Christmas at Fireside Cabins - Jenny Hale Page 0,12
seemed to fight back emotion. “Y’all have outdone yourselves! This is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.” As she said it, her words broke, and she seemed completely overwhelmed. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Lila and her friends had become quite skilled and efficient at their little ritual of organizing their festive vacation spaces, and after three years of practice they could throw a place together in about two hours. Lila had always marveled at the beauty of their decorating, but this was the first time she’d really seen it for what it was. It had to be a magnificent sight, coming from the main cabin in the shape it was in.
“Come on inside and settle in by the fire,” Lila told her gently.
Taking a jagged breath, Eleanor slipped off her boots and coat, placing them by the door. She padded over to the sofa and took a seat, still looking around in wonderment. “This feels like a dream,” she said, her eyes wide. “I wish I could still decorate for Christmas, but my back is bad, and being by myself, it’s just too risky to climb up on things…” A cloud drifted over her face for a second, just long enough for Lila to notice before she cleared it.
Charlotte picked up the plate of cookies, offering her one. “Have you lived in this area all your life?” she asked, clearly trying to ease Eleanor’s emotions.
Eleanor took a cookie, the answer spreading across her face in the form of a smile. “I moved here in my twenties. Chased a boy all the way to Tennessee from my little hometown in Macon, Georgia. And when we weren’t together anymore, I liked it so much here that I never left.”
Lila perked up. She knew all too well what it was like to follow a guy to another state. She’d moved from her hometown in Richmond, Virginia to Nashville doing that exact same thing. But she hoped Eleanor had experienced the happy-ever-after she never got.
“Did you leave him?” Lila asked, wondering how close their similarities were.
She gave a sad chuckle. “He left me.”
“How long ago?” Piper asked, before sipping her glass of wine.
“Two years ago,” Eleanor said, her face somber. “His name was Chester. We were together for sixty years before he passed. Heart attack.”
Edie threw her hand to her chest. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, looking around. “You know, I’ve been thinking of selling this place, but I just can’t do it. “This was ours—mine and Chester’s. We never had children of our own and this place was like our baby. We nurtured it, raised it from a little possibility to what it is now. What it was, actually… It hasn’t been the same since Chester left.”
Lila’s own wounds of loss and loneliness surfaced easily whenever she encountered another person who shared a similar experience. She longed for the chance to talk to her father—her rock—just one more time. She missed him terribly. For so long, it had just been the two of them, and once he was gone, the emptiness ate at her every single day. Not just the void she felt from his absence, but the emptiness her innocence had left behind once it had withered away. The innocence of those moments when she’d skipped down the steps toward her car, leaving her father waving in the doorway, and said, “See ya!” as if they had forever—those were the moments she’d never get back. If she’d only known, she’d have run back in and thrown her arms around him one last time. With no sisters or brothers, her friends were the saving grace she’d always needed.
Eleanor could definitely use a few friends, and suddenly, Lila felt purpose in their trip. There was a reason they’d stayed.
Charlotte, who’d gotten up to get another glass, returned and filled it from the bottle of wine they had on the table. “Did you ever want kids?” she asked, handing the glass to Eleanor.
“We’d talked about having kids, but we just weren’t ever blessed with any.” Eleanor’s eyes misted over. She hid it with a big gulp of wine. Setting her glass down, she shook her head as if shaking the thought free. “I had dreams for this place when Chester and I bought it.” She brightened. “If I close my eyes, I can still see children running through the hills from cabin to cabin, collecting arrowheads and other mementos.” She smiled. “But God had a different plan for us.”