A Mountain Springs Christmas

Chapter 2

two

NICK

Nick walked out of The Home Improvement Store with barely a sliver of dignity intact. He opened his trunk, put in the gallons of primer and the bag of painter’s tape, tarps, spackle, and the wreath inside, then shut it and got into his car. He couldn’t believe all that happened during an innocent trip to the hardware store. He ran his hands over his face, let out a long, slow breath, then picked up his cell phone.

The background image on his phone was a picture of his wife, Clara, that he’d taken just two weeks before she’d passed away. He’d been on a business trip and just like he and Clara did every business trip, they’d video-chatted at night.

She’d already taken off her makeup and had her hair pulled up in a messy bun— something she only did in the evenings—and she had loose strands framing her face. She’d looked beautiful. He’d snapped a screenshot so he’d always have it, not knowing that it would be one of the last times he’d ever video chat with her.

Like he did whenever he felt like he needed to talk to Clara, he swiped to the last page of apps on his phone, a page with a single icon, so he could see more of her face. It kind of felt like he was actually video chatting with her, and hopefully, anyone walking by would assume he was on a video call, not just that he was talking to his dead wife.

“Hi, Clara. I’m in Mountain Springs right now, and I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed when we’ve visited your parents before, but the home improvement store is actually named The Home Improvement Store . Those are the exact words on the building. So when you’re talking to someone and say, “Bye, I’m going to the home improvement store, they don’t know if you’re saying it in lowercase or title caps.”

He chuckled. “But since you grew up in the next town over, and I doubt that Nestled Hollow has their own home improvement store, you probably already knew that. But if that’s the case, then we should’ve laughed about this together before now.

“I’ve told you that I hope that in heaven you get to watch what’s going on down here like it’s a TV show. If you do, I hope you were watching what just happened in there and that you were busting a gut from laughing so hard at it. Because if nothing else, I want someone to be able to laugh about it.”

She probably laughed. She was probably chuckling about this conversation, too. He shook his head. “But Clara, I was kind of a jerk in there. I felt like such an uncoordinated fool, and everyone was watching and the cursed jingle bells just wouldn’t stop jingling. I shouted something negative about Christmas decorations, but I’m ninety-something percent sure I didn’t swear. And I should get some kind of gold star for that because I really wanted to swear—it was that bad. And then I sent a wreath flying and tagged some poor woman right in the head with it. I felt awful.”

He paused for a moment and looked down Main Street at all the decorations each store had out for Christmas. Colorado Springs—where he and his six-year-old daughter, Holly, had lived until just recently—put on a pretty good display of Christmas, but nothing like Mountain Springs did. Even though Mountain Springs was probably one two-hundredth of the size, this town went all out.

He looked back at the image of Clara. “You always made Christmas so magical. I don’t think I ever fully recognized all you put into it. Now that it’s all my job, I realize that I have no idea how to do the same. I was at the store getting paint supplies for the new house and figured I’d just take a little stroll down the Christmas aisles to see what caught my eye. And Clara, I barely turned onto the first aisle and the decorations practically attacked me.”

Now he was laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. He scratched his forehead with his thumb. “Anyway, I just wanted to say that I miss you. Holly misses you. Last Christmas I was still so buried in grief that I did a terrible job at making Christmas good for Holly, but I want you to know that this year, I’m going to find a way to make it magical for her. I even bought one of the wreaths after I extricated myself from them, so I’ve taken the first step. If you can, maybe jingle some bells near me now and then. I’ll consider it you cheering me on.”

He gave her one last smile, then turned off his phone and pulled out of his parking space. His last “video call” with Clara was a week ago, as he told her that he and their daughter had moved near Clara’s parents as she had always hoped. Well, technically they were living with her parents at the moment, but the house he’d bought was just a block away.

In the week since they’d moved to Mountain Springs, he’d fixed the plumbing and some electrical issues on the new house and started cutting and installing baseboards and trim. Before long, he’d be able to paint and replace some flooring. He didn’t care how hard he had to work, he would have the house ready for him and Holly to move into before Christmas.

He pulled up at his in-laws’ home, which had lights on the house and trees and a manger scene out front, even though December first wasn’t until tomorrow. The house he’d bought was still completely empty and didn’t have a shred of Christmas decorations, so he was glad they could stay with Ben and Linda for a bit so Holly wouldn’t be missing out.

When opening the door, he was immediately greeted by the smell of pot roast and… was that baking cookies? As much as he wanted to finish getting his new house ready, he couldn’t deny that Linda’s cooking was a huge perk of staying with them. When he got to the kitchen, Linda was at the island counter, decorating sugar cookies with Holly, and Ben was sitting at the kitchen table, reading on his tablet.

Their rough collie intercepted Nick on his way to his daughter, her long fur bouncing as she ran, then she gave a single bark, so he used both hands to scratch her head before making his way to Holly. He hugged his daughter from the side, careful not to mess with the bag of frosting in her hands. “What are you two up to?”

“Well,” Holly said in her best cooking channel voice, “we decided that cookie cutters are very common, so it was up to us to use our creativity and decorate the cookies more uniquely.”

It always made him chuckle when his daughter used that voice. Maybe because the words always sounded like they came from someone older than six, even if the tone didn’t.

“So instead of an ordinary bulb for the circle ones, we added a marshmallow to the top of this one—doesn’t he look like a melting snowman? And we decorated this one like a wreath. And see this one? We think it was supposed to be a sweater, but we turned it upside down and made it a kid throwing their arms up on Christmas morning because they’re so excited.”

“I love them all. Nice work, Hollybear!”

His daughter’s hair was light brown, like his wife’s, but it had his curls. He kept his hair fairly short, but he sometimes wondered if his would be as curly as his daughter’s if it was as long as hers.

Linda slid an odd-shaped cookie—a bell, maybe?—across the counter to Holly. “Sweetie, why don’t you make a surprise decoration on this one for your dad? Grandpa and I just need to talk with him for a minute. Anything goes. Make it as creative as you’d like. Just keep lassie-dog from stealing any.”

“Grandma, her name is Rosy!”

Nick glanced between his in-laws. Why did he suddenly feel like he was in trouble? Nick kissed the top of Holly’s head. “I’ll be right back.”

He followed Linda into their front room, where both Ben and Linda took a seat in the armchairs. He suddenly didn’t feel like sitting, so he just leaned against the display table in front of the window, arms folded, facing them.

Ben and Linda both looked at each other, then Ben said, “We might as well just say it. We think you should start dating again.”

Nick sat up straighter, putting his hands on the table at his sides. “What?” Of all the things that ran through his mind that they might want to talk to him about, that was the furthest thing away. “Why?”

Linda leaned forward a bit, too. “I don’t think that Clara knew she was going to die last fall, but she must’ve sensed it on some level because she mentioned a few things she wanted to have happen if she did pass away before us. One of them was you getting remarried.”

Nick knew that. Clara had mentioned it to him, too. He’d laughed it off at the time, saying that it wasn’t going to happen so she would just have to live forever. But Clara had said, “No, I’m serious—Holly needs a mother, even if it can’t be me, and you need a wife.” It had been too hard to think about, so he’d just put it out of his mind.

“Your daughter needs a mom,” Linda said, echoing his thoughts of his conversation with Clara so close that it was eerie. “As time goes on, she’ll need one more and more, not less.”

“Are you saying that you don’t think I’m doing a good enough job trying to be both parents to her?”

“That’s not it at all, son,” Ben said. “You’re doing everything you can. That’s helping. The dog is helping. We are helping.”

“But there’s not a whole lot that can replace a mom in a little girl’s life,” Linda finished.

He knew that. He did. But he loved Clara, and he couldn’t imagine loving someone else like that again. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

“I know,” Ben said. “It’s hard to imagine that you’ll ever be ready until you meet the one who will be your next love. You might think you can never love again, and then you’ll meet your Linda.” He reached across the space between the two armchairs and squeezed his wife’s hand.

Nick had almost forgotten that Ben had been married before. He’d known that Ben’s first wife had died in a car wreck after they’d been married only a couple of years. Before they’d had any kids. He just hadn’t thought about it in a long time. But Ben was right—Nick wasn’t sure he could ever love again. It just felt… weird to even try to imagine it.

“For about a year when Clara was about Holly’s age,” Linda said, “Ben worked overseas and only came home once a month for that full year. Now, I know it’s not the same experience as having a spouse pass away, but I did often feel like I was single parenting.” She paused for a long moment, then said, “and I know how lonely it got.”

Her words hit him in the chest pretty hard. He felt busy all the time trying to balance work and home life. He always felt like he wasn’t doing enough as Holly’s only parent and as the only adult taking care of all the things they and their home needed. But as busy as he was, there still seemed to be plenty of time for him to feel those pangs of loneliness very acutely.

“You’ve got a fresh start here,” Linda said. “You’re no longer living in the home you shared with Clara, so—”

Nick shook his head. “No. Now I’m living in the home she lived in as a junior and senior in high school and with the parents who raised her.”

“That’s just temporary,” Linda said. “You know, I can set you up with someone if you’d like.”

“I am not having my deceased wife’s mom set me up on a date.”

“ I can set you up with someone,” Ben said. “A couple of guys I work with have daughters—”

“Why are you two even okay with the thought of me dating again? You should be freaking out that one day I might ‘replace’ your daughter.”

Ben shook his head. “No one can ever replace Clara.”

At least they agreed on that.

“Remember when the two of you got married?” Linda asked. “Ben told you ‘Welcome to the family,’ and I said that I now consider you my son?”

Nick nodded. He’d choked up at the time.

“That didn’t change just because Clara is no longer here. We still love you like a son, which means that we care about you and want what’s best for you. Holly is our only grandchild, and we want what’s best for her, too. You staying single forever isn’t what’s best for either of you.”

They both kept quiet for a long moment while Nick let their words sink in. Objectively, he knew that they were right. If a friend were in his position, he would suggest the same thing. But seeing someone else go through losing a spouse and going through it yourself were two different things. He never could’ve guessed all the emotions that would hit him along the way.

Besides, how was he supposed to just find someone who would be okay with marriage being tied to motherhood of a six-year-old? And how was he going to find someone who was going to instantly be a great mom?

“You and Holly are all we have left,” Linda said. “And we want you both to be happy.”

Even though there was a wall between him and it, Nick looked in the direction of the kitchen, where he could hear the muffled sounds of a Christmas song that Holly was singing loudly, Rosy doing her best to bark backup. He always tried to do what was best for his daughter and do it all by himself. But maybe doing it all himself wasn’t actually what was best for her.

And what about what was best for him? He no longer even knew what that was. He definitely didn’t have that figured out.

He looked back at Linda and Ben. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Ben nodded once. “Good man. Now give me a hand and pull me up, will you?”