We sat down on the couch and watched the dogs rumble for a minute. “So you’ve had Oscar since your mom…lived here?”
“Yeah. Same as you. Got him as a puppy. In the beginning, Mom was pretty sick but could go outside and sit in a chair, sometimes even take a drive. I could still work and not have to worry too much. Eventually, she started needing more visits from the home health aide. Oscar learned to be gentle and stayed near her. He was also good company for me because, as you can imagine, it got a little lonely taking care of her. In the end, the hospice nurse said Oscar was one of the best patient dogs she’d ever seen.”
“It’s great you both had him.” A few months ago, when I’d first been to her house, she’d pointed out the room her mother had used, clearly the home’s largest. I’d gotten the sense Marley rarely went in there.
Marley’s lip pulled up in a sad half-smile. “We were lucky my mom had good insurance. All that time at the plant. The union. Especially since she’d been adamant about wanting to stay in her own home as things progressed. Until she died, Oscar was always with her. Since then, he’s always with me.”
I looked again at the two dogs wrestling together on the carpet, playing tug-of-war with a stuffed bunny. Oscar gave up, his thick tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he watched Bambi roll to the floor with the toy.
“Is it wrong that I sort of want to hug your dog?” I asked.
“Nope. That’s pretty much me every day. So grateful for him. That’s why he gets away with murder.” She smiled wryly. “I’m sure Bambi takes good care of you, too.”
I thought about how my dog had taken over the empty side of the bed after Cindy had packed up all her stuff and left, leaving me a note saying she was moving in with her new boyfriend. I thought about Oliver stabbing me in the back, Bambi’s wet nose on my cheek as I lay under the covers, shaking with fear and asking myself what the hell I was going to do.
But I didn’t tell Marley any of that, settling for a nod of agreement.
Part of me wanted to open up more. Iknewshe felt my reticence. But what if I messed up what we had? I hadn’t had much luck putting myself out there. I hadn’t been good enough for Cindy. Not fit enough or ambitious enough. I hadn’t been enough of a bulldog to satisfy Oliver.
Marley liked easygoing James. Teacher James. Cool new guy in town James. The James who made her laugh and eased her mind about grieving for her mother. Was it wrong that I wanted to be that guy for a bit longer before I introduced her to James the undesirable? James the fuck-up?
“My sisters helped me pull out some of the stuff from storage yesterday and put it downstairs in the rec room. The inside decorations. We left the outside decorations in the garage.” Marley stood at the top of the interior stairs.
“Did you want to dive right in and get started?” I asked.
“Yeah. My plan is to knock it out as quick as I can. It would be a huge help if you could bring the boxes upstairs to the living room. I don’t do any decorating downstairs other than putting up a second tree, so I figure we should work from here. I tried moving them myself, but they’re too heavy for me to carry alone.” She smirked. “But I’m betting it’ll be no problem for you.”
I blushed, feeling gigantic. But also, useful. “Me. Big. Strong. Man.”
I still had to carry one at a time, since they were ridiculously heavy. Six trips to bring three large cardboard boxes and three fifty-five-gallon storage tubs upstairs.
“With as much as you say you enjoy Christmas, I’m surprised you waited this long to do this,” I said, slightly out of breath as I set the last bin on the carpet. “I mean, some of your neighbors are practically ready to charge admission to their winter wonderlands.”
“Fair point. But it’s not procrastination. It’s tradition. My mom may have loved Christmas, but she was also the type of person who wanted to give each holiday its due. In our household, the Christmas stuff didn’t come out until the Thanksgiving dishes were done.”
I grinned. “I think your mom and my mom would have gotten along.”
The two heaviest boxes held the makings of a ceramic Victorian village. Marley brought out four folding tables from a hall closet, along with a “snow blanket” she’d picked up at Walmart. Once we spread the blanket out, she set up an entire scene. There were finely detailed schoolhouses, churches, and cottages, with enough ceramic people of all types to create vignettes across the table—men in top hats carrying presents, children ice skating on a frozen pond, jugglers and peddlers in the town square.
“It took my mom years to collect this,” she said proudly. “Alice Davis excelled in many things, and two of them were thrifting and eBay.”
I chuckled as other items began filling the living room surfaces. A nutcracker dressed as a chef. A snow globe with Rudolph inside. A plug-in nightlight of the leg lamp fromA Christmas Story.
Sometimes Marley would happily recite an item’s history. With other things, she’d pause for a moment, turning the object over in her palms quietly before placing it. When she got stuck on her mom’s homemade Advent calendar, I laid my hand over hers until she felt ready to tell me about the time her sister Miranda methodically stuffed each of its 25 nooks with used chewing gum.
There were dozens of photos in Christmas-themed frames. I saw so many that eventually Marley, Alice, Maureen, and Miranda became easily identifiable, even at different ages and stages. At the bottom of one bin was a frame wrapped carefully in tissue paper and newsprint, taped tightly.
I held it up to Marley. “Should I unwrap this? I don’t want to presume, since it’s sealed.”
“Oh my goodness.” She made a tiny stuttering noise. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Yes, please unwrap it.”
I carefully slid my finger under the tape to unfold the paper edges. The frame held a photo of a man and a woman at a Christmas party, drinks in hand and making silly faces at the camera as folks behind them smiled. Based on their clothing, I guessed it was from the early eighties. The woman in the photo was a young Alice, looking similar to Marley now. The man appeared much older, with a guarded smile and knowing eyes behind thick black horn-rims.
“My parents,” Marley said. “My dad was in his mid-forties when my mom started working at the factory. This was taken at a Christmas party there. He died of a heart attack when Miranda was a baby, so I don’t remember him much. But my mom always talked about them having an epic love story—once he got over worrying about people thinking he was a dirty old man for marrying such a young woman.”
I laughed as Marley took the frame and placed it prominently on a bookshelf.
Even though I’d decided falling for Marley was a terrible idea, I could sense myself drawing closer to her as she shared stories about her past. I couldn’t help but be in awe of the way she approached everything with dignity and humor. Which made the interrupting text that came through around two o’clock that much more annoying.
