Page 23 of Meet Me at Christmas
“He asked me to help him decorate the tree. He never was any good at it…” Divulging her thoughts, voicing the tiny shard of a memory after so many years, made her feel vulnerable, even if it was to Mary Jo.
Mary Jo huffed out a laugh, sharing her amusement at the comment. “He could’ve just asked me to help once I finished with the farmhands,” Mary Jo said. “Did he actually call you?”
“I was driving by Christmas and he stopped me.”
Mary Jo nodded. “Right place, right time.”
They moved closer to the tree, the conversation fading. There wasn’t any more to say, really, and Stella wondered if it was as hard for Mary Jo to navigate this moment as it was for her. Then her eyes fell on the chair in the corner and the blood drained out of her. Her old books were still stacked on the table next to it. Had Henry never moved them? She walked over and thumbed through the top one just before he came back into the room, holding a cup of water, with a kitchen towel over his shoulder.
“Oh, hey,” he said to Mary Jo.
His sister put her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Hey.”
“Anything good?” he asked, looking at Stella.
His tone was flat, that ever-present frustration lingering under the surface despite the normalcy that permeated the space. Any onlooker wouldn’t think a thing about the three of them standing in this cabin together, ready to decorate a tree for the holiday, but there was so much more going on.
Stella closed the book and ran her finger over the cover. “Um… Yes. I’ve read this one,” she said as she placed it back in its spot.
“They came with the house, or at least that’s how it feels,” Henry said before he crawled under the tree and filled the stand with water. “They seem a little girly for me, so I’m guessing they were left by a lady friend or something.”
Stella eyed Mary Jo, swallowing hard to push the lump in her throat back down.
“Mary Jo, you don’t know whose they might be?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mary Jo replied.
Stella gave her a loaded look, wondering about her motives.
“It’s not really important anymore, is it? Since they must belong to someone from the past,” Mary Jo said, raising her eyebrows and daring Stella for a rebuttal.
“What if thesomeoneis important?” Stella asked.
Henry righted himself and set the empty water cup on the table.
“I think we all have lots of paths in life, and it’s up to us to figure out who’s important to us,” Mary Jo replied, folding her arms. “Henry, do you need any help, or do the two of you have things under control?”
“We’re good,” Henry said.
“All right.” She leaned over to Stella. “Come by the house and see me sometime.”
“Okay.”
After Mary Jo left, Henry turned to Stella. “How do you know which path to pick?”
“What?”
“Mary Jo said we have lots of paths in life, and it seemed like you agreed. How do you know which one’s the right one?”
She considered his question and chose to answer with why she’d taken her own path, leaving him. “Well, for me and probably most of us, we take the path of least resistance.”
“I get that,” he said. “It’s why I’m putting up a tree. Because it’s the path of least resistance, and it makes my sister happy.” He stared off as if his thoughts were consuming him, those stormy eyes full of concern. “I’ve got some boxes in the attic labeled ‘Christmas.’ I’ll bring them down.”
After he left the room, she sat on the edge of the sofa, taking in more deep breaths. So much had happened in the last few days. She was still herself, yet everything had changed, and she was aware of all that was lost. Was this how Henry felt?
“Hey, have you ever seen one of these before?” Henry asked when he returned.
He’d lugged in her old wooden potter’s wheel. She observed the contraption about the size of a large suitcase with new eyes. Perhaps the dimensions she remembered had been skewed to encompass the magnitude of love she had for the machine. The turning platform had seemed so big when she was a girl, but now it was as if it were in miniature, resting only a few feet above the floor. The iron rods and metal bearing were discolored with age.
