Page 44 of Meet Me at Christmas
She didn’t want him to remember yet. She was just getting him back. She’d been afraid since the day she walked into Vanderbilt and found him there that if he remembered their later time together, she might lose him again. Would that be for the best? Stella had a whole life outside of Leiper’s Fork, and Henry certainly didn’t need her mucking up his new life. Maybe without the terrible memories of her, he could finally move on.
“It’s vague,” he replied, cutting into her inner dialogue, “but it feels closer to the surface than the other memories.”
The way he was looking at her unnerved her.
“Will you come back to my house with me?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure that was a good idea, given this new development.
“I know what I want to do for my homework.”
“Why are you suddenly such a good student?” she asked.
“What?”
“Out of nowhere, you’re answering Ms. Weixel’s questions, doing your homework—it’s a one-eighty from the man who saved me from the ditch my first night here.”
His jaw clenched, his gaze shifting as if he were wrestling with something. Then he said, “You make me want to do better; you make mewantto remember.”
Guilt and uncertainty mixed within her like a toxic cocktail.
He held out his hand. “Come back to the cabin with me. I’m serious. I might need your help.”
She knew she shouldn’t say yes, but if she did, perhaps it would help him get the last fourteen years back, and if it did, they could finally move on from it. She was being selfish, anyway, swimming in those old feelings for him when she knew good and well that she could never give him what he wanted.
“All right.”
He nodded toward the remainder of her corn dog. “Bring your lunch with you.”
“That’s okay. I’m full anyway.” The food had settled like a brick in her stomach, and she tossed the rest into a nearby bin.
They made their way to Henry’s truck, hopped in, and drove the few minutes to the farm, parking outside the guest cabin.
“There’s a woodshed out back,” he told her, shutting off the engine. “I haven’t gone in there since I’ve been home, so it’s something I haven’t done.”
She got out and shut the truck door. “Why haven’t you been in it?”
“It feels strange, being here—like I’m living in someone else’s house, even though Mary Jo said I lived here before. I feel I should still be in the main house in my old bedroom.” He walked beside her down the stone path leading to the woodshed. “This shed, however, was something I did use every now and again—I remember that. I just haven’t felt like going in.”
“So why now?” she asked.
“When I saw that game of Hula-Hoops, I remembered more about the door.”
“I don’t follow.”
He stopped outside the shed. “I remembered a note I’d put on the door at the house that said ‘Meet me at Christmas.’ You and I used to leave notes on the door for each other.”
Her skin prickled. “Yes, we did.”
“And I wanted to give you a new door, the maple door I’d been working on. I think I made it here in the shed, and I thought having you with me might jog more of the memory.”
He tugged on the large barn door and slid it open. Right in front of them, still leaning against the worktable, was the door he’d had been restoring for their farmhouse. It was sitting there as if she’d only blinked and the last thirteen years hadn’t happened. The guilt and sadness of that final day and the loss of what they’d had rushed in, and her eyes filled with tears.
“What does this mean to you?” Henry asked.
She blinked, trying to clear her tears. “It just… hit me hard. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, that’s all.”
He squinted at her, clearly not buying that as the full answer. “Why does it make you emotional, though? What’s the connection?”
