And one look at Coop, with his crooked smile, tells me I want it withhim.
The coordinator wraps up her message, and I grab my purse. “Hey, I’m going to freshen up quickly. I’m going straight to ourChristmas Adamcelebration from here.”
“Is it weird that I wish I could come with you?” he asks.
“Always looking for a party, aren’t you?”
His pinky brushes against mine, and then he locks them together. We’re holding pinkies, and a snow flurry swirls in my belly.
“Not quite,” he says.
I look left and right, but no one’s paying attention to us. “You want to try my uncle’s ribs that badly?”
“A man’s gotta eat.” His eyes are playful, but they don’t hold their normal mischief. They spark more than twinkle, and it’s the most dangerous look he’s given me yet.
My eyes flit to his lips. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here.”
I run into a restroom and fix my hair. And by fix, I mean I pull it into a messy half-ponytail, half-bun, because that net did not do me any favors. I swap my volunteer shirt for a cute red cable-knit sweater. Mom’s family always wears ugly Christmas sweaters, but I couldn’t bring myself to wear one. This will have to do.
My mom would tut and tell me to celebrate. To live a little. “You’re allowed to have fun,” she must have told me a hundred times.
“Iamhaving fun,” I’d tell her as I wrote the family calendar or made a grocery list with her input. “What could be better than hanging out with my mom?”
She would smile in her wheelchair. “You have to be the only teenager I know to ever say those words.”
“Then other teenagers suck.”
“Your brothers have never said that.”
“My brothers suck.”
And she’d laugh.
We had a variation of that conversation dozens of times. She would never have blamed me for going out with friends, but I knew even then I’d never regret the time I spent with her.
And I don’t.
I miss every second.
I think about her as I leave the bathroom and walk to the market at the front of the Feeding Futures warehouse. I spot Coop checking out while I look at the ornament table. I may not like Christmas anymore, but I have a soft spot in my heart for ornaments. Mom collected them, but not in the “every ornament has special meaning” way as much as the “there can never be too many ornaments” way.
The idea of adding a new one makes my throat hurt.
Although, the ache doesn’t throb quite as badly as usual.
“Can I also make a donation?” Coop asks the cashier. He’s speaking quietly, but I’m close enough to overhear.
“Of course. You can input the amount on the screen.”
I know I shouldn’t look.
But I do.
Son of a nutcracker, that is alotof zeroes.
I avert my gaze so he doesn’t know I peeked, and my eyes land on an ornament that stops my heart. It’s an exquisite recycled ceramic angel with beads and delicate wrought iron. Everything about the angel tugs at my heart, filling me with complicated emotions.
