, but she could improve things in a small way for others and for herself.

And now she was a mother. She wasn’t building a career, she was building a family. She was building walls around their little unit that would shelter and protect.

Across the kitchen, her phone buzzed in her bag.

Ella ignored it.

Tab pointed. “That’s your phone.”

“I know, sweetie.”

“You should answer it.”

“The phone does not take priority over our conversation just because it’s loud and intrusive.”

“It might be important.”

“But it won’t be more important than spending time with you.” Ella kissed Tab on the forehead, loving the warmth and smoothness of her skin. She smelled of rose and vanilla, of youth and hope. Her eyes were bright and interested. Ella loved this age, where they soaked up the world and tried to make sense of their surroundings. The why, why, why drove some of the other mothers into a state of ferocious frustration, but not Ella. She wanted to freeze time, to hold on to this perfect moment and never let it slip away. She wanted to always be this close and in tune with her daughter. She loathed the phone, hating the way it could intrude into a conversation, or shatter a romantic moment. She resented its insistent, insidious infiltration of daily life. It was the destroyer of intimacy and the glutton of time, consuming it in greedy mouthfuls. Given the choice, she wouldn’t have carried one at all, but Michael insisted.

The phone stopped ringing and she relaxed, only to tense again when it started a moment later.

Tabitha fingered the rest of the broccoli. “What if it’s Aunty Sam?”

“She wouldn’t ring me in the middle of the day—she’s too busy.” On the other hand, what if it was Sam? Or Michael? She had the phone for emergencies. What if this was it?

Ella caved and walked across the kitchen, stepping over Tab’s dolls and a small mountain of dressing-up clothes as she reached for her purse.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tabitha hurl the broccoli under the table and was about to say something when her phone lit up with her sister’s name.