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I see.” I put on my best mom face. “Tried to slip that one past me?”
“Unsuccessful as usual,” he says, laughing.
I take another bite of pancake. “As long as you finish. But you’re on the hook for decorating the tree with me tomorrow.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Trevor swivels around on his stool. “I’ll go with you to get the tree.”
My heart flies up into my throat. “Are you sure?” I say. “It’s a long drive, and you’re on vacation. Plus, it’s your birthday.”
“I’m sure,” he says, grinning. “I have nothing to do and I can help you wrestle the tree into submission.”
“All right,” I say, taking my dishes to the sink. I collect the rest of the dishes, switching the clean and dirty dishes in the dishwasher and listening to the bustle of my brother’s family getting ready to leave.
An hour later I’ve showered, changed, and kissed Brad goodbye. Trevor is waiting outside for me by my car, and my god he looks fantastic. Peacoat, jeans, hat, and boots. He’s a fucking a model. He smiles when he sees me. “Road trip?”
7
The Christmas tree farm is on the outskirts of Boston, and it takes an hour get there on a good day. But today is a good day for driving, and we’ve been passing the drive in pleasant, radio-filled silence, until Trevor looks over at me. “Can I ask you a question that’s personal?”
A bubble of laughter escapes me. “I think after what we did this morning there’s very little left that you can call personal.” He keeps looking at me, face serious. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Who is Jackson?”
I suck in a breath at the unexpectedness. That’s the last name I expected to come from Trevor’s mouth.
“I heard your sister mention him yesterday, and if I’m stepping on someone’s toes when it comes to you—”
“Jackson is Brad’s father,” I say, interrupting him.
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the car. I try not to think about Jackson whenever possible, because it’s the nagging scar that never heals over. But when my family is around it always seems to get brought up.
Trevor shifts uncomfortably. “Oh. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” I say, aiming for a carefree tone and missing completely. “Umm…we met when I was eighteen. He was my first love—handsome and charismatic. We fell in love really fast, and moved in together right after graduation.”
I leave that hanging in the air, because if that had been the end of the story my life would be very different.
“What happened?” Trevor asks softly.
I consider not telling him, hiding the fact that I’m almost forty and haven’t gotten over something from twenty years ago. But everyone else knows, and with my siblings, he’ll probably find out just by listening. I swallow against the sudden lump in my throat. “Jackson wasn’t actually a very nice guy. He was rude and possessive, demanding. There was very little I did that made him happy, and he was angry a lot. But when he was loving it was like the sun came out, and it made up for all the bad. I loved him, so I explained it all away, and I stayed. He’d had a hard life, and I felt he had a right to be all the things he was.
“The day I told him I was pregnant, I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy. Things were good for a while. But we were nineteen and poor. Bills piled up from my doctor appointments and things for the baby, and it only got worse when we couldn’t…have sex because I was too sick or too pregnant.”
I glance over at Trevor. “Brad wasn’t the easiest baby to carry. I was sick most of the time. Jackson was home less and less, was angrier when he was home. And a few weeks before Jackson was born I came home from the store to find all of his things gone.”
We sit in silence for a while, an overly cheery Christmas carol playing on the radio.
“I haven’t seen him since,” I say softly.
Trevor doesn’t say anything. But then, what is there to say?
I jump when I feel his hand take mine, and I don’t fight it when he weaves our fingers together. We ride the rest of the way in silence, hand in hand. I try not to dwell on the past and the sadness it still brings me, but the memories come anyway. Of being shuffled between the houses of my aunts and uncles, of Brad crying and asking why he didn’t have a daddy when everyone else did, of the loneliness and hardship of parenting alone.
By the time I pull into the farm I feel down, the same way I always feel when this spiral of thoughts catches me. There aren’t many cars here, which is good. It will make it easier to pick a tree if there are less people vying for the good ones. I put the car in park, and before I can even turn the car off, Trevor is out of his seat. He’s standing in front of me on my side of the car when I open my door. He closes the door for me, and wraps his arms around me. It’s unexpected, and welcome. I feel myself relaxing into the warmth of this embrace.
“I’m sorry I asked,” he says. “It’s obviously not a fun thing to relive.”
“No, it’s not.”
He pulls back far enough to see my face. “No one deserves that,” he says. “Especially not you.” The kiss he places on my lips is chaste and sweet, and something tugs inside my chest. A yearning for this kind of simple intimacy. He releases the kiss and takes my hand again. “Let’s find the prefect tree for your house.”
Finding the tree is one of my favorite things. I love these fields filled with trees that vary from tiny young trees to ones that might be older than Trevor. The air is clear and crisp, the sun blinding on the snow. “Come on,” I say. “I’ve always found my favorite trees at the bottom of the hill.” I gesture towards the back of the farm. The farm itself covers several acres, including a giant hill that’s a shame isn’t available for sledding. But in the little area at the base of the hill is where I’ve always managed to find a tree that calls to me.
“Let’s go then,” Trevor says, suddenly grinning. Keeping a firm grip on my hand, he starts running, pulling me through the trees and snow towards the base of the hill. My feet are sliding all over the place as I try to keep up with him, the snow getting deeper here. The cold air is burning in my lungs and tears are pooling in my eyes because of the brightness. But at the same time, there’s a smile on my face, Trevor’s joy leaking out of him and into me lifting me out of the pull of dark thoughts and memories.
We reach the bottom of the hill and Trevor stops so suddenly that I slam into him, have to cling to him to keep from falling face first into the snow. “Look at that,” he says. The hill is right in front of us, stretching upwards and covered in various sized fir trees. But between us and the trees is a huge swath of ground, the snow perfect and unblemished, brilliantly white. “There is no way we’re not making snow angels in that.”
I laugh. “Seriously?”
“I never joke about snow angels,” Trevor says, pulling me after him again. We run up the side of the hill right into the middle of that perfect snow, and then Trevor release my hand, throwing himself backwards into the snow. He moves his legs wildly, back and forth, creating the classic snow angel shape and showering me with snowy bits. I try to shield myself, but it’s no use.
I follow his example, letting myself fall back and be caught by the snow. I don’t remember the last time I made a snow angel. Maybe sometime with Brad when he was younger. Trevor scrambles up, and reaches out, pulling me out of my angel. They’re side by side, Trevor’s comically larger because of how much taller he is.
“Come here.” Trevor pulls me to a fresh patch of snow, and I fall into it, but this time Trevor comes with me. He grabs my hands, and together we make a snow angel. Real angels would be blushing because of the kind of kiss we share making that angel. Our tongues tangle together and my body warms in spite of lying in the snow.
“We’re going to melt the angel,” I say, a bit breathlessly.
“Good point.” He struggles to his feet.
I try to get up, but slip and fall face first into the snow drift next to our angel. Trevor’s laughter rings out
across the hill as he tries to help me out of the snow. I come up covered in it, crystals clinging to my hair and drops running down my face. “Now you’re the snow angel,” he says, and leans in for another of those sweet kisses. His tenderness is throwing off my balance, because I can’t seem to keep on my feet now. On the way down the hill I keep falling, and Trevor does his best to catch me, though I usually end up in the snow.
Crossing back into the rows of trees, I slip again. Trevor manages to get his arms around my waist, and he drags me against him, laughing. Then I’m laughing too, and I can’t remember the last time I had this much simple fun. I tug Trevor’s face down to mine, unable to keep myself from kissing him in this moment, because I feel bubbly and happy and free. Even if I were to only have this day with him, I know right now that I will never regret it.
He kisses me back, slow and soft, until I forget where we are and why we came here. It seems like an eternity has passed when I open my eyes and find him looking down at me. His mouth quirks up into a smile. “We still need a tree.”
“Right.”
And we do find a tree, right where I always do in the hollow at the base of the hill. A perfect little tree that will go nicely in the corner of the living room. Trevor makes the trek back to the edge of the farm to get one of the workers, helps him cut it and bag it and strap it to the top of my car. By the time we’re pulling back into my driveway, I don’t think I could wipe the smile off my face if I tried.
8
The tree fits perfectly in the living room, and even though my arms are scratched all to hell from wrestling way too many strings of lights onto it, it looks gorgeous. The lights we used are all white, and even without the ornaments, it’s pretty. I made some hot chocolate, and I turned off the lights are stared at it for a while. Brad had to explain to everyone that I do it every year, but they didn’t ruin my moment.
I texted June while they were out, and I hoped that they weren’t getting home too late. They pulled in at around ten, fully exhausted from a day of family and presents. I nudge Brad, who’s sitting next to me on the couch. “Go get some matches from the candle drawer,” I say softly.
