Page 148 of The Holiday Hate-Off
Home. I’ll go home and wait. If Enzo comes back, he’ll find me there. But where can he be if he’s not at his old apartment and he doesn’t have his car?
I glance at the dance floor—Charlie is slow-dancing with Lars, and I won’t interrupt them. I feel like I’ve already demanded enough from them. But I also don’t want my friends to worry. So I tell the DJ that I’m leaving and ask him to give the message to Charlie.
I walk home quickly, my coat wrapped tightly around me. I planned on face-planting on my bed, hugging my stuffed cat, and disassociating for a while, but I find myself rummaging through my sock drawer until I find it: my mother’s letter about the kind of man she wanted me to marry someday.Mr. Perfect.
Tears pressing at my eyes, I stuff it into my coat pocket, and then I’m out the door again, heading to the Wishing Bridge.
Halfway there, Skippy falls in beside me, wagging his tail, and a few of those tears drop, because it feels like he was waiting for me. Wanting to escort me. I bury my hand in his fur, petting him, and call him the good boy he is.
Finally, I reach the bridge, and I practically collapse onto it, Skippy lying down at my feet. I pull out the letter, unfold it, and read…
Lucy—
I love you too much to let you make the same mistakes I did.
Make sure you find a kind man—a man who thinks of others before himself. A man who will give the shirt off his back to a neighbor in need.
And, for the love of God, don’t choose a man who’s arrogant or ambitious.
If he’s arrogant, he’ll think his needs are more important than yours, and they’re not. Mine weren’t either, even though I’ve let you give up so much to take care of me.
Ambition poisons men. Your father left us because my sickness didn’t fit into his plans, but a man should always leave room in his life for what’s unplanned. So find a man who puts love before ambition, my dear. Money is well and good, and we all need it, but live with money, not for it.
Find a man who values community, because you, my dear, were not built for isolation. You deserve to be surrounded by people who love you just as much as you deserve a house that’s truly a home.
I like imagining you with a big family, Lucy. A lovely big family.
I only wish I could see it, my dear girl.
And, finally, find a man who abhors games and speaks his emotions. You deserve plain speaking.
I love you so much.
Know that wherever I am, I miss you.
The most beautiful gift I had in this life was being your mother.
Enzo still doesn’t fit her description of the perfect man. He’s too ambitious. Too aware of his own talents and good looks. Too guarded. He’s also very capable of playing games…
And yet, so am I. Is it so wrong for us to enjoy these games together?
“I love him, Mom,” I whisper to the sky. “He may not be exactly the man you envisioned for me, but heiskind and bighearted and so loyal. He’s the one I want, and I want him to come home.Pleaselet him come home to me.”
A sudden gust of wind captures the letter, and I watch, open-mouthed with horror as it rises up on the wind, stolen.
“That’s mine,” I say, rising to my feet, terrified it will fall into the burbling water and be gone forever. Skippy gets up beside me, panting, his gaze following the sheet of well-worn paper as another gust blows it out beyond the bridge, into the road.
I race after it, nearly face-planting in snow as I slip on a patch of ice. But I keep my feet and continue in pursuit of it.
I nearly smack right into Charlie—because she and Lars were hurrying up the path to the bridge.
I want to ask why they’re here, but I need that letter. It’s a piece of my mother I won’t give away.
“Get that paper,” I cry out.
Lars, who has much longer legs than I do, lunges for it. Healmostcatches it, but another breeze snatches it out of his hand at the last instant, whisking it down the road—past Eileen, who was following them.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask, wheezing, as I rush after the paper.
