A Toast to the Good Times - By Liz Reinhardt Page 0,58

and roll off the futon as soundlessly as possible, trying so hard not to wake her.

She looks peaceful when she sleeps, just like I knew she would. What does Mila have to worry about? She’s secure with her life, with her choices, and I’m glad that she’s sleeping soundly after last night. I fell asleep lying in the darkness, my arms around her, listening to Mom and Paisley have it out upstairs over her mission trip.

I laid awake in the dark all night, wanting Mila to sleep so I could watch her, but also wanting her to wake so that I could touch her again and have her touch me.

So that I could see that smile that changed everything for me and hear the laugh that makes me determined to never have her or it very far from me.

My feet meet the icy floor as I pull my sweats on and pad across the room. It’s Christmas morning and for some reason, Mila has chosen to spend it with me and my crazy-ass family. It dawned on me sometime during the night that I have nothing to give her. Sure, Mom has the closet full of random junk she can present to an uninvited guest up in her craft room, but I’m not giving Mila a bottle of body wash, or a candle, or a gift certificate to Cracker Barrel.

Other than the stash of booze up in the attic (which is a non-option; I’m not even considering presenting a bottle to Mila as a gift, no matter what the vintage,) there isn’t much up here. Just a row of dusty boxes in the corner and a few piles of old clothes.

Most of the boxes are our old toys and baby items that Mom swears she’s hanging onto for when Henry or Paisley or I have a few little brats of our own, but I think she’s just a sap and can’t bring herself to get rid of Paisley’s laughing Elmo doll or Henry and my Matchbox cars.

I skip over those boxes, and instead, reach for one that I know will have something I can give to Mila.

I take a deep breath and pull it across the floor, leaving a trail behind it as the box slides over the dust. I’m sure there are some boxes of old jewelry, some valuable and even more useless tchotchkes, but those aren’t the things that I’m after.

I know there’s something in here that would mean more to Mila than any cheesy heart-shaped lab-created stone.

This box has all of the things that Grandma left us kids when she passed away, three years before Granddad did.

I pull out a small, round container and lift the lid. It’s full of tiny, intricate snowflakes that my grandma crocheted. Each one is unique from the others, and Grandma carefully doused each white flake in a layer of silver glitter. These belong to Paisley now. Someday, when she has a home of her own, hopefully not with Calvin, her kids will help hang these snowflakes on their tree, just like we did at our grandparents’ house.

I set aside the box of baseball cards that she left to Henry. Gram may have been a crocheting fool, but she also appreciated a good fastball, and never missed a Yankees’ game. I don’t want to risk bending any of the mint condition cards that Henry will undoubtedly need to pawn someday for quick cash, or to finance a surf trip, or something equally important.

Eureka.

I find what I’m looking for at the bottom of the box.

It’s wrapped in thin, blue paper that offers little protection for something so valuable, but Gram wasn’t hanging on to it for the bucks. She left it to me because I said it was cool once when I was nine.

That’s all it took for my generous-to-a-fault grandmother to write my name on the back in her messy, loopy handwriting and proclaim that someday, it would be mine.

It didn’t matter that writing my name on it, even so small, diminished its monetary worth. Gram was all about family and seeing us smile. And now, I can’t wait to hand it over to Mila and watch that smile that I put there light up her face.

I crack the door open and peek in to see if Mila is still sleeping. She isn’t. Instead, she’s lying in bed, whispering to herself and waving her hands around while she apparently tries to talk herself out of leaving.

“Hey,” she says when she notices me