How to End a Love Story(41)

On for tomorrow?

Merry Christmas, btw.





Grant remembers when Christmas at their house was a not-to-be-missed event of the season. His mom would deck the halls and hire landscapers to string up a spectacular lighting display that made him proud to claim the house at the top of the hill as his home. She’d make him put on a suit for Christmas Day church services and then they’d host all the extended family for a catered Christmas dinner.

They kept it up for the first year he was back from college, but by the second year, his parents were separated and his mom said it was too much bother to manage on her own. Instead, they went to one of her book club friends’ Christmas parties. In the last few years, she hasn’t wanted to venture out (“the roads are icy, and it’s so much work for a boring party”). Grant still spends Christmas dinner at home, but it’s a simple meal for two now.

This year, though, his mom seems more in the holiday spirit. She hums as she prepares the Christmas roast and offers him wine.

“It’s our last Christmas in this house,” she says cheerfully. “Falalalala!”

It occurs to Grant that this may also be one of his last trips to Dunollie, if the house sells as quickly as the agent promises it will.

“Mark anything you don’t want tossed,” his mom had told him when he first arrived. “And I’ll ship it to you when the time comes.”

Grant doesn’t have room for all the souvenirs of his childhood in his house, nor does he particularly want them.

But he caught his mom crying over one of his Pop Warner football trophies the other day (“We were so proud of you . . .”) and he knows she’d balk at the thought of throwing everything out to the curb with this year’s Christmas tree. She’d probably hang on to all of it in a storage facility somewhere, spending unnecessary money preserving insignificant memories.

So he puts Post-its on things at random—his old yearbooks, a few books, a random football. It’ll be easier to throw them out once he has full ownership over them.

His phone dings with a message and he violates the old rule of no cell phones at the dinner table because Lisa Shepard is currently dancing in the kitchen to Bobby Vinton.

It’s from Helen.

Is 4 p.m. too late? Have to help clean up in the morning.





He gives the message a thumbs-up, and her next message is a dropped pin for Somerset Grove Cemetery, followed by:

Meet you in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill.





A thumbs-up feels almost too whimsical for the conversation now and he thinks for a moment on an appropriate response before he types back:

Thanks for inviting me.





Thirteen




Grant buys flowers from the supermarket at the last minute, because he isn’t sure what the right thing to do is but he’d rather err on the side of bringing something. The checkout lady smiles indulgently at him when he places the flowers on the conveyer and he feels uncomfortable at the thought that she’s misinterpreting the gesture.

He pulls past the wrought iron gates of the cemetery and sees the parking lot is pretty full. It makes sense, he supposes, that a lot of people would want to visit their loved ones during the holidays.

Helen waits outside her car in a woolen winter coat, and he feels bad that she’s been standing in the cold waiting for him.

“Sorry,” he says, and holds up the flowers. “I wasn’t sure whether I should bring something.”

“No, that’s . . . really nice,” Helen says. “It’s up this way.”

She leads them up the gravel path, past the oldest headstones covered in lichen and the craggy trees that must create a more picturesque scene in the spring and summer, but currently give the place a haunted winter feeling. The snow from a few days ago has melted by now, and the dirt beneath their feet is still wet and dark with moisture.

Helen wears heeled boots and he catches a glimpse of dark sheer tights under the swishing skirt of her long camel coat.

They reach the top of the hill and Helen slows her pace so they’re walking side by side, their elbows occasionally brushing as they navigate the bumpy path.

“How was your Christmas?” she asks.

“Good,” he says, then thinks about it, really. “Fine. Underwhelming. Just dinner at home. But I didn’t mind. I always get my fill of Christmas spirit in LA before flying back.”

She nods. “Christmas in LA seems like it’d be so different,” she says. “No snow.”

“There’s no snow here this year either.”

“Yeah, but there’s a chance of it and that makes a difference, I think.”

“There’s fake snow at the Grove,” he says, referencing an upscale outdoor mall in Mid-City. “They run it every hour or so, with soapsuds.”

“That’s not the same, though.”

“No, but it’s fun anyway.”

Helen smiles, then slows her walk. She points directly below them, at the nearest row of headstones. “She’s over here.”

Grant’s heart beats a little faster and his body tenses. Helen looks up at him with eyes that always seem to see too much.

“Come on,” she says softly, and slips her hand in his as she leads the way forward.