“So why throw a big Christmas for Dylan?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s the thing we do. We perform for each other.”
“Why?”
“Because what else is there to do? We care about each other. And so sometimes that means going through the motions even when it’s not easy.”
“What, just in case one of you likes Christmas?”
“I dunno. But what I do know is that my brother has been deployed through two Christmases. And I think that he should have something special for when he gets home.”
“That’s awfully nice of you.”
“Well. We are all each other has.”
He related to that a little better than he would like to. Except for him... It had been him and his mom.
“Yeah.”
He swung the hatchet decisively, and took a big chunk out of the tree. Then he swung it again, and again. And let it fall where it was.
“I’ll help carry it,” she said.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’m good.”
He picked it up by the center of the trunk and hefted it up over his shoulder, letting the tip drag as they walked back through the snowy splendor.
He could hear her feet crunching in the snow behind him, and it was just the damnedest thing that he was so physically aware of her. But it wasn’t new. Jessie had been a problem. And as far as he was concerned, relationships were too valuable for him to screw them up.
Levi had always felt like a brother to him. And he knew Levi had enough brothers, so his friend didn’t necessarily feel the same, but Damien didn’t have any. And growing up, a fatherless child in a very small town, Levi had been a buffer between him and a whole lot of judgment.
He could remember clearly when Levi’s parents had died. He’d been seventeen, Levi had been eighteen. He’d done his level best to be there for his friend.
But it was tough. And now... The empathy that he felt was pretty off the charts.
It had been such an abstract thing to him then. And he had thought of it more in terms of how Levi was supposed to care for all those siblings. But now he wondered how the hell his friend had weathered losing two people who mattered as much as his mother did, in such a short span of time. And taken all that responsibility on board on top of it.
They arrived back at the main house, and he left the Christmas tree propped up against the wall outside.
“Do you know where the decorations are?”
“Well, it might take a trip to the attic. But I think we can find them.”
“Lead the way.”
She did, up the stairs, and to a spot in a hallway with wood paneling that was a slightly different color than the rest of the ceiling. She reached up, but her fingertips fell immediately short of taking hold of anything.
“What was your plan, Jessie?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking grumpy.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “Lucky you that you had me around.”
“Yeah. Well. It definitely makes a difference compared to the last couple of years.”
He stopped for a moment, then reached up and found the rope that was stuffed up in a hole in the ceiling, and tugged down the little trapdoor. He could see a wooden ladder folded up that was likely attached to the opening. He grabbed the end and yanked it down. And when he turned to look at her, she was staring.
“Do I need to answer that? I mean, answer for it? I had a business to build. I bought into a mature winery, because I didn’t want to sit around and wait for things to grow. Now I’m expanding, so I’m coming back.”