our mother.” She unbuttoned her coat. “I’m not sure which part of that sentence is giving me hot flashes. The Scottish part, or the mother part.”
Michael stepped to one side as two overenthusiastic children charged past him, closely followed by their apologetic father who clearly hadn’t mastered the art of parental control.
“Because your mother didn’t make a fuss about Christmas? It seems she was pretty firm with you when you were growing up, so maybe she responds to that level of directness.”
Ella’s insides lurched and she pulled away from him. “Can we be realistic here? Arguing with our mother is a blood sport, and I’m not into blood sports. I carry spiders outside. I can’t fight with her.”
“You don’t need to fight with her, just be firm.” He pulled her back, keeping her locked against him. “And you’re not doing it alone. This time you have me.”
Samantha gave a grunt and rolled her eyes. “I’ve been wondering what to buy you for Christmas and now I know—a suit of shining armor.”
“Let her know that if she is spending Christmas with us, she has to observe our rules.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Spoken like a lawyer. Are you suggesting we draw up a contract? I agree to not frown or utter a word of disapproval when I see fairy lights?”
“She wouldn’t be able to do it,” Ella said. “Even if you made her sign something. Christmas is a feeling, isn’t it? And she doesn’t have those feelings.”
“You’re forgetting one thing...” Michael looked at the dollhouse, where Tab was currently moving furniture around to make room for a library. “She has a granddaughter.”
“Don’t think that will soften her,” Ella said. “She does not find young children enchanting or delightful. Christmas didn’t happen in our house. Samantha and I used to have our own mini Christmas in my bedroom. Remember the twig tree?”
Samantha smiled for the first time since they’d left the hotel room that morning. “Of course.”
“Mom wouldn’t have a tree in the house,” Ella said, “so Samantha crept into the yard next door and picked up the trimmings from their tree. Theirs was too big for the apartment, so they’d chopped off branches and left them lying around. Samantha picked them all up and used wire to fix them together. Then she decorated it. That was our tree. It was the best tree.”
Michael was still. “You never told me this story. What did you decorate it with?”
The two women exchanged glances.
“Mom’s earrings,” Ella said. “We borrowed them.”
“Earrings? Very creative.”
“It was, but the point we are making is that even if our mother genuinely wanted to enter into the spirit of things, she wouldn’t know how. She doesn’t know how to do Christmas.”
“We could teach her.” Tab appeared without warning. “You always say you can learn anything if you try. We can teach her how to do Christmas. I’ve read about grandmothers in stories, and they seem like a fun thing to have.”
“Tab—”
“I’ve never had a grandmother. I think I’d like one. For Christmas.” She pirouetted back to the dollhouse leaving Ella staring after her, frustrated with herself and more confused than she’d been in her life before.
“How much did she hear? Did we say something we shouldn’t have said? I forget that she seems to have ears out on stalks. Now I feel bad. I’ve deprived her of a grandmother.”
“You deprived her of a whole lot of heartache and stress. Also, she still believes in Santa,” Samantha said. “One day she’ll thank you for it.”
She didn’t blame Samantha for being wary. She was wary, too. But she was also conflicted.
“It would be awful if this was a genuine attempt to heal what happened in the past and move on, and we ignored it.” She watched as Tab rearranged the beds in the dollhouse. “Maybe we should try a family Christmas.”
“We’re having a family Christmas,” Samantha said, “just without certain members of the family present. If you invite our mother, it will be just like all the other times.”
“But it won’t,” Ella said, “because Michael and Tab will be there.”
Michael nodded. “Also, we’ll be on neutral territory.”
“Which brings us back to the reason I want to kill you,” Samantha said. “Scotland. Why did you mention Scotland?”
“Because you’d been telling me about it, I suppose, and also because I was trying to put her off wanting to spend Christmas with us. You know she never takes time off over the holidays. I thought mentioning Scotland would be enough to have her running for the