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ow, the live lot’s looking mighty sparse,” Tommy Jacobs said as he helped Ethan adjust his tree on top of his SUV. “And no offense, what’s left is looking a little scraggly.”
Ethan looked over his shoulder, taking in what was left. Tommy was right. Even with his meticulous work on trimming and caring for the trees, not every tree that grew on the lot was a good one. There was always going to be that tree that got a little bit of late season damage, a branch that didn’t quite grow as well as the others, or something else out of Ethan’s control.
But those trees had purpose. They could be harvested after the season, ground down and turned into mulch for gardens, or left to eventually cone and seed.
“Yeah, I’m thinking I might shut things down after today,” Ethan said. “It’s been a good season. Better than last year.”
“Last year you didn’t have Laura Bennett back in the neighborhood, making people curious,” Tommy said. “And you weren’t seen being cuddly with her.”
Cuddly. Ethan wished they were cuddly, but he wasn’t sure. It had been two days since Laura had come to the lot, and while he was able to handle business, that didn’t mean he hadn’t missed her. He’d sent a few texts, but she’d never replied, and now… now the lot felt empty.
“Yeah well.” Ethan scratched the back of his neck. “That might not be long term. She doesn’t seem to want to stick around.”
“Really? That’s too bad,” Tommy said before shrugging. “Not that I’m all that surprised. Probably a lot of scars and bad memories around here.”
“What do you mean?” Ethan asked. “Seems like everyone loved Mr.Bennett, and half the neighborhood was at his memorial party.”
“Sure, but you weren’t here for the bad times,” Tommy said. “David Bennett was a good guy, huge heart, I’ll give him that much Ethan. But in terms of being a businessman? You’re five times the businessman David Bennett ever was. Not all of that was his fault, losing his kid, having to take in what was essentially a baby in little Laura, and then losing his wife just a couple of years later? That’ll shake up a lot of men, I know it’d shake me up. My youngest just left for college, and the idea… nah, I won’t even go there around Christmas.”
Ethan considered, his mind going back on some of the things Laura had said over the past few weeks. “How tough was it?”
“Put it this way, there were a couple of years that Laura’s Christmas presents came from the thrift store,” Tommy said. “And I’ve heard stories of the bullying she ran into down in Pueblo. I grew up here, you know, and I remember what some of those North Pueblo cliques can be like. No matter how low on the totem pole you got, as long as you weren’t from the Rockaways, you weren’t at the bottom. Whole school against you, and that sticks with you.”
Ethan sighed. “So she wanted out.”
“And for a lot of teens, there’s three ways out of the Rockaways. Military, jail, or just leaving this place in the rearview mirror and never coming back,” Tommy said. “Things have gotten better than it used to be, but for someone Laura’s age? Those memories stick. Isn’t that part of why you left New Mexico?”
“I get it,” Ethan said. “I just… this place is different than Ruidoso.”
“I bet someone who moved to Ruidoso and found the good fortune you have would say the same thing about Ruidoso,” Tommy said. “Anyway, just food for thought. Are you coming to the holiday celebration?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Ethan said. “See you tonight.”
Tommy left, and Ethan went back to the shack, trying to figure things out. Maybe Tommy was right. Maybe the Rockaways wasn’t the same place that he got to know. He hadn’t gone through what Laura went through. He wasn’t her.
So what was he supposed to do?
Closing the lot down at sunset, he went back to his trailer and changed for the Christmas party. According to some of the old-timers, it had started ironically, a way for locals, back in the sixties, to sort of blow a raspberry to the folks in Pueblo who looked down on the hardscrabble residents of the Rockaways. Who cared if the Rockaways didn’t have their own church? They could celebrate the holidays as a neighborhood regardless.
First it had been a dozen or so folks gathering to get drunk and sing some Christmas carols in the parking lot of what was now the Rockaway Center. Now, it had grown into a community festival. Sure, it didn’t have anywhere near the sparkle and glitz of some of the larger town Christmas festivals. But it was genuine, it was fun, and as he pulled up into the parking lot, he could see something that made his heart jump.
Mr. Bennet’s truck was there. He’d always think of it as Mr.Bennett’s truck he knew, no matter how long Laura had it. But if the truck was there, she was there. Ethan knew what to do.
Getting out of his truck, he approached the outer edge of the “festival zone.” It was marked with a bunch of hay bales and ropes that made sure folks didn’t wander the entire parking lot. On the far side of the area was a trailer that served as a stage, attached to a truck from the Reynolds Iron ranch. That made sense, Ethan suspected that the hay bales came from the Reynolds Iron as well. Best of all, it gave some height for anyone who wanted to speak, and to the speakers that were currently playing a twangy version ofDeck The Hallsfor anyone who wanted to sing along.
On both sides of the central area was food and drink, ranging from a full-on turkey leg trailer that Ethan knew Jamie Logan and her family hauled around to just about every festival, fair, and event in the Colorado area. She was good at it too, in his opinion. In fact, buying a Jamie Logan fried turkey leg was one of the things he’d done for the past four years, and he was looking forward to it again.
First things first though. He was going to find Laura. He knew how he felt about her, and he knew that he owed it to himself and to her to tell her about it.
What was that truth?
He wasn’t sure until he opened his mouth.
There were a lot of people already at the festival, enough that finding a five-foot-seven blonde woman was going to be a challenge, but that wasn’t going to stop him. She wasn’t by the turkey truck, or by the drink table that was handing out huge, steaming cups of cider, cocoa, coffee and, the occasional beer.
Instead, he found her in the middle of the area, standing in front of the Christmas tree, looking lost… and lonely. She was looking down, and Ethan knew what she was looking at. He’dbeen told about it when the festival organizers picked up the tree, a fifteen footer that rose high above the rest of the festival.
It was a plaque, dedicating that year’s tree to the memory of David Bennett, and to all the trees he’d donated over the years to the community festival. Ethan wondered if Laura knew that every year, that of the thousands he grew and sold, there were six trees that he gave away, five to the nearby schools, and one, the biggest, to the Rockaway Christmas party.
