“Could be.” Zane writes it under the corresponding numbers.
“Rockwell Harding. What’s the next bit then?”
Zane looks at his key, which is a mess of things crossed out and underlined. “Need?”
“Then 8 could be the word too. That’s a common word, right?”
“Sure is, Little Bird.” He pumps his hand in the air. “I think we’ve got enough to really figure out what’s in here.”
I plant a kiss on his cheek. “Do you want any help with it?”
His head is bowed, and he’s deep in thought. “What? Oh, I don’t think so. But thank you.”
Christmas. It’s weird to think about. How can we have been here for that long? But here we are. I used to love Christmas.
“Are you okay?” Easton’s hand lands on my shoulder.
I’m staring out at the ocean. “It’s fine. It makes me think about my mom. Last year I was still with Steven. But it didn’t feel like Christmas. It wasn’t fun.” I huff. “There were so many signs. You know? I should have known that Steven wasn’t the answer. Things had spun into the realm of not fun for a while.”
Easton wraps his arms around me, his chin resting lightly on the top of my head. “Let the scumbag float out to sea. Tell me about your mom. What did you do for the holidays?”
“Maryland gets cold but not Maine-cold. Sometimes we would get snow. But not usually for Christmas. A couple of days before Christmas, we’d put on our snow hats. Mine was a Capitals’ hockey one with a blue pom-pom. Mom’s was an Orioles’ skullcap hat with a black pom-pom. We’d make cocoa and watchA White Christmas. It was our version of a rain dance.If we did it just the right way, savored the peppermint candy cane stir sticks long enough, we’d get snow on Christmas. Not a lot. Not like I bet you got in Maine when you were little. An inch or two. It would shut the city down, and Mom wouldn’t have to go to work. She was a receptionist for a dentist. They worked right up to Christmas. But if we got snow a few days before her vacation started, we had a longer vacation. That was the best. Then we’d lie around the house watching movies. As many marathons as we could get in—well, of ones that we both loved. The really old black and white ones and all the stop-motion ones.”
“Oh, there’s more material for Zane. I think it’s possible that he might actually finish the entire Marvel universe in his bedtime stories.”
“What about you?”
“Before my mom died? Or after?” He hugs me tighter into his chest, pulling my shoulders back so we’re flush.
“What were your good Christmases?”
His breath whispers in my ear. “That’s hard to say. I don’t suppose I’ve talked about my mom much.”
“You’ve talked about Maine. And how Susan moved you to Miami, and that’s how you got into swimming. But not about your mom, no.” I want to turn around and look at him. But at the same time, the ocean has me mesmerized, and something tells me this is going to be a lot easier for Easton if I don’t.
“I was little, you know. Nine. A lot of my swimming friends... A lot of them have told me they don’t remember much before their eleventh birthday. For me, I’ve got the before Mom time and the after. Moments from when I was really little. She wanted Emily and me to live a normal life. She’d come from a normal middle-class family in California. She met Dad in college. The photos of their wedding are like a fairytale.”
“I’m guessing her dress didn’t have a horse on it?”
His warm laugh shakes me. “No, it did not. Like a real Grimm fairytale, things weren’t all roses in their marriage. I remember waking up to them fighting. I don’t know what about. They were just voices in the dark. The next morning, there would be a large flower basket on the front hall table. Mom would pretend like nothing happened. When Dad traveled, though, I could hear my mother crying at night.”
I run my fingers over his hands. “That’s hard. I never heard my parents argue. Not when they were married and not after the divorce, either.”
“You’re lucky.”
His rapid heart pounds against my shoulder blades. “We don’t have to talk about this. I didn’t mean to bring you down.”
“No, it’s good to let it out. Then one day she was gone. Pills. No goodbye, no nothing. At least, that’s what I heard the new housekeeper say a month later. Things changed. Which, of course, they would have had to. Dad worked a lot. Emily and I were little. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the four of us in the house. There was a housekeeper and a cook. Then eventually a driver. All Susan’s ideas.”
That has me tilting my head to look up at his blue eyes. “Susan? How soon after your mother died was she in the picture?”
“She was my dad’s executive secretary, as they called them back then.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
“Do you think something was going on before your mom died?”
