Magic Hour

He glanced behind him, made sure no little ears were nearby. “Lisa didn’t come for Christmas morning . . . or dinner. She didn’t send any presents. I told the girls she’d call, but I’m starting to wonder.”

Ellie frowned. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. I called her parents. She’s out with her new guy.”

“That doesn’t sound like Lisa.”

Cal looked at her. “Yes, it does.”

Ellie heard the wealth of pain behind those few words. She knew it was all Cal would ever tell her about his failed marriage. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been here before, right? A divorce is like a cut. It heals. That’s what you always said.”

The truth was, she had never been in his shoes. She’d never stayed married for more than two years, never become a love instead of a lover with her spouse. God knew she’d never had children’s hearts in her grasp. “I don’t think my marriages should be compared to yours, Cal. You might hurt for a long time.”

“Not loving her can’t be more painful than loving her was.” He stared into the fire.

Ellie let him have his time. In a way, it was like the old days when they were kids. They’d sometimes sit on that bridge all day and never say more than You got any more Bazooka?

“How was your Christmas?” he finally said.

“Great. We made Dad’s stew and Grandma Dotty’s corn bread. Alice never could get the whole Santa-down-the-chimney concept. She wouldn’t unwrap her presents, either. She just carried the boxes around.”

“By next year she’ll be a champ. Gift holidays, they learn fast. I remember the first time I took Amanda trick-or-treating.”

“It was to my house.”

He wanted to smile; she could tell. “Yeah. She couldn’t figure out why she was dressed up like a pumpkin, but once you gave her the candy, she didn’t care.”

“She wore my mom’s green felt hat, remember?”

Cal looked at her. In his familiar eyes she saw a longing so deep and raw she wanted to reach out for him, tell him it would be okay. “I thought you’d forgotten all that.”

“How could I forget? We’ve been best friends for decades.”

He sighed, looked over at the tree. She got the feeling that she’d disappointed him again. That was starting to happen a lot, and she had no idea why. Then again, what she knew about a truly broken heart was only slightly more than she knew about kids. It was best, probably, to change the subject, get Cal thinking about something beside his cracked family on this special day. “Julia wants to adopt Alice. She thinks the kid needs permanence.”

“Good idea. How do you do it?”

“We start with a Motion to Terminate Parental Rights. If no one comes forward to claim her in the publication period, Julia’s in the clear.”

It was a moment before Cal said, “What if her folks finally do come forward? And they never knew she’d been found?”

Ellie and Julia had avoided that question like the plague. It was the one that could ruin it all. “That would be bad.”

“Washington bends over backward for biological parents. Even if they’re scum.”

“Yeah,” Ellie said. “I know.”

“So we go from hoping they show up to hoping they don’t.”

“Right.” Ellie paused, looked at him. They fell silent again. “It wasn’t quite Christmas without you.”

“Yeah,” he said with a faded smile. “Things change.”

Ellie didn’t want to walk down that road with him. Truthfully, she was afraid that if she did, she’d start thinking about her own loneliness. Being with Cal did that to her sometimes, reminded her of how much she’d missed out on in life. She got up and went into the kitchen. She poured two tequila straight shots and set them on a tray, alongside a shaker of salt. In the living room, she set the tray down on the coffee table, pushing his feet aside.

“What the—straight shots? On Christmas day?”