AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know,” I say with a sigh as I settle on the bed.
Jason lies down next to me and pulls a throw blanket over me.
“You were going for a run.”
“I’d much rather snuggle with you.”
“Not that I’d ever say no to that, but if you don’t run before tonight’s epic feed, you’ll be miserable.”
“I keep forgetting how this feed is even more epic than Sunday brunch.”
“This feed makes Sunday brunch look minor league, and it lasts for hours.”
“I remember from last year. I couldn’t move for days after.”
“Exactly. Go run so you won’t hate yourself later.”
“First I need a kiss to hold me over.” He tips my chin up to receive a soft, sweet kiss. “Will you be okay?”
“I will. I promise. I just want to sleep.”
“Should I wake you to go back to Abuela’s?”
“By four thirty at the latest.”
“Will do. Sleep tight. I love my gorgeous baby mama.”
“She loves you, too, and promises to forgive you for doing this to her in ten to fifteen years.”
His laughter makes me smile even as my eyes close. I can’t keep them open for another second. That’s the last thing I recall before he’s kissing me awake hours later. The first thing I notice is how good he smells.
“Wake up, my sleeping beauty.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“You can’t miss Nochebuena.”
I give myself another second before I force my eyes open to view the face of my adorable husband. This is our second Christmas together, and I continue to be amazed by how fast the time goes by. After I was widowed when my police officer husband was killed on the job, time seemed to come to a complete stop. Now it seems like the days fly by so fast I can barely keep up.
“What’re you thinking about?” He kisses the spot between my brows. “You’re doing that thing you do when something’s on your mind.”
“Just thinking about Tony and you and life and how amazing and painful it all is.”
“You must miss him even more at this time of year.”
“I do. He loved Nochebuena and was the one who went with Abuela to get the pig every year. That was their special outing together.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“Thank you for helping me keep him close.”
“He’s part of you, and I love every part of you.”
I raise my hand to his freshly shaven face and draw him into a kiss. “Let’s get going so we don’t miss any of the fun.”
“Ready when you are.”
Abuela
Nochebuena is my favorite day of the year, but I might be getting too old for the work that goes into it. Don’t get me wrong—I have outstanding help from my daughter, Vivian, and our wonderful extended family, but it takes weeks of preparations and planning to pull off this Christmas Eve spectacular. Every year, I swear I’m going to turn it over to a younger member of the family, and every year, I end up committing to one more time.
“Where do you want the avocado and tomato salad?” my sweet, special gentleman friend, Alfredo Muñoz, asks.
“Garage fridge, please, and then remind me it’s there later when I can’t remember where I put it?”
“You got it, mi amor.”
I want to sigh every time he calls me that. My love. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, and I’m the biggest of old fools, because that man makes my knees weak every single day with the way he looks at me and speaks to me and treats me like I’m the most precious thing in the entire world to him.
I have a boyfriend at seventy-six.
The notion is so funny as to be laughable.
Livia Giordino, Vivian’s mother-in-law, my best friend and favorite sparring partner, comes in from the garage, carrying the huge arroz con leche, or rice pudding, that she makes every year after I showed my Italian friend the secret years ago.
“Did you remember the extra sugar?” I ask her, as I do every time she makes it, because pushing her buttons is so much fun.
She gives me her trademarked withering look. “I make it better than you do.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
I could fight all day with her and never get tired of it, but today I don’t have the time—or the energy—to go ten rounds with her. “I saved room for it in the kitchen fridge. Thanks for making it every year. We all look forward to it.” See? We can be nice to each other once in a while. Blame it on the holidays that put us all in a festive mood.
“Thank you for hosting and letting the Italians in. We appreciate it.”
“What is it we always say? Everyone is Cuban on Nochebuena.”
One of my greatest pleasures is seeing my grandchildren—and Livia’s—enjoying the traditions we brought to Miami from our homeland more than sixty years ago now. My mother, siblings and I fled with the clothes on our backs after my father was executed in the days leading up to the revolution. I vividly remember the last Nochebuena we celebrated at home in Havana and how stark our first Christmas Eve in Miami was by comparison.
