Page 70 of Meet Me at Christmas
Henry leaned across the table, pulling it to him. “Looks like I’m winning.” He turned the score around for Stella to see. “By two games.”
“Oh, you’re in trouble tonight. I’ll catch up in a jiffy.” Stella cut the deck and shuffled the cards once more.
“Neither of you will win with me playing,” Mr. Ferguson piped up.
“We’ll see about that,” Henry said with a playful wink in the old man’s direction.
Stella took the pad of paper and started to write their names for the new game, but paused at her sister’s name on an old roster. “Have you heard from Lily at all in the last day or so?” she asked Mama.
Mama shook her head. “No, nothing.”
That familiar pang of guilt ran through Stella. She just couldn’t believe her sister wouldn’t even try to come home for the holiday.
“Who’s Lily?” Mr. Ferguson asked.
“My other daughter,” Mama replied. “She’s just eloped, and she’s in Costa Rica, we think.” Mama smiled, but it was clear to Stella that the gesture was only out of courtesy. She was probably just as dumbfounded as her, even though she hadn’t admitted it out loud.
Mr. Ferguson’s bushy eyebrows pulled together. “Youthinkshe’s in Costa Rica?”
“We haven’t really been able to stay in touch with her due to bad reception. She must be somewhere pretty rural.”
Stella considered the fact that they were sitting across from a man with literally no family, and yet they had each other and weren’t taking advantage of the time they could be together when, at any moment, it could be too late. She sent a silent message to Pop, asking him to show her what to do. Then she tried to refocus on having fun with the people around her.
Twenty-Two
After a delightful night of cards—with Stella winning by one final game before they called it a night—she stayed up late working and was back at it early the next morning, clicking keys and barely sleeping. It was her usual routine when she was nearing a deadline.
The words were flowing easily, the idea of happiness as a cure guiding her like a light in the dark as she highlighted how Henry’s mind might have actually been saving him from his emotional trauma by not working, because the mind was meant to seek out happiness. She backed up the theory with her research and the data she’d found in Mr. Ferguson’s chart, which revealed that he’d been able to keep further memory loss at bay by maintaining a focus on the positives in life.
Before she knew it, hours had passed and she had written the entire thing. She sent it off to her editor and a weight lifted from her shoulders. She’d had to use others’ research mostly, sprinkling in anecdotal evidence to support it, but she’d raised some important ideas about the human condition and how emotions impacted the machine that was the human brain. She was proud of what she’d written, and she thought Amy would be as well.
By the time she hit send, it was almost two in the afternoon. She still wanted one more win for the day, so she called the main number for the Atlanta police department and left a detailed message about the necklace with one of the officers who told her he’d call her immediately if anyone inquired. He also said he’d pass along the information to their community hotline, and he asked her to keep the necklace in the safe until further notice.
With the parade tomorrow, she sent off final reminders to everyone involved and sent one more email to Jackson Cole, letting him know that they had Santa and were taking care of the suit delivery.
Not a second after she hit send, her phone pinged with a text:
Hey.
Henry.
She texted back:
Hey there.
A second text floated across her screen:
Meet me at Christmas.
Her skin prickled with his choice of words. The last time she’d seen them was on the note taped to the door of their home together. That December had been their final season of true contentment. January and February were tough for the construction business, and Henry had been working overtime to make ends meet, and she’d picked up extra shifts at the diner. In the May she’d gotten sick from working too much, or so she thought at first, and then by June, nothing was the same. She’d gotten on a plane to Stanford, searched for an apartment, and settled in before classes began in the August.
As she stared at the text message, Pop’s voice rang in her ears:“Never miss out on an opportunity to make things better.”
This was the second time she’d heard Pop’s words without being able to place the memory. Was she just conjuring his voice now, or was he somehow guiding her? It certainly was a wonderful thought. Real or not, Pop was right. Somehow, this Christmas she’d like to make things better for Henry, and while she wasn’t quite sure how to do it yet, she needed to figure it out.
“Mama,” she called down the hallway, “I’m heading out to meet Henry.”
“All right,” Mama called back.
