I stood frozen in the kitchen for a few moments, contemplating my reply. Why was it such a big deal not to let anyone come into my home? I surveyed our garage-sale sofa, thrift-store coffee table, and plain, off-white walls that held only two pictures, both of our family. I had put no effort into turning this place into a home.

  Why was that? Did I believe from the beginning this was only going to be temporary? Did I ever think we would stay for a whole year?

  I put on my apron and started to make dinner. We had been hit with a lot of harsh realities when we moved to Southern California. Trevor had stepped into a mess at the used-car company on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach. His uncle had offered to turn the business over to him for a dollar when he found out Trevor was secretly thinking about extracting himself from the Winslow dealership empire. He told Trevor that if he came to California, he could achieve on his own what Trevor’s father had achieved long ago in Asheville.

  That was appealing bait to my husband because the Winslow family business in North Carolina encompassed five dealerships. Trevor’s decade of experience there had been in selling trucks, not in managing a used-car lot. To his credit, my smart husband dove in. He cleaned up the books, made necessary staff changes, and improved the overall appearance of the lot with new signs and a regular supply of colorful helium balloons on all the cars, which had been Audra’s idea.

  Trevor was far from turning the tide, though. Everyone in his family, sitting in their leather massage office chairs back in Asheville, apparently knew it.

  Was I being unrealistic in thinking we should stay here? Was it even possible? How bad were things at the dealership? What if Trevor wasn’t telling me everything?

  Feelings of hopelessness fell on me. I recognized the dark, fearful emotions as being the same ones that had capsized me a year and a half ago. They began to press in on me, squeezing the breath from my chest.

  No. No. Don’t start thinking those things. Breathe. Breathe.

  “Mom?”

  I blinked and tried to focus on Audra as she scooted back into the kitchen.

  “Mom, when are we going to get our Christmas tree? Can we go tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Can Daddy take the day off tomorrow?”

  “It’s Saturday. That’s a busy day for him.” I was having a hard time catching my breath.

  Audra made one of her faces that communicated her doubt. “I thought it was never busy for him. Not like at Grampa’s car place. Whenever I go to work with Daddy, nobody comes in.”

  I took slow breaths in through my nose, telling myself nothing was wrong. Everything would be okay.

  “Mom, could you and I go now and get a tree if Daddy can’t do it? I saw a tree place by the gas station. You and I could have it all set up before Daddy even gets home tonight. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

  Audra came closer and reached for my hand. I read in her eyes a streak of fear. She must have recognized my frozen posture and was afraid that I was about to have another panic attack.

  I rolled my shoulders back, stood up straight, and put a smile on my lips that had begun to feel tingly. I hated that my daughter knew the signs.

  “What do you think, Mom?” Her voice was animated, and she seemed intent on distracting me. “Could we get a tree? That would be fun, wouldn’t it? We don’t have to buy a big one or an expensive one. They could tie it to the roof of the car for us.”

  She waited for an answer while I worked hard to shift mental gears. She seemed to have reverted to a less confident version of herself.

  “Please?” Audra squeezed my hand again.

  Gazing down into my daughter’s clear, worried eyes, I saw hope in its truest and purest form. Childlike hope. She was my daughter. My only child. It was Christmastime. I had it within my power to grant her wish. To give her a sweet memory. To start new memories and a new tradition for us in California, regardless of how long we stayed.

  My smile came slowly. I didn’t take my eyes off her sweet face.

  “Let’s do it,” I said with steady words.

  “Really?” Her expression lit up. “Really, really? Truly, truly?”

  “Yes. Come on. Let’s go buy a Christmas tree.”

  Audra squealed and twirled in a circle. It was her signature happy dance that first emerged when she was a toddler. I was glad she hadn’t grown out of it.

  “Can we tell Daddy?”

  “I thought you wanted to surprise him.”

  “I think we should tell him, and maybe he wants to help us pick it out. Or if he can’t, at least he knows we didn’t leave him out on purpose.”

  I reached for my phone and saw that Jennalyn’s message about my plate was still on my screen. I quickly typed, Could I come pick it up tomorrow?

  Then I sent Trevor a text, explaining our spur-of-the-moment plan as best I could. He came back right away with, I’ll meet you there.

  Audra did another happy dance. “Can we have our cocoa and cookies tonight after the tree is decorated? Just you and me? With the lights off and everything?”

  “Absolutely.” I was thrilled that she remembered. I reached for my purse, feeling steady. Everything was fine.

  Audra slipped her hand into mine as we headed down the lovely garden walkway past all the other single-story apartments. I wondered how many more times she would want to hold my hand like this. She was maturing quickly in other ways. I needed to make this Christmas one to remember.

  Chapter 5

  When Trevor left for work on Saturday morning, he took Audra with him for the day. She had loved every moment of our Friday afternoon tree hunt at the nearby gas-station lot.

  So did I.

  We had pizza for dinner while we decorated the slender tree to the sounds of all our favorite Christmas carols. Trevor sang out on “Joy to the World” at the top of his lungs. Audra and I joined in, trying to match his verve. He looked happy, and that chin-up look of his filled something in me that had been running low. I think it was my supply of hope. Hope that we would have enough money by the end of the month. Hope that we were doing what was best for Audra and for us. Hope that we could stay in California. I liked just being us and starting our own traditions.

  Audra and I followed up with the promised cuddle time on the sofa with our cocoa and shortbread cookies while Trevor went to bed early for the first time in a long time. We squinted our eyes until they were only slivers. That way we could watch the tiny white lights turn into falling snowflakes or dancing angels. We talked about stars and the first Christmas. At Audra’s request I looked up the verses in Luke about how the angels sang.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to make cutout angels,” she said when I tucked her into bed. “Lots and lots of angels.”

  I didn’t want to deny her the project, but the truth was, over the past few weeks, Audra’s creative craft skills had already provided our apartment with all the homemade decorations we needed. The next morning she must have realized we had few places left to affix a row of singing angels.

  Undaunted, Audra convinced her pushover father that his office was in need of her handmade angels, snowflakes, red and green paper chains, and, of course, a Christmas tree. She already had calculated how he could buy the tree on the way to work and where it would go in front of the big window. She looked so happy when she skipped out the door with her bin of art supplies.

  Trevor gave me a look before he left. I thought it was because we had come to what I thought was a mutual decision that morning about my taking on additional hours at work. He was probably realizing that Audra would accompany him at work lots more in the weeks ahead.

  Though maybe the look was because he thought I was the one trying to tip the balance in favor of a decision to stick it out here. Why else would I be agreeing to things that would make Christmas so memorable in our home and at his office?

  What he didn’t realize was that going to work with him and decorating his office were all Audra’s idea. This was her joy. Certainly he would see that today when she started cutting out her paper angels and snowflakes at his desk. Trevor would understand why I always supported Audra’s creativity; it gave her a sense of well-being. Especially after all the disruption we had put her through this year.

  I had the morning to myself, so I made a cup of coffee and sat on the couch, admiring the pretty tree. When we had moved, I had packed only the ornaments that had sentimental value. They all fit in a medium-sized plastic bin along with my prized nativity set that my grandmother gave me when I was seven. She said it had been a gift to her when she was young and that it came from Italy. I believed her because the word Italia was stamped on the bottom of each of the figurines. Years later, my mother said it wasn’t true.

  “Your grandmother bought that at a yard sale.” My mother’s voice can carry such an edge when she is determined to make a point. “She was always putting on airs. You know that she came from nothing, like the rest of us. I don’t know why she wanted you to believe her life was more important or more interesting than it really was.”

  Trevor once said that “withholding approval” was my mother’s superpower.

  “If she was a Marvel comic character, she would assault people on the street by telling them everything they were doing wrong and then disappear into the crowd,” he said.

  I disagreed with him when we were first married. I told him he was being disrespectful. My deep-rooted instinct was to defend my mother and explain to him again how difficult her life had been after my dad passed away and how she had to raise my brother and me on food stamps.

  Trevor liked to point out how well off my mom was now and that she had no reason to always try to level any kind of happiness whenever it looked like it might pop up. Because she still was choosing to withhold approval, Trevor chose to limit our relationship with her as a family. He didn’t like the way my mother corrected Audra or how critical she was of me.

  As for what my mother thought of Trevor, it goes without saying. That he and I married when I was barely twenty and lived in his parents’ huge house the first two years did and will always evoke a disapproving shake of her head. I avoided telling her that we had moved back in with his parents after our finances were dismantled. That was the beginning of the great distancing between my mother and me. I had relegated her to a need-to-know status, and I knew she resented it. Trevor said it was okay to set boundaries and self-protect.

  I felt like a little girl who still wanted a mother. A nurturing, involved, kind, and loving mother who wanted to see me flourish.

  Staring at the Christmas tree, my vision blurred. My rising tears kept the lights from turning into dancing angels or fluttering snowflakes. Instead, the dots of once-bright hope looked like they were melting into the branches. I wondered if I had swung too far the other way once I became a mother. Was I too affirming and quick to indulge Audra’s whims? My daughter was free to create and dream in ways I never had been encouraged to do as a child.

  I blinked until the tree came back into focus. My phone was buzzing on the counter. I picked up the cell phone and saw that I had missed a call from Jennalyn while I was pondering motherhood. Her voice mail said she was heading out to do some Christmas shopping because her mother-in-law had come by and taken Eden for the day. Jennalyn said she would leave my cookie plate in a bag by the front door in case I could pick it up.

  I texted back with a simple, Okay. Thanks. It would be easy to swing by her house and then do a little Christmas shopping of my own for Audra and Trevor. My new schedule had me working every Saturday till the end of December, so this was my best chance to try to find nice gifts for the two people who mattered most to me.

  I tidied up the apartment, made sure all the doors and windows were locked, and sent a text to Trevor to let him know that I was going to run errands.

  I was just about to leave when I heard a knock on the door. Peeking through the spyhole, I saw that it was Mrs. Miller, Christy’s mom.

  I opened the door but kept the screen closed. “Good morning.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Emily. My husband wanted me to ask if you would mind if he planted some cuttings along your back fence.”

  I didn’t know Mrs. Miller’s first name, but now that I knew Christy, I almost felt as if I should know it because then I’d call her “Miss” and add whatever her first name was. That’s how Trevor had been raised to speak to family, friends, and neighbors. The familiarity couched in politeness was something I liked.

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” I said.

  “He likes to have me ask the tenants first.” Mrs. Miller’s hair was salt-and-pepper gray and never seemed to be arranged in a particular style. It covered her ears and framed her face with natural waves that appeared to all be going in different directions. She was shorter and much rounder than Christy. The similarity I now saw between them was in their nose and lips. They had the same sort of quiet smile.

  “I met your daughter,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “Christy,” I said, not sure how many daughters she had. “I met her at a party at Jennalyn’s.”

  “I’m so glad you did.” Peering past me into the apartment, she smiled. “And I see you have your tree up. How nice.”

  “Yes. Audra talked us into buying one last night.”

  “It’s just the right size, isn’t it?”

  I felt rude not opening the screen door, so I invited her to step inside to have a better view.

  “It’s lovely.” Mrs. Miller came closer and admired several of my favorite ornaments and a few of Audra’s handmade snowflakes. “Your tree reminds me of the ones we used to cut from the woods when our children were little. Christy may have told you that we lived on a farm.”

  “No. But I remember her saying she had a grandmother from the Midwest who inspired her apron making.”

  “That was my mother.” She smiled and leaned in to take a closer look at an angel ornament made of feathers.

  “How long ago did you move to California?” I asked.

  “Quite some time ago. Christy was in high school. Our son was about your daughter’s age.”

  “Was it a big adjustment for them?”

  “Yes and no.” She seemed to be trying to remember.

  The back-and-forth meter of our conversation felt offbeat, as it often can when two introverts are trying to make an everyday sort of exchange sound comfortable and normal.

  “What prompted you to move here?” I wasn’t sure why the question popped out of my mouth, except that I was curious.

  “My sister and her husband live here. In Newport Beach.” Mrs. Miller paused as if her answer to me wasn’t exactly the reason for their move but she was trying to decide how much she should say.

  Turning to me with an expression of uncomplicated honesty, she said, “We had financial difficulties for quite a few years when we were on the farm. Our solution was borrowing against the mortgage. The expenses got ahead of us. In the end, we had no choice but to sell everything.”

  I stood still, eyes wide and unblinking. Her explanation for their move mirrored the reason for our move. We had to sell everything were words I hadn’t yet spoken aloud because of the weight of shame I felt. Mrs. Miller seemed free from such a weight.

  I heard my wavering voice confess, “That’s what happened to us too.”

  Her expression softened. “It’s a painful blow, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. Never did I expect I would meet anyone in this corner of the world who could understand what Trevor and I had gone through. Mrs. Miller not only understood, but she also was on the other side of it all.

  “Trevor and I got in over our heads with medical bills.” I knew I didn’t have to explain the details to her. Just saying the words made me feel as if something big was breaking up inside. I wanted the truth to keep smashing the stigma so that the bits would get smaller and float away.

  I leaned against the side of the couch, feeling a tremor of nerves, and opened up even further. “The medical expenses were for in vitro treatments.”

  At first she seemed unfamiliar with what I was saying. Then her eyebrows rose behind her glasses and she concluded, “Was that in order to get pregnant with your daughter?”

  “No, actually, we wanted another baby. We still do. Audra came easily. Unplanned. She was born three days before our one-year wedding anniversary. We thought it would be just as easy the second time. But…” I gave a little shrug since the conclusion of my last sentence was obvious. I didn’t want to say anything else. I’d probably said too much. I couldn’t believe the way it had all gushed out.

  What I appreciated most about our halting yet surprisingly easy conversation was that she didn’t reply with any of the “bless your heart” comments that had become so familiar to me over the years from all the well-meaning moms, grandmas, and aunts in my life. She didn’t make a single comment about how I was still young enough to have lots of babies or that Trevor and I should simply relax and it would happen naturally.

  Mrs. Miller looked into my eyes but didn’t say anything. Her quietness on the topic was comforting.

  I can’t explain why, but I decided to keep talking. Not because the silence needed to be filled, but because I felt free to speak about the deep pain. I didn’t feel defensive with Christy’s mom, nor did I feel embarrassed. I felt at home. Mrs. Miller had stepped into my corner of the world. I could say whatever I wanted. I wanted to get it out.

  “The doctors called it secondary infertility. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. We tried everything. The expenses kept adding up.”

  She nodded her understanding.

  “The treatments cost tens of thousands of dollars. Everyone in Trevor’s family wanted to help, but my husband can’t stand to be in debt to anyone for anything.”