Christmas Forever

“Why won’t he answer?” Chantelle asked, her voice sad and frightened.

Emily knew she had to put on a brave face for the child but it was a real struggle. “He’s asleep a lot,” she said, weakly.

“Not for three days straight,” Chantelle replied. “He should check his phone when he wakes up and see he’s missed your calls.”

“He might not have thought to check,” Emily told him, attempting a reassuring smile. “You know what he’s like with technology.”

But Chantelle was too smart for Emily’s excuses and she didn’t rise to her feeble attempt at humor. Her expression remained serious and sullen.

“Do you think he’s died?” she asked.

“No!” Emily exclaimed, feeling anger take off the edge of her worry. “Why would you say such an awful thing?”

Chantelle seemed surprised by Emily’s outburst. Her eyes were wide with shock.

“Because he’s very ill,” she said meekly. “I just meant…” Her voice faded away.

Emily took a breath to calm herself. “I’m sorry, Chantelle. I didn’t mean to snap like that. I get very worried when I haven’t heard from Papa Roy in a while and what you said would be my worst nightmare.”

Roy. Alone. Dead in bed with no one beside him. She cringed at the thought, her heart clenching.

Chantelle looked tentatively at Emily. She seemed unsure of herself, as though she was treading on eggshells, worried that Emily would erupt at her again.

“But there’s no way for us to know, is there? Whether he’s still alive?”

Emily forced herself to be the grown up Chantelle needed her to be, even though each question stung like a fresh wound being sluiced. “We know he’s alive because Vladi is taking care of him. And if Vladi hasn’t called then nothing is wrong. That was the deal, remember?”

In her mind she conjured up the weather-beaten tanned face of Vladi, the Greek fisherman her father had struck up a friendship with. Vladi had promised to keep her informed of Roy’s condition, even if Roy himself wanted his deterioration to be kept from her. Whether Vladi kept good on his promise was another thing, though. Who would he be more loyal too, anyway; her, a young woman he’d known for a few days, or his lifelong friend Roy?

“Mommy,” Chantelle said softly. “You’re crying.”

Emily touched her cheek and found it was wet with tears. She wiped them with her sleeve.

“I’m scared,” she told Chantelle. “That’s why. I miss Papa Roy so much. I just wish we could convince him to be here with us.”

“Me too,” Chantelle said. “I want him and Nana Patty to live in the inn. It’s sad that they’re so far away.”

Emily reached her arm around her daughter and held her tightly. She could hear Chantelle gently sobbing and felt awful for her part in the child’s unhappiness. Crying in front of her was never the plan. But it some ways she wondered whether it helped Chantelle to see her mother’s emotions, to see that it was okay to be weak sometimes, to be scared and worried. The child had spent so many years of her life having to be strong and brave, perhaps seeing her mom cry would show her it was okay to let go of control sometimes.

“Why do people have to die?” Chantelle said then, her voice muffled by the way her face was pressed into Emily’s chest.

“Because…” Emily began, before pausing and thinking very deeply about it. “I think because their spirit has elsewhere to be.”

“You mean Heaven?” Chantelle asked.

“It could be Heaven. It could be somewhere else entirely.”

“Daddy doesn’t believe in that,” Chantelle said. “He says no one knows whether you go somewhere after you die, and that in Judaism it’s up to God to decide whether you get an afterlife or not.”

“That’s what daddy believes,” Emily told her. “But you can believe whatever you want to. I believe something different. And that’s okay too.”

Chantelle blinked through her wet eyelashes, her big blue eyes on Emily. “What do you believe?”

Emily paused and took a long time to formulate her answer. Finally she spoke. “I believe there is somewhere that we go to after we pass, not in our bodies, they stay here on earth, but our spirits rise up and go to the next place. When Papa Roy gets there he will be so, so happy.” She smiled, comforted by her own beliefs. “There’ll be no more pain for him at all or ever again.”

“No pain at all?” Chantelle’s sweet voice sang. “But what will it feel like?”

Emily pondered the question. “I think it will feel like that moment when you take a bite of your favorite food all the time.”

Chantelle looked at her through her tearstained lashes and giggled. Emily continued.

“Like eating chocolate cake forever but never getting sick. Each bite just as great as the last. Or like that feeling you get when you step back from something you’ve been working on for months and see your accomplishment and realize that you made it.”

“Like my clock?” the little girl asked.

Emily nodded. “Exactly. And it’s the perfect kind of warm, like being in the jacuzzi at the spa.”

“Does it smell of lavender like the spa?”

“Yes! And there are rainbows.”

“What about animals?” Chantelle asked. “It wouldn’t be any fun if there weren’t any animals to pet and play with.”

“If you think there should be animals,” Emily told her, “Then there are animals.”

Chantelle nodded. But her smile soon faded and she returned to her pensive expression. “That’s just make believe though. We don’t really know.”

Emily hugged her tightly. “No. No one does. No one can. All we have is what we believe. What we choose to believe. And I believe that that is what’s waiting for Papa Roy. And it’s what your aunt Charlotte has, too. And she looks down at us whenever she wants to, and sends us little signs so we know she’s thinking of us. Papa Roy will do the same when the time comes.”

“I’ll miss him,” Chantelle said. “Even if he does go to somewhere warm and happy, I’ll miss him being here.”

For all her reassurances about the afterlife, Emily couldn’t help what she felt deeply inside. That she would still be left alone, to live out her life without him. He would be gone from her forever and though for him it would be a wondrous step into the unknown, for her it would mean pain and loneliness and misery.

She squeezed Chantelle tightly.

“I’ll miss him too.”

Chapter Four

Lights from the town hall spilled down the steps as Emily ascended them. Even from here she could hear numerous voices coming from inside. It sounded like the whole town might have turned up to hear the zoning board’s decision about Raven’s Inn. It shouldn’t surprise Emily that every local would come. Even with the late announcement and the scheduling so soon after Thanksgiving, the people of Sunset Harbor cared so much about their town to make the time to attend all meetings.

She opened the door and saw that every available seat was taken. Raven Kingsley was all the way at the front, chatting with Mayor Hansen and his aide, Marcella. That didn’t bode well, Emily thought to herself. If Raven had got them on her side it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the town were turned over as well.

She felt a tug on her arm and turned to see Amy and Harry.

“I’m so glad you came,” Amy said. “There’s been some rumblings in the underground that Raven’s going to get the go ahead today. The zoning board aren’t going to challenge her tearing down the old house in favor for something more modern. It looks like it will all come down to the residents.”

“We have to fight this,” Harry said. “A hotel could spell disaster for the inn, and my restaurant. Who’s going to want to come all the way to our side of the harbor when there’s somewhere newer and cheaper in a more central location? With ocean views? Think of all those random business bookings we get at the moment. We’d lose all that custom, I’m sure.”