She accepted the garland.
“Leave it alone, Gloria,” he said softly. “You’re only wasting your time.”
Standing there in her pj’s, her messy blonde curls like a tuft of tumbleweed around her head, she stared up at him, garland hugged to her chest. A sudden realization hit Gloria like the little drummer boy banging away on his drums.
Franklin hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he didn’t like Christmas.
He didn’t.
He just… didn’t.
Once she figured that out, it all started to fall into place.
The scowl the day she mentioned seeing the town’s decorations. The way he obviously woke up that morning and just had to take down her whimsically placed garland. How each of the Christmas stuffed toys and trinkets disappeared the morning after she left them on his porch. Gloria expected he threw them out or something, but she never gave in to the urge to check the trash in case she found them in there and it broke her tender heart.
She didn’t say anything in return. Franklin nodded and that was that.
After he wished her a good day and turned toward his truck, she stood in the doorway, watching him go. She thought about calling an apology after him, then decided against it.
Mainly because she wasn’t sorry. Just… just a little taken aback.
Who honestly didn’t like Christmas?
Gloria hadn’t been trying to antagonize him. Not really; at least, not in a mean way. She actually liked her neighbor—more than she should, to be honest. He was a workaholic who spent crazy hours down at his garage, only to return to an empty cabin up on the mountain. Even if some part of her wanted more with this man, Gloria liked the idea that they could at least be friends.
Forget not having an affinity for the holiday. No one wanted to be alone at Christmas.
After Nana died last October, Gloria almost didn’t want to do anything for the holiday season. A couple of her friends invited her over and she declined every invitation. In the end, she compromised on buying a small one-foot Charlie Brown Christmas tree for her apartment, drowned her grief in chocolate mousse while watching the saddest holiday films in her collection.
This year would be different. New house. New life. New start.
Besides, Nana would’ve been so disappointed to see Gloria so gloomy at Christmas. Even when it was just the two of them, while Gloria was growing up, Nana did everything she could so that her granddaughter had a very, merry Christmas.
This year, it was her turn.
Too bad Franklin didn’t seem to want to be cheered up.
Over the next few days, as a series of intermittent snow flurries had Franklin returning home earlier and earlier, she couldn’t help but notice that.
Oh, he didn’t stop her from going all in on celebrating the holiday in her way or anything. Not that he could—but Gloria appreciated that he didn’t try. And it wasn’t like he came out and started bah humbug-ing her like he was some sort of buff Scrooge. But after he carefully unwound the garland from his post and handed it back to Gloria, she began to realize that this was going to be a long couple of weeks until the holiday.
To her surprise, so long as she didn’t try forcing any kind of holiday cheer on him, Franklin actually stopped pretending like he didn’t notice her when they were home.
He even helped her carry in the Christmas tree she lugged home. Impulsive as ever, Gloria didn’t realize that she didn’t have a tree stand or anything to keep it vertical until Franklin brought it inside of her cabin and asked her where she wanted it. Franklin didn’t sigh or say anything nasty. He just propped the tree along her wall, said he’d be right back, and headed for his cabin.
He disappeared inside and returned five minutes later, carrying a sturdy stand in one hand, a box of neatly packed ornaments in the other. He drew the line at actually decorating the tree, though he spent the time setting the tree in the stand before he made a hasty escape.
Gloria didn’t understand his strange reactions—and it wasn’t for a lack of trying, either. Every Sunday, like clockwork, Franklin climbed into his truck and drove into town. He went to the Hamlet Church, attending the pastor’s weekly sermon. He had a cross hanging up inside of his home, and she noticed a St. Christopher medal clipped on the visor inside of his truck. So it wasn’t a religious thing.
It was definitely about Christmas.
And she couldn’t figure out why.
Gloria never really thought of herself as a curious person. But the mystery of Franklin Carter was one that she couldn’t stop obsessing over. And if the exchange the day he returned the garland was bad enough to trigger her curiosity, that was nothing compared to how quickly he was to hand over his Christmas ornaments.
Franklin had them. The ornaments and the tree stand, both, he had them in his house—tucked and stored as if he no longer had any use for them. That was her breaking point. After he came out when he saw her struggling to take her tree off of her car, then brought her the carefully packed box of ornaments plus the tree stand, she finally had to say something.
“Won’t you need these?”