If It Makes You Happy(125)

“We’ve got a war,” Cliff says with a grin, running down the stairs toward Brittany, who takes off across the yard, heavy breaths puffing into the air.

I run out without grabbing a jacket to roll my own snowball. Cliff barrels toward me. His arms grab around my waist and pull me against his chest, kicking my feet up into the air.

“Let me go!” I call through laughs. “I need to hit you!”

Another snowball hits his head with a poomf, barely missing my own.

“I think Emily’s already got me covered,” he says, releasing me to the ground, where inches of snow have accumulated. I was so busy packing to leave and walking through the inn with Sara that I didn’t take time to notice.

I finish rolling up a snowball, rearing back to aim toward Lars, Emily, Carol, then Cliff. I have no clue which person is on what side of the war. Maybe we’re all lone agents. Or maybe it’s all of them against me.

“You’d target your own team?” Cliff asks on a laugh when I point my snowball toward him.

“I assumed I was on my own team,” I answer with a grin.

Cliff slowly shakes his head. “I’m always on your team.”

The smile that erupts over my lips feels like an electric shock zipping straight from my heart. I kiss him, then smack the snowball over his head anyway.

It’s our last full day together before I board a flight back to Washington. I try to savor every moment I can. I listen to the album I gifted to Emily as she breaks down every song, explaining why it’s brilliant. Cliff makes us thumbprint cookies with raspberry preserves, and I watch shamelessly as he pushes into the dollops of dough, all pulsing forearms and bony wrists under his flour-coated watch.

Brittany steals a cookie only minutes after they leave the oven, then asks if she can have another. Cliff ushers her back to the living room.

“You’re already gonna barf up the last two you ate,” he says through a laugh.

“So?” she whines. “Rocket got one!”

“Rocket stole one,” I correct, flashing my eyes to him.

He jumped his paws onto the kitchen nook table and chowed down before we caught him. The baking sheet was too hot for him to grab more, but he would have eventually if Cliff hadn’t moved them to the counter.

I admonished Rocket with a “Bad dog,” but he shot me a look that said, Since when, Shelly?

But even now, as he peers up at me from the dog bed Cliff added to their kitchen, Rocket seems content with any title, as long as he’s here.

My stomach smarts. I wonder if he’d be happier in Copper Run. Maybe Sara will take him in. He’s a very good dog. But then what will I do?

At midday, Sara walks in the back door with packets of hot chocolate, which Cliff offendedly puts to the side before making us his homemade recipe. Sara gives me a secretive, pursed smile, as if that was her plan all along.

Lisa and George drop off leftover fruitcake in the evening.

“I didn’t know George could bake,” I whisper to Cliff.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “He doesn’t.”

As it turns out, the fruitcake is terrible, but George’s pride keeps anyone from saying a word.

Lisa and George decide to stay for dinner without an invitation, and they call Dad, who lugs over his chessboard and laughs in the corner, challenging anyone who will dare walk by. Lars, in particular, is adamant about winning, so much so that he plays three times. He loses all three times.

Cliff watches the busy living room scene and pulls me closer into his arms.

I wish I could pause this moment. Maybe keep it on my shelf like a beautiful snow globe I can shake whenever I like. But that isn’t how life works.



It’s a little after eight o’clock. Dad went upstairs to read before bed. Cliff is at his house, putting Brittany to sleep. Emily is with Josh and a group of other teenagers in the square, enjoying the continued snow. Sara and I remain at Bird & Breakfast’s front desk as I walk her through final instructions.

Eyeing the binder tucked beside the handprint-littered pencil holder, I finally draw it out and lay it on the desk.

“If you are ever unsure, this binder has been my holy grail.”

“Mom wrote this?” she asks, opening it with a near-silent crack echoing in the empty foyer.

“Yeah.”

“It’s so organized.” Sara peers up at me through her lashes. “Like mother, like daughter.”

I smile to myself. The page protectors, filled with local takeout restaurants and numbers I’ve memorized, crinkle as Sara turns each one. But closer to the end, she stops on a handwritten letter.

Dear Sara.

Heat rises from my chest up to my head, sending my brain swimming. And then the feeling settles, and the tide of nerves draws back into my chest. I’m floating on the surface, bobbing with each passing of my slow heartbeat.

I haven’t thought about that letter in weeks. At some point, it no longer mattered. This place is Sara’s. My mom gave it to her because it made sense—not because she loved me less. It was always complicated, like Tracy and her daughters. Sometimes, we forget our parents are humans too.

Sara removes the letter from its sleeve, tracing a finger over the raised pen scratches.

“Did you know about this?” Sara asks.

“I forgot,” I confess. “I haven’t read it.”