AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It wasn’t that I no longer revered the Christ child or feel that St. Nick existed. I’d simply done away with the fripperies and overdone extravaganza of trees and reindeer, of gifts and bows and music.
It’d been too painful to even consider.
Amy had loved all of that. She would go overboard turning our apartment into a shrine to all things red and green. Paper-cut snowflakes dangling from the ceiling, twinkling lights in the windows, cinnamon sticks, and pine-scented candles—she’d done it all.
She’d been wrapping presents for days, piling them around the tree in our apartment, which had been overladen with huge, shining bulbs that took up half of our living room. I’d slid the couch closer to the corner just to make room for that thing.
“Why are you wrapping the baby’s clothes?” I’d asked when I’d come home from work one day and caught her wrapping a pair of tiny pink booties.
I hadn’t bothered fighting my amusement at the sight. Amy sat on the floor, but her belly was so round she could barely bend forward to cut the paper, so I’d sat down to help her, cutting paper and handing her pieces of tape.
“The baby won’t be here to open them yet,” I added.
Amy sank back, resting her hands behind her, allowing her swollen stomach to bulge in front of her.
“I may still have two months left,” she’d said, “but if you could feel what I feel with how she moves around, you’d know our Baby Grace is already here.”
Arching forward, she took the tape I offered and placed it on the last bit of paper she’d folded around the booties.
My heart ached at the memory, but the pain wasn’t as profound as it had once been. It was true that time had a healing effect—but time didn’t completely erase every part of the pain her loss had caused me.
Fragments of sorrow surfaced now. Losing my wife had gutted me. I’d lain beside Amy every night, resting a hand on her stomach to feel our baby kick, talking about the best ways of parents and arguing over who our little girl was going to look more like.
Amy had rolled over and smiled that smile I loved. She’d rested her hands on my face.
“I hope she looks like you,” she’d said. “You were always better looking.”
I’d stopped her argument with a kiss, holding her tight as if that would help keep the excitement inside of me from bursting out of my chest. I couldn’t wait for the day our baby would b born. For the day I’d be able to hold the small girl in my arms.
But that day never came.
A teenaged boy driving a pickup truck had run a red light because he was texting. The roads had been too slick. He’d slid through the intersection and crashed into the side of Amy’s car, killing her instantly. The baby’s heartbeat faded in the hospital as the doctors had tried to save her.
Tears pooled in my eyes at the surge of memory. I hurried to wipe them, choking back a sob, not wanting give Grace any indication that I was in here, hurting.
Grace.
I closed my eyes. From the minute she’d told me her name back in Harper’s Inn the day she’d arrived, I’d been determined to keep my distance from her.
What was I doing? How could I be remotely close to this woman who shared the name my late wife and I were planning on giving our baby daughter? Why would I let Grace get this close to me when I knew she couldn’t stay that way?
I couldn’t let her get close to me. Not after the pain I’d experienced in losing Amy.
My wife and child had been pronounced dead on Christmas Eve. I’d returned to our empty apartment and knocked down the tree in an emotional rage. I tore every strand of light from the windows. I kicked all the presents she’d wrapped into a corner. And I’d crumpled to the floor because I had nothing to keep me upright any longer.
Now, every Christmas tree I saw was a reminder that my wife and baby were gone. But when Grace had mentioned Christmas trees, the charge igniting my defenses like an electric fence didn’t surface.
That was the reason I’d invited her to share a blanket with me. Why I’d told her about my wife and let her see into my life. Once I’d held her, I’d only wanted her closer. When she wove her fingers through mine and shared secrets about her life, when I caught the glittering light in her eyes, when I’d been able to draw in a fuller breath than I’d managed in years, I’d lost my senses.
I’d pushed away the possibility of loving someone again for so long, but I’d let those uncertainties go.
And she’d let me. She’d wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Junie had beaten the idea of loving someone new over and over again in my head so many times I should have a concussion by now. Her attempts had only irritated me—but was she right?
Could I allow myself to feel the things Grace made me feel?
I’d loved Amy with all my heart and soul and everything in between. She’d meant more to me than my own life. I wasn’t sure I’d fully breathed since the day she died.
