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The man’s smile grew. “That’s okay. It’s not often such a pretty lady comes in. Usually it’s all old … old ….” He stopped, and Kelsey could see him searching for a word. “ … farts and guys like me.” He held out his hand. “I’m Clark.”
Kelsey shook with him. “Hi, Clark. I’m Kelsey. It’s good to meet you.”
“Good to meet you, too.”
When he held her hand a bit too long, she slipped it free. “I’m going to go. Thanks for letting me stay for a minute. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.”
He nodded, and stepped out of her way. “You too, ma’am. I hope you have a happy life.”
Something about those words, spoken by this man, in this place, on this night, seemed howlingly lonely. Kelsey managed a smile and hurried out of the building.
She made it to her car before she broke into tears.
~oOo~
“That looks perfect, pix.”
Kelsey grinned at her mother’s praise and set the Christmas breakfast quiche—a Helm family tradition—on a trivet. Rowdy and Mr. Darcy, hopped up on Christmas excitement, went tearing through the kitchen, under the table, and through the doggy door. One of them knocked a table leg and jostled the table so hard the quiche nearly slid off the iron trivet and onto the floor, but Kelsey caught it and held on until the dogs were safely away.
“The crust turned out really nicely,” she said as she brushed a couple flakes from her hands.
“It did,” her mom agreed. “Look at that flaking. You make it better than I ever did.”
Kelsey could feel the pride and happiness beaming from her face. The stark difference between the scene at the VFW last night and this happy chaos this morning was not lost on her. It made her appreciate her life. It made her love her family and their many silly holiday traditions all the more.
Christmas in the Helm household had always been an extremely big deal. She supposed it was a big deal in most families, but her father was practically psychotic about Christmas, and that made everybody else pretty intense about it as well.
Their dad had been brought up in an orphanage and had never had a real family Christmas until he was a Bull. While he grew up, he’d had dreams about the kinds of holidays celebrated on TV specials and in books, and those dreams had crystallized into opinions as he’d grown older. Very particular and unbreakable opinions.
Like, he believed all good homes had fireplaces and would never live in one that didn’t—not because he loved fires so much (though he’d grown to enjoy those, too), but because he needed stockings hung by the chimney with care. Christmas trees had to be large, Christmas tree lights had to be multicolored, all Christmas ornaments had to be unique and meaningful, and everybody got one new one each year. Star on the top, not an angel or anything else. Authentic Christmas carols had stopped being recorded around 1965.
Every single room of their house, bathrooms included, was decorated. He’d bought their mom a whole huge set of Christmas dishes and cookware. Their badass, hardboiled biker father wore a Santa hat all Christmas morning—and insisted on a Christmas morning pre-chaos family photo, everybody at the fireplace, in matching pajamas.
Even the dogs had to dress up.
And then, after they’d had their Christmas morning together, and their Christmas afternoon in Bixby with their huge extended family, Dad drove everybody to see the Rhema lights.
Kelsey, Duncan, and Hannah had all moaned and groaned at some point about all the things they were expected to do and enjoy, and how nothing was allowed to change. But honestly, they loved it. Christmas was this special, sacred time of wonder and delight in their family, and it wasreassuringthat it was always the same, full of traditions they all loved.
A Brazen Bulls life was chaotic. Many times through any given year, their father would go off on a run, and they all knew enough about what that meant to know maybe he wouldn’t come home.
Plenty of Bulls had left on runs and not come home.
As long as their father was home for Christmas, they would all make it everything he needed it to be.
And when the time came that he wasn’t, they would keep them going just the same. And keep him close that way.
Kelsey’s mother smiled and lifted the silver chain from Kelsey’s chest. She had three small pendants on that chain: a tiny silver heart she’d had all her life, which readDaddy’s Little Girl, a small peridot solitaire, and, as of this morning, a tiny infinity symbol. Each of the pendants, and a few different silver chains over the years, was a gift from her father.
She usually wore the necklace under her clothes when she was home; it was a sticking point between her and Hannah—because it was proof, in Hannah’s estimation, that their father loved Kelsey best.
Kelsey thought that was stupid. She was simply a lot older, and she and her father had established this little, occasional tradition well before Hannah came along. Duncan and Hannah had their own traditions with him, too.
It was true, however, that Kelsey loved this little thing between her and her daddy more than any other memento of her childhood, or her life since. She had only the haziest memories of the years she hadn’t known him, but she remembered the Christmas he’d given her the first chain, with theDaddy’s Little Girlheart. The first Christmas she’d had him in her life.
If Hannah wanted to moan that their father loved Kelsey best, whatever. When Hannah and Duncan were born, their father had been there in the room, holding them before their cords were cut. Kelsey had been four years old before she’dmettheir father. The necklace was a little weight toward balancing that scale.
“It’s looks good with the others,” Mom said, holding the infinity symbol on the tip of her finger.
