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“Oh no—” Ella gave a firm shake of her head. “You are not hugging your way out of this one. First comes broccoli. Then comes the hug.”
Tabitha screwed up her face. “Why?”
Everything was why. Why, why, why.
“Because it’s delicious and it’s good for you.”
“It’s yucky.”
“Not yucky. It’s a superfood. It will make you strong and healthy.” Using all the wrong arguments, Ella. “Also, most importantly, it looks like a Christmas tree.” Seeing Tab’s frown, she held up a stalk of broccoli as evidence.
“A Christmas tree has more needles.”
“True. But from a distance—”
Tab shook her head. “A Christmas tree is bigger.”
Ella abandoned that line of persuasion. “How about because if you eat your veggies, I will feel like a good mom. And I want to feel like a good mom.”
“I want to be a unicorn.”
Ella laughed and filed that remark to share with Michael later. They’d laugh about it over dinner. Childhood goals. “Unicorns eat broccoli.”
Tab’s eyes, the same hypnotic blue as her father’s, narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because they know what’s good for them.”
Tab poked at her broccoli. “How do you know they eat broccoli?”
Ella wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or frustrated that her daughter didn’t take anything at face value. “Their diet is as mythical as the creature, but it is widely assumed that in order to grow a horn and have magical qualities they need to consume good levels of Vitamin D, calcium, potassium and phosphorus.”
Tab nibbled the corner of a single stalk. “Can we make more Christmas cards this afternoon?”
“I was hoping you’d want to. It’s my favorite thing, and we have all that glitter to use up.” Anticipation warmed her from the inside out. She loved Christmas. Loved everything about it. The chaos, the excitement, the anticipation. Most of all she loved the fact that they all spent time together.
She leaned across and kissed Tab’s hair. “I love you. Do you know that?” It was important to her to say it, and she said it often. She never rationed or withheld her affection.
“Love you, too. Can we get a Christmas tree?”
“Not yet. Soon.”
“Why not now?”
“Because if we get it now, it will be dead by Christmas Day.” And that was the only reason. Given the choice, Ella would have a Christmas tree in their apartment all year round. There was something warming about tiny lights wound through the branches of a fir tree. It was a symbol of family time.
“Can we spend Christmas in a snowy forest?”
“I—No, we can’t. Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s in my book. And it looks snuggly.”
“It will be snuggly here, too, I promise. We’ll have a huge tree, and we’ll light the fire and decorate the whole house. And Aunty Sam will be here, and we’ll bake cookies—” She already had a list of all the things she planned to do. And she and Tab were going to make decorations, which she intended to store carefully and bring out
every year until they fell apart.
“Will Aunty Sam be working?”
“She might have her phone because she’s very busy—”
