Riley laughed. “Me? A dog? Come on, Mom, you know me better than that. I don’t have time to talk care of a dog. I’m in Colorado . . .”
Riley hesitated. She hadn’t told her mom much about the Christmas Camp. As a matter of fact, she’d left the word Christmas out entirely, just telling her that she was hosting a writing event to promote her next book. She also knew her mom wasn’t on social media and rarely watched the news, so Riley had avoided telling her anything about writing a Christmas novel. But she knew she couldn’t hide it forever. She just wasn’t sure what to say.
“Riley? Are you still there?” her mom asked.
Riley sat up straighter. “Sorry. Yes, I’m here.”
“So you’re in Colorado for that author event you were telling me about? How is it going?”
“It hasn’t started yet,” Riley answered. “It’s actually starting the day after tomorrow. And that’s one of the things I was calling to talk to you about.”
“About your Christmas book,” Riley’s mom said.
Riley’s heart stopped. “You know about that?”
“Honey, I saw you on the news. All my friends here in Florida are on social media, and they all follow you. They read all your books. They told me about everything about the Christmas Camp and how you’re writing a Christmas book . . .”
“Mom, I’m sorry. I was going to tell you.” Riley felt terrible that her mom had found out this way.
Her mom laughed. “What are you sorry about? I know you’re busy.”
Riley took a deep breath. “About the whole Christmas thing. Trust me, this isn’t something I wanted to do. I really didn’t have a choice. Everything happened so fast. Margo says this is my last shot at keeping my publishing deal. I thought I only had to show up and host a reception or something, but now it looks like I have to do a lot more,” Riley said, talking faster and faster.
Now that she was finally telling her mom what was going on, she felt a huge sense of relief. She always told her mom everything, but this was Christmas and they never talked about Christmas.
“Honey, take a breath,” her mom said in a soothing voice. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Tears started to well up in Riley’s eyes. She quickly brushed them away. “I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Upset me?” Riley’s mom asked. “How in the world would you upset me? I’m so proud of you and everything you do. Everyone, especially me, is so excited for your next novel.”
“A Christmas novel,” Riley said in a small, faint voice. “Mom, I’m writing about Christmas.”
“I know,” her mom said in a soft voice. “And you’re going to do great.”
Riley fought back more tears. “I thought you’d be upset . . .”
“Why would I be upset?”
“Because I’m writing about Christmas.” Riley put extra emphasis on the word Christmas again. “And we don’t celebrate Christmas. We don’t even talk about Christmas.”
“That’s because you never wanted to talk about it,” her mom said gently.
“What? Me? But you’re the one who didn’t want to celebrate since . . . Dad . . .”
Just saying it out loud made Riley start choking up again as a wave of emotion washed over her.
“Riley, honey, I’m so sorry. We should have talked about this a long time ago. I just didn’t want to upset you, and if I’m being one-hundred-percent honest, I’ve felt guilty for the way I’ve handled things for a long time.”
“Handled what?” Riley asked, confused.
“Christmas.”
Riley shut her eyes as her mom continued talking.
“That first Christmas after your dad passed, you were so little and so heartbroken,” her mom said. “I hated seeing you that way. So I took you to Hawaii. I thought it would help get your mind off things.”
“And it did,” Riley jumped in. “We had a wonderful time. We didn’t need Christmas. We had each other. Even though I was so young, I knew how sad you were, but in Hawaii, it was different. We were different. There was no Christmas to make us sad.”
“But, honey, I never planned for us to forget about Christmas. That first one I knew was going to be tough so we went to Hawaii, but after that, you wanted to go ever year. You were so excited about it, and I just wanted you to be happy. Anytime I tried to bring up Christmas, you would get so upset. I even talked to a child psychologist about it, and they told me to give you time and that you would let me know when you were ready to celebrate Christmas again.”
Riley, stunned, sat back in her chair. “You did Hawaii all those years for me?”
“Of course,” her mom said. “You know I would do anything for you, and we had a wonderful time, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but I always thought you didn’t want to celebrate Christmas because it was too hard without Dad. I thought Hawaii was what we both wanted,” Riley said.
“I wanted what was best for you. That’s all I wanted.”
“And we never celebrated Christmas again,” Riley said, trying to take it all in.
“Because you weren’t ready,” her mom said. “But now it looks like you are, and when I heard about this Christmas Camp and your next novel, I couldn’t have been happier for you. I always prayed you would find your way back to Christmas, and now you have.”
Riley struggled to process everything. Her mom sounded so happy, she didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wasn’t embracing Christmas—far from it—and that she was only doing all this to save her career. Nothing had changed for her when it came to Christmas.
“I’m glad we’ve talked about this,” Riley said because she didn’t know what else to say. “Actually, I’m calling because Margo asked if I had any Christmas pictures from when I was little. I guess some online magazines are asking for them for some feature stories they’re doing. There’s
