Gram exclaimed, “Do you remember that one year Julie decided to be the tree?”
“I what?” Julie asked with a laugh.
Next to her on the sofa, her mother chuckled. “You always had to be underfoot when Gram was decorating the tree.”
Gram said, “I think you were two or three. You wrapped yourself in one of the garlands and informed us all that you were the tree that year and we had to decorate you.”
“I don’t remember this at all! Dad?”
“I remember,” her dad said. He was dressed as she always remembered him, in one of his black polo shirts and a pair of slacks. For Christmas he would wear some color, at Mom’s insistence, but only then. “We had to decorate you with candy canes.”
Mom said, “Trying to take them away from you afterward was the real trial. I’m sure you were still holding on to two when you fell asleep that night.”
Contrary to Dad’s solemn fashion choice, Mom always seemed to have walked straight out of a runway. Her blouse was splashed with color like an abstract painting, and her patterned leggings drew the eye down to her bare feet, where she’d painted her toes red. She had a rich, full laugh that Julie had always loved and that warmed her even now when she was soon to be the bearer of bad news.
Not yet. She’d find the right moment, just… not when they were in the middle of happy memories.
Gram, her cozy Christmas sweater gaining a coating of white fur that she didn’t seem to notice, said, “You had your first kiss here too. When you were four or five, I think.”
Julie covered her face with her hands. “Oh my gosh. Please tell me it wasn’t with Nolan Miller.”
“I really can’t recall,” Gram said in a tone of voice that bespoke otherwise. “But I do remember your gramps took aside the young man in question and told him in no uncertain terms that he’d best marry you when you grew up.”
“That is beyond embarrassing.” Julie’s cheeks felt hot beneath the shield of her hands. At least there was one thing to be thankful for—if ithadbeen Nolan, he didn’t remember the incident any more than she did.
When she looked up from between her fingers, Gram was looking at her with a twinkle in her eye. “Why are you so worried it would be with Nolan, dear?”
Julie didnotwant to answer that question. Instead, she changed the subject. “You look good, Gram. The drive doesn’t seem to have tired you out any.”
“Oh, I’m sure these old bones won’t thank me for it in the morning. I’m not meant for traveling around anymore.
She studied Gram. Her cheeks were rosy, and she was smiling. No hint of a cough or even a wheeze. She’d sounded so awful on the phone before. Had it really just been nothing? “You sound well, Gram. Glad your cough is gone.”
Gram waved her hand dismissively. “A minor cough. I’m fit as a fiddle. In fact, I’d stay here and run the inn myself if I had someone young and strong to help.”
Julie forgot how to breathe. Slowly, she lowered her hands to her lap. It was what she had been thinking herself, only a few days ago, wasn’t it? And a nice dream it was, to think of waking up at the inn every morning to birds chirping rather than to the irritable sounds of traffic. To stop in at the grocery store, where the cashier knew you by name and asked after your family, instead of hastily putting your order through and clocking out for a break.
But that’s just what it was—a dream. Julie didn’t want to shatter it, but the responsibilities of her real life had already started creeping in. “I have a job interview in Boston on the twenty-seventh.”
“A job interview?” Mom exclaimed. “That’s wonderful. Where is it?”
At the same time, Dad muttered, “Two days after Christmas? That’s outrageous!”
Julie chose to answer her mom. “It’s at a big magazine company. The same one where my friend Cheryl works. It would be a permanent position on the writing team.”
“Congratulations!” Mom wrapped an arm around her.
Julie tried not to make a face as her mom squeezed the air out of her. “I haven’t gotten the job yet. Only an interview.”
“I know you will nail that interview. You’re an incredible writer, and they’d be lucky to have you.”
Julie didn’t know whether her mom actually read most of the articles she wrote, but she knew that Mom, like Gram, collected them and the magazines they were published in.
Gram said, “We’re proud of you, but I thought we’d have more time together this year to celebrate.”
So had Julie. Three days were just not enough, especially if Myrtle worked a miracle, and they were putting on that party tomorrow. Softly, she said, “I know… but this is a really good move for my career.”
But now that she thought about it, was it really a dream career, or just a job? She’d thrown herself into becoming a writer, determined to make it. Maybe working for magazine after magazine in which she was assigned projects rather than choosing what she would write about wasn’t what she had initially thought she would be doing, but there were a lot of writers who didn’t get to write for a living at all. She was one of the lucky few. The successful few. Wasn’t she?
