“No way,” he said, stepping past her into the hallway. “Me and this tree have come too far. I need to see this through to the end.”
“It’s a Christmas tree, Freddie.”
“It’s my Everest.”
She smiled, even as her heart stumbled. She reached into her bag, trying to find her keys and ignore a litany of questions that popped up in her brain.
But why are you doing this? What does this mean? What are we even doing here?
By the time she finally found the keys and unlocked the door, it was too much. She paused before turning the knob and looked back at him.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said again.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned that familiar grin, the one that seemed to erase the expensive clothes and new haircut. The one that made him look like the old Freddie again. “Now, can you open the door? I can’t feel my shoulder anymore.”
“Right.” She smiled and opened the door, staying close to the wall to make room for him to walk by.
The tree was deceptively tall, and on Freddie’s shoulder it was almost a battering ram in Cricket’s apartment, knocking over a coat rack, a collection of hats, and three plastic wineglasses before Anne found the right place for it in the corner. She set the stand down and helped him guide the trunk into it, finally getting it on the fifth try.
“Perfect,” Freddie said.
She stood up and stepped back. It was bent at an odd angle, and she could now see that it had a grand total of six branches, but she had to agree. It was perfect.
She had never bought her own Christmas tree before. To be fair, she never really had to. Walt Elliot had a twelve-foot-tall fake tree he paid someone to haul out of storage each year. While Bianca had been in charge of decorating it when she was still with Walt, the responsibility fell to Anne after the divorce. Not that anyone ever asked her, of course.
But not this year, she thought and smiled. It may have been a broken little tree, but it was hers.
“Do you have to water it?” Freddie asked, moving to stand beside her.
She looked up at him incredulously. “Freddie, your entire company was based around hydroponic farming.”
He looked almost offended. “Hey. Give me a break. The only Christmas tree I’ve ever had was that ten-foot silver monstrosity my mom puts up every year.”
Anne’s smile returned along with the memory. She had only spent one Christmas at the Wentworth home, but she remembered that tree in the window when they arrived, each needle made of silver tinsel, so its lights were almost blinding from the street.
“She doesn’t still have it, does she?” Anne asked.
He nodded. “Oh yeah. I had to haul it up from the basement just a couple of weeks ago.”
Anne laughed again. As the sound faded, a heavy silence fell, one that seemed to highlight the facts: The tree was here, it was up, and there was nothing left for Freddie to do.
But she didn’t want him to go. It felt like she was finally getting the old Freddie back and she was afraid that something as simpleas him leaving would erase all the progress they had made. She had no idea how to avoid it, though. So she just stared at the bare branches of her tree, hoping to prolong the moment before the inevitable.
“I think it needs something,” he finally said.
Right. Of course. She had to decorate it. She didn’t know how to explain to Freddie that she barely had the money to afford the tree, let alone ornaments. Then a thought popped into her mind.
“I have lights!” she exclaimed. “Wait here.”
She started toward the hallway closet before he could protest.
Chloe’s fairy lights were right where Anne had put them a few weeks ago, coiled up on the shelf.
She returned, holding them above her head like a prize catch, then plugged the cord into the socket by the tree. The floor lit up with a thousand points of light around their feet. She picked up one end and he grabbed the other, and together they found a rhythm passing the lights back and forth between them.
“This is going to look better than I thought,” Anne said halfway through the process.
“Well, you cheated,” Freddie said before handing the lights back to her to go around again.
