Page 144 of Our Little Secret

Shep gave off an excited bark just as she heard the front door open.

“Mom!” Marilee’s voice carried up the stairs.

“In the bathroom,” she yelled back. She quickly washed her hands, then pulled on a clean sweater and yoga pants.

“We got a tree!”

Was there a touch of excitement in Marilee’s voice? Childlike merriment?

Brooke hoped so.

“Fabulous!” She forced a smile on her face and made her way downstairs to find her daughter grinning, finally caught up in the spirit of Christmas.

“A real one,” Marilee said. “On sale!”

“Even better,” Brooke said, though her insides were trembling and she couldn’t forget that someone—Gideon, she believed—was spying on them.

Neal had already dragged the fir into the house and gone back outside. He now appeared with a dented Christmas tree stand and a rusted handsaw he’d found in the woodshed. “This close to the holiday the pickings were slim, but the salesman was thrilled for a sale. Let’s see how this works.” He sawed off a few of the lower branches and placed the little fir into the stand. Holding it in place, he said, “Tell me when it’s straight.”

Marilee giggled at how far the tree leaned to one side. “Uh—sorry—not yet, Dad.” She gave him directions on adjusting the listing tree.

Fifteen minutes later Brooke had added water to the base of the tree stand and swept up the sawdust while Marilee had begun opening boxes of ornaments that seemed from the same era as the ones they’d found in the attic.

As Brooke eyed the glass balls and spherical shapes right out of the nineteen fifties or sixties, Neal said, “As I mentioned earlier ‘retro.’ Maybe even retro cool.” He was adding wood to the fire, flames crackling.

“There wasn’t anything more up-to-date?”

Neal shook his head. “Not unless you wanted Smurfs circa 1985 or trolls with matted hair.”

Marilee was already stringing lights and decorating with a garland of fake popcorn and cranberries.

Nearly an hour later Neal surveyed their work from the kitchen. “Not exactly Currier and Ives.”

“Currier and who?” Marilee asked.

“No one you’d know,” he said.

“Didn’t think so.” Marilee stuffed the packaging in a front closet.

“It’s better than what we had.” He cast a glance at the smaller tree that Brooke had tucked into a corner near the dining table.

Brooke followed his gaze. “Mm. Just by a little.” She held up her thumb and forefinger, almost touching to indicate a smidge. She was trying hard to find some exuberance, to forget about the ugly reminders of Gideon Ross, but she couldn’t. Her skin crawled at the thought that he was out there watching.

“Brooke?”

She snapped back to the present and caught Neal’s eye. “Did you say something?”

“Just asking about dinner.”

“Oh. I thought we’d eat late, you know, a light dinner, because lunch wasn’t that long ago.” Truth be told, she hadn’t even thought about their next meal.

“I’m not hungry,” Marilee said, “but how about clam chowder tomorrow? For Christmas Eve?”

“Right.” Another one of their yuletide traditions: Manhattan clam chowder and hot bread. The next day she and Neal would work together on a stuffed turkey with “all the fixins,” as Nana had said their last Christmas here with her. Nana had been making a pumpkin pie, her Virginia Slim forgotten and burning in an ashtray on the counter. Her eyes had twinkled behind her glasses. “Who cares if it’s all a Thanksgiving redux?” she’d asked while sliding a pecan pie into the oven. “We all love it! We’ll have the best Christmas ever.” They hadn’t of course, not with Mama already having passed.

As for this year?

With Leah on her way?