Page 2 of The Healing of Christmas

But here at the Cherry Inn on Christmas Eve, there was no such thing as sorrow. There was only expectation; there was only the fluffy snow outside, the plump Christmas trees in nearly every room, and the laughter of her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Tomorrow morning, Charlotte would awaken to a beautiful Green Room drenched in sunlight. From downstairs would come the smell of cinnamon rolls, bacon, and eggs, and piles of beautifully wrapped presents would encircle the Christmas tree. There was no joy like the joy she felt now, lying in wait for tomorrow morning. And before Charlotte knew it, her eyes were closed, and she plunged into the darkness of her Christmassy dreams.

ChapterOne

Present Day

Charlotte tried not to be resentful about how Thanksgiving played out this year. She tried to be rational about it, to remind herself of the facts of her life: she was forty-eight years old; her children were grown and married with responsibilities of their own, and she was divorced. But as she sat at her friend Shonda’s Thanksgiving table, surrounded by Shonda’s children, husband, siblings, and grandchildren, Charlotte’s heart cracked at the edges. She made an excuse before pie and took the train back to her Midtown apartment. The subways were largely empty, with everyone hidden away in their apartments across the city, laughing with their families and eating to their hearts’ content. As the sharp wind cracked across her face upon her exit, tears sprang to her eyes.

Shonda had, of course, forced Charlotte to take a few slices of pie back home with her. This left Charlotte in her pajamas with a glass of red wine, watchingMiracle on 34th Streeton television. She remembered what her mother had always said: thatMiracle on 34th Streetwasn’t really a Christmas movie; it was a Thanksgiving movie and should be treated as such. “See, Louise? I listened to you. Sometimes.” She said this aloud and then filled her mouth with pumpkin pie. She’d once read that being alone and being lonely were two different things, but after growing up surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, she’d never been able to differentiate the two.

Charlotte’s phone dinged with photographs from her son, Collin. Collin, his wife, Quinn, and their two daughters, Brinlee and Elisa, lived in California— about as far away from New York City as you could get. They were three hours behind, which meant it was only three in the afternoon there. In one photograph, Brinlee and Elisa attempted to eat pumpkin pie, and their cheeks and lips were smeared with purée. In another, Collin carried both of her granddaughters in his arms as Quinn touched his bicep lovingly. Behind them was Quinn’s mother, carrying a big turkey on a platter. Charlotte wanted to curse the other woman’s luck. She was the grandmother who lived five minutes down the road. She was the one Collin had chosen.

This wasn’t entirely Collin’s fault, Charlotte knew. Because he was brilliant, he’d gone to grad school in Los Angeles. And because he was a wonderful man, he’d fallen in love. Quinn was born and raised in Los Angeles, and she hadn’t wanted to move out east. “She’s not used to winter, Mom,” Collin had explained. “It would kill her.” Charlotte had thought this was a gross exaggeration, but she hadn’t said so. Instead, she’d gushed with love for both of them.

Bizarrely, Charlotte hadn’t heard from her daughter, Vanessa, yet. Charlotte had texted her that morning to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving and ask how she was feeling. No response. Charlotte returned to their chat and considered pestering her. All things considered, Van was Charlotte’s best friend in the world, one of her greatest confidants, and certainly her greatest champion. Unlike her brother, she lived just thirty minutes away with her husband, Grant. And best of all— she was very, very pregnant. She would have the baby any day.

As though Van had sensed Charlotte thinking about her, she called her right that second. Charlotte’s heart jumped in her chest, and she answered with a high-pitched, “Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Mom!” Van’s voice was strained. “Mom, it’s happening.”

Charlotte’s eyes bugged out. Before she knew what she’d done, she was on her feet, scampering around her living room like a chicken with its head cut off. “Okay. Okay! You’ve got this, Van,” she was saying, as though she were a coach of a softball team. “Are you already at the hospital?”

Van said she was on her way there. “Meet me? Please?”

Charlotte abandoned her pie and wine and sped out the door, where she hailed a taxi and tore across the city to the Brooklyn hospital where Van planned to give birth. All the way there, she shivered so much that her knees clacked together. At a traffic light, she heard herself tell the driver her daughter was having her first baby, and the driver clapped his hands warmly and congratulated her. “A Thanksgiving baby! Isn’t that something?”

Once in the hospital, Charlotte made her way to the labor and delivery hall and discovered Van already in a hospital gown, standing up next to her bed with both of her palms flat across the mattress. She was very pale, and her hair was wild around her face. “Mom!” she cried when she saw her. Charlotte was reminded of when Van had been a little girl, calling out for her after having a nightmare.

“Hey, baby,” Charlotte said, wrapping her arms around her. “How are you feeling?”

Charlotte puffed out her cheeks. “Not great,” she said simply. Her eyes looked wounded. Charlotte tried to remember her own first delivery twenty-eight years ago when Van had come into the world, yet could think of nothing but pain and terror.

A nurse came in to check on Van, and Charlotte waited by her bed, shifting her weight. All she wanted in the world was to take her daughter’s pain away. She held her hand as a contraction came on, and Van’s grip threatened to break her bones. But Charlotte told herself her daughter could break all her bones if she needed to. She’d do anything for this grandbaby.

“When did you know today was the day?” Charlotte asked after the nurse left.

Van furrowed her brow. “Around noon, I guess. Ages ago. But the doctor told me not to go to the hospital until the contractions were closer together. I didn’t want to just wait around here, killing time, wasting hospital resources.”

“Smart,” Charlotte said. She had the sudden impulse to tell Van that Van’s birth had taken twenty-eight hours but kept her mouth shut. Instead, she asked, “And is Grant on his way?”

Van flared her nostrils and gripped Charlotte’s hand again, preparing for another contraction. Together, they weathered through it as Van gasped for breath and turned a strange shade of reddish purple. Charlotte’s stomach twisted in knots of fear. She tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong during labor. It wouldn’t do her any good.

After the contraction petered out, Van’s chest rose and fell, and she touched her pregnant stomach tenderly. Without looking at her mother, she whispered, “Grant’s not coming.”

Charlotte was taken aback. “Not coming?”

Van raised her shoulders. “It’s okay. I don’t want him here, anyway.” She said it as though she’d practiced saying it, like a mantra she wanted to remind herself of.

“I thought you were spending Thanksgiving with his family?”

“I was supposed to,” Van offered. “But he left three days ago. It would have been pretty strange to show up at his mother’s house for Thanksgiving, huh? I’m guessing they didn’t put a chair at the table for me.”

Charlotte’s jaw dropped. Shock rattled through her, and she collapsed on the chair beside her daughter. Leaving your marriage was one thing. But leaving your very pregnant wife? That was something else. That was evil.

It wasn’t that Charlotte had ever liked Grant. Van had met him three years ago at a dive bar in Brooklyn when she’d been bartending to put herself through grad school, and Grant had been playing guitar in a psychedelic rock band. Then, as now, Grant had long hair, a beard, and a toned physique and, according to Van, was an up-and-coming celebrity in the music world. Van had fallen head-over-heels with Grant in a way that Charlotte had deemed dangerous. It had all happened so quickly. Before Charlotte had considered what to do about her negative feelings about Grant, he’d moved into Van’s apartment and convinced her to take a semester off grad school to cut an album with him. “We’re in love, Mom. And it’s the best thing in the world,” Van had said blissfully over the phone. Charlotte hadn’t had the heart to say anything but, “I love you, honey. And I love to see you so happy.”

It was clear Van didn’t want to talk about Grant, not here in the hospital. As the woman in labor, on the verge of motherhood, she called the shots. Charlotte heard herself coax her through another contraction, then another. When midnight hit, a nurse told them it wouldn’t be long now, that she suspected the baby would be born in another hour or so. Van’s forehead glistened with sweat as she gaped at the nurse and asked, “Another hour or so?” To Van, it sounded like a death sentence. Charlotte steeled herself for the chaos that came next. The bones of her hand had to be able to take it.

Van’s first baby, a boy, was born at one-thirty in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving. Being there beside her darling Van, watching her grandson enter the world, was the third greatest gift of Charlotte’s life (after the birth of her own babies, of course). Throughout the drama of the delivery and the soft calm immediately after, Charlotte’s heart was shadowed with horrible questions. How could Grant miss the birth of his baby? How could he live with himself?

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