Christmas at Holiday House - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,52
the offer but finally shook his head. “Abby seems great, but she’s also Lucy’s best friend. I couldn’t do that. Anyway, Rod is counting on me. Thanks, though. Have a good time.”
“Another time, then. Enjoy your evening.”
José still looked miserable, but he nodded and headed out of Ethan’s office.
Ten
As dinners went, she had to say it was one of the more awkward of her life.
Throughout the meal—a delicious chicken noodle soup and freshly baked bread a neighbor had brought over—she was painfully aware of Ethan. He talked to all of them, but she knew he had to be remembering the scene that had played out in the next room the night before.
Their kiss and the humiliating aftermath seemed to play through her head like an internet video stuck on repeat.
She ended up stirring her spoon around the noodles in her soup instead of actually eating any.
“Do you believe in Santa Claus?” The question from Christopher to Ethan finally yanked her out of her thoughts, stopping the video replay in her head.
Ethan glanced at her, his expression obviously seeking guidance. She could only give an almost invisible shrug, not quite sure how to respond.
“Why would you ask that?”
“My friend Jake at our old apartment is six years old, one year older than me, and he said his big sister told him Santa wasn’t real. I said he was too. Jake said I was a baby and I told him if he said Santa wasn’t real, Santa wouldn’t come give him presents.”
“That sounds about right,” Ethan said. “What did, er, Jake say?”
“He said the moms and dads give presents on Christmas and I said, well, I don’t have a dad only a mom and he said I would probably only get half the presents, then.”
Christopher took a bite out of his bread, obviously having no idea how his words broke his mother’s heart. That Jake. She had never much liked him anyway and wasn’t sorry they were moving away.
Unfortunately, no matter where they went, there would be other Jakes with other big sisters. Kids only too willing to destroy a little boy’s illusions. She wanted to wrap her five-year-old’s heart in Bubble Wrap to keep him safe from thoughtless, unkind children.
Before she could answer, Ethan spoke up. “If you talk to Jake again, you tell him for me that Santa doesn’t work that way. And anyway, the number of presents a kid gets doesn’t matter much. Santa looks at how he acts toward other people all year round to decide whether he deserves any presents at all.”
It was apparently the right answer for Christopher, as well. He beamed at Ethan as if he were Santa Claus. “I will. That’s just what I’ll tell him.”
She didn’t want Ethan to have to solve any more of her son’s existential crises. “Christopher, if you’re finished eating, take your plate into the kitchen and then go find the boots and snow pants Dakota lent you.”
“Okay.” He happily took his plate and carried it into the kitchen.
“Sorry about that,” she murmured to Ethan. “The existence of the real Santa Claus seems to be the question of the week. We went to see a mall Santa downtown yesterday at lunchtime and it seemed to spark all kinds of questions.”
“He basically asked me the same thing earlier today,” Winnie admitted. “I told him to ask his mother.”
“He brought it up when we were making cookies and I kind of brushed him off by distracting him. I guess I had better have a talk with him.”
“He’s only five. It’s okay for him to believe a little longer,” Ethan said.
“When kids want to believe, it doesn’t matter what any neighbors say,” Winnie said. “My older brother believed until he was twelve, until I finally had to advise our mother that she had to tell him the truth because he was starting to get into fights at school over it. I think I was eight or nine myself.”
Abby smiled as she cleared Winnie’s bowl for her. She reached for Ethan’s bowl.
“You don’t have to clean up after me,” he said. It was probably the most direct thing he had said to her all evening, and for some reason she could feel herself blush.
“Were you done?”
“Yes. But you still don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind,” she answered as she carried everything over to the sink. She should be putting on her own winter gear. Was she trying to avoid going for as long as possible?