Under the Mistletoe Collection Read online

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  Chapter One

  Meredith Davenport slipped a sweet-potato pie into the oven and set the timer, fully intending to keep working on Christmas Eve dinner; she had plenty to do before the family would eat at six o’clock. If she wanted to have downtime to chat with her daughters, Maggie and Becca, and their significant others beforehand, she’d have to hurry. But she couldn’t keep her focus on the strawberry-spinach salad, the six cooling pies (in four varieties), or on anything else because Eric hadn’t arrived. He absolutely had to get his car into the garage, and his luggage into the master bedroom— behind a closed door— before the girls showed up.

  She and Eric had yet to decide when or how to break the news of their impending divorce to their grown daughters. The judge would sign the final paperwork next week, and the girls still had no idea. With both girls living hours from the family’s Michigan home— Maggie, in a studio apartment in Manhattan, and Becca, finishing her master’s in mechanical engineering at MIT— it had been easy to pretend that nothing had happened since they’d left home. The long distances made for wonderfully vague texts and emails. Eric could have taken off to Milan, and Meredith to Johannesburg, and their daughters would have never been any the wiser, so long as she and Eric remembered which time zone they were supposed to be communicating from.

  Meredith washed the strawberries and checked the clock above the stove again, then shook her head. Eric should have been here an hour ago. After twenty-five years of marriage, she should have known better than to give him the actual time he needed to show up. She should have told him to come an hour earlier. Then he still would have shown up late, in his mind, but really have plenty of time to settle in without the girls having a clue. If he didn’t get here soon, Maggie or Becca would see their dad, bringing a suitcase into the house, and what good explanation could they give? Yes, he traveled a lot for work, but never on holidays.

  Eric had his faults— loads of them— but he wouldn’t overtly lie to the kids. Any direct questions from their grown children would mean telling them the full truth. And the truth wasn’t an option until after Christmas.

  Meredith quickly finished the salad, then tried to distract herself by checking the ham in the oven. She brushed it with another coat of honey glaze before closing the door and wiping her hands on a dish towel. She faced the kitchen entry, where the living room was barely visible beyond, and bit her lip. In spite of herself, she hurried in that direction, ending up in the living room’s bay window, looking onto the street.

  She searched the darkness both ways for cars— specifically, for Eric’s gray Pathfinder— knowing that his headlights would show up first because his car was essentially camouflaged in the dark. She had no idea what cars to expect the girls to be driving; they’d likely rented sedans at the airport. Soon, a set of headlights shone through the snowfall, approaching the house. She stood stiffly, holding her breath until the car passed.

  Not Eric, she thought, and neither of the girls, either.

  She looked across the street at Edith Carson’s house and the freshly shoveled walk Meredith had provided for the old widow, who would be spending the holiday alone. If the snow didn’t let up, the walk would need to be cleared again. Edith’s door opened, spilling warm light onto her porch. By the glow of the outside lights, Meredith made out Edith’s sudden grin at seeing her cleared walk— and then an even brighter one, after her eyes landed on the gift basket. She bent down and brought it inside with the slow shuffle of the elderly. Meredith now felt warmer than she had in some time, knowing that she’d anonymously put a smile on the sweet lady’s face.

  But then Meredith’s phone dinged. She fished it out of her pocket and found a text from Edith, who continued to surprise Meredith with how well she kept up with technology, compared to others of her generation.

  Thank you for clearing my walk. And thank you for the wonderful basket. You are a gem. God bless. Merry Christmas.

  Meredith smiled again as she tucked the phone into her pocket. So much for staying anonymous. She stood at the window another minute, but no other cars appeared. The warmth Edith had given her gave way to the nerves she’d been fighting all day.

  Eric’s Pathfinder did well on the slippery, steep streets of their neighborhood even in the worst of winters, and this wasn’t the Armageddon of storm after storm from a few years ago, when the snowbanks grew taller than she was. That winter, just walking next door made her feel like a mouse winding through in a maze, unable to see above the walls.

  Turning from the window, Meredith closed her eyes, holding her mouth in a small O, and let out a breath to the count of eight. The technique usually helped, but today, the attempt at being Zen-like didn’t work. So she opened her eyes, and her gaze found the trimmed tree, flocked white and covered with silver and pink decorations. She’d decorated it yesterday, a good three weeks later than it usually went up.

  Then she’d put up all the holiday decorations by herself: the olivewood nativity on the bookcase, the cheery wreaths on both sides of the door. She made the wreaths when the kids were little, using a glue gun and wired ribbon and accenting them with fake berries and leaves. The wreaths no longer looked new, but she still loved them.

  She’d wound the garland around the banister leading from the entry to the second floor. Decorating that had always been the girls’ job, so doing it herself had felt odd. When they were little, the girls’ efforts turned out adorably uneven. She’d tried to help even it out once, but that hurt their feelings. After that, she always let them do whatever they wanted to the banister. She’d spent years loving the askew garland and their original touches, like the year Barbie dolls and stuffed animals hung from the garland.

  This year, the garland was even— ropes of silver and pink beads that matched the tree. It all looked too even, though even if had Maggie and Becca been here, it still wouldn’t have had the askew Barbie touch of years past.

  She’d also laid a layer of fake snow across the mantel and arranged on it decorations that the girls had made in grade school, intermingled with ones she’d collected on family trips. Each figurine represented a time together filled with happy memories. Not wanting to muss her makeup right before everyone arrived, Meredith used one finger to dab a budding tear from the corner of each eye. That’s when she looked at the arch leading from the living room to the kitchen, where she’d hung— per tradition— the plastic sprig of mistletoe. How many times had the girls purposely “tricked” one of their parents into walking right under it to get a kiss on one of their soft cheeks? Hundreds, if once.

  Somewhere around the girls’ twelfth year, they finagled a way to get Eric and Meredith under the mistletoe together, thinking it would be hilarious to make them kiss. Of course, the joke was on them; Eric dipped her and planted a long kiss on Meredith, which she happily returned.

  The girls covered their faces and ran upstairs, saying, “Oh, gross!”

  Meredith deliberately looked away and headed to the coffee table, where she lit two scented candles— one cinnamon, the other pine— then dimmed the lights to make the room feel warm and homey and everything else it no longer was. Deliberately avoiding the decorations— especially the mistletoe, which she wanted to tear off the arch and hide— she returned to the kitchen.

  The first thing she saw was the basket beside the telephone base. She hadn’t sent out Christmas cards this year. What picture would she have used? What could she have written in a card— to all of their high school and college friends, colleagues, relatives, and past neighbors— that wasn’t a lie? Any of their friends’ cards had been quietly slipped into the basket. She couldn’t make herself display them on the pantry door as she once had.

  The sound of the garage door, chunking its way up, came through the door. It had to be Eric; the girls would have parked in the driveway and c
ome in the front door. Even though she’d been preparing to see him again, preparing to spend the weekend pretending to be a happy couple, Meredith felt exposed, wholly unready to see him. They hadn’t laid eyes on each other since he’d been served divorce papers several weeks ago. She walked over to the adjoining dining room and reached for the back of a chair to steady herself.

  No finishing dinner preparations, she thought, until we get the awkward hello out of the way. She eyed a pint of cream on the counter. She wanted to whip it right now— and not with the KitchenAid, either— with the hand mixer, which would mean expending some of her nervous energy as she moved the bowl and the mixer herself.

  After what felt like far too long, the handle on the kitchen door turned, and there he was. Eric’s blonde hair had started thinning on top but was still thicker than most of his friends’. His broad shoulders and narrow waist made people assume that he was a swimmer. It was a build many of her friends said they wished their husbands had, hinting, it seemed, that they would have traded in their helpful, attentive husbands for one with such a build.

  They had no idea what they were saying, of course. Physical features could change. Eric had done well in the genetic lottery, but no matter how often even he went to the gym, his physique would eventually soften with age. If he didn’t go bald, he’d turn gray. He, too, would wrinkle.

  But character didn’t change, and behavior could poison a life.

  He’d never been abusive, which is why she’d stayed as long as she had. He’d also been unaware of her needs and never seemed to care about them anyway. He’d been happy to take everything she gave, with no indication that he should return the love and service in kind. The result? Meredith had been sucked dry, until she had nothing left to give.

  She watched Eric lift his ugly yellow suitcase over the threshold. He extended the handle before looking up and seeing her.

  I would have taken him at twice the weight, with three chins, she thought, if it had meant feeling valued and loved.

  With her emotions threatening to bubble to the surface, Meredith turned to the table, where she smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in the cloth.

  “You’re late,” she said, staring at the threads in the linen. She steeled herself then lifted her gaze to meet his, one hand still gripping the chair back so that he wouldn’t see her tremble. Maybe the stance would help her look stronger than she felt.

  “Nice to see you too,” Eric said dryly— and with a humorous half smile.

  She gritted her teeth and looked away. After everything that had happened between them, he seriously had to make a joke now, of all times? He pulled the suitcase behind him, moseying across the kitchen tile, seemingly content to move no faster than a tortoise. Meredith’s eyes darted over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. Maggie and Becca could be driving up at that very moment. The girls couldn’t find them like this.

  “Eric, please hurry.” She made every effort to sound calm and unruffled as she hurried after him. “The girls will be here any minute. The last thing they need to see is that.” She pointed at the suitcase and immediately regretted letting go of the chair. “Hide it in the closet or something.”

  His mouth quirked a bit more to the left, but he didn’t move any faster. In fact, he paused as he smirked, raising an eyebrow now too.

  Damn man, she thought, always laughing at my expense.

  Sure, twenty-six years ago, while they were dating, she’d laughed at his jokes. Eventually, she grew tired of them and wanted to carry on a semiserious conversation with her husband without any wisecracks thrown in. Tonight, his maddening, oh-so-familiar half smile felt like a jab. Didn’t he understand that tonight, the stakes were too high for jokes?

  Christmas had always meant more to her and the girls than it had to him, but he’d agreed to maintain the charade until after the holiday, when they could figure out a good way to break the news.

  One last merry Christmas as a family— was that really too much to ask? Three days of pretending to be a happy family before a lifetime of the girls’ having to take turns, seeing their parents separately on holidays, before Meredith could plan on spending some Christmases alone, even when she would have grandchildren but wouldn’t get to snuggle them by the crackling Christmas fire?

  It probably was too much to ask. After all, if at thirty seconds in the house, Eric had already come close to ruining the whole thing, what chance was there of Eric’s not ruining Christmas?

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded— and ordered her eyes to stay dry.

  “You are,” Eric said, heading for the stairs.

  “I’m funny? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Eric sighed and turned around. “Just that you’re worrying too much. Take a breath. It’s going to be fine.”

  Meredith wanted to punch him in the nose. She’d always been the one who had to nurture and protect the girls. Eric had been the goof-off, the parent who didn’t give any consequences when they broke rules. In many ways, the girls had come to see him as a hero simply because he never took anything seriously, unlike their mother, who committed such sins as insisting that homework got done and that the girls planned for college.

  Meredith silently hoped that one day, they’d remember which parent had done the lion’s share of raising them, which parent had come to every play, game, concert, competition, spelling bee, graduation, book report, and everything else— usually alone. Which parent had been home when they needed a shoulder to cry on, whether the tears were over not being asked to the prom, not getting cast in the school play, or something else— a million moments.

  In other circumstances, Meredith would have marched back to the kitchen and gone to work whipping the cream, but not now, when her daughters’ hearts were at stake. She pictured her spine being as strong as a steel rod.

  “We had an agreement— the girls can’t know about us yet,” she said. “Make this last Christmas a good one for them. You promised.”

  “I will,” he said, and though his tone wasn’t as serious as she would have liked, it no longer had the teasing edge to it.

  “Thank you,” Meredith said, breathing out a sigh of relief. She reached up with both hands to smooth back a few wisps of hair, and Eric pointed at her left hand.

  “But if you’re serious about fooling them, I suggest you put your ring back on.” He chuckled in that maddening way of his— the jokester was back— and shot her a grin as if he’d noticed something particularly funny.

  This isn’t humorous, she thought, not remotely.

  Her increased independence had given Meredith a lot of things, among them, a greater sense of self. She’d relearned who she’d once been. She’d gotten to know the real Meredith again. Solitude had proven to be a wonderful schoolteacher, a way to meditate and re-center. But those lessons had yet to teach her to think of witty comebacks off the top of her head.

  One lesson she hadn’t expected, however, was that there’s a fine line between solitude and loneliness. She’d hoped against hope that Christmas would be a happy time for the family, even with the unspoken lie quietly being carried out.

  She hurried up the stairs behind him while keeping an ear tuned to the front door for any footsteps. On the way up, she glanced at her left hand. It looked oddly bare, with a slight indentation from where the ring used to be. She shook her head at her foolishness. How had she managed to plan a Christmas with every tradition exactly like old times, yet forget one of the most crucial aspects of the ruse?

  As soon as Eric had crossed the threshold into the room they’d once shared, Meredith flew past him, wordlessly dropping to her knees before her dresser and yanking the bottom drawer open.

  “Looking for something?” Eric asked on his way to the walk-in closet.

  “Yes,” she said, knowing full well that he knew what she was looking for. She gave him a shooing motion with one hand. “Go on. Put your things away. I don’t want you to be unpacking when they get here.” She found the ring box under a stack o
f old sweatshirts and slipped the ring on. After closing the drawer, she stood and found Eric exactly where he’d been before.

  “What?” she asked, her hands searching her person from hair to ring to clothing. “Did I forget something else?”

  He shook his head but didn’t speak at first— rather unlike him. “It’s just that—” His voice cut off, and he tried again. “You look great.” His tone didn’t seem to have an underlying joke or caveat.

  Meredith raised one eyebrow. Was he teasing again? “I don’t understand...”

  Eric cleared his throat and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, where the suitcase sat in the closet behind him. “Should I leave my stuff packed? It’s only for a few days.” He shrugged. “I don’t suppose the girls will look inside our closet, but I can hang up the few clothes I brought if you think it’s necessary...”

  His voice trailed off, and his eyes sought hers. For a moment, as they gazed at each other, his face shifted, looking vulnerable and young— an expression she hadn’t seen in years. It was a side he didn’t show easily or often, but he’d worn it the night he proposed.

  Over the years, he’d hidden that part of himself behind layers and layers of masks until she could hardly recognize the man she called her husband. The man she was divorcing bore little to no resemblance to the man she’d married.

  That man— the one who used to show his heart and tenderness and caring— somehow stood before her again for a brief moment. The sight was enough to make her eyes burn; she had to blink several times to prevent tears from betraying her.

  She had a temptation to tell him to unpack everything— use hangers and the still-empty drawers of his dresser— and to stay longer than three days. To move back home and be hers again.