Page 21 of Hush (The Seaside Saga #25)

“Jason, don’t you know how to smile?” Maris looks at him beside her. “Your expression on this batch is so… forced.”

“Maybe, but look at that one. Are you really clenching your fist ?”

Maris squints closer. “Damn it, I am. This is super stressful!”

“Now remember… This was your idea, sweetheart,” Jason quietly says. “So just keep your hands… relaxed .”

“Sure, but look at that perfect picture. Perfect except for the fact that you didn’t even have your arm around me, Jason. You have to think of these things.”

They scroll to the last few.

“That one’s pretty good.” Jason points to the phone screen. “But— ugh . Your skirt’s messed at the slit. The fabric’s folded up.”

“Darn, it is. And in the rest of these? Your expression’s fading, Jason. Like… you’re done.”

“That’s because,” Jason begins while watching Maris scroll up through all the Christmas photos they just took. “That’s because we already got the shot.” He gives a nod and backs away from Maris and the cell phone screen. “Number eight.”

Maris silently scrolls to it.

“See?” Jason takes the phone and studies number eight. “We were just checking out at the end because we somehow knew. Look at this picture. Even Maddy behaved. We’re good , Maris. ”

Maris moves beside him to inspect the image. She squints at it, pinches the screen to zoom in some, then holds the phone away for a different perspective. “ Hallelujah , you’re right,” she eventually tells him. “That one doesn’t even seem like we’re trying. It’s just… us .”

***

The tripod is put away now; the decorated living room, straightened.

Jason’s taken off his prosthesis and is dressed in his favorite sweatpants—the left leg hemmed short—and an old Yale tee.

He comes into the kitchen, sets his forearm crutches against a chair at the gray pedestal table and sits himself down.

Maris follows suit. She shed her Christmas getup and already changed into her olive jogger loungewear—cuffed, loose pants and a matching slouchy top with clog slippers.

Makeup? Washed off. Jewelry? Put away. Hair? Pulled up in a claw clip.

“Now, Jason,” she says while spooning the pot roast from the slow cooker onto a serving platter. “We have to start thinking of what we want to say on our Christmas card.”

“What?” He’s busy taking off Maddy’s holiday bandana—which he tosses on the chair beside him. “I thought it was just a photo card with a… caption, I guess.”

“ Uh-uh-uh . On the back of it, there’s room for a paragraph or so.” Maris brings the food-laden platter to the already set table. “We have to recap our whole year. People like to know these things,” she says, bringing a bottle of Lambrusco to the table now, too.

“Are you kidding me? ”

“I’m very serious,” she says, filling their wineglasses before sitting.

“Whatever happened to just buying a box of ready-made Christmas cards?”

“Oh, Jason.” Maris scoops some pot roast and veggies onto her plate. “Those days are long gone. Anyway,” she continues, handing him the serving spoon, “you said you wanted to compete.”

Jason fills his plate with the pot roast, potatoes, onions, carrots, then ladles more of the gravy juices on top. “So let me get this straight. We need a message now, too?”

Maris nods, lifts a forkful of food and eats.

So does Jason.

They briefly quiet in the dimly lit kitchen.

They salt the veggies. Slice some of the meat.

Drag hunks of potato and carrot through dregs of pot roast juices.

The crystal cone-shaped chandeliers glimmer over the island.

The recessed lights shine low. Their soft light falls on Neil’s framed faded bandanas hanging on the wall beside them.

Maddy laps up water from her bowl before lying in front of the slider.

Outside, it’s twilight now. Shadows press against the kitchen windows.

The maple tree out back is just a black silhouette against the lavender sky.

“Okay, so let’s see. If you’re looking for like… a roundup,” Jason finally says around a mouthful of food.

“Yes! Exactly. To share our lives with our loved ones.”

He nods and forks his potatoes. “Well, here are some ideas.”

“Wait!” Maris jumps up for a pen and paper off the island. “Let me write these down,” she says, breathless, when she sits again .

Jason leans back and wipes his mouth with his napkin. Then he begins. “We could start with something like this.”

“Okay, let me have it.” Maris’ pen hovers over some lined notebook.

“It’s been Maris’ year of unemployment,” Jason suggests—and holds up a hand when she starts to argue. “She says she’s writing,” he says with a wink. “But there are lots of packages being delivered at home. Because she… shops,” he adds, lifting Maddy’s custom holiday bandana from the chair.

“Jason!”

“And… and she redid our kitchen.”

“Oh, that’s a good one! A kitchen remodel,” Maris jots down. “A new kitchen for beautiful meals and memories.”

Jason motions for her to wait as he finishes chewing a mouthful of veggies. “We didn’t celebrate our two-year wedding anniversary,” he says then. “Or go on our annual Vermont weekend chalet getaway.”

Okay, Maris is onto him. She slowly sets down the pad and pen, motions for him to go on and lifts a tender piece of pot roast to her mouth.

“I just about clobbered our old friend Shane when you and I hit a rough patch late summer,” Jason adds, then shrugs and resumes eating.

“No, no!” Maris sputters around her food. “You’re supposed to put the best version of us out there. Like everyone does on social media!”

Jason sips his wine. “You mean all that fake stuff—where all that matters is the tagged location and forced smiles and perfectly crafted captions?”

Maris nods. “Um— yes . And we’re doing it, too. ”

“So you don’t want to say that we separated?” Jason asks, dragging a piece of meat through gravy. “And that I lived down the coast for a few weeks? And you lived alone here. And… and the dog was shot with the whole situation. She chewed the hell out of Ted’s leather slippers.”

“Good, Jason. Yes. That’s good now. And when you came back, I was almost killed in a near-miss car crash with some deer? And… and we argued about having children!”

“Yes, sweetheart.” Jason sips his wine. “That’s the spirit. It’s real life.”

“Oh, come on.” Maris turns in her chair. “What about the other moments?”

“Like what?”

“Like the evening gatherings with family and friends—especially the day after my almost-accident. When you and the guys were hanging out on the deck half the night. And our beach walks. And what about the incredible cottages you’re transforming.

Not to mention Neil’s legacy being honored in your work— and mine.

And don’t forget that stairway to the beautiful, magical sea and how we have a dear friend to thank for that. ”

“Okay, okay.” Jason sits back. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You go through all those photographs we took. Just to be sure that number eight is the right one. And you go ahead and design that card. Have at it—I know you’ll do an unbelievable job. And while you’re doing all that?”

“Yeah?” Maris prods him.

“ I’ll write the Christmas message.”

“What?” Maris quickly looks up from her plate and right at him. “No— ”

“Maris.” In the silence between them then, he only watches her. There’s a panic in her eyes. So Jason takes a breath and holds up both hands to quell that panic. “Just trust me.”

***

And she does.

Jason can tell by the way Maris relents, then goes for seconds of the pot roast dinner and starts talking. Quietly, but intently.

“You know, there’s this scene I wrote today in my Driftline manuscript,” she begins now, then stabs a few potato hunks on her plate. “The older brother—”

“The thief?”

Maris nods while chewing her potatoes. “In the middle of the raging hurricane, he gets himself out of the cottage. He just leaves—walking straight into the storm before anyone can stop him. What the characters and the readers don’t know yet—because I haven’t written it yet—is that he’s actually having some post-war flashbacks triggered by the awful storm sounds banging against the cottage.

The noise is stirring up all kinds of dark memories from ’Nam.

And he feels like he’s about to lose it.

But he doesn’t want his friends to see him like this. ”

“Okay. I could get that.”

“Right. But Princess—”

“His love interest.”

“Yes. She knows something’s wrong and is really worried about him.

So she goes up to the cottage cupola,” Maris says, reaching for her wineglass.

“And she wants to help the thief. There are candles burning in that cupola: on the tables, on a wall shelf. The whole space is aglow with them. So Princess gets this idea to put candles in a window to draw the thief back to her. To safety. It’s a message—the candles—that everything will be all right.

Problem is…” Maris pauses to sip her wine.

“The windows are all boarded up—from the outside—against the storm. But with some effort, Princess opens the one window she thinks the thief might see and physically pries off the plywood. Afterward, she closes the actual window itself, of course. Now the wind is whipping rain against it, and that rain sluices down the glass. And Princess puts a few lit candles right in that window. So in the dark, stormy night, there’s hope.

Because there’s always hope, you know?” As she asks, Maris forks a piece of meat, then looks across the table at Jason.

“That flickering light in the window… it’s a message. ”

“Someone’s waiting for you.”

Maris nods. “And I was, too,” she barely whispers. “I was waiting for you all day, after you were upset on the stairs this morning—”

“Maris. I’m okay.”

“I know you are. But… my heart still broke for you. And the thing is, after I wrote that scene? It made me think of Christmas, and candles in the windows. And how welcoming they are to passersby.”

She gives an emotional smile now. Her eyes may be moist; Jason can’t really tell in the dim kitchen light. But still he only watches her. She’s got him spellbound.

“And then?” Maris goes on. “It made me also think of how you proposed to me on Christmas Eve, Jason—a night of lights and candles. All those twinkle lights you strung on the boardwalk. And on the potted fir trees on either end. It was enchanting ,” she whispers, her voice catching. “And so I … ”

She says no more.

Jason watches as she just fights some emotion and turns up her hands. Her long brown hair is twisted in that clip. The chain of her gold star necklace glimmers on her loose olive top as she silently watches him back.

So that’s why she did all this today. The dinner, but mostly bringing Christmas—and light —into their home.

It was for him.

For this morning on the stairs.

For his missing people. His father. Neil. Shane, even.

She lit up his life.

“Maris… seriously,” he begins, reaching across the table for her hand. “Thank you,” he says before pressing the faintest kiss there.