Luckily, my Christmas plan for Anya is coincidentally light and relaxing today, making me feel better about the whole situation.
After checking over my sleeping mate one more time, I make my way to the kitchen to prepare for the day.
Mam greets me, sitting at the kitchen island sipping her morning coffee, just like she did my entire childhood. The smell of coffee in the air, the bright morning light coming in through the windows and resting on her shoulders. It always made me believe that she was actually an angel but she had to keep it a secret.
Bittersweet longing clenches my chest at the time we lost. The time I took from us. Not wasting another moment, I cross the kitchen and wrap my mother in my arms. “I’m so sorry, Mam.”
She pats my arms while I hold on, not wanting to let go.
“We’re sorry too.” My father’s voice booms through the space. He’s such a presence everywhere her goes, in everything he does, and he makes it seem so effortless. Father and I haven’t really reconnected since my return. He smiles and nods at things, but we haven’t spent time together like Mam and me.
Straightening to my full height, he still feels larger than life. “None of us can go back. But we still have a future,” I say with a calm optimism.
We all nod, and Father smiles. He extends his hand for some manly handshake kind of shit but I’m not having it. If we’re going forward, I don’t want us to be so formal. I hug my father for the first time I can remember since my young childhood. He wanted me to be a man and supposedly, hugging wasn’t a very manly thing to do. But I hug. So, I hug him. And to my surprise, he hugs me back while Mam sniffles into her coffee and tries to pretend she’s not.
My father sighs, and Mam nods at him. “How long will you be staying?” he asks.
That’s a loaded question and I don’t have the answer that I want, but I have to be honest.
“I didn’t know what to expect when we came out here. I didn’t know if you would accept us. I didn’t know what Anya would think. She was raised without parents, holidays, or love. But I think she might actually love it here. She still has a semester left of college and I won’t be where she isn’t. It’s my hope that after graduation she might want to move here, but it’s entirely up to her.”
Mam brightens.
Father smiles.
“I do.” Anya squeaks. I whirl around to find her at the bottom of the stairs.
“Want to live here. After graduation. I do love it here . . . if that’s okay?” she continues.
My soul soars. Mam’s too, judging by the look on her face and her hands clasped over her heart. Father steps beside her with his arm over her shoulder.
“You’re sure?” I ask, not believing it.
She nods and moves towards me, so gracefully it’s like she’s floating. “Being with you is the only thing I’m more certain of.”
My bear and body take over and I’m dropping myself onto my knee and pulling out the present I was saving for tomorrow night; the moment is too precious to waste. “This was supposed to be for your first Christmas Eve,” I explain as I open the box so she can see the ring I had made.
Gasps fill the room around me, but all I can see is her.
“I had it custom made, with the hope you would love it here and I could use it. Or I would have picked another. I wanted it to be perfect for you. But you can always pick something else.Anything you want.” I ramble, and she waits patiently for me to sort my thoughts.
“It’s platinum because you complain that gold doesn’t work for your complexion, and it reminds me of snow. And uh, you aren’t an ordinary diamond kind of girl. So, you deserve a ring as non-ordinary as you. I was going to get a ruby for the center, but they had this garnet that reminded me of your hair. And it has emeralds on the side because jade for your eyes just kind of looked funny in a ring—we tried. But your hockey jersey is green, and it looks like Christmas, which you decided to love and . . . it just felt right. Anya, wi—”
She throws herself into my arms, nearly knocking me out of my kneeled position. “Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.” She cries and kisses me.
I take her mouth with mine for a brief kiss—my parents are still in the room after all.
“May I?” I ask, holding the box up.
She nods with her lip between her teeth. She watches my hands work to pull the delicate ring out of the plush, red velvet box, sliding it onto her left, shaking finger, pumping my fist in the air that it fits perfectly. She holds out her hand, moving her finger, and gazing at her very own new Christmas decoration.
“How did you get the size right?” She asks me suspiciously.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I admit that I might have tied a piece of string around her finger while she was sleeping and given it to the jewelers.
The room bursts into laughter followed by rounds of congratulations from my parents.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to build you two your own house. Not that we don’t enjoy sharing, but you’ll need your own space.” Father says before he pauses, becoming more serious. “And we’dlike to reopen the familial bond between us. If you two would like that.”
