Page 2 of The Twelve Months of Christmas
She’d hoped this would be a chance to connect with her step-kids, and maybe impress her mother-in-law just a little bit. Self-pity got busy in the tear factory, producing a couple of nice fat ones to trickle down her cheek.
“There’s still love here,” her mother said. “And your turkey is already smelling delicious.”
Sunny harrumphed. “Not that there’s many of us here to eat it. I still can’t believe Rae chose Will’s family over us. We’ve always all been together at Christmas, and we really should have been this year with Gram gone.”
“Your sister has another family to consider now,” Mom pointed out.
“They’re not married yet. She could consider her new family next year,” Sunny argued. Okay, she was sounding like a brat. She knew it. She poured coffee into the mugs, ignoring Travis’s whiskey request. No Irish coffee for him on Christmas Day. Why should he get to numb his pain when she didn’t? “It’s wrong that Travis doesn’t get to see his kids,” she said in defense of his foul mood.
“You’re right,” said her mother.
“I had so many cool things planned for our first Christmas with them,” Sunny continued. So far, they hadn’t had any stellar firsts, but Christmas was different. Christmas mended all kinds of broken fences. At least that was what she’d always believed.
“Dylan would have loved the Santa treasure hunt,” Mom said.
“So would Bella,” Sunny said.
Her mother didn’t say anything, but her sympathetic smile made it clear she didn’t think so.
“She would,” Sunny insisted.
Okay, she was deluding herself. Her thirteen-year-old stepdaughter probably would have deemed a hunt for her Christmas presents beneath her and then glowered her way through the rest of day. It seemed like everything Sunny tried to do with or for her was met with derision.
“She’s at a difficult age,” Mom said in Bella’s defense.
“You’d think she’d see the benefit of getting a bonus mom,” Sunny said. “Double the Christmas presents.”
“It’s not that simple,” Mom said. “Her parents turned her life upside down when they split and now both Tansy and Travis have added new parent figures into her life. That has to be upsetting.”
“But I’m nice,” Sunny protested. She wasn’t an evil person. She tried to be kind, gave money to good causes, was always buying little gifts for the kids. And she never yelled at them. What more did they want?
“You are nice,” Mom said. “So don’t worry. Dylan’s adjusting and Bella will come around eventually. Give it time.”
“And what about Jeanette?” Would Travis’s mom ever come around? How much time did she need?
Sunny’s father-in-law, Harry, had called not long after Tansy dropped her holiday bomb to say that he and Jeanette wouldn’t be coming over for Christmas dinner. Jeanette wasn’t feeling well and he had to stay home to take care of her.
“That was such a pitiful excuse for bailing on us,” Sunny groused to her mom.
“Maybe she really isn’t feeling well,” Mom said, being irritatingly reasonable.
“I’d bet a stocking full of gold coins she’s feeling fine now.” This was so not right. “What have I ever done to these people? Why do they hate me?”
“It’s not you they hate. It’s seeing everything changed.”
“Well, they knew it was going to change.” Sunny could feel her voice rising. She lowered it and continued, “Travis and Tansy were already over when I met him. Tansy’s moving on, so how come he doesn’t get to? How come the welcome mat got yanked out from under my feet?”
She already knew the answer. Tansy had pulled the proverbial wool over Jeannette’s eyes early on, convincing her she was a sweet, lost soul, and they’d bonded. Jeanette had nursed hopes that Travis and Tansy would get back together. Sunny’s arrival on the scene killed those hopes.
“Come on, the coffee’s getting cold. Let’s finish opening our presents,” Mom said and led the way back to the family room.
A family room with barely any family in it. Happy holidays.
Christmas wasn’t going any better for Arianna White—once upon a delusion, Arianna Jorgenson. Thirty-five had not been a good year for her. She’d gotten divorced, said goodbye to her house and moved in with her mother.
She’d loved that house. They’d bought it five years earlier and she’d envisioned them growing their family in it and then growing old. But after they divorced, it felt like a house of horrors, mocking her with memories, reminding her that Wyatt was no longer there to leave his dirty clothes on the floor or sneak up behind her and lay a sloppy kiss on her neck.
They’d survived COVID but their marriage hadn’t. She’d worked her tail off at the hospital, coming home and going through the motions like a zombie. Zombies, it turned out, didn’t make good wives. At least according to Wyatt.
