“The newspaper is back up and running!” one of the men said.
“Carmen would be proud,” another said.
“We couldn’t have done it without Elena,” Natalie announced.
Elena blushed and thanked them before retreating to her mother’s office to phone her mother’s neighbor, the same one who’d called her that fateful Thanksgiving night. It was up to Jemma to watch over Carmen in a way that didn’t make Carmenthink she was being babied. It was easier this way, because Jemma was Carmen’s equal. As older female neighbors alone in their houses, they watched out for each other.
Jemma answered on the third ring and filled the receiver with laughter. In the background, Elena could hear her mother laughing, too.
“Sorry! Sorry. We got to laughing and gossiping,” Jemma said. “What do you need?”
Elena felt foolish for checking in like this. “How’s Mom?” she asked.
“Your mother is brilliant, as ever. I think this little time off is exactly what she needs,” Jemma said.
“That’s a lie!” Carmen cried, then burst into giggles again.
“You two are out of control.” Elena smiled and caught her reflection in the window. She looked straggly and fatigued—like most journalists, she knew.
“Let me talk to her,” Carmen ordered, and a moment later, she was on the phone. “Have you finished the article about the retirement facility’s Christmas pageant yet?” Her tone was no-nonsense and charged with anger.
Elena rolled her eyes. Her mother was the biggest control freak in the history of modern journalism, and that was saying something. “I have a few more things to finish this morning before I get to it.”
“You have to remember that Reggie is the one you interview for that, not Connie,” Carmen went on. “Connie gets upset and gives bad answers and tells you you’re wasting your time, basically. I learned it all the hard way. She’s a good worker, though. Essential. Maybe you can include a photograph of her?” Carmen took a breath. “Oh, and darling? A note I thought of is this. You need to bring more Christmas spirit to your articles. Do you know what I mean?”
Elena sat at the edge of her mother’s office chair and spun herself in a circle. “Christmas cheer, huh?”
“This is small-town stuff,” Carmen said. “People want to feel the heart behind the articles. They want to feel something. I know that’s different from your typical work. It’s harder, too.”
Elena found no way to argue with her mother. “I’ll try to show my heart on my sleeve, I suppose.” But she genuinely doubted she was capable.
“There are a few past Christmas features in the files on the right-hand side of my desk,” Carmen went on. “After you give the retirement home a call, maybe you can read them over and get inspired. There’s nothing better than reading through some of the Millbrook greats who’ve published in our paper. You know, your grandmother’s Christmas piece has long been my favorite. So much heart. So much life. So much beauty. You should read that first.”
Elena was surprised. She couldn’t remember ever having read a Christmas piece from her Grandma Rosa. “Thanks for the tip, Mom,” she said, surprised at how delicate her voice sounded. “I’ll be home in a few hours. Any requests for dinner?”
But suddenly, her mother burst out laughing, and Jemma echoed it, and they hollered they had to go and scampered off. Neither of them hung up the phone, so Elena hung up on her end and put her head in her hands. Her mother was volatile and emotionally all over the place, but there was still so much of Elena who wanted to please her.
Before she forgot, she dialed the retirement home and asked to speak with Reggie, not Connie, as her mother had insisted. But the woman at the front desk seemed not to understand. “There’s nobody named Reggie or Connie here,” she said. “I think there was a Reggie, like, ten years ago, but… Oh, you know what? He lives here now. Like, he’s a patient. Do you still want to interview him?”
Elena’s heart dropped. So often, her mother seemed to have every capacity, every intellectual ability. But sometimes, it seemed she’d left her intellectual abilities ten years in the past. She’d managed to bring her arrogance along with her, though. That was something.
That night, after Natalie, Elena, and the other journalists had sent their finished articles off to the printer, Elena said goodbye to everyone, grabbed the file of past Christmas features, and headed into the sparkling cold night. The walk back to her mother’s place brought her past James Murphy’s house, and she paused outside for a moment, gazing at the glowing windows and wondering what he was up to. That afternoon, she’d mentioned to Natalie that James had come over last night, and Natalie had sparked with interest.
“James Murphy? Is he close with your mother?” she’d asked.
“He said she helped him out a few times. That she was there for him?”
“Oh.” Natalie’s face had folded. “James lost a great deal a few years ago.”
Elena’s heart had spiked.Lost a great deal. But she’d told Natalie not to tell her. “I think we’re becoming friends, maybe,” she’d said of James. “I don’t want to betray him. I don’t want to know more than he wants me to know.”
Natalie had looked at Elena with surprise and said, “I respect that.”
Elena hadn’t been able to tell her the truth: that she’d been fighting for a way to earn respect from herself for years. She hadn’t anticipated she’d find it here, in Millbrook.
Now, Elena startled as James moved past his living room window, en route to the kitchen. What was he up to in there? He disappeared for a moment, a moment that demanded Elena realize how weird she was being, and she shuffled along, back to her mother’s place. Her breathing sputtered.
What was it about James Murphy?
