Page 16 of Meet Me at Christmas
“Well, for starters, I only have one patient to use as a case study for my next article, and he’s not terribly open to therapy.” She rubbed her aching eyes.
“Oh dear.”
“And there’s something else that makes it even more… unusual.” She opened the drawer and retrieved two spoons, then handed them to her mother. “The patient is Henry.”
Mama whirled to face her, wide-eyed. “Henry?”
“Yeah… He was in an accident in the army and doesn’t remember parts of the last fourteen or so years. He doesn’t remember things like… being married.”
Mama’s mouth dropped open, her surprise evident. She had been there to dry Stella’s tears when she’d come home after leaving Henry all those years ago. Mama understood the choice Stella had made that day. Having fallen in love and married Stella’s father at a young age, her mother had transitioned from childhood right into married life, and by the time she was twenty-three she had two toddlers running around. And while Stella had never once seen a shred of regret from her mother, when Stella told her she was leaving Leiper’s Fork, there was a sparkle in Mama’s eyes that revealed to Stella that a part of her mother had always wondered what might be out there in the wild world.
Her mother didn’t fully understand then why Stella had chosen to go, but it had been clear that she’d supported it, even though she’d wondered openly about how Henry would manage. Now, it was evident that she had connected the fact that if Henry didn’t remember his recent past, he didn’t know what he’d lost either.
The kettle whistled on the stove. Mama took it off and poured water into the mugs, then handed one to Stella. “What happened to him?”
Stella chewed her lip, trying to squelch the idea that this was all her fault. “I’m not sure. I only know there was an accident. They didn’t give me details about the lead-up; it isn’t part of my job to know specifics of how the injury happened, but rather how they plan to fix it.”
“Henry didn’t give you any more details?”
Wrapping her hands around the chunky mug, she replied, “He wasn’t really giving anyone anything. Today made his attitude last night seem like a walk in the park.”
“I know he must be scared,” Mama said, putting her hand over her heart. “What doesn’t he remember?”
“I ran into Mary Jo and she told me that his memory of his later years is spotty at best.”
Mama shook her head. “That poor boy. He’s been through so much.”
Her comment only served to make Stella feel worse. “I’ve learned a lot about life in my time away,” she said as she stirred the chocolate mixture in her mug. “I don’t regret leaving entirely, because I’ve had a lot of great experiences that have changed me as a person. I do regret, however, having to let go of what I had with Henry. I try not to think about it, but it does enter my mind.”
“Do you miss him?” Mama asked.
Stella didn’t want to recall those early, lonely nights she’d spent when she’d first arrived at Stanford, crying into her pillow, the ache without him almost too much to bear.
“Yes.”
But now, even if she wanted to try to explain, that version of Henry was gone. And just as it had happened with the rest of her family, she hadn’t paid close enough attention until the damage was nearly beyond repair.
She and Mama settled into their cups of cocoa, moving on to lighter topics like Mama’s plan to buy a new comforter set to cheer up her bedroom. They chatted into the evening, Stella actively pushing the stress from her mind and settling into the conversation. The Christmas tree and the crackling fire gave Stella a little burst of festiveness, and both she and Mama decided that it would probably be a good idea to work on the parade.
“You seem to have most of the regular entrants registered for the parade and you have a grand marshal—someone named Jackson Cole,” Stella said with her laptop on her knees, her legs folded under her on the sofa. Her eyes were heavy, the jet lag still hanging on. She really needed to be thinking about how to pull her second article together in a matter of weeks. And she had to finalize the one from St. Thomas’ before sending it in for edits, which meant pressing the doctor in London to send her the final study she was waiting for. Plus, she still hadn’t spoken fully to Lily, and she’d like to track her down and try to convince her to come home.
Mama set another mug of hot cocoa on the table in front of her and sat next to Stella, holding her cup as if it were a security blanket. As she took in Mama’s weary face, Stella knew she needed to get this worry off her mother’s plate first, before she tackled anything else.
Pop’s voice floated into her mind.“Everything will work out.”
A rush of fondness for her father fell over her. “You always say that,” she’d challenged him once when she was about seventeen. “How do you know it will?”
“Because it has less to do with reality and more to do with how you perceive it.”
“I don’t follow.”
“When you get to be my age, you realize that everything really does work out exactly how it’s supposed to. The bumps and bruises heal, the tests in school come and go, and your uncertainties eventually fall away. One day you’ll look back and realize that the tiny blip that kept you up through the night all those years ago has been consumed by the years that have buried it. So you do your best in the moment and know that everything will end up the way it was meant to be.”
But he hadn’t been referring to all the big things, the things that weighed on her mind. Those wouldn’t work out, would they?
“Okay,” she said to Mama, picking up her mug and returning to the task at hand. She blew the steam from the top of the chocolaty liquid. “Let’s take a look at who’s entered so we can send out confirmation emails and build the lineup.”
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Mama said, a crack of emotion in her voice. Planning the parade had always been one of Pop’s favorite jobs, and even sitting next to Stella while she handled it seemed to be difficult for her mom.
