Page 21 of The Mistletoe Mystery

“If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?” he says as he playfully wraps an arm around my neck.

“It seems I’ve misjudged you,” I reply.

“In what way?” he asks, stiffening.

“I always thought you were terrible at keeping secrets. I see now how wrong I was. If you’re not going to tell me who you picked, I won’t reveal who I picked either. How does that feel, Juan, to have a secret kept from you?”

His arm alights from its perch on my neck and drops heavily to his side.

The rest of our walk passes in silence.

When we arrive home, Juan attempts to change the mood by striking up a merry rendition of “Jingle Bells.” After wiping his shoes and putting them in the closet, he heads straight for our Charlie Brown tree to turn on the lights.

Just a day ago, the sight of our little misfit tree, all lit up, filled me with warmth and comfort—home sweet home.But now, when the lights turn on, the tree looks pathetic and misshapen. Even the macaroni star topper fails to enchant.

Juan busies himself in the kitchen, and soon enough he joins me on our threadbare living room sofa, where I’ve wrapped myself in Gran’s homemade lone-star quilt. He passes me a cup of hot chocolate, but when I try it, I scald myself.

“Careful!” he says. “You don’t want to get burned.”

Too late for that, I think to myself, though I don’t say it out loud.

Juan takes my cup and rests it on the side table beside hisown. “Molly, is something wrong? You can tell me, you know, if something’s bothering you.”

I wrap myself tighter in Gran’s quilt, but it fails to bring me warmth. This is my chance to ask, to find out if my beloved has been gaslighting me all this time. “I have a question for you,” I say, “and if I ask it, I want you to swear on your life that you will answer honestly.”

Juan sidles closer and puts a hand on my quilted knee. “Mi amor,do you not know me by now? Of course I’ll tell you the truth,” he replies.

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

He crosses his heart, then awaits my question.

“Were you on the fourth floor of the hotel today visiting a woman in her room?”

Now it’s Juan’s turn to flinch as if he’s been scalded. He withdraws his hand from my knee. “Who told you that?” he asks.

“Cheryl saw you,” I say. What I don’t say is that I saw him, too, with my very own eyes.

“Since when do you trust anything Cheryl tells you?” Juan replies, but I’m not really listening to his words because he’s grabbed his mug of hot chocolate and is walking away from me into the kitchen. My gran always said that if you want to know where someone’s going, watch their feet, not their mouths. As Juan retreats and pours his beverage down the drain, I see the truth in Gran’s words.

He reappears a moment later under the mistletoe in the kitchen entrance. He has yet to answer me. Does he really thinkhis fancy footwork will get him out of this? Little does he know, my interrogation is not over.

“I have another question,” I say.

“Go ahead,” he replies.

“How do you feel about Angela?”

His face lights up the second I utter her name. “Oh, she’s wonderful. I’ve been getting to know her better lately. She’s very helpful. And I really like her. But you know that,” he says.

“I do now,” I reply.

Suddenly, something in me feels about to break. My stomach hollows out as if I’ve been punched. I can barely draw a breath. There’s so much more to say, and yet I can’t probe any further because my heart can’t take it. I fear the answers I hear might mark the end of me. And more than anything, I worry the man in front of me is changing so quickly I hardly recognize him anymore.

“Molly?” Juan says from the doorway. “Do you have any other questions?”

“Just one,” I say. “Have you heard of the silent treatment?”

He nods, then comes back to the sofa and sits beside me. “Isn’t that when someone decides to punish you by not saying anything? It probably works well on people who talk a lot. Chatty people don’t enjoy the silent treatment at all, am I right?” He stares at me, awaiting my agreement. “Molly? Am I right?”

---