Page 55 of Snowflakes Over Starr's Fall
“That would be wonderful, too.” For the first time in a long while, Jenna didn’t feel that painful little pang of envy of her friends’ romantic lives. She thought of Jack, and she felt only hope. When she saw him again, she’d say something. Or maybe he would…
“I should go,” Annie said on a sigh. “There’s all this admin stuff. The to-do list of death.”
“If there’s anything I can do,” Jenna told her, wishing the words didn’t sound so trite. “Anything, Annie. Middle of the night, crack of dawn, whatever. I’m there.”
“Go give that man of yours a hug,” Annie replied. “That’s what you can do. And look forward and never back andliveyour life, Jenna. That’s all any of us can do. Live our lives… to the full.”
After Annie had said goodbye, Jenna stood in the store a few moments more. That had been a heck of a command, she thought with sorrowful wryness. It was hard to ignore Annie’s words when she had so much heartache and experience behind them.
Resolutely Jenna picked up her phone and swiped to call. Jack answered after the second ring.
“Jenna? Hey.”
“I was wondering what you were doing for Christmas.” In her nervousness, it came out abruptly, a little aggressively. Oops.
“I haven’t thought about it too much, to be honest,” Jack replied after what felt like a slightly startled pause, no doubt caused by her tone.
Jenna took a deep breath. Closed her eyes. And jumped. “Wouldyouliketospenditwithme?” she blurted, speaking so quickly it sounded like one long word.
“Sorry, what was that?”
Jenna took another breath and did her best to speak more slowly. “Would you…” she began carefully, “like to spend it… Christmas… with me?”
The answering silence felt endless. A cold wave of mortification and dread swept through her.Whyhad she decided to do this again? She’d just told Laurie that she and Jack were not in a spending-a-major-holiday-together stage yet, and then, made reckless by grief and Annie’s urging, she’d taken the stupid plunge.
“I’ll have my mother with me,” Jack said after a moment, in something of a warning. Jenna couldn’t tell if this was his polite way of refusing, or maybe he was trying to make her rescind her invitation. Either way, it felt like a negative, far too close to a no.
“I’ll have my mom with me, too,” Jenna reminded him shakily. “So it could be a with-mothers thing. If you wanted.” Which, she realized belatedly, sounded a little weird.
More silence. Jenna squeezed her eyes shut. She really shouldn’t have done this. Hadn’t she learnedanythingin ten years of stubborn, cynical loneliness? Forget Henrietta, Annie, Laurie, whoever else had told her to live life, like that was so easy to do. Living lifehurt. It didn’t always work out. Right now, it felt pretty awful.
And so she opened her mouth to retract her offer, stumble through something painfully awkward about how they didn’t have to spend the day together, it would probably be better if they didn’t, all things considered, what with their mothers and so on, and then Jack spoke before she could stammer through a single syllable.
“Jenna.” His voice was the low rumble that she loved. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
“You… do?” Her voice came out in a squeak.
“Yes.” He chuckled, the sound soft. “I do. As long as you do.”
“I do,” she confirmed, and then she let out a laugh of pure relief.
She felt as if she was floating as she closed up the store and walked back into the kitchen where her mother was standing at the stove, stirring something that smelled delicious. She glanced back at Jenna, smiling uncertainly.
“You look happy.”
“I am happy,” Jenna admitted. For once, she didn’t feel dragged down by dread or regret. Impulsively, thinking of how Annie could no longer hug her own mother, Jenna went around the table to give her mom a quick hug. “You know what?” she said. “Let’s decorate for Christmas.”
“The store…?”
“No, the store’s already decorated to the nines!” Jenna exclaimed with a laugh. “I meant the house. I haven’t bought a Christmas tree in years. Let’s buy a Christmas tree, get the old decorations down from the loft.”
Her mother smiled shyly, seeming pleased. “All right, then.”
Less than an hour later, after dinner, they were heading to the garden center halfway between Starr’s Fall and Torrington that sold Christmas trees and loading one up on top of Jenna’s car. Then back to the house, where Jenna braved the rickety ladder and cobwebs of the loft to dust off two boxes of decorations she hadn’t taken out since before her parents had moved to Florida.
Her mother made some hot chocolate, and Jenna put on Christmas carols and lit the fire. After they’d decorated the tree, they broke out a bottle of wine and sat on the sofa, curled up by the fire and chatting about nothing in particular… until her mom mentioned Jack.
“So, is it serious?” she asked.
