Page 13 of A Second Chance Christmas Kiss

My phone buzzed on the counter, and I quickly shut the door and locked it. Maybe someone wanted to put in an order.

When I picked it up, I saw that it was my son. “Hello? Will?”

“Hey, Mom. How are you?”

“Good.” I didn’t want to lay into him about how he hadn’t returned my calls for two weeks. Didn’t want to complain that I was lonely, and I missed him. To chastise him for not telling me when he was coming for Christmas. “I just locked up the shop. We were busy today—lots of tourists in town.”

“Oh. Right. The store. Are you selling lots of Christmas dolls?”

“I am.” Sometimes I was a little annoyed and embarrassed that I was running my mother’s old shop. After I’d gotten married and moved to Colorado, I’d complained about coming back to Jewel Cove and seeing my mother still running this place. She hadn’t lived in the apartment upstairs; after I’d gone away to college and gotten married, she’d bought a cute little home a couple streets over.

I could move into the house—I checked on it at least twice a week—but it didn’t feel right. It had always been my mother's home. I hadn't grown up here. It was nice enough, but I hadn’t wanted to go through her things. Maybe it was the grief of losing her, or the grief of losing my own home in Colorado. I didn’t know. At first, Gretchen had gotten after me for living above the store, but she’d learned to quit asking about it. Maybe it was because my world had been blown to bits and I’d been free-falling since the divorce. Coming back to the apartment felt like coming home. Plus, I missed my mother less here. It was like she could walk in at any moment.

“I’m glad it’s going well, Mom,” Will said, breaking into my thoughts. “Sorry I haven’t called. I’m just finishing up things.”

“Right. How did finals go?”

“Good. Really good. I’m really liking everyone in the business college.”

“Good. When will you be home?”

There was a pause.

“Well?” My heart raced, and I sensed that he was about to disappoint me.

“I’m not going home, Mom.Or to Jewel Cove. That’snotmy home. It’s never been my home. Plus, you live above the store. There’s no room.”

“I have a room for you. It’s ready.” I’d taken great pains to get a new queen bed and new dressers, and I’d hung up some of his old posters from the home in Colorado.

“It’s not home. I know it’s not your fault, but it’snothome.”

I didn’t know how to respond, because technically, he was right.

“I’m going to go with some of my college friends for Christmas.”

Pain hit the center of my chest. I couldn’t speak for a moment. “Uh …”

“Mom? Look, I’ll come to Jewel Cove for New Year’s, okay? But could we stay in Grandma’s old house? She always had a room for me. I’ll stay in that room.”

I tried to settle my thoughts. “Please just come for Christmas, Will.”

I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.

“New Year’s. I’ll be there around the thirtieth. I’ll stay for three or four days. Promise. My roommate Carl asked if I would go skiing in Park City, Utah, with him. His whole family is going, and they’ve offered to pay for me. I mean, Park City snow—you can’t get better than that, can you?”

I couldn’t get the words together. I knew I wouldn’t convince him. My son was an amazing skier. We’d all had passes to a ski resort up the hill from Denver, and we’d gone there a lot onSaturdays as a family until he’d turned fifteen or sixteen. Then he’d wanted to go with his friends, of course.

“I have to go, but I’ll call you on Christmas, okay?”

I wanted to say okay without crying. I didn’t want to show how upset I was. Will had struggled just as much as I had and had been radio silent for most of the past year. He once told me he didn’t want to punish me for the divorce; he just wasn’t sure how to deal with it all. That was a lot more mature than my desire to explain to him what I’d found after the divorce had been finalized. I’d gotten into his father’s emails and learned that it wasn’t just one woman he had cheated on me with; there had been many.

“Mom?”

I sucked in a breath through the tightness in my chest. Somehow, I put a smile on my face. “Okay. I love you.”

“Love you, Mom. Bye.”

The call ended. I put the phone down on the counter and pushed away, as if I could dismiss all these feelings and emotions just as easily. Tears washed down my face, and a sob escaped.

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