Page 48 of Of Angels & Absolution

“Because he loved me back,” she says. “In all the ways I wanted and needed to be loved. People with hearts as big as yours, I think you could love just about anyone, and she’d be lucky to have you. But the one who deserves that love is the one who can match what you give her, and then some. That’s how you know she’s worth giving that big heart to.”

I think about that all night, and I wonder, after everything we’ve done to Mercy, could she ever love any of us? And if she could, would she even choose me to love?

fifteen

The Merciful

“I was thinking about Christmas,” I say, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder while I pet Dr. Jekyll, who has deigned to sit in my lap today and is grudgingly allowing my show of affection.

Aunt Lucy doesn’t say anything.

“Have you gotten out the tree yet?” I ask, a sinking feeling in my stomach, though I’m not sure why yet. “I could come down this weekend and we could put it up.”

We always put up the tree together while Christmas music blares from the speakers and a fireplace crackles on the TV. We put up every single one of Aunt Lucy’s million mismatched ornaments—the ones inherited from parents and grandparents; the ones she got great deals on from garage sales and thrift stores and drug store clearance aisles; the handmade ones Saint and I glued together in class or Sunday school when we were kids, which our mother sent to her instead of hanging them on one of the perfect, themed, and color-coordinated Soules family trees.

Once, I joked, “This is where Christmas ornaments come to die,” as I hung a crinkled, construction paper snowflake that was crusty with glue, having lost most of its glitter and sequins in its ten years on her tree.

“Or it’s where they come tolive,” she said with a wink and a smile that made dimples sink into her soft cheeks.

“Oh—yes,” Aunt Lucy says after a long pause. “I just got it out last week. I didn’t think you’d want to come down for that,now that you’re all grown up and away at college with all your new friends.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat, but I can’t bring myself to tell her I don’t have many friends, that I don’t want to be grown up. I want to be back in her cozy, cluttered house with her awkward attempts at conversation, her comfortable silences while we watched TV together and did needlework.

Except at Christmas.

Tree trimming was the only night we didn’t put on a show and get lost in it, so we didn’t have to think of things to say to each other. After the tree was assembled and trimmed, we’d sit on the sofa under our blankets, with mugs of hot cocoa warming our hands, the little marshmallows floating on top and a candy cane tucked into the side for stirring, and we’d just watch the tree twinkling. I’d think about my parents and my brother at home, and I’d tell myself this was better.

“Oh,” I say at last. “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll just see you at Christmas.”

“Oh…”

That sinking feeling comes again, but this time, it feels more like nausea. “Aunt Lucy?”

“The thing is,” she says, then doesn’t continue.

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s just, I thought now that you were eighteen, and you moved out on your own…”

“That your duty was done,” I say, slumping back against my bed. “It is. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I thought—”

“No, honey, it’s not that at all,” she says, but I know she’s lying. I was a burden dumped on her doorstep, a stray cat like Dr. Jekyll that no one wanted. She must have always hoped my parents would come back for me, the same way I did. When they didn’t, she told herself it was only a few years until I waseighteen, only a year, only a few months. And then she was free of her responsibility.

I don’t blame her. She once told me she never got married because she didn’t want the expectations and responsibilities that came with it. She didn’t say kids, but it was implied. She liked her quiet life, her own company, her independence. She was settled in her ways, and even when I came along, I was old enough that she didn’t have to rearrange her life for me the way a mother does. She didn’t deviate from her routine, so I fit my life in around the edges of hers and tried not to disrupt her comfortable existence any more than my mere presence did.

I never wanted more. She’d already given me far more than I had any right to ask for—a place to live, to rest, to heal, and to hide.

And she never signed up for any of it. All she signed up for was a weekend visit with my mom, maybe a few days of hanging out with her niece beyond that. She never wanted to adopt a kid. She didn’t agree to a lifetime of Christmases with me. She didn’t even agree to one.

I wasn’t in foster care, but I’ve aged out of the system anyway. I’m on my own now.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “It was presumptuous and rude of me to even ask. I’ll just—have a merry Christmas, Aunt Lucy. Thank you for… Everything.”

“Wait,” she says before I can hang up.

My throat aches, and I can’t find any more words.

“It’s just… I’m spending it with your parents,” she says in a rush. “They thought I’d be alone, so I’m going there for Christmas dinner. I thought you’d reconcile when you went off to school, especially when you told me your brother was there. I can cancel if you want. We can have dinner like we always did.”

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