“I really don’t want to disturb you,” James said, taking a small step backward. “I baked this and thought I’d bring it by.” He could be okay with that level of friendship. Maybe.
“No, no. I remember. I invited you,” Elena said, beckoning for him to come in. “We’re getting settled.” Under her breath, she added, “It’s not easy. She doesn’t like to take orders from anyone, least of all me.”
“Sounds like Carmen.” James smiled meekly and followed Elena into the foyer of her childhood home. She took the pie and watched as he removed his coat and boots.
“Do you like tea? Wine?” she asked.
“Wine sounds nice, if you’re having some.” He felt foolish in his plaid shirt and slacks. Elena was wearing a black turtleneck and a pair of house pants. Not that he’d expected her to dress up for him.
“Mom’s in here,” Elena said, guiding him to the kitchen, where Carmen sat at the kitchen table, hunched over a printout. “Mom? Someone’s here to see you.”
Carmen flinched and gave James a sinister look that went straight to his bones. It was like she didn’t recognize him. James wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he hung in the kitchen doorway and considered running away again.
But suddenly, Carmen offered James that gorgeous smile, the same one Elena had, and said, “James Murphy. How wonderful to see you. And you’ve brought pie.”
James’s heart melted. He walked over to the older woman and bent to hug her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m just fine,” Carmen said. “What isn’t fine is this writing. Didn’t my daughter go to journalism school?” She sniffed at Elena, who rolled her eyes as she popped a bottle of wine.
“It’s a first draft, Mom,” Elena said as she filled two glasses of wine.
“I want one of those,” Carmen said.
“The doctor doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” Elena reminded her, handing a glass to James.
“That doctor used to come over here and sing Britney Spears with a hairbrush as a microphone,” Carmen said.
“She also was valedictorian and went to Harvard Medical School,” Elena said. “She contains multitudes.”
Carmen harumphed and returned her attention to the printout in front of her, which James now saw was titled "A Cookie-Cut-Out Craze at Millbrook Elementary."
“Natalie and I are going to start publishing the paper again tomorrow,” Elena explained to James, sitting at the kitchentable and gesturing for him to do the same. “We’ve both been writing all weekend. Writing ourselves silly, in fact. I had an interview with the third-grade teacher, Mrs. Mantel, last night about the cookie-cut-out festival at the elementary school, and I threw this together this morning. Mom thinks it’s awful writing.”
“Maybe James can make some sense out of it,” Carmen said, shoving the printout over to James. “I don’t know why you won’t let me take on a few articles, honey. I can help. I’ve been in the business a whole lot longer than you have. And Natalie? Come on. She’s just a kid.”
“She’s thirty-eight, Mom,” Elena said.
“Compared to me, she’s just starting,” Carmen said. “Compared to you, too.”
“There’s no reason you can’t take a few weeks off,” Elena said. “I’ve worked all over the world. I can handle a few Christmas Millbrook articles.”
Carmen rolled her eyes and pulled the article back over to her side of the table, moving too quickly to let James read anything more than the first few sentences.
“It looks good to me,” he said to Elena.
Elena laughed. “Honestly? It’s nice to write about something real for a change. In the past few years, I haven’t written anything I cared about. And Natalie and I have a mile-long list of articles planned for the next few weeks. I thought Mom would be pleased that the paper isn’t canceled for the time being, but…” She eyed Carmen, who continued to frown at the article, as though she couldn’t make sense of the words.
After a bit of probing, James told Elena and Carmen about his weekend: his grief therapy sessions and his walk through the park.
“That’s right. Crisis management and grief therapy. It was on your business card,” Elena said. “Must be a fascinating field. And so necessary around here.” Under her breath, she added, “Iknow that Millbrook people tend to bottle up their sorrows and keep them locked tight.”
James felt the words like a mirror held up to his face, but he managed to smile and agree with her. “Talking helps, as simplistic as that sounds.”
Elena took a breath. Her eyes were heavy, as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t muster the words. Just then, Carmen moved on to the following article in the stack—an interview Elena had conducted with the man who’d decorated the town Christmas tree—and cried out, “What is this garbage?”
Elena laughed outright and stood, searching through a white paper bag and removing various bottles of pills. As delicately as she could, she suggested to Carmen that it was time to take her medicine and have a rest. Carmen was clearly exhausted and didn’t put up too much of a fight. Before long, Elena was guiding her mother to her bedroom, leaving James sitting quietly at the kitchen table, nursing his glass of wine.
He couldn’t believe Elena had taken over responsibilities at her mother’s paper. It was an act of tenderness that he hadn’t imagined a woman estranged from her mother for so long would spring for. Eagerly, he read more of the articles she’d written over the weekend, plus a few that Natalie and a few other writers at the paper had done.
