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The school bell rang, and a minute later children spilled through the doors of Hope Valley Elementary. Hope stood on the sidewalk waiting for Melody and Todd to appear. The rule was Melody always went to Todd’s classroom, and the two came out together. Hope wasn’t typically a worrywart, but like any mother, a flurry of what ifs cycled through her mind at a rapid rate.
“Mom!” Todd skipped across the snowy grass, kicking up clumps as he ran. He waved a book at her. “Look what I got at the lib-ary.”
“Library,” she corrected, adding in the extra R.
He repeated the word correctly. “It’s called The Breaks of the Game. It’s all about the Trail Blazers.”
“Good for you.” She eyed Melody, who was cradling her basketball like a baby. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” She swooped her into a hug.
Melody wriggled free. “I’m fine, Mom. Lemme go.” She glanced over her shoulder.
Hope noticed twin girls about Melody’s age whispering between themselves at the carpool drive-through lane. “Problem?”
“No,” Melody said.
Todd cleared his throat deliberately. “She’s lying. The Wickeds teased her.”
“The Wickeds?” Hope asked.
“He means the Johnsons,” Melody said snidely.
“They told Melody that we don’t belong in Hope Valley,” Todd said, “because we don’t have a father.”
“You have a father,” Hope exclaimed.
“That’s what Melody said, but then they said, ‘Prove it,’ and food started to fly.”
Hope gawped. “You had a food fight?”
Todd bobbed his head. “Yeah. On Wedges Wednesday.”
“Wedges Wednesday?” Hope tilted her head, not understanding.
“All the food is served in wedges. Apple wedges. Orange wedges. Potato wedges fly like darts.” Todd snickered. “It was awesome.”
Melody turned crimson. “It wasn’t awesome going to the principal’s office.”
Hope wished she had a magic wand so she could turn back time and help Melody fit in, but she couldn’t. Her daughter would have to muscle through like all the other kids. She held out her hand. “Is there a form I need to sign?”
Melody fetched it from her backpack and handed it over.
Hope scanned it. The food fight fracas was laid out in black-and-white detail. Apparently, Melody had started the altercation. That was what the note said—altercation. She needed to be more civilized. More respectful. More . . .
Sighing, Hope removed a pen from her trousers, scribbled her name on the form, and handed it back. “Melody, I’ve told you more times than I can count that you can’t let people get under your skin. They are, after all, the same age as you and struggling with many of the same issues. Maya Angelou said—”
Melody held up a hand. “I know. I know.” Then she recited, ‘“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.’” She huffed. “I’ve got Grandma’s needlepoint pillow with the saying. I’ve memorized it. It’s inscribed on my brain.” She tapped her head with her forefinger.
Hope laughed and kissed Melody where she’d poked herself. “You are my darling girl.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get mushy.”
Sobering, Hope said, “You’re right. Let’s get going. We’ve got a tree to decorate.”
––––––––
An hour later, Hope folded up the rear seat of the VW and laid out the children’s sleeping sacks. In all this time, she hadn’t let anyone know that she and the kids lived in the VW camper, but with all her other expenses, she couldn’t afford an apartment. At least when the previous owner had revamped the VW, he had fitted it with storage on the doors and more storage on the roof, and its mini kitchen worked. Hope and the children lived snugly, but they managed. When Zach left, Melody and Todd had cried. They’d bemoaned the very notion of not having him around. They’d questioned Hope as to what she’d done to drive him away. She’d sat them down and had tried to explain. Daddy was a good man, but Daddy couldn’t manage money. He left because he knew they were better off without him. She sugar-coated it, for Zach’s benefit, but she knew none of what she would say would help in the short run. They’d simply need time to adjust. To accept. To allow Hope to shower them with love. A holiday season without Zach had come and gone. A summer without a family vacation, too. Coping was the new norm.
As instrumental Christmas music played on her cell phone, Hope cleared the spot at the rear of the camper to make room for the three-foot artificial tree that she’d purchased at the dollar store.
“It’s cold, Mom,” Melody said.
“Throw on your parka. We can’t close the doors until we have everything set up and sit down to dinner.” If they moved around too much in the van with the doors closed, it would become stuffy and unbearable. They would lay out the ornaments, then eat dinner and decorate.
With a grunt, Melody obeyed. She donned her snow cap with a grumble, too.
Todd placed the box of Christmas ornaments on the floor of the vehicle. “Here you go, Mom.”
Deftly, Hope removed the top of the box, and her heart wrenched when she spied enough ornaments for a six-foot tree, the same sized tree they used to have. The one Zach would chop down and tie onto the roof of the Explorer, muscles bulging, perspiration streaming down the sides of his handsome face. In Portland, the apartment they’d lived in had been huge, with three bedrooms and high-beamed ceilings. Hope had treasured seeing the tree and its sparkling lights reflected in the glass window—the window that had provided a view of the city.
“Let’s lay out the smallest ones first,” Hope said. “We don’t want to overwhelm the little guy.”
Todd pulled out the tiniest ornaments and set them on the floor of the VW, arranged largest to smallest. He wasn’t OCD, but he did like order.
“This is my favorite song,” Melody said as the opening notes of “White Christmas” rang out.
Hope’s insides knotted as she remembered the first time she’d met Zach. At a Christmas party in college. He had crooned “White Christmas” like Michael Bublé while guiding her deftly in a box-step around the fraternity kitchen. Dance lessons, he’d confided. She could still feel his breath in her ear, the warmth of his hand at the small of her back. She remembered telling her mother the next night that he was the one. He was so clever, she’d said. So smart. So talented. But he hadn’t put those talents to good use. He hadn’t become a college math professor, as planned. He hadn’t solved Barnett’s or Margulis’s conjectures, either. Oh, sure, they’d swirled inside his head, practically driving him crazy. However, when poker lured him to the table, the rest of his visions of solving unfathomable mathematical problems vanished. And so did he.
“Can we turn on the computer, Mom?” Todd asked.
“Not now.”
“We’re listening to music, bonehead,” Melody said.
“Dork.” Todd stuck out his tongue.
Hope Valley Trailer Park, which abutted Mt. Hope Forest, known for its hiking trails and the Hope Valley Observatory, offered showers, storage compartments, and Wi-Fi, the latter making Melody and Todd ecstatic. At least they could stream television shows through the aging laptop Zach had left behind. He’d blithely taken Hope’s brand new MacBook Air. When she arrived home the day he absconded with the Explorer, she felt as if she’d been mugged. He had turned the apartment inside out. All his clothes were gone. Pots and pans were missing. Dishes. Bedding. The Sony television. And then she walked into the office they shared and discovered her laptop was gone. The one with all her expense reports, all her business models. It had taken her a month to recreate them.
“Please, Mom, it’s time for the news,” Todd added.
Hope sighed.
“Please.”
Camping wasn’t new to Hope. Her parents had rented an RV when she was seven and had taken her on a three-month tour of the United States. But living in a camper as a lifestyle? With two children? Guilt roiled through her. She had to do better. Earn more. Save more. But how? Her salary and tips at the café were not boosting her coffers. She needed a better paying job, like something in marketing, but she didn’t want to move back to Portland, and life was certain to be harder and more costly there than in Hope Valley. Besides, she loved Hope Valley. It was a good place to raise children. A decent place. And, to be honest, what she needed was a little bit of Christmas magic. Hope Valley had that in spades.
“No TV,” Hope said. “Tonight is for decorating and talking like a family, remember?”
“But Steve Waldren is on,” Todd whined.
“No. Sorry, Son.”
“You’re no fun,” he said.
“Yes I am. A bunch of fun. In fact, I won the Most Fun award in high school. And I’m a super-duper laugher. C’mon. Tell me a Mom joke.”
He twitched his nose like Hope did, one of the things they had in common and one of the things that made her adore him. “Fine. What sound does a witch’s car make?” He didn’t wait for her response. “Broom. Broom.”
Hope giggled. “Nice one. What does a gingerbread man use for linens on his bed?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Cookie sheets.”
Todd groaned. “C’mon, Mom, Steve Waldren. How about two minutes?” He was a born negotiator.
“Nope. Melody, how are rehearsals going for the holiday play?” Hope asked. Melody had been cast as one of the magi.
“Fine.”
“Do you like the director?”
“She’s the English teacher and doesn’t know much about theater, but yeah, she’s okay.”
Theater at this age was more about engaging children’s attention. “Good.”
Todd moved his hand as if it was talking. “Blah, blah, blah.”
“Young man. That’s rude.”
“I want to watch Steve. I’ll tell his parents you don’t like him,” he threatened.
Steve’s parents did love their Stevie. Invariably, they told Hope and anyone else who wanted to listen about his exploits, although they’d been reluctant to share that his fiancée had left him during the summer to become the weather girl in Minneapolis. Lincoln had spilled that news.
“BFD,” Hope said to her son, using initials a child would understand. Big fat deal.
Todd folded his arms dramatically. “Spoilsport.”
“Cutie pie,” she countered.
Melody said, “Hey, Mom, did you know the Christmas Attic is having the annual gingerbread house contest again?”
“It always does,” Hope said, glad for the change in topics.
“Can we make one this year?”
Hope flashed on Zach making a gingerbread house the first year they were married. He’d used too much icing, and the roof had given way. He’d blamed her, of course, even though she was an expert, thanks to her mother teaching her how to position the pieces of roof on the house, just so. But what Hope really hated about the memory was that Zach had eaten all the gumdrops, not leaving any for her. How had she not realized then how selfish he was? How compulsive?
“We’ll see,” Hope answered.
“Can we order pizza tonight?” Todd asked.
It had been a tradition to order pizza whenever they’d decorated the tree. Zach had insisted. Pepperoni for him, olives and onions for Hope, extra cheese for the kids.
“No,” Hope said. “Sorry. Too expensive.” Even though she’d made extra tips this past week, thanks to customers being more generous during the holidays than at other times of the year, she couldn’t risk spending money on something as frivolous as pizza. Medical insurance payments were coming due January first. Those held priority. “I brought home a special dinner, though. Gabe gave me burgers and salad, and I have sugar-free cookies, too.” Like last year, Hope had been making sugar cookies for the decorating contest and had made it her mission to add sugar-free and gluten-free cookies as choices.
Melody clapped. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Big whoop,” Todd said sullenly.
“Mom, look at this silly ornament.” Melody raised a snowman with the smallest head ever. “Remember when Daddy made it?”
Todd grabbed it from her. “Yeah!” he said, his mood brightening. “He said it was like the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. It didn’t have a brain.”
Hope laughed, but her laughter sounded hollow. She rose to her feet and closed the van door. “Dinner.”
After they ate, the three of them decorated the tree. It didn’t take more than thirty minutes, but throughout, they sang carols. When they put the star on the top, Hope asked them what they were thankful for. Todd said the book he got at the library. Melody said new memories.
New memories are good, Hope thought. The old ones sucked.
“What about you, Mom?” Todd asked. “What are you thankful for?”
“The two of you.” She threw her arms around them and hugged them tightly. “Without you, I wouldn’t be a mom.”
While clearing the tiny table where they’d eaten dinner, Melody said, “Let’s write letters to Santa.”
Hope said that was a super idea and pulled out stationary from her box marked business.
“Can I write one to Steve Waldren, too?” Todd asked.
“I don’t know his address.”
“Sure you do. You have his business card.”
“How do you—”
“Sorry, Mom.” Todd’s cheeks tinged pink. “I, um, was peeking in your stuff.”
Hope tamped down a smile. The guilty look on his face was precious.
“Please?” he asked. “I can tell him the latest statistics.”
Hope nodded. “Sure.”
“Can I write a letter to Daddy?” Melody asked.
A pang shot through Hope. Last year’s Christmas cards to Zach had been returned, address unknown. Where was he? Was he still gambling? Why hadn’t he reached out to his kids? She hated him for being so selfish.
“Yes,” Hope said finally.
A half hour later, she tucked her children into their sleep sacks and, as her mother had said to her nightly, cooed, “Good night, my sweet ones. Sleep tight and dream with the angels.”
Then she slipped into the driver’s seat to organize her wallet, one of the many business tasks she would do after putting them to bed, and spied the letters to Santa and Steve Waldren on the passenger’s seat. She bundled them into her purse and then saw the ones addressed to Daddy. The sight sent a chill down her spine. For Todd and Melody’s sake, she needed to track down Zach. Maybe instigate monthly FaceTime chats. Something—anything—so they could get to know him, and yes, she thought wickedly, maybe those interactions would erase their fantasy of him.
But where was he?
