“Of course,” Mom says.
“Ooh, ask for the lava cakes!” I tell Eli.
He scoffs at me. “My gift, my choice. But your recommendation is noted.”
I choke on a laugh, and his shoulders hitch in a silent chuckle.
Hugh has the most things to open, but Mom wrapped each new car and truck in its own layer of tissue paper, to give him more things to tear. He’s happy to rip each one to shreds, so a pile of red, white, and green tissue paper bits surround him like wreckage after a tornado.
“That was a nice Christmas morning,” Mom says once everything is open. We take as much time as we can to do it, with a toddler who wants to rip everything open in seconds. Hugh is surprisingly patient, but he does have a new collection of vehicles to play with when he has to let someone else open a gift. All gifts seemingly revealed, Mom sets her empty coffee mug down and leans down to pet Widget, who’s munching on a doggy treat at her feet.
“We’re not done yet,” Janet says, standing. “One more gift.”
Mom looks at me as Janet walks from the room. I don’t hide the smile that says I know what this is, and an excited gleam enters Mom’s eyes. Janet reappears with her laptop and opens it, pulling up the blog she made. She hands it to me and tells me not to touch anything, then sits and faces Mom. Eli and I both lean closer.
“So you know I took a marketing class last semester . . .” Janet says.
She tells Mom everything, and when she gets to the blog already being live, I rotate the laptop to show Mom and hand it to her. Janet moves beside Mom, leading her through the navigation of the blog and reading a glowing comment from someone who read the first recipe.
Mom presses her lips together tightly while Janet talks, and when I look up from the screen to see her final reaction, tears are spilling onto her cheeks.
“The two of you did this?” she says in an emotional whisper.
“Janet did this,” I tell her. “I just knew about it. She did all of it.”
“You deserve more than you get, Mom,” Janet says, her own voice rougher than usual. “After all the crap I’ve put you through especially—”
“Hey, none of that,” Mom says.
Janet breathes out low. “I want you to get the recognition you deserve. And if you don’t want to do the blog yourself, I can run it for you, or if you hate it, I can take it down, but—”
Mom hands me the laptop and pulls Janet close, wrapping her in her arms. “I love it. Don’t you dare take it down.”
She holds Janet for a long moment.
“A lot of bloggers pair each recipe with a story about their work or family,” Janet says, “and with this family, you shouldn’t have a shortage of stories.”
Mom comes over to hug me, and then Eli. “No shortage at all,” she says, voice still off from tears.
Mom spends at least an hour having Janet give her a full tutorial on the blog and drafting the first post of her own, while Eli and I sit in the living room and play with Hugh, and everyone just relaxes until the family arrives midmorning. Mom pulls Aunt May and Uncle Henry to Janet’s laptop to show them the blog immediately, and tears up when Uncle Henry tells Janet he’s proud of her, then turns and tells Mom she raised some good ones.
Mom excuses herself, grabbing a tissue on the way to her room.
I look at Eli and share a smile with him. “Happy tears,” I reassure him.
He looks after Mom and then looks at Uncle Henry, who seems awfully proud ofhimselffor making his sister cry. “I know.”
SEVENTEEN
ELI
Christmas Day with Jack’s extended family is slightly crazier than Christmas Eve. I can tell everyone wants to spend as much time as possible with each other, because they don’t get to see each other very often, but it’s also clear this much time together, with few breaks, is a lot.
So we do some things all together and take a longer time apart in the afternoon, a small group going to the park. We didn’t get fresh snow today like we did yesterday, but there’s still a decent amount, so we end up having a snowball fight.
It’s as we’re heading back to Jack’s house that I check my phone and see I missed a call from my mom.
“I’ll meet you back there,” I tell Jack. His eyes flit to my phone and his brows lift in comprehension immediately.
