“Miss Monzalno, the second-grade teacher, she teaches her kids how to make advent calendars. And Miss White takes her kids to Dallas every year to serve at a soup kitchen right before they get out for Christmas. I don’t know if she still does it, but when I was there, Miss Elias took all of us to plant our own trees.”
“You know so much about this town,” he said, causing her to balk. A swift tug of her wrist sent the paperclip strand flying out of his hands.
She deflected. “It’s mine. It’s special to me.”
“Not even Michael knew so much as you do.”
“Miller’s Point is my family.”
“I don’t know that much about my family.”
He didn’t mean it as an accusation. But she took it as one.
“You’re not the only one with a tragic backstory, Clark.”
“You…?” She faced the world with the blinding optimism of someone who’d never been hurt before. He’d assumed she had a brimming family with many siblings. Every time he so much as imagined her home life, he pictured a Norman Rockwell painting, a white picket fenced house with a table of smiling cousins and grandparents.
She made herself busy with the ornaments, taking them out one at a time and arranging them on the tree’s branches. They sparkled ironically as a shadow took hold of Kate.
“My mom wasn’t ever really in the picture and my dad was…not a good father.” Those words hung in the air for a moment before she amended herself. What came next was a confession, one he wondered if she’d ever shared with another person so explicitly. “He was an alcoholic. I started volunteering with The Christmas Company when my teacher—Miss Sanders—wanted to help get me out of the house. I liked it so much, I never wanted to go back
home. The town became more of my family than my family ever was. Not exactly tragic. It’s really a happy ending, if you think about it.”
Each word was worse than a kick in the teeth. It took Clark a long, solemn moment before he recovered enough to speak again.
“Only you could see it that way.”
“See it what way?”
“Horrible people treated you horribly and you think it’s a blessing?” he asked, furrowing his brow. Kate only shrugged, picking up a small, golden star and hanging it up on a branch. The rustle of needles filled Clark’s nose with the scent of pine, a scent he’d forever associate with this moment and this confounding, exceptional woman.
Her shoulders were so slender for someone who carried the weight of the world on them without so much as bowing beneath the pressure.
“If I was a normal person with a normal life, I never would have found anything spectacular. You know, bad things aren’t the end of the story. Well, I guess they can be, but only if you let them.”
A million incredulous, confused responses bubbled to Clark’s lips. He didn’t speak any of them. She offered him simplicity. What was the point in complicating something that clearly guided her and gave her happiness? Changing the subject before he could contemplate whether he could have lived his life like she lived hers, Clark reached for the nearest box of ornaments. He cleared his throat.
“How do you decorate this thing? And where did all of these come from?”
“It’s all Christmas Company stock,” she explained, “but we have this tradition where every year everyone who works for the festival brings one ornament and adds it to the collection. That’s why they don’t match.”
“And what’s the point of that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just fun.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s a tradition.”
“But why is it a tradition? How did it start? What’s the big deal?” Clark honestly wasn’t trying to be an annoying jerk. He simply didn’t get it, like his twelve-year-old self didn’t get the point of the Christmas traditions at boarding school. Everyone bought into the rituals and empty gestures; he didn’t understand why.
“It just is.” Kate’s hands hesitated over a small puppy ornament, searching for something to offer him. Clark held his breath. “Like your mom putting out the Santa candle. It didn’t actually do anything. It’s just meaningful for its own sake.”
“Wait…you mean Santa isn’t real?”
He chose to joke rather than acknowledge his own investment in his mother’s tradition. That was different. It earned him a good-natured shove from his partner.
“Of course he’s real. Shut up and decorate the tree.”
Obediently, Clark collected a few ornaments out of the box, inspecting each one with keen interest. They didn’t come out of a two-for-one sale from some big box store. Each one came from a person here in town. Each one carried meaning. They were, like the paperclip stars, special to someone. Maybe if he knew why, everything would become clear.
“Can you tell me about them?” he asked.
“The ornaments?”
“Yeah. Do you know anything about them?”
“I know them all. I keep the record books about who gives us what.” She collected a few herself. “Why don’t you start putting them up and I’ll talk you through them?”
Clark nodded, then reached up on his toes to place a toy X-wing fighter up towards the top of the tree.
“What’s the deal with this one?”
“It’s heavy!” Kate held out a hand to stop him, her fingers barely brushing his. Panic gleamed in her eyes. Clark reminded himself how important these little trinkets were to her. Breaking even one would break a piece of her. “Put it on a low branch. The high branches aren’t strong enough to hold it.”
“Right.”
Great move, Clark. Now she thinks you’re a triple moron. You don’t get Christmas and you made her confess her life story to you and you don’t get basic physics. He placed the miniature space plane on the appropriate branch, ignoring the heat rising to the tops of his ears. If she noticed the red splotches undoubtedly forming there,
