Page 77 of Meet Me at Christmas
“Only that you got married,” Mama replied.
Mateo spoke up in a deep voice, his accent thick. “Well, yes. We got married, but only for my side of the family. We still want to have a wedding here.”
Lily took Stella’s hands. “I wouldn’t leave you and Mama out of our wedding. We wanted a little ceremony on the front porch—nothing fancy, just us.”
Tears of relief pricked Stella’s eyes—relief that Lily had remembered, that her sister hadn’t abandoned them, and also that Stella’s behavior hadn’t impacted her decision to stay away.
Lily raised Stella’s left hand, saw the ring, and sucked in a breath. “Noooooo,” she said with an excited shake of her head. “I know this ring. Are you and Henry…?”
“We’re taking things slowly,” Stella replied, but she couldn’t hide her sizzle of excitement.
Lily squealed and pulled Stella in for a bear hug, the two of them laughing like schoolgirls. “Hehasto come to the wedding. Then we’llallbe there…”
As Lily trailed off, they looked at each other wistfully. Stella knew by her sister’s face they were thinking the same thing: they’d all be there except for Pop.
Mama clapped her hands as if clearing the air. “Let’s have wine!”
They sat around the table together, and Lilly started filling them in on meeting Mateo and how they got engaged.
“He was in Chattanooga for work,” she said.
Mateo held his glass of wine as he looked adoringly at his new wife. “I saw her in a coffee shop and couldn’t leave without talking to her. Six months later, I served her a coffee at that same shop, but it had a little something extra tied to the handle.”
“It was so pretty,” Lilly said, showing them her sparkling diamond ring. “He’d tied it to the handle of the mug with a red ribbon. Then out of nowhere, a violinist walked through the shop and stopped at our table, playing just for us. Mateo got down on one knee and proposed.”
“That’s just lovely,” Mama said, sighing dreamily and leaning on her hand.
“My grandparents were unable to travel, so we decided to have two weddings: one in Costa Rica and one here.”
“I was so worried you weren’t coming home,” Stella said. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without you.”
Lily reached out and squeezed Stella’s hand. “I knew the calls were choppy, but you didn’t getanyof my texts?”
“I got the one with the photo, but nothing else.”
Lily pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the endless texts—an entire play-by-play of events. “In all the excitement and craziness of the wedding, I was texting so quickly that I didn’t even look to see…” She scrolled a bit more. “These were all undelivered. Oh, my goodness.”
“My family is from a remote village,” Mateo said, “so we don’t have a lot of modern conveniences. Like cell phone service.”
Mama fluttered her hands in the air. “It’s neither here nor there. You’re home now. And we want to see all the photos.” She beamed. “This is going to be a wonderful Christmas after all.”
Stella sat on the sofa with Lily, Mateo, and Mama, scrolling through the wedding photos on Lily’s phone. “Those gray peaks are the Talamanca Mountains,” Lily said, turning the phone so Stella could get a good look at them.
“My family lives in the valley there,” Mateo added, pointing to the small dip between the mountains.
“It’s so rural and unspoiled. Everywhere you look, there’s green. And cutting through it are enormous waterfalls. Mateo’s whole family lives in these little huts that look like tree houses. And here”—Lily swiped her finger along the phone screen to select another photo—“are the dancers from our wedding.”
Stella leaned in to see three barefoot women with the bottom ruffles of their brightly colored skirts in their fists as they danced. They each had their hair pulled back tightly in a bun and vibrant, matching flowers in their hair.
“They’re gorgeous.”
“I know,” Lily said. “It was just… magic. Mama, look at this.” Lily scooted closer to their mother to show her another photo.
They shared stories, Lily telling them all about her busy flights to and from Costa Rica, and Stella filling in Lily and Mateo on the mysterious necklace she’d found at the Atlanta airport on her way home. She’d gotten it out of the safe, and they’d all ooed and ahhed over it.
They’d all settled in around the fire when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Stella offered, crossing the room.
