“What’s going on, Auntie? Gon’ and vent so you can tell me why I’m here,” I said as she walked behind her desk.
“Well, those two things are kind of related. As my unprofessional tantrum may have alerted you, the town is having some difficulty with Ms. Grindley. You may know that she owns the land that holds the trees we decorate for the holidays. She sent us a letter a few weeks ago expressing her regret that the town would not be able to use any of the trees. After all these years! Ugh! And it’s just one more insult in a long string of insults while she sits up there, in her big ol’ house, buying town properties while she refuses even to associate with us. I swear she has representatives for everything,” Aunt Alayna ranted.
I frowned, not recognizing the description of Mrs. Amanda that she painted. Yeah, she’d had a lot of oil money, butshe’d never been stuck up and she loved Christmas. She was a sweetheart. I didn’t want to think it, but maybe dementia or something was changing her.
“I hate to hear that, but where do I come in? I don’t see?—”
She looked at me with bright eyes and the biggest smile.
“She doesn’t seem to have any friends left in town, but rumor has it that she once had a soft spot for you. I was hoping you’d try?—”
I blew out a deep breath, rubbing a hand over my beanie.
“Auntie, that’s been ten, eleven years. She was cool, but she may not even remember me, and if she does, town gossip probably got her not liking me. I’ll try for you, but honestly, this don’t even sound like Mrs. Amanda?—”
She made a soft sound. “Mrs. Amanda? No, baby. Mrs. Amanda is darling. She’s living her best life in a luxury senior living place right off 167. I’m talking about her granddaughter, Kyleigh, the Grindley who stole Christmas!”
Truth smiled, with his raggedy ass. “She talking about Kyleigh, yo’ ex.”
Hell, nah. I shook my head, already denying the crazy request my TeTe was making.
“That lady hates me,” I said, voice tight.
Aunt Alayna shook her head. “I doubt that. I really need you to do this.”
“Auntie—”
“You know that piece of land you been looking at, where our parents house was?” she asked suddenly.
Yeah, I knew that piece of land. It was the center of the vision of what I had come back to Emancipation to build, the center for veterans who had suffered the kind of trauma that robbed you of happiness, of sleep, of sanity, of life. It was heir property now, and while my mama was okay with my having it, Aunt Alaynastill needed to sign off. I could tell where she was going, sneaky self.
“TeTe—” I started again.
“Go talk to her. Get her to agree to let us use the trees. I’ll sign over my rights to the land, no questions asked,” she said.
I dragged a hand over my face. “And when she says no?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me. “She better not say no.”
The wonderful thingabout this house was that it was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.
The not-so-wonderful thing about this house was that it felt like a museum sometimes, a testament to the beautiful life my grandparents had lived.
I stood at the bottom of the curved staircase, watching the chandelier crystals catch the lamplight. Mrs. Amanda used to say the entryway was the “first impression.” She kept this foyer clean and decorated and everything beyond immaculate. The area was all highly-polished floors, dark wood banisters, crystal-clear windows.
And then, there was the blank space by the staircase where a fifteen-foot Christmas tree used to stand.
I folded my arms, fingers sliding under my sleeves. When I first came back to Emancipation last year, that emptiness had made me feel satisfied, like I’d saved one thing from the avalanche of Christmas this town lived for. Now it just looked… empty.
A soft chuff had me looking down where Max, my insightful little Chiweenie, rested. He was observing me out of one lazy eye, looking, as usual, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Mind your business,” I muttered.
“Ms. Kyleigh?”
I turned. Mr. Benton, my grandparents’ butler, stood at the edge of the hallway, hands folded, gray brows raised. He’d been in this house longer than I’d been alive. My grandparents weren’t ostentatious… well, beyond this house, but they had gone out and gotten themselves a real life, Black British butler. When I was a teenager, he’d terrified me. Now, I knew that behind the dry comments was a sweet man.
“Yes?”
