Page 44 of Take Me Home for Christmas

I would never take a miracle like that for granted.

But then, miracles didn’t happen to damaged people like me.

Except—maybe one already had. One that I’d nearly let slip out of my hands.

I stared at her for so long, I forgot what time it was or what I was doing. Until her lashes fluttered, and she stirred. My heart pounding, I froze until her breathing returned to the deep, slow rhythms of sleep, gathered my stuff, and hightailed it out ofthere, careful not to make a sound. All that was loud was the sound in my ears of my pounding heart and a deep, visceral yearning I couldn’t quite snuff out.

The scent of cinnamon and warm dough hit me as I descended the back stairway into the kitchen. As I turned the corner at the bottom, I saw the warm reddish-golden blaze of a fire in the brick fireplace. Mrs. D was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee, flipping through a book. The Christmas tree with cookie cutter ornaments and red ribbons in the corner was already lit up.

She looked up and smiled, then patted the seat next to her. “Brax, come sit. Unless you’re on your way out?”

“Just going out with Cooper here so he doesn’t get eaten by a coyote.”

She let out a surprisingly loud chuckle. Then she got up. “You just sit down. Coopy, come here.” The dog followed her obediently to the door. As soon as she opened it, he bolted out. “Thank you for being willing to freeze your backside for our dog, and don’t tell Steven, but it’s way too cold for coyotes. Now, how do you take your coffee?”

I smiled, grateful for her laid-backness. “Black is fine, but cream is nicer if you’ve got some.”

She grabbed a Santa mug, filled it up, grabbed a carton of creamer out of the fridge, and took her seat next to me.

She pushed a spiral book between us. A photo album. “I love remembering our early Christmases. Maybe you’d like to look at the photos with me?” She looked up, her bright blue eyes searing through me, as if she could read all my secrets.

“Sure.” I sensed that she really wanted to share these photos, whatever they were. And I felt honored to be invited. What way to understand Mia better?

Beth heaved a sigh. “Sometimes I feel that my kids would rather pretend nothing tragic happened to us. But I find I needto remember the love—it helps me to dwell on that and not the pain. Isort ofsucceed at it.” She eyed me carefully. “Otherwise, our Grace is forgotten, and I can’t have that.”

Our Grace. I couldn’t imagine the loss. Instantly, I thought of Mia with Rylee and Reagan. How she always made sure to bring Reagan into her interactions with Rylee. Always chatting with her, asking about her, including her. She was so great with those little girls. Now, I was beginning to understand that it just might be a mission.

Beth tapped on a photo. There were her kids—all four of them—cross-legged under a brightly lit Christmas tree, all wearing red Santa hats and their Christmas morning pj’s. “I asked them to pose with their favorite gift.”

There was Liam wearing Harry Potter glasses, not unlike the pair he wore now, clutching a book. Caleb held a lightsaber somewhat threateningly over his brother’s head. Guess nothing much changed. Grace clutched a doll. Mia—who was all of eight or nine, I guessed—had glasses and a halo of blonde hair curling everywhere. Notably, she had bunny slippers on. She had one arm wrapped around Grace, and she was smiling at the doll in Grace’s arms. There was a round, glass object in her free hand, but it was obscured by the folds of her robe. “What’s that Mia’s holding?” I squinted hard to see.

Beth leaned over. She smelled like cinnamon, and it made me wonder, is this what mothers smell like? She rested a hand lightly on my arm and pointed with the other. How could she be so welcoming to a stranger? I’d known lots of foster parents. Some were really nice, others more aloof. All I knew was that it was easy to feel the warmth and affection Beth seemed to so readily hand out to everyone. Having it directed at me felt strange, but I admit, I absorbed it as hungrily as sunshine on the beach.

“Mia did love that snow globe.” She peered carefully at the photo that she must have looked at a million times. “I think we bought it at the Kris Kringle market.”

Before I could ask her what that was, she told me. “That’s a market they have in the Main Street shops each year. All the artists make special wares for the holidays, and they serve hot chocolate and warm gingerbread and, of course, warm cheese curds.”

I’d never heard of cheese curds before coming to Wisconsin. Unbelievably, I’d never tasted them. As an undergrad, I was always pinching pennies. And as a med student…well, I just wasn’t very food-adventurous. But a lot of people said they were the state’s best-kept secret.

“Anyway,” Beth continued, “the globe was very Christmasy, swirling with snowflakes. In the center was a house with Christmas lights and a couple of little kids holding hands that Mia always thought of as her and Grace, and there was a little dachshund in it that did really look like our little doxie at the time, Jack. The globe broke a year later, when the kids were chasing each other around the family room. Mia cried and cried. Shortly after, Grace got sick again and…” Her voice got very soft and choked up. “And we lost her.”

Instinctively, I put my arm around her. To my surprise, she let out a sob and hugged me tight. At a loss, I stayed stock-still, uncertain of what to do, but sensing that she somehow needed me to stay right where I was.

I thought of little-girl Mia, so in love with the lovely fantasy inside that globe. One that was shattered right along with her family as she knew it.

Suddenly, it dawned on me—Mia’s mom had just explained to me who Mia was. And I saw the evidence of it in that photo.

She was the little girl wanting to do anything to protect her sister, wanting the cancer to go away. Trying to help but feeling helpless.

Was that why she’d gone into pediatrics? So she could obtain the tools to help? It made sense why she was so taken with Rylee and Reagan. Maybe she was seeing another pair of twins so similar to herself and Grace and wanting desperately to change their fates.

Maybe that was also why she was so determinednotto do heme-onc, despite having such a passion for helping those kids. In some way, each family’s circumstance would be a version of her own personal nightmare—trying to save kids as she’d wanted to save her own sister—and couldn’t.

After a moment, Beth drew back. “Oh, goodness. I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up a little straighter and wiping her eyes. “No, I’m not,” she said resolutely. “I needed someone to listen to me tell that story. I needed you to understand how close Mia was to her sister, how a twin bond is so very, very close, and when it’s broken, it feels like a piece of you is missing. And maybe it always will.”

I nodded because I got it, what it was like to feel that hole. I totally did.

My mother was an addict who couldn’t hold down a job, couldn’t provide for us. Despite all that, I knew that in her way, she’d loved us, even as she’d continued to hurt us. I’d long since forgiven her, but the sense ofwhat ifwould always haunt me. What if she’d stayed clean, what if her last stint in rehab had worked, what if we could’ve had the chance to be a normal family? I would never stop wondering.

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