Page 3 of Christmas On Anchor Island

Silence settled around them as Henri stared without blinking and Mia held her breath. Finally, the visitor looked away. “We should go downstairs.”

Unsure what had just happened, Mia nodded. “Oh. Right.”

After another brief hesitation, Henri turned on her heel and headed toward the stairs. Mia followed with Roxanne tucked close against her shoulder. She couldn’t tell if Henri was still angry with her or not, but knowing the woman’s blunt ways, she would soon find out.

* * *

“That was a touching scene up there,”Henri said once they each had a soda and were seated at the kitchen table. Mia had shifted Roxanne down to cradle her, and though the baby was awake, she cooed contentedly.

“I don’t know if Callie told you,” Mia began, “but I came out to her and the others this summer.”

When Henri left in June, Mia’s insistence on keeping her secret had been a seemingly unmovable obstacle between them, so she’d been surprised when Cal had shared this news. Not that anyone should be forced to come out before they were ready, but she’d cared about Mia more than she’d cared about anyone since Yvonne, and that had ended four years ago. Selfish and more vulnerable than she liked to admit, Henri had believed that if Mia felt the same, she’d break her silence so they could be together.

Not Henri’s proudest moment, and one she’d come to regret in the months since. But before she could say as much, Mia continued.

“Right before you walked in, Callie confessed that they all knew the truth before I said anything.”

Of course, they did. Anchor Island was barely a mile wide. If a ghost crab farted on one side, a sand crab would hear it on the other. It was a miracle Mia had managed to keep her secret for this long.

“How does it feel?” Henri asked.

Mia stared at the baby in her arms. “Good. Strange. Scary.”

The baby wrapped her tiny hand around Mia’s finger, and Henri fought the urge to slide around the table and do the same. “It gets easier.”

Shaking her head, Mia looked up with a sigh. “I still can’t tell my grandmother.”

Henri’s moment of hope faded. “You don’t think she’d approve?”

“You’ve met Nota. She lives in a different time.”

“She loves you, Mia. Give her a chance.”

“We were watching the news back in June and they showed footage of a Pride parade. Grandma made a comment about how those people didn’t have to be so public.”

“Those people are strangers,” Henri reminded her. “You’re her family. Views tend to change when those people are suddenly your people.”

Clearly uncomfortable, Mia rose from her chair. “I need to get back upstairs if I’m going to finish the mural before Conner gets home.” Without warning, she lowered Roxanne into Henri’s arms. “Callie is excited to have you back so I’ll let you two talk.”

“Mia, wait…”

The plea was ignored and she disappeared around the corner toward the stairway. A second later Callie appeared, baby in her arms and confusion on her face.

“What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Henri defended. Callie unleashed the look that made her the spitting image of her mother, one of Henri’s least favorite people. “Don’t look at me like that. She said you guys know the truth, but she still can’t tell her grandmother. I simply suggested that she should.”

“Like how you told our grandmother?”

Not the same thing.

“Old Mags would never have accepted the truth. On her deathbed she made me promise to marry a fine young doctor and give Mama lots of grandbabies.” Rolling her eyes, Henri added, “She once got the vapors because someone told her what The Birdcage was about. If I’d have come out to her, she’d have not only banished me from the family, but blamed Mama for making me gay because she let me cut my hair in third grade.”

Mags had still been lamenting that haircut at Henri’s college graduation, and when she’d realized that one side of her granddaughter’s head was shaved for the occasion, Mama had gotten yet another lecture about letting her daughter attend a school in the uncivilized north.

“That still makes you a hypocrite,” Callie said, lowering Rachel into the playpen. “If Mia says she can’t tell Nota, then you should respect that.”

“What’s she going to do? Wait until the woman dies to live her life?” Mia was nearly thirty and if nothing had changed over the last six months, Nota Stamatis wouldn’t be meeting her maker for years to come.

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