The terrier popped his head out and licked her cheek.
“Well, the deal’s done, and we got the perfect tree, up until the end.” She swallowed. “I got a lot more than a tree, really.”
Doc flopped his head down on her chest, fluffy black fur twitching over big, round eyes.
“I know, I miss him too, but we don’t have time to be sad. We have a trip to the airport to make, and that’s a two-hour drive.”
Aunt Susan and Aunt Mindy were already bustling downstairs, carrying luggage to the door and trying to dress their daughter. Russ’s boys were still asleep, and the rest of the house was quiet, but Grams was in the kitchen with two mugs of tea waiting at the little table in the corner.
“Come sit with me for a few minutes, honey.”
Piper dragged herself over and dropped into the chair beside her grandmother. In the table’s middle sat her planner, and Piper fiddled with the cover, surprised she left it out. “Did this year go okay?” she asked. “Even with…everything?”
“Okay? This year was just right. A little chaotic, but that’s just like it used to be.”
Piper snickered through her nose and took a deep breath of Earl Grey. “Oh, sure, just like when mom was alive.”
“Actually, it was a lot like that.”
“Yeah, right. Christmas was perfect back then.”
Grandma Tilda pat her hand. “I don’t disagree that if your mother were herethatwould be a perfect Christmas, but even I know that’s not possible.”
Piper nodded, that tearful feeling overcoming her but more easily bitten back than times before, almost like it was okay. “She really was perfect.”
Then Grandma Tilda laughed, sharp and high, and made Piper jolt upright. “Oh, honey, your mom wasn’tperfect. Don’t get me wrong, she was an amazing woman, but she was as fallible as the rest of us. Don’t you remember the year she wanted to make prime rib and forgot to turn the oven on?”
Piper squinted out at the kitchen, imagining for a moment her mother gracefully crossing it just as a timer went off. “No?”
“That’s probably because you were only about two and a half feet tall and refused to eat anything except cheese at the time, but it definitely happened. What about the year we had that storm and a tree came through the picture window?”
Piper’s eyes went wide. “Oh, yeah, I do remember that, but that wasn’therfault.”
“Of course it wasn’t, but she cussed up a storm and was so frustrated about the whole thing, she took you and Presley to Brookhampton for three days. I thought she made the right decision, she wasn’t worried about anybody but her babies, but some people might have called it selfish to leave your dad to clean everything up with the rest of us here to fend for ourselves.” Grandma Tilda shrugged.
Piper did remember then, she remembered the hotel—the very nice hotel—and the indoor pool and how they all stayed up late every night eating candy and watching Christmas movies in a giant bed.
“Oh, how about when she thought she’d look better as a redhead?”
Laughter burst out of Piper. “She looked like Ronald McDonald—it was so orange!”
“See? Not perfect, full of mistakes, just like you and me.” Grams took a sip of her tea. “But she was special, honey. She took care of everybody, even when we didn’t need it, another imperfection, I’d argue. But I think what I liked best about her, besides how much she loved you and Presley and Jim, was that she knew what she wanted, and she always went out and got it.”
Piper nodded, and she pulled her planner toward her because holding onto it made her feel a little more secure.
“Doctorate? Got it. Jimmy? Got him in just three months. Christmas, here, every single year? She’s still getting that five years after she’s dead.” Grams squawked out another laugh, indelicate but accurate, and Piper couldn’t help but snicker along. “But that’s because she wanted to replace the family she always thought she was missing, so she went out, she found us, and she got us. And she really did have us, honey, right up to the very end. It was important to her to not be alone, to surround herself with people that she loved.”
Piper’s mother hadn’t been alone—Grams was right about everything, but especially that. In those last couple weeks, everyone paid a visit, and no one demanded anything, they just came, and they sat, and they talked. They spent time with Piper too, and even though she had been twenty-two, that was the last time Piper felt like a child.
Aunt Deb had taken Piper out to get coffee and talk about nonsense things for a few hours so she could forget, just for a little bit. Aunt Susan, who rarely knew what to say but was good with her hands, had brought Piper a squirrel she’d carved out of cork, and Aunt Mindy, who knew exactly what to say, wrote it all down in a letter that Piper kept tucked in the front of her favorite book of fairytales. And then there was Uncle Russ who also never knew what to say and also wasn’t very crafty, but he did clean every inch of the garage and the yard and stained every deck and was so busy over the course of a week he probably lost ten pounds.
And finally, there was her dad who, after it was all over, held Piper in his lap for the first time since she was ten and they both cried as he promised he would always take care of her. He might have broken that promise because it had been Piper taking care of him ever since, but she’d never blamed him because she knew he wanted to—Mom had just always done it all so well that the void she left was too big to fill.
Piper knew that for a fact because no matter how hard she tried, it just couldn’t be done.
“It’s okay to cry,” said Grams, and Piper wiped at her face, feeling the tears without knowing they’d begun to fall. “But you have to take action too. Your mom was always busy, but she had a lot to show for it. She had your dad and the two of you. I know you don’t want exactly that, but you can’t have nothing, honey, and you can’t just wait around for magic to happen. Sometimes you have to make it yourself.”
Piper nodded because she knew that Grams was right, but she couldn’t quite say anything, throat too tight. Instead, she flicked open her planner, vision a little blurry as she mindlessly flipped through the pages until she reached the one she’d written about Kol. Just seeing his name would be enough for now, just to know it had been real, for a little bit.
