Coming Home for Christmas Read online

  Keith came hurrying down the stairs. He reached the front door just as he heard the doorbell ring for a third time.

  “Ghosts don’t ring doorbells,” she said.

  It was the first thing Kenzie saw when the door opened, how very pale he looked. She took a quick guess as to the reason for his lack of color. The smile on her lips was neither teasing nor amused. It was understanding.

  “I know that,” he said curtly, congratulating himself that he hadn’t actually snapped at her.

  Kenzie appeared to take no offense at his tone. “Just something I thought I’d pass on,” she told him glibly. And then she grew more serious as she looked him over again. “Are you going to be all right?”

  The concern in her voice, which he equated to pity, helped lift him out of the emotional hole he’d suddenly fallen into.

  “I’ll be fine,” he all but bit out.

  Kenzie quickly assessed the situation. It sounded to her as if he wouldn’t allow himself to give in to any emotional triggers. Apparently he would be a brick wall.

  But even brick walls cracked if enough pressure was applied.

  “Of course you will,” Kenzie agreed, her voice chipper.

  “That means you don’t have to come,” he told her pointedly, repeating what he’d said to her last night.

  “I know I don’t have to,” she continued in the same agreeable tone, except that this time, she was more forceful. “But I want to.” There was quiet resolution in her voice.

  He inclined his head, knowing there was no arguing with her. If he was being honest with himself, he was grateful for her unspoken support.

  “As long as it’s your choice,” he told her. “I’m not about to turn you away.” The warm feeling he was experiencing told him just how grateful he was that she had elected to stick it out, no matter what he’d said to try to make her leave.

  However, he wasn’t about to admit his gratitude to Kenzie. If she knew how he felt, that might jeopardize things between them, throw them off balance. He didn’t want to risk it.

  The church was already close to packed when they arrived. Finding a parking space proved to be a challenge, and he had to circle the parking lot on both sides of the church before he found a spot.

  Finding a pew would have been equally as difficult except that the first one had been reserved for the deceased’s family. He was the only mourner who could lay claim to that. His father hadn’t been in the picture for a very long time, and his mother had no siblings. With Amy gone, he was the only family member left.

  In a move that was completely unplanned, he led Kenzie behind him as he slid into the pew.

  Just before he took his seat, Keith was surprised to see that members of her family—the same people he had met for the first time only two days ago—were in the church, as well, clustered together in the next few pews. That meant they had been sitting there for a while now.

  Lowering his head, he whispered to Kenzie, “Why is your family here?”

  Kenzie looked over her shoulder and smiled at her mother before answering. “They’re here in order to show support.”

  “But they didn’t know my mother.” At least, as far as he knew, none of them did.

  The next moment, Kenzie confirmed his assumption. “No, but they know you.”

  It still didn’t make any sense to him. “Does that mean that you strong-armed them into attending the funeral?” He wouldn’t have put it past her.

  But Kenzie shook her head. “No. I didn’t have to. I’m the youngest. I learned from them, not the other way around. This is what my family’s like. They didn’t come here for me. They came here because of you. I think, given your situation, my mother’s adopted you. She wants you to know that you’re not alone.”

  Keith had no idea what to say to that, so he remained silent.

  He maintained the same silence throughout the service, struggling hard against the unexpected waves of emotion that inexplicably beat against the beaches of his soul, wearing him down.

  As the service was winding down, just when Keith thought his ordeal was finally coming to a close, the priest performing the service looked out on the rows of people he had been addressing.

  “And now,” the priest said, his deep, gentle voice going out to the very last pew, “if anyone here would like to add his or her own words to this service, please feel free to come up and say something about Mrs. O’Connell. Remember, it doesn’t have to be polished. It just has to be from the heart. I’m sure that Dorothy would be very pleased.”

  A reluctance to be the first to speak kept people in their seats initially.

  The priest looked around at the upturned faces, appearing to be searching for not just someone, but someone in particular.

  And then his gaze honed in on Keith.

  “Mr. O’Connell?” he called out, his tone meant to coax Dorothy’s son out of his seat.

  Keith began to move his head from side to side, wanting more than anything to be excused. If all else failed, he was going to point to his throat and just shake his head, begging off by means of a lie.

  But Kenzie whispered into his ear, “Just say something about how you’ll miss her sunny disposition and be done with it. If you don’t, you’ll always feel like there was some unfinished business left in the wake of her demise.”

  He kept his voice down, insisting, “I can’t go up there and lie, gushing about how I’m going to miss the sound of her voice.”

  “Then don’t lie,” she countered. “Just pick your truths. You have to do this. You’ve come this far,” she reminded him. “You can’t just fold at the eleventh hour.”

  What he wanted to do was tell her that yes, he could. But he knew she was right. If he didn’t do this, everyone would know there had been ill feelings between his mother and him. There were, but it was no one’s business but his.

  So, although it went against everything he thought was right, Keith slowly rose to his feet and began to walk up to the pulpit.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Keith curled his fingers around either side of the pulpit, gripping it. He still wasn’t sure how he had managed to make his way from the pew to the place vacated by the man who had been his mother’s priest for the last thirty-one years. He couldn’t remember putting one foot in front of the other.

  His mouth felt like cotton and his mind was as close to empty as it had ever been.

  What the hell was he doing up here?

  He should never have gotten up, never allowed Kenzie to urge him on with that look of hers.

  Now he was trapped up here.

  His eyes shifted to the first pew. To Kenzie. She was smiling at him, her eyes urging him on.

  Encouraging him.

  And suddenly, just like that, his mind came alive.

  “Looking around this church, I can see that my mother had a lot of friends. A lot of people are going to miss her now that she’s gone. Since people are all different in the way they react to things, everyone will undoubtedly miss something else about my mother.”

  He could almost hear Kenzie cheering him on, like a mother watching her child take his first wobbly steps. He should have been resentful, he told himself.

  For some odd reason, he wasn’t.

  “Me, I’ll miss the mother I once knew. The one who stayed up late, putting the finishing touches on two dinosaur costumes so that my sister, Amy, and I wouldn’t miss out on going trick-or-treating the next day. She stayed up late sewing, even though she had put in a full day’s work and had to go in early the next morning to her second job. She worked two jobs because that’s what it took to feed and clothe us.”

  He paused for a moment, reining in emotions that threatened to break free. It took him a couple more minutes before he could continue.

  “I’ll miss the mother
who worked hard to help me memorize words for my spelling test so I could finally ace my retest instead of flunking it the way I’d been doing—spelling was never my strong suit,” he added in an aside that had some in the church laughing in commiseration. “When I complained that I was too dumb to remember how to spell the words, she got angry with me and insisted that I wasn’t. She got angry because I had run myself down and she didn’t believe in doing that. Positive reinforcement was her thing.”

  He paused as his throat tightened. “I’ll miss the mother who wouldn’t quit, who refused to give up, even when things seemed hopeless.” He took a breath before pushing on. “She lost her way after Amy died. I wish I could have helped her find it again, the way she used to help me find mine. I’ll...” He pressed his lips together, feeling naked and exposed. “I’ll miss my mother,” he concluded in a quiet voice, and then stepped down.

  He didn’t remember taking his seat again, didn’t remember actually even sitting down, either. And he was only vaguely aware that someone took his hand, threaded her fingers through his and lightly squeezed, conveying so many unspoken sentiments of comfort with that simple gesture.

  Slowly, by degrees, as another voice began to speak from the pulpit about his mother, he became aware of Kenzie. Aware that it was her hand that had taken his, aware that she had been the one to squeeze it. Her eyes when they met his were filled not with pity but with sympathy.

  Sympathy and tears.

  “You did good,” she whispered to him.

  He couldn’t answer her. He was afraid that his voice would break if he did. It bothered him that he could feel this way even after he had built up this tall wall around himself. The wall that was supposed to keep his feelings about his mother at bay and contained at all times.

  He’d been keeping the wall in place for so long, he’d been certain that he had no feelings left, not for his mother, not for anyone. And yet there they were. Feelings. Feelings just waiting to ambush him. To prick him and make him bleed.

  * * *

  “I shouldn’t have come,” he told Kenzie when he could finally trust his voice not to break. The service had ended, and a church full of people had dutifully filed out and into their separate vehicles. They were all headed for the same place.

  The cemetery.

  The drive was a very short one, practically over before it began.

  Kenzie remained steadfast. “You would have never forgiven yourself if you hadn’t,” she told him as they climbed out of the somber black sedan.

  They fell into step, joining the flow of people heading toward the area of All Saints Cemetery that had just been prepared for the latest burial ceremony. It was to be his mother’s final resting place.

  Or at least where his mother’s casket was going into the ground, he thought cynically. The dead didn’t rest. They didn’t do anything anymore.

  “Not exactly thrilled with myself right now,” he finally responded. He’d paused for so long, she thought he either hadn’t heard her or, more likely, had chosen to ignore her.

  “You can get through this,” she told him with the conviction of someone who had utter faith in what she was saying. She was doing her best to convey that to him. “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other the way you’ve been doing.”

  What he wanted to do was put one foot in front of the other in the opposite direction and get as far away from the service—and her—as he could. For entirely different reasons. But he knew he couldn’t, not without calling a great deal of attention to himself, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

  So he made his way with the others to his mother’s gravesite, acutely aware that Kenzie was right at his side every step of the way. Kenzie and that family of hers who seemed to insist on being there as a complete set—just the way they had been at the church.

  He wanted to send her away, to send her whole family away. Yet in a strange way he couldn’t begin to explain, he was grateful for their presence.

  He sensed that they just wanted to be supportive for no other reason than, as Kenzie had said, he needed them to be.

  He had to admit they were exceptional people. Just like she was.

  Keith squared his shoulders and stood at the gravesite as the priest spoke words about his mother and her life that he barely heard. After a few minutes, it all became one continuous buzzing.

  And then the casket was lowered and people were dropping roses onto it.

  Where had all those roses come from? he wondered absently. This was winter, the third week in December. Weren’t flowers meant for the spring?

  He looked at Kenzie, and he had his answer. As with everything else, she must have taken care of this detail for him. She’d had the roses brought to the gravesite and distributed among the mourners.

  She was always one step ahead. Certainly one step ahead of him.

  “It’s over,” Kenzie whispered to him as the gathering at the gravesite began to break up. Taking his hand, she lightly tugged on it, indicating the direction he needed to take.

  Because he suddenly felt drained, he let her lead, quietly following her out of the cemetery to the vehicle that stood waiting for them.

  “You’re doing very well,” Kenzie said, her voice breaking into the endless silence riding with them in the vehicle.

  “Don’t patronize me,” he told her tersely. Keith knew he had to come off like an angry, wounded bear. It was either that or break down. This was turning out to be a lot harder on him than he had anticipated.

  “I’m not.” The answer was neither defensive nor cloying. It was a simple matter-of-fact statement. “But you do still have an attitude problem,” she pointed out. “People are just trying to be sympathetic, nothing more. Take it at face value and be gracious.”

  He swallowed the first words that rose to his lips. No matter what he felt, she didn’t deserve to be shouted at. He let out a deep breath. It didn’t help. His nerves felt frayed.

  “Do I really have to go to the reception?” He knew the answer to that, but there was a part of him that was still hoping for a reprieve.

  Kenzie merely looked at him. “It’s being held at the house.”

  “That still doesn’t answer my question,” he told her, knowing he was being irrational, but still unable to refrain.

  “Okay, then I’ll answer it,” she told him gamely as the driver entered Keith’s development. “Yes, you need to go to the reception.”

  “Why? I said my piece at the funeral service. I attended the burial at the cemetery. The reception is just people milling around, talking over food.”

  “Well, you can talk, and you do eat. Shouldn’t be a problem,” she told him practically. And then she squeezed his hand. There was that silent encouragement again, he couldn’t help thinking. But he didn’t pull his hand away. “Just one more hurdle and then you can go back to being Mr. Congeniality and winning everyone over with your happy patter.”

  “Sarcasm?” He raised his eyebrow as if taking offense. “I just came back from the cemetery.”

  “That’s why I toned it down,” she told him, a wide, guileless smile on her lips.

  He had no idea why he found that heartening—but he did.

  The next few hours were a blur of people shaking his hand, offering words of condolence and relating stories he told himself he had no interest in hearing. Stories that convinced him in the last years of her life, his mother had cared for other people—any people—more than she had for him.

  The sting of the angry words that marked their last encounter kept coming back to him over the course of the afternoon and evening, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth and an ache in his chest.

  Just when he didn’t think he could take much more, to his surprise the woman that Kenzie had hired to do the catering for the reception—a Mrs. Manetti, he thought she’d told him—came to
his rescue by quietly telling the people that the reception would be closing down shortly.

  After that, guests began taking their leave, pausing to say a few final words to him before going out the door.

  And then, finally, the last of the guests were gone.

  “That woman certainly knows how to clear a room,” he commented to Kenzie, savoring the relief he was feeling.

  Kenzie smiled as she nodded, watching the caterer preside over the room’s cleanup. “Mrs. Manetti is good at reading people.”

  “I don’t follow,” he told Kenzie.

  “I think she realized that you were reaching the end of your rope, and she could tell there was just so much more you could put up with. She probably said what she did so you could have some peace and quiet, let everything that transpired today settle and gel.” She looked at him for a long, scrutinizing moment, then observed, “Apparently she was right. I think you’re just about smiled out.”

  Well, she certainly had that right, Keith thought. The muscles of his face felt as if they were in danger of cramping up if he had to spend another five minutes smiling at well-intentioned strangers telling him what they deemed to be amusing stories about his mother.

  Kenzie patted his face. “A really hot shower might help relax that.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, looking around the living room. It had emptied even faster than he had anticipated.

  And as for Mrs. Manetti’s crew, they were exceptionally efficient. The trays of food and beverages, both hard and soft, had been whisked away, and the extraneous plates and glasses that had littered the family room and living room were gone as if they had never existed.

  Everything had been washed and put away in what amounted to a blink of an eye.

  “It seems almost a little empty in comparison to earlier,” Keith couldn’t help commenting.

  “It seems a lot empty,” Kenzie corrected him with a laugh.

  The next moment, she realized that just might be the trouble. As much as Keith had seemed as if he wanted to be alone, now she was hearing something else in his voice. There was almost a loneliness that she hadn’t picked up on earlier.