Page 48 of All in for Christmas

Dean looks into my eyes, questioning. Like he’s searching for answers.

“You, uh.” I shift nervously in my chair, wondering if he’ll buy this, even though it is the truth. “You gave it to me.” My smile trembles. “For Christmas.”

“This Christmas?” He reaches toward me and holds open his hand. “May I?”

I nod and remove my necklace, placing the jewelry in Dean’s palm.

He closes his fingers around it and shuts his eyes.

“That’s impossible,” Dean says with his eyes still closed.

“I distinctly remember helping you with this clasp…you holding up your hair. Wait.” His eyes fly open as he grips the necklace. “You got pink highlights?”

Oh my gosh. A breakthrough.

My heart hammers.

Is it on account of the necklace?

He winces, pressing his hands to his temples. “Ow!”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s like I had a brain freeze, but not a brain freeze. More like a jumbled info dump. Wild. Is your mom dating someone named Roger?”

“Dean!” I murmur excitedly. “You saw it, too?”

“I’m not sure what I saw. It was extremely compressed.” He frowns, thinking. “Like a zip file ripping itself open. Scattered images were everywhere… Hang on.” His eyes go wide. “Holy cow. Did you get a tattoo?”

I giggle and cover my mouth. “What else did you see?”

“A sweet little girl in pigtails. A boy saying ‘Merry Kissmas.’”

Tears spring to my eyes. “That’s Henry.”

“Henry,” Dean says distractedly. “Right.” He shakes his head then chuckles. “He’s a cutie, isn’t he? So is Eleanor, and Scout?”

“It was a good life in so many ways.”

“It couldn’t have been perfect.”

“No. But it was perfect being there with you.”

“That’s very sweet, Paige.”

“You were sweet,” I tell him. “The ideal husband and dad.”

“I like the idea of being a husband and dad.” Fear washes over his face, and something else: panic. “ Someday .” He opens his hand and stares down at the necklace. So do I. Was it this token of our love that enabled his sharing in my memories? An emblem of our unity that binds us across time?

I think so.

I look up at him and he stares at me, frozen in his chair. This has all been a lot for him to absorb. “I know. I get it,” I hasten to add. “We’re not talking about anytime soon. For you, or for me. Or, er, either of us.” I laugh awkwardly.

“It is a big leap,” he agrees. “We hadn’t seen each other in years until Friday.”

“My thinking exactly.” In this world.

“So we don’t want to rush into anything.”

“Who’s rushing? Haha! Not me.”

“In fact,” he says like he’s trying to convince himself. “I think we should take things slowly.”

“Good idea,” I concur. “Super slowly. Like molasses dripping on a hot Sunday afternoon.”

He surveys the poinsettias in the room, ending with the one on our table. “Coffee was a good start, though.”

“Yeah, it’s been fun!”

“And, extremely informative for me.”

“Ha.” That makes two of us. I had no idea about the powers of my necklace. I am so very grateful that Dean was able to see some of my memories, too.

“So,” he asks. “What’s on the advent calendar for tomorrow?”

“Ice skates.”

“Hmm. And the day after?”

“A Christmas candle.”

He shakes a finger at me and squints. “I took you out, didn’t I? To a fancy restaurant.”

I smile from ear to ear and whisper, “ You’re remembering? ”

“Paige, I’m not sure why I’m sharing some of your memories now, but I seem to be catching glimpses of what you went through.” His face reddens and his eyebrows shoot up. “‘ There goes Tuesday ’?”

I sink down in my chair, my cheeks hot. “Oh gosh.”

“We did get along, didn’t we?” he asks huskily.

My pulse hums. “Uh-huh.”

Dean chuckles. “Look. I don’t know what any of this means, but it’s hard to argue with the mysteries of the universe.

” He gingerly returns my necklace, and I put it on, watching it drape prettily against my sweater.

“Especially when they’re this mysterious .

” He rubs his chin. “I wonder if the lady who sold me the advent calendar could help explain what’s going on. The one dressed like Mrs. Claus?”

“Mary Christmas?”

“Sorry?”

“That was her name. M-A-R-Y Christmas.”

Dean laughs. “Fitting.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “We can try to find her and ask. I spoke to her in the other world, but then she disappeared.”

“Oh yeah? Did she lend you any insight?”

“She mostly encouraged me to enjoy my life as it was happening, and to try not to second guess things. I really wanted to stay through Christmas Day and was so glad I did. It was a once-in-a-lifetime Christmas, or so I thought.”

His gaze lingers on mine. “What do you think now?”

“That maybe my very special Christmases are just beginning.”

“You know what I think?” Dean asks. “I think we should go to the holiday market and look for that advent calendar seller.”

“Don’t you have an appointment to tour the house?”

He nods. “We’ll go before.” I’m touched he’s including me in his plans. “Then, after we speak with Mary Christmas, maybe you can come with me to Chestnut Street?” I grin when he adds, “I’d love your opinion on the house.”

Dean and I walk to the town square, which isn’t far from Cuppa Joe. The holiday market lights shine up ahead and snow falls around us. “Nice out this time of year,” Dean says. “Nippy.”

I stare up at his handsome face, reliving the memories we made in the other realm, wondering if there’s a way to make them real. “It is nice,” I answer. Wind blows back my hair beneath my pom-pom hat, pushing it over my shoulders. “Everything’s so Christmassy.”

He surveys the wintry scene. The cheerily decorated streetlamps adorned with festive greenery, and holiday banners draped from their arms. Storefronts boast decorated windows filled with fake snow and covered in snowflake stickers.

“Yeah.” We pass by the smaller square on the way to the large one.

Dean cocks his head in the direction of the snowman, who stands near the center of the square beside a frozen fountain. “That your guy?”

“Yep. He’s the one.”

Dean laughs and strides over to him. I follow him through the snow. “Wait. Where are you going?”

He stands with his hands on his hips, addressing the snowman.

“Hey there, fella. The lady here seems to think we’ve met before.

What’s your opinion?” He leans toward the snowman like he’s listening.

“What’s that? Wait!” He lets out the biggest, fakest gasp.

“Did you see that, Paige? I think he winked at me!”

I playfully shove Dean’s arm. “Did not.”

“Well. It sure looked to me like he was thinking about it, anyway.”

“Hmm. Maybe so.”

Dean examines the snowman from top to bottom, paying particular attention to the carrot jammed into the center of his face. “His nose looks all right now.”

“That’s because I fixed it.”

“Aha.”

His eyebrows arch. “What else have you fixed?”

“Ask me in the morning,” I say. “Unless all of this goes poof .”

“ Poof ?”

“That’s what Mary Christmas told me when I asked her about the time split and two different realities. She said there’s no way for me to be two places at one time. So if I’m here, I can’t be there.”

“And if you’re there…”

“Exactly.”

“So the kids we had? The dog?”

“ Poof! Poof! Poof! ”

Dean frowns. “That seems very sad.”

My heart sinks because I miss my family, even when Dean is here with me now. “It is sad, but since I’ve lost all that.” I shrug. “I’m not sure how to reclaim it.”

Dean’s face shows real melancholy, like he senses a tremendous loss, too. Maybe he’s absorbing my sadness, or simply being empathetic. He glances at the market. “Maybe we should go and ask Mary Christmas?”

We approach the main town square with its tall Christmas tree.

I cast a look at the consignment store beside the bank, Second Chances, but it’s a bakery now called Sugar Cakes.

So, no telescope in the window—not that I’d need to buy one for Dean.

He’s been teaching for a while and on his own.

Since he’s considering buying a house, he’s clearly stable financially.

If he wants a telescope, he can likely get one for himself, if he doesn’t own one already.

We duck under the main tent and out of the snow, where we see the popcorn vendor. The aroma of freshly popped popcorn fills the air, along with the scent of yummy hot chocolate. We both eye the booth. Maybe if we hadn’t just finished drinking coffee, we’d be tempted to purchase a few cups.

“Will you look at this.” Dean stops and picks up a mug from a ceramics table.

My heart stutters. It’s got a painted starry night design set against the backdrop of the mountains.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” he asks, holding it in front of me.

Then he meets my eyes and I experience a jolt, almost like I’ve had déjà vu.

But it’s not me who’s experienced a memory.

It’s Dean. “Paige,” he whispers softly. “Did you—give me a mug like this?”

“Yes. For Christmas.”

“And something else?” He darts a look across the square at the bakery.

“I did. A telescope. It was secondhand, but money was tight.”

His eyes mist over. “You loved me,” he says like he intuits this very deeply.

“Yes.”

My ruby heart necklace lies beneath my coat, and he stares at the spot where he knows it hangs. “And I loved you.”

My fingers find the delicate chain below my neck scarf, verifying the precious gift that rests close to my heart. While I’m glad he’s catching glimmers of the life we had together, I so badly wish that he could see more.

“Paige,” he asks. “What was wrong with the other place? You said it wasn’t perfect.”

My shoulders slouch as I answer honestly. “It was small stuff, when you look at the bigger picture. Money was tight for us, like I said. We had two kids on your teacher’s salary and my income, which was lower than yours. I was Missy’s administrative assistant.”

“ Nooo .”

“Yeah, and that had its—interesting moments. But I had other ambitions like I did here. I wanted to be a teacher, like the one who helped me when I was a teenager, and you encouraged me to go back to school.”

“Back?”

“I dropped out early when—”

He nods. “The kids, right?”

“They weren’t a mistake, Dean.”

His lips pull into a smile that looks a little wistful. “No, I suspect not.” His expression softens further when he meets my eyes. “I’m sure they were a blessing.”

Hurt catches in my throat at my loss and longing. “They were.”

We turn toward the far side of the tent and start snaking in that direction, and my spirit warms at our connection.

It feels good being with Dean and on this mutual quest, but my heart wants more.

My heart wants the love and laughter we shared in our cozy little cottage with Eleanor, Henry, and Scout.

The life I never could have imagined, but now have a tough time living without.

I point ahead of us. “She was right over there, where the larger tent meets the smaller one on the side near the skating rink.” Skaters glide by on the ice, the lights around the rink delivering a cheery glow.

Happy laughter and shouts drift toward us on the wind, which carries the fresh scent of new-fallen snow.

“Right. I remember,” Dean says about Mary Christmas, but I’m remembering other things. Thinking of our fun ice skating outing as a family and how we ran into Roger and Mom. Dean asking me out for our candlelit dinner. I knew then I was in so deep. Helplessly in love with my husband.

Dean leads me to the spot where Mary Christmas’s booth had been, and we pause, peering around. There’s no one here selling advent calendars. Only the actor dressed as Santa taking photos with kids. “But she was right—here,” Dean says, confounded.

“She was the first time I saw her, too. But then she was gone. Just like—”

“ Poof ,” Dean says sadly.

Then suddenly a voice sounds behind us. “Are you looking for someone?”