Page 4 of A Pen Pal for Christmas

Hudson

"I'm sorry,sweetheart. I love surprises, but this one might've needed a little more advanced warning if you wanted to be able to stay here."

"Why? I wouldn’t have let you tear all this down if it makes you happy," I told the beloved aunt who raised me. I gazed around the space that once felt like the safest place in the world to me. Gone were my sports trophies and video game posters, and in their place were a whole lot of items I didn’t have the names for. "Don't worry about it. I'll... uh... I can sleep on the couch."

"Nonsense. I’ve already booked you a room at the inn."

"I can get my own room?—"

"Nonsense to that, too. I did it the second we got off the phone this morning. I’m the one who turned your old room into a craft room and my guest room into a home gym. It was the least I could do."

I opened my mouth to argue, but my aunt just shot me a smile that suggested she'd won, and she knew it.

Ida brushed by me on her way to the kitchen, so I followed, setting my duffle on the floor by the front door. I’d traveled lightfrom Japan, with the rest of my belongings being shipped by the military. Soon, I’d need to find a place of my own, and it likely wouldn't be in Snow Hill. The small town where I’d grown up was about an hour away from the recruiting station where I’d be working come the new year. Even though spending Christmas with Ida in my childhood home had sounded like a welcome retreat after everything I’d been through lately, I doubted an hour-long commute was in the cards.

But a place to live was a problem forfutureHudson, and Ida likely wouldn't let me change her mind about staying at the inn. So, for now, I’d relax and spend what time I could with her while I was on my extended holiday leave.

"Tell me about your trip. How were the flights? Three legs, right?"

I groaned, bone-weary just thinking about the exhausting thirty hours of travel. Not to mention the fact that being so close to Christmas meant the airports were a mess. But, as usual, I couldn't whine about it to Ida. She'd taught me how to see the bright side of any bad situation. In the last few years, I hadn't been as good at that, but I didn’t need to prove that during our first face-to-face conversation.

"None of my flights were canceled, and I didn't sit next to a single crying baby."

Ida grinned. "Sounds like the perfect travel day."

I smiled back. Canceled flights and crying babies would've been much worse than delayed flights and fighting couples—whichhadhappened.

See? Bright side.

We spent the next hour sitting at the kitchen table in the three-bedroom farmhouse where I’d spent my youth, catching up about everything and nothing. I’d forgotten how much I missed talking to her. She was nothing like my mother, despite being her older sister. When my parents failed at the game oflife, Ida had taken me in and loved me like I were her own. I couldn't be more grateful. In fact, just sitting here with Ida had a little of the sadness and grief creeping into a dark corner of my mind as if scared of her light.

At this rate, I’d be halfway to happy by the time I started my new job as a Marine recruiter in Harrisburg.

"Oh, and look what Joan and I are cooking up this Christmas," Ida said, holding out a flyer with a flourish.

I expected the paper to be something related to literal cooking, then frowned when I saw it was some kind of holiday letter exchange. "Secret pen pals?"

Ida nodded. "Doesn't it look fun?"

"Uh, sure. How does it work?"

"Well, people who want to participate will drop their letters in the pretty red mailbox we bought from Cathy's shop. It's in the foyer at the inn, so that'll be handy for you since you're staying there."

"Uh—"

"Then," she continued, bulldozing right over my attempt to get out of this, "Joan and I will pair up the pen pals and deliver the letters each night. You don't have to write one every day, of course, but we figured we'd take a nightly walk delivering whatever is there, and that would get us our steps. We've got goals for the month, you know."

"Isn't it a little cold for nightly walks?"

She scoffed. "What's a little cold when you're trying to hit a step goal? We take our monthly and annual step goals very seriously. Anyway, Abby Rhodes—she's a cute kid who is basically a grandchild to Joan—set up this form. She said you just take a picture of this black and white box, and you’re entered!"

Ida sounded so delighted by the process—like it were magic rather than technology—that I didn't have the heart to let her inon the actual steps of scanning the code with the camera, then clicking to open it in the browser, then filling out the form from there. She wasn't the one signing up, and people would figure it out.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Ida pressed when I didn't make a move for my phone. She lifted it off the table for me, holding it out. "Go on. Sign up."

I hesitated. "Aunt Ida, I'm not so sure if?—"

Ida feigned smacking her forehead, letting out a musical giggle. "Oh, my memory is going, I swear. You don't have to fill it out, sweetheart."

---