Page 41 of Mistletoe Sky
“I was hoping you’d come down to see me!” she said.
Amelie and Willa hurried downstairs to take off their winter clothes. Their mother made a fire in the little fireplace in back, where she heated water for cocoa and talked about her night.
“I could feel it coming,” she said. “There was something about the clouds that made me think the weather forecast we read yesterday had changed. When I checked outside this morning around four thirty, I realized we wouldn’t be opening today. But we have plenty of fudge left over from yesterday! I hope you girls brought your sweet tooth.”
Amelie and Willa each took a sliver of chocolate-pecan fudge and ate slowly, feeling drowsy after their long trek in their snowshoes.
“What else do you have planned for your day off from school?” their mother asked, looking happier than they’d ever seen her.
“We’re going to go skating later,” Amelie said, glancing at Willa.
Willa shrugged. “Maybe. Unless you want to go with us instead?”
Their mother smiled. “I haven’t been skating in a few years! There’s always so much to do around here for Christmas. But you’re right. What better way is there to celebrate a day off than by enjoying the season we’re in? Let me see if I have my skates and snowshoes somewhere.”
Their mother disappeared upstairs to scout through the clothes she’d brought from home, leaving Willa and Amelie to smile nervously and watch the fire. Ever since their birthday in October, they’d harbored the secret hope that their mother and father would get back together properly, that their mother would actually move back in. Twice, they’d witnessed them flirting heavily in the fudge shop kitchen. But their father and mother hadn’t mentioned anything about their mother coming back—yet—and neither Amelie nor Willa wanted to make a false move and suggest it.
It was a delicate situation.
When their mother returned, she had her snowshoes and skates and said, “I guess we’d better go back out the way you two came in!”
Warmed from cocoa and fudge, Amelie, Willa, and Georgia dropped from the second-story window to the snow below and made their way on snowshoes to the frozen lake. Although they spotted their friends from school down the coast, Amelie and Willa only waved and stayed at a distance, eager to soak up time with their mother. In a flash, they had their skates on and were using their snowshoes to clear a patch of ice for themselves.
“It’s thick!” their mother cried. “It’s perfect!”
The temperature was perhaps twelve or thirteen degrees, but Amelie hardly felt the cold. Together, the three Caraway women skated beautifully, trying their best to perform the tricks they’d seen on the Winter Olympics. In time, their legs were screaming, and they took a break, sitting in the snow with their snowpants on so that they didn’t feel it at all.
The sky above them was the brightest blue Amelie had ever seen.
Nobody had spoken for a little while when their mother said it. “I think I’m going to move back in before Christmas.”
Willa and Amelie gaped at their mother, both trying to figure out if what they’d heard was real or not. And then, Amelie squealed and wrapped her arms around her mother. Willa got to her feet, triumphant, as though she couldn’t control her body. Eventually, the three of them were hugging, and all of them were crying.
Amelie couldn’t believe how long it had been since her mother had lived with them—four months, already. She wanted to be angry that their mother had moved out for part of their senior year, but she didn’t have it in her. It didn’t matter anyway. They’d seen their mother every single day at the fudge shop. She’d still been in their lives in almost every possible way. And now, they had the rest of their lives to forget this had happened.
Well, Amelie hoped that their father wouldn’t forget. It was up to him to make sure it didn’t happen again. It was up to him to make sure their mother knew how much she was loved and cherished every day of her life.
As if he’d been called, their father appeared at the edge of the ice moments later, riding the snowmobile he’d procured from his shed. He wore a smile that said he already knew that their mother was moving back in.
“Are those the three most beautiful girls in the world?” he called over the snow and ice.
“Dad!” Willa cried, beckoning for him to join them back on the ice, where they skated in whimsical circles and sang songs. “Mom’s coming back!”
Their father was seated on the snow, adjusting his skates. His smile was brighter than the sun. When he gazed at their mother, they could see how much he loved her, a feeling that echoed behind his eyes.
When their father skated, he looked far more graceful than he did any other time, as though something magical took over. He skated directly to their mother and took both her hands inhis, as though they were slow dancing. Their mother’s eyes filled with tears.
Amelie and Willa skated closely together, their smiles so big that their cheeks were screaming. They heard their mother and father telling one another how much they loved each other, over and over again. It was better than any Christmas song they’d ever heard.
Amelie knew that this year would be the very best Christmas. There would be another Christmas Festival, bright decorations, cup after cup of hot cocoa, and plenty of stories to go around. But they’d appreciate it all the more this year, because they’d almost lost it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Amelie
December 2025
It was a struggle for Amelie to calm Willa down enough to tell her the whole story, the one they should have learned long ago. There they sat on the bed that had once been their mother’s, their hearts heavy as a very different blizzard swept across the island. In their hands, they held mugs of steaming cocoa. Amelie knew that her eyes were lined with red and crackled with veins, the same as Willa’s.
