Page 101 of Happy After All

“I have just a few flamingos to finish up,” I say. “Then I’m going to wrap it in Saran Wrap, and I need to get it over to the A Very Desert Christmas location.”

“I can help with that,” he says.

“With hot gluing flamingos?”

“If you need it,” he says.

“I would love that, actually.”

“My pleasure.”

I laugh. “Somehow I doubt it.”

“I mean it. Christmas has pretty much meant nothing to me for three years, but it’s impossible to be a grinch when ... flamingos.”

“The kids are coming here for one of their rehearsals. I’m thinking I should have them all do a tree. They deserve something fun. They’re going to school in a hollowed-out Walmart. They’ve been through all the same trauma as the adults, but they’re little. I feel so bad for them.”

“The kids should definitely do a tree,” he says.

“I’m going to have to get some supplies.”

We spend a chunk of the afternoon on the flamingos. Then a plumbing crisis in one of the rooms takes up some of my time. He tries to help, and I tell him I absolutely cannot have a guest helping me with a motel disaster, regardless of whether the guest and I arefraternizing. (He objects to that term, and I tell him that’s his problem.)

He and I share a long look at that, but he lets me take care of it on my own. It’s getting dark, and I’m a little bit hungry, but I decide that it’s time to get the tree out to the A Very Desert Christmas site, and afterward there can be food.

Nathan helps me wrap the pink tinsel tree and get it loaded into the back of my Jeep.

I drive the short distance up the road to the site, and I’m awed by what I see.

Most of the trees are already there, lit up, with lights strung over the top.

“It’s magical,” I say.

This is the new home of my Christmas memories. My childhood ones really aren’t good, and a lot of the things pertaining to my life in LA feel tainted now.

But this doesn’t.

The community has experienced hardship. I guess you can’t keep the bad things out no matter how hard you try sometimes. But what they’ve done in response has turned it into something new.

It’s a miracle, Christmas or otherwise.

We open the Jeep, and he lifts the tree out, not taking my help. He hefts it over his shoulder and moves with fluid grace ahead of me.

“As much as I’m enjoying watching this display of masculine strength,” I say, “you don’t know where this is supposed to go.”

He turns and looks at me, and I grin back at him.

“Then where should I put it?”

“I’ll show you,” I say, happily scampering in front of him as we make our way through the grove of lit trees.

I search for my number, and then find it.

“This is the spot,” I say.

He sets the tree down and begins to unwrap it. It is a glittering pink monstrosity in the midst of all the green. I love it more than I can say.

“You’re running the auction for all these?”

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