Chapter 9 - The Garden in the Sun
Ten months later. December 24th.
The kitchen of my home was warm, smelling of orange zest, cloves, and shortbread cookies cooling on parchment paper.
The ugly, heavy floral drapes Patricia had once convinced Jason to hang in our living room were gone, replaced by sheer white linen that let the winter afternoon sun flood across the newly refinished hardwood floors.
The house was not silent.
Music was playing—a classic jazz holiday album drifting softly from the speaker on the bookshelf. In the living room, Sarah was sitting on the floor, laughing as she untangled a string of multi-colored fairy lights, while David balanced a small wooden angel on the highest branch of our tree.
Lily was sitting at the kitchen island.
She was five now, her legs longer, her brown curls bouncing as she swung her feet happily against the rungs of the stool. She was wearing a red holiday sweater with a reindeer on the chest, a dusting of white flour across her nose.
Spread out before her was a sheet of heavy green construction paper, a box of sixty-four crayons, a pair of safety scissors, and a tube of gold glitter glue.
I set a mug of warm spiced cider next to her elbow, kissing the crown of her head.
“Whatcha making, Lil?” I asked.
Lily didn't hide the paper. She didn't look anxious. Her eyes were bright, clear, and utterly fearless.
“I’m making a card,” she announced proudly.
My heart held its breath for half a second. “Oh? For who?”
Lily picked up the card and held it up to the afternoon sun.
On the front, drawn in bold, confident strokes of purple and gold crayon, were two figures standing under a massive, crooked evergreen tree. One was tall, with brown hair and a bright smile. The other was small, holding a toy rabbit. Above them, written in her earnest, wobbly kindergarten handwriting, were three words:
*MOMMY AND ME.*
Beneath the drawing, glued firmly to the very center of the page, was a single, perfect gold glitter star.
“It’s for you, Mommy,” Lily said, her little voice ringing like a silver bell through the warm kitchen. “Because you’re the best family in the whole world.”
A tear slid down my cheek—warm, sweet, and entirely unburdened by sorrow.
I took the card from her small hands, looking at the two figures standing together in the light.
A few weeks ago, my attorney had informed me that Jason had lost his job at the accounting firm following an ethics inquiry into his personal accounting irregularities. He and Patricia were now sharing a small two-bedroom apartment three towns over, locked in a bitter, claustrophobic war of mutual resentment, drowning in debt and recriminations. His supervised visits with Lily had dwindled to sporadic twenty-minute phone calls, which Lily took politely before asking to go back to her coloring books.
I felt no malice toward them. Malice requires energy, and I had none to spare for ghosts.
I bent down and wrapped my arms around my daughter, holding her close, inhaling the scent of vanilla, orange zest, and sweet, clean life.
“Do you know where this card is going?” I whispered into her hair.
Lily giggled, wrapping her little arms around my neck.
“Right next to your perfume bottle,” she answered. “Forever.”
“Forever,” I said.
May you like
Outside the kitchen window, the winter snow fell softly against the glass, drifting down over the quiet, peaceful earth. But inside, beneath the golden light of our home, the season of cold had finally passed.
And for the first time in my life, Christmas had finally arrived.
