Page 7 of Meet Me at Christmas
“It’s going to be different,” Stella said, the ache of loss forming in her chest.
“Yes,” Mama said quietly. She stood there facing Stella in the hallway, her tired eyes filling with tears. Then she tugged on the rope, and the old hinges groaned as the door lowered open above them. Mama reached up to grab the bottom rung of the pull-down ladder, letting out a little grunt. “Your pop always used to do this part—climbing into the dusty attic for us.” She swiped a tear off her cheek.
Stella turned away, unable to manage herself. She cleared her throat. “I’ll go up,” she offered. Already things were too quiet without him, and with Lily nowhere in sight, she wasn’t sure how to handle it. She didn’t even want to think about what Christmas Day would be like. She’d keep waiting for him to come through the front door with more firewood or something. But right now, she had to focus on her mom. “You stay here, and I’ll hand you boxes.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Stella put her foot on the lowest rung of the ladder and tested its sturdiness, trying not to let her grief show for Mama’s sake.
Mama stepped back, and Stella climbed to the top. She hoisted herself into the rafters and clicked on the bulb overhead, illuminating the freezing, musty space. Her heart squeezed. Mama’s Christmas bins were stacked neatly to the side of the opening the way Pop had always left them. She made a mental note as to how he’d arranged them so she could put it all back the way he would’ve liked.
Christmas had always been full of joy when he was around. He’d put Christmas carols on the radio and even simple things like what they were doing now became part of the festive atmosphere. Stella put her hand on one of the bins and closed her eyes, wishing she could hear the whisper of his humming along with the holiday music playing downstairs, but she was met with only the whistling of the wind through the vent. She opened her eyes, the absence of Pop and their fractured little family weighing heavily on her. What was Lily thinking, leaving them like this? At the very least, she would know how hard it would be for their mother.
“Do you see them?” Mama called from below.
“Yep.” She reached over and pulled the bin off the top of the stack, steadying it in her grip and then leaning down through the opening. “Here’s the first one.”
Mama stepped up a few rungs and took it from her as dust fluttered through the air. She sneezed, nearly dropping the bin.
“Bless you,” Stella said, the sound of Pop saying the same thing floating through her mind, their two voices in unison. She looked around the attic as if she’d see him. For that one instant, it felt as if he were there with her.I miss you, Pop.
“Thank you,” Mama said, still collecting herself. “Okay, I’m ready. Send down the next box.”
Stella grabbed a bin of ornaments and handed it to her mother. She passed her a few more boxes until there was a stack on the hallway floor. “That’s it,” she called, clapping the dust off her hands. She climbed down and folded the ladder back into the ceiling. “We should turn up the Christmas music.” Maybe the sound would drown out her thoughts about Pop.
A flicker of recognition passed over Mama’s face, and Stella knew she was thinking the house was too quiet without Pop and Lily too. “Yes, we should.” With a hefty breath, she picked up a couple bins. “Let’s carry these into the living room.”
Stella lifted the largest of the containers—the one Pop would’ve gotten—and carried it into the room for Mama. Then she went back down the hallway to get the others. Her breath caught when she noticed a larger handprint in the dust on the edge of the lid. She stretched out her fingers and laid her hand on the print, the size of it swallowing hers. As she stared at it, wondering if it had been last year when Pop made that print, Mama turned up the radio.Silent Nightsailed through the downstairs.
The timing made her smile. If Pop could have arranged that little moment to tell them all things were calm and bright, she was sure he would have. She peered around at the empty hallway, wondering if Popwasactually there with them, and the moment felt a little lighter somehow.
Through the doorway to her bedroom, she had a view of the Christmas decorations on the fence. “I’ll have to help her with the lights on the tree,” she whispered, just in case Pop could hear.
“Could you help me with these lights?” her mother called.
Stella smiled.
“You’ll have to help her with a lot.”The thought came almost as if Pop was standing there beside her.
“On my way.” She grabbed the last few boxes and headed down the hallway.
When she got to the living room, Mama had pulled a chair over to the tree so they could reach the top. Stella set down the boxes and climbed onto it, reaching for Mama to hand her the strand of lights. Her mother’s thoughts were clear on her face, her struggle with the holiday evident in the frown lines around her lips.
“It might sound crazy, but I feel like Pop is here with us,” Stella said, hoping the idea would console her mother, even a little, the way thinking of Pop had helped her.
“I feel him sometimes,” Mama said, surprising her. She held up the lights for Stella.
“You do?”
Mama nodded. “Occasionally in the dark of night, I can almost swear I sense him beside me, his arms around me…” Her eyes glistened in the twinkling lights. “I freeze in that spot and don’t move, hoping I can stay awake until dawn so I don’t lose the feeling of it, but I always drift off.” Mama went over and sifted through a box of ornaments, her sniffles audible.
Stella started wrapping the lights around the tree, the branches soft under her fingers. She’d only experienced love like her mother and father’s once. With Henry. They’d planned out their future, and there was a time when she couldn’t imagine life without him. Recalling it now caused her to slip back into another memory.
“We have to have a huge farmhouse—bigger than this one,” Henry had said, spreading his muscular arms wide while the two of them rocked on the porch swing of her parent’s home.
Stella was reclined on her back with her knees up, resting her head on his thigh as she gazed up at him. “Why so big?”
“Because I want so many kids that we can’t chase them all down.” He tickled her sides, making the swing wiggle as she flinched, squealing. She pulled herself up into his arms and kissed his lips before resuming her position. Those blue eyes on her, he ran a finger down her cheek. “I want a house full of little boys and girls who look just like us.” His eyes widened. “We can make our own baseball team.”
