Page 15 of Meet Me at Christmas
“You two were so in love and perfect. And you just left us all. What happened?”
Divulging her secret now would only open up the past, and Stella wasn’t ready to do that. “I just wanted something different,” she said instead, knowing the response was flimsy at best.
Mary Jo understood both Stella and Henry too well to believe the excuse, but if she suspected it, she didn’t say anything.
“My brother was a total mess after you left. He didn’t sleep. He barely ate. He didn’t want to see anyone.”
Another tear escaped down Stella’s cheek.
“Then one day he showed up on the porch and told me and Mama he was joining the army.”
Stella wiped away her tear, the wounds she’d caused almost too much to bear. Henry wasn’t competitive; he didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body. “Why did he go into the army? That doesn’t seem like him.”
“He doesn’t know the answer himself. Henry has been battling how in the world he ended up doing a job that required him and others to be in harm’s way. He knows how honorable it is, but it’s made him anxious and frustrated. Handling that level of danger just isn’t in his nature.”
Stella recalled what Dr. Astley had mentioned about Stella’s previous article:“Your earlier article interested me because the subject experiencesconflicting information about things he has done in his life that directly oppose his values.”
Mary Jo continued. “I told him that I’d asked the same thing when he’d enlisted and he’d said at the time that he didn’t have a direction. He needed to test himself to find his true limits. He wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself. But I think the issue was his decision to enlist was never about what he actually wanted. I have to wonder if it was tolosehimself in the crowd, to put himself through something so rigorous that he didn’t have time to tear himself apart over you.”
Stella’s chest ached. She’d run off and done the same thing by jumping into her college years and then traveling. In college, she stayed out with friends or had her nose in a book until the last possible minute so that when her head hit the pillow, she was out. It kept her mind busy so she didn’t have to think about Henry.
“I didn’t want to hurt him,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Mary Jo brightened a little. “The greatest thing about life is that we can start again whenever we want to. I think about that all the time…”
“Areyouthinking of starting something over?”
Mary Jo chewed on her lip, seeming to wrestle with the question. “I hate living in that farmhouse all by myself. I need family around, and Henry doesn’t really feel much like family anymore.”
Stella’s heart broke for her friend. Silence settled between them.
As if they both knew they couldn’t get any further today, Mary Jo looked at her watch. “I’ve got to run so I can get back and plan feeding schedules for the animals.” She opened the door. “Come and see me sometime?”
“Okay.”
Mary Jo shut the door and jogged to her truck at the edge of the lot.
Her words rolled around in Stella’s mind, and she considered if starting over was really that easy. She put her car in gear and headed home.
* * *
“I got the car towed,” Mama said when Stella arrived home. In the light of day, her mother’s age showed in her face, the stress from losing Pop undeniable. “They’ll bring it by in the next hour or so.”
“That’s good.” Stella rubbed the pinch in her shoulder and dropped her handbag and laptop case on the floor.
All the way home, the fact raced through her mind that, given Henry’s hostility, progress was going to be slow. He needed time before he would show marked growth, and she didn’t have that kind of time for her article. This Henry was different from the boy she’d known, but one thing was the same: he was stubborn. Henry was a fixer. He always took control of things when they needed to be mended. And now he was out of control, powerless and clearly frustrated by it.
Mama, who’d been tidying the blanket that she kept on the arm of the sofa, stopped mid-fold, and put her hand on her hip. “You look like you’ve had a tough day.”
“To say the least.” Stella slumped on the sofa in front of the fire. Mama held out the blanket and she accepted it, covering herself and closing her eyes.
“Wanna talk about it over a cup of hot cocoa? I have marshmallows.” Mama excitedly wiggled her fingers the way Pop used to.
The action caught them both by surprise and they took a second to catch their breath.
“That sounds wonderful,” Stella said with a smile, trying to channel Pop’s way of seeing the best in everything. Realizing she was sitting on the sofa where her father used to plop down next to her, and reluctant to be on it alone, she threw the blanket off her legs, folded it, and followed Mama into the kitchen. “I’ll help you.”
“So tell me about work—what happened?” Mama filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. Then she pulled down two of the clay mugs Stella had made in high school.
