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“Actually, I need you to wait for a while if you could,” she said.
He seemed surprised by the unusual request—and maybe a touch resentful—but then capitulated. “Of course.”
“It’s because the star that goes on the very top of the tree has to be the last thing up, and I’m going to need your help with it.”
“Fine.” He wasn’t looking at the tree. He surveyed the boxes she had yet to get through, his expression vacant.
“And since you’ve done so much of the work, you have to have some hot chocolate, too.”
“I don’t need any hot chocolate.”
“Yes, you do, Matt, trust me,” Phyllis told him. “You just don’t know it yet.” They were making a Christmas memory for him here—a little piece of magic he could carry with him all year round to remind him that there was life and beauty and spirit beyond the ordinary. And Christmas memories had to include at least one cup of hot chocolate.
“Then how about I go in and make the hot chocolate while you finish up in here?” he suggested, the words more statement than question.
It wasn’t quite the scenario Phyllis had in mind. He was supposed to be decorating his first tree. But having him actively engaged in the kitchen was a whole lot better than not engaged at all.
“Great,” she said, determining to do the fastest decorating job in history. “The pan’s in the—”
“I know where everything is.”
The intimacy of that statement made Phyllis smile inside.
But the smile faded when he strode quickly from the room, making it obvious that he couldn’t get away fast enough.
She loved Christmas. Cherished hours she spent decorating her tree. Because with every decoration there was a memory of love given or received. Each one brought a remembrance of a particular loved one.
For her, Christmas was the epitome of all that was good in the world.
And Matt had never experienced a Christmas moment in his life.
He was a man so complete unto himself that there was no door by which anyone could crash his private party.
Phyllis had to wonder if she’d set herself an impossible task. Perhaps there really was no way to remove those shadows from Matt’s eyes. From his heart.
By the time she placed the last ornaments on the tree, tears were dripping slowly down her face.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE HAD TO GET OUT of there. Much more of Phyllis’s Christmas and he was going to lose his perspective.
“This is great!” she said, sipping the cup of chocolate he’d poured for her. She was sitting in her usual seat at the end of the kitchen table while he stood in his usual spot by the counter.
“So we just have to put on the star and the tree’s done?”
A minute or two more, and he could make his escape back to the things he knew, the life he understood.
When she didn’t answer him, Matt looked up from the geometric design in the tile he’d been studying. The tears gathering in her green eyes brought dread to his gut. And a tightness to his chest that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
She was going to ask something of him that he couldn’t give. The walls were closing in.
Matt thought longingly of his Blazer in the drive. And the deserted expanse of open road just outside town.
“Please tell me why you were sent to prison.”
Matt blinked, took a moment to switch gears. He’d been expecting a question about his childhood. Or a challenge regarding his future.
And actually found the topic she’d chosen preferable to either of the other two. At the moment it would be the easiest one to address.
