T HE PLAN TO CELEbrATE OUT of town went as far as getting to Luke's.
Luke's house is everything I want one day.
Huge plot of land out back, big windows, tall ceilings, and a porch out front.
He can keep the tree farm and being Dove's neighbor, but I love the rest of it.
I'd love to give Elf a big yard to play in, but my place is tiny and already too quiet.
I don't think I could live in a big house alone.
Which means I'm not mad about hanging out here and to be honest, I don't think I'd have fun anywhere we went anyway. Patio or not, I don't feel like I have anything to fucking celebrate.
Tommy sits at the dining table opposite Sailor, who's doing her math homework, and opens his laptop to start working out his renovation plan.
He still needs to get real planning permission, but believe it or not, it's harder to get things past Arthur.
He takes his role as town council president—a role made up just for him—very seriously.
More seriously than his actual job, which is being Sailor's math teacher.
"Mom's mad at you," Sailor says when I pull out the chair to sit next to her.
I sigh and rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. "Your mom's gonna have to get in line, kid."
"She called you a selfish asshole," Sailor says joyfully as she pencils a fraction onto her paper.
"Hey," Tommy snaps from across the table. "Don't let your dad hear you cursing or he'll be upset."
"He curses all the time. Yesterday this rude guy tried to argue with him and afterward Daddy called him a di—"
I plant my hand over her mouth. I remember her being born. I changed her diaper more times than I can count. She once spit up milk all down my shirt five minutes before a date. I don't need to know she's old enough to know what curse words are.
Tommy is trying not to laugh behind his hand. Two lines appear between his eyebrows as he tries to look serious. "That's bad manners, Sailor. You should tell Pastor Akinola next time you see him. Maybe he can teach your dad about what words he should and shouldn't be using."
I release Sailor's mouth and she looks at me in disgust. "You want help with your homework, kiddo?" I ask her, changing the subject.
She has an entirely serious face. "Do you know how to count?"
Tommy's trying not to laugh again. "Most of the time."
Sailor doesn't look convinced in the slightest. "This might be too hard for you. It's a really, really, really long time since you were in school."
My day just keeps getting better and better. "Okay, well, I'm here if you need help."
Luke appears in the doorway and claps his brother on the back. "Congrats. You guys want a beer?"
Tommy lights up again. "Yeah, I'll take one. And thanks, I can't believe a PowerPoint is all it took. I'd have done that months ago if I'd known."
"I'll take one, too." Luke rummages in the refrigerator and I can't fight the question that's been nagging at me since the meeting. Suspicion is a better word than question , because I'm confident I already know. "Hey, Tom, where'd you get that picture? The first one with the sketch."
The uncomfortable look on Tommy's face tells me what I already know. "Clara made the presentation. I added some of the figures and moved things around a bit, but she did like ninety percent of it. Sorry, man."
Luke hands us each a cold bottle and a bottle opener and sits at the head of the table between me and his brother with a soda. "You don't gotta apologize. I just thought I knew everything she was doing in town. Realizing there's a lot I didn't know."
"She showed up at the tavern last week and said she'd been working on it casually in her free time. Asked for some help with the figures. She was real nice about it. She's the one who said to ask for retractable so I could say it'll be used in winter."
I sip my beer, wishing it were something stronger. "Yeah, she's smart."
I'm starting to think coming here wasn't the best idea.
I should've gone home and thought about everything that's been said tonight.
I've never seen Flo so disappointed with me.
Not when she caught me getting high for the first time or when the cops brought me home or even when I crashed into the gazebo.
Dove and Flo being on the same team should've been enough to make me go home.
The problem is home is empty and quiet and full of things that make me think about Clara's watering eyes in my kitchen.
My bedding smells like her perfume, my pillows like her shampoo.
There's a sticky note on the molasses in my refrigerator that says rehome me :( that I can't bring myself to throw in the trash.
My toy sketches that are usually stuffed in the coffee table drawer have pencil annotations with all the things she loves and what she suggests adapting.
Elf is undoubtedly pissed at me. Everyone is pissed at me.
Luke is asking Tommy about costs and start dates, lumber orders he'll have to sort out. It's a conversation I should be part of but I can't drag myself out of my own head. I stay quiet and drink my beer, not wanting to kill Tommy's excitement with my own issues.
"You okay, man?" Luke asks when Tommy goes to the bathroom. "I know you got it pretty bad at the meeting."
I don't need to tell him what's happened. He and Dove might not be together but they're still best friends. He knows everything she knows and there are no exceptions. At least he tried to pull her away.
"Will be. Your new website sounds cool." Luke's current website is one page and has his location, opening times, and email address. He's always been a simple guy who wants an easy life. "I didn't know you were looking to switch things up."
"Yeah, got talking to someone who knows about SEO and email marketing and stuff. I've been lazy because we've always done okay but I realized, because they told me, that me bringing people to the farm brings them to town.
Helps other people's businesses… so I'm going to try harder. Might be a waste of time."
"Doubt it. Sounds like a really good plan. That person you met sounds smart."
He nods slowly, tapping his fingers against the table. "You want another beer?"
I hold the glass bottle up to the light; there's a mouthful left. "Nah, I'm gonna head home. Elf's been on his own for a few hours and he needs to be walked."
Luke doesn't push me to stay. Neither does Tommy when he comes back. Nobody stops me on my dog walk and I try to forget the way Elf pulls toward the B I don't need to hear about people in love at Christmas.
Miracle on 34th Street gets the same treatment; I don't need to spend ninety minutes in New York.
Any variation of Charles Dickens feels like I'm tempting fate and I don't have the energy to be shown my past, present, and future right now.
I'm about to switch off several more movies when my phone starts ringing. For the first time ever, I'm relieved that someone is calling me on a Tuesday evening. I dig my phone out of my pocket, noting Miss Celia's name on my screen. "Hello?"
"Jack, I'm sorry to bother you. Could you come to the bookstore? I—" She pauses; I hear her shuffling on the other side of the line. "I didn't have my glasses on and I knocked my tea onto my computer keyboard. It's making a sizzling noise and I don't want to lose all my invoices."
I turn the TV off with my free hand and trap my cell phone between my ear and shoulder while I stand up and rebutton my pants. "Okay, don't touch it. I'll be right over."
"Thanks, Jack."
After a couple of weird days, it feels good to be needed for something again.
Nature is healing and all that shit Mel and Winnie say.
I ignore the fact they usually say it when something bad happens to someone they don't like.
I guess I'll find out if that's applicable here if Miss Celia's computer electrocutes me.
I make a mental note to empty the Santa mailbox when I pass it on my way back home. Responding to the kids' letters is the perfect way to distract myself when I inevitably need distracting.
The door to the bookstore is locked, lights only shining in the back of the store. I knock on it a few times before I spot Miss Celia emerging from the light. She looks apologetic when she opens the door. I stomp the snow from my boots on the mat and unzip my coat.
"Thanks for coming so quickly. It's in the back, come through." The six-foot-tall Matilda Brown banner from the book event Clara organized nearly falls on me as I pass it. "Sorry about that, I need to move it."
"My fault."
I squint against the light as we step into the area at the back of the store. My eyes adjust as several heads face me. Tommy looks the most guilty, followed by Mel and Winnie, then Luke and Maggie. Wilhelmina and Flo seem determined and Dove is still pissed.
"Jack…," Miss Celia says slowly, like she's pacifying a horse ready to bolt.
"I didn't realize book club was happening tonight," I say, scanning the room. They're sitting in a semicircle with one chair facing it. You've got to be kidding me. "I haven't read it."
"Sit down, Jack," Flo says in her most authoritarian voice. She must realize because she quickly adds on a softer, "Please."
"I'm too old for this," I say, taking the seat facing everyone when Miss Celia sits in the semicircle's last seat. This one was clearly always going to be mine. "We're all too old for this."
"Don't act like such a baby then," Dove says, crossing her arms, then her legs.
"Dove," Luke says harshly. "Don't start."
"Come on," I say, rolling my arms as if to speed them up. "Let's get this intervention over with."
"Mind your manners, Jack Kelly," Flo says. "This isn't an intervention. This is to help you because you're clearly not going to help yourself."
I'm pretty sure that's what an intervention is but I don't voice that. I might be pissed right now but talking back to Flo with an audience is not something I'm going to do.
I'd like to survive this meeting.
"We all love you, Jack," Maggie says gently. "Most of us have known you all your life. We all want you to be happy and we know you're not happy."
"I'll be fine," I say like a reflex. "I'm always fine."
"Being fine and being happy aren't the same thing," Winnie says, Mel nods beside her in agreement.
There isn't enough oxygen in this room. My chest feels tight and my skin feels hot. I should've stuck to Love Actually and put my phone on airplane mode.
"We realized we owe you an apology," Wilhelmina says. "That's what this is. Not an intervention."
Miss Celia nods. "I went to a lot of interventions in the seventies and they didn't look like this."
"An apology? What does anyone have to apologize for?" I ask. It's a genuine question.
"Clara Davenport came here like a whirlwind and swept us all up. I'm sure you don't need to be reminded about everything she's done for us."
"I have a list though if you do," Dove says, interrupting Flo. "It's long as hell."
Flo sighs and carries on. "And honestly, we loved having her here. Not because she's beautiful and charismatic, not because of her determination to put things right, but because of how happy you've been."
"I'm confused." Really fucking confused.
"There's nobody who does more for this town than you, man," Tommy says, finally piping up. "Clara's getting credit for putting in a few weeks' effort and you've been doing it for fifteen years."
"We're sorry that you feel like you have to protect and take care of us. Even if it means messing with your own happiness," Luke says.
"I don't." Everyone looks at me like I'm telling them the sky is yellow. "You guys are blowing this out of proportion."
"You're your grandfather, Jack," Flo says, smiling like she's recalling a fond memory. "Always taking care of everyone else. Never asking for help. A skepticism that would be infuriating if you weren't both so handsome while scowling."
Flo is a dramatic person, she always has been, but it's hard not to want to listen to her talk about my granddad.
"It skipped a generation with your father, but you're Harry through and through," Miss Celia adds. "And we should've said to him what we're saying to you now: we're not your responsibility, we're your neighbors, and we want to support you the way you have supported us."
There's a baseball-size lump in my throat when I try to swallow. "I feel like you didn't need to lure me here under false pretenses to say this to me," I say, rubbing at my beard. "I'd have accepted an email."
"Oh, sweetie. We're not done," Wilhelmina says.
I sigh and lean back in my chair. "Of course you're not."
"I put your name on the list to speak at the town meeting," Dove says, picking at her nail varnish.
"At first, I wanted to help, then I wanted you to suffer, and now, Flo tells me I want to help again. Clara told me how much goes into running Holly. All the emails and the packaging and everything. We need to help more. You should've told us—" She pauses when Flo nudges her.
"We should've asked you if you needed help. "
"We can talk about how we'll divide responsibilities up better when you're back," Wilhelmina says.
My eyebrow quirks. "Back from where?"
They all look at me with the same pitying expression.
"No."
"Yes," at least three of them say.
"She won't want to talk to me." Clara's watery eyes flash in my mind. "I messed up bad."
"You messed up, but we messed up by not thinking about how accepting a Davenport delivery might look," Maggie says. "Lesson learned, we can all move past it."
"I don't know how to fix it. She might not forgive me," I admit, dragging a hand down my face.
Miss Celia moves to my side and wraps an arm around my shoulder. "She might not, but you won't know if you don't try. And either way, she deserves to hear that you're sorry."
Flo leans forward with her phone. "And we have something important you need to show her."
My adrenaline starts pumping as my mind runs through the possibilities. "I don't even know her address!"
"You know where she works. Go there and win her back!" Flo claps her hands together, the excitement delighting her. "And get rid of that beard, for goodness' sake."
I guess I'm heading to New York with a clean shave.