Her Christmas Legacy

Special Guests

"Twenty guests?! You don't even have enough rooms in this house for twenty guests! Besides, you told me no one was arriving until Friday night."

"I told you that you couldn't stay in one of the guest rooms for very long because our first guests were arriving Friday night, but that's regarding paying guests who actually spend the night." He answered with a lazy drawl as if he were speaking to a child who just could not understand how one plus one equaled two. "People rarely book on Thanksgiving, so Georgina eventually just blacked the day out and reserved it for our special dinner guests."

"Who?" I asked, throwing my hands up into the air. "I didn't see catering—outside of breakfast, of course—being listed as a service here."

"Ferndale County House of Hope." He answered with a tilt of his head and the crossing of his arms.

"House of Hope," I mumbled, my eyes glazing over as they looked past his boxy stance. "That sounds like..." My voice trailed and my shoulders slumped with a sigh. Even though I had done nothing wrong—at least as far as I was concerned—Jordan had, once again, effortlessly cast me as a miserly grouch. "That's a charity, isn't it?"

"They are one of the largest organizations in the county that help the homeless by providing temporary housing, job training, and, this may surprise you, but they also see that they get food."

"And they come here for Thanksgiving?" I asked, massaging my forehead. "Every year?"

"Not all of them. The house isn't nearly big enough for that unfortunately, but Georgina isn't, wasn't, the only host in the county. She just takes as many as she can. Since guests rarely booked and she had no family to celebrate with..."

"I did not know she existed! Can we stop with this?" Despite my grandmother's warnings of patience and temperance ringing in my ears, it was far too early in the morning to do anything other than throw civility right out the window. "I'm not psychic. I couldn't magically know she existed and come skipping up to her door with a pie in hand. Just like I couldn't have known we were talking about becoming a sort of soup kitchen for tonight."

"I know." There may have been sympathy in his tone, but the slight humor curling the corners of his mouth tainted it. He took a breath and a more serious expression settled upon his brow and lip. "I'm just stating the facts for you, so you understand why she decided to do this. She always liked to be surrounded by people. It was rare to see her alone. Which means it was always rough for her around Thanksgiving because the people she would typically keep around her were instead spending the day with their families." A small frown darkened Jordan's face and though, for a second, I thought it was another attempt to pile guilt upon me, I eventually saw an honest sadness pulling at his lips.

I would not say it in that moment, but I knew just how painful holidays must have been for my aunt. Maybe not during Thanksgiving, but for every bring-your-kid-to-work day, every mother's or father's day, every field trip brimming with chaperones, I felt very much alone. So, I looked at the pictures around the room and wondered if this was the only way she managed to sleep. When the night got quiet, and only the sounds of the crickets and her own thoughts kept her company, could the memories in those photos be enough to feel like a pair of warm arms wrapped around her, singing her a lullaby?

"She started hosting these dinners before I was even born," continued Jordan, when I didn't offer a response. "One of my first jobs after she hired me to be her full-time maintenance man was to combine the dining and drawing room into one so she could fit a larger table and double the amount of people she could host every year."

He paused, but I still couldn't turn away from the mosaic of family upon the wall.

"You won't turn them out, right?"

"Of course not," I hissed, my neck snapping around with enough force that a sting of pain bit the side of my throat. "Why would you think I'd do such a thing?"

"I don't know." The shrug that accompanied his words claimed the contrary. He then gazed at the ceiling and rubbed his chin as he feigned thought. "I suppose it's because you don't want to drop a single penny into this house and would sell it to the first investor that crosses your doorstep instead of making sure you got someone who will honor Georgina's traditions at this place."

"Just because I don't want this to turn into a money pit, doesn't make me Scrooge." Though saying I didn't dread the grocery bill ahead of me would be a lie. That didn't mean, however, that I wouldn't follow through on a promise made to people who deserved some comfort. "As for my aunt's traditions, that's unavoidable. No one will be exactly who she was."

"We can agree on that. I know most of the town was thrilled when Saundra found you. We thought Georgina might live on in you, but I guess she really is irreplaceable."

"I'm sorry, I'm me."

I dug my nails into my crossed arms to keep myself from displaying an emotion I didn't need him to see. Anger, jealousy, sadness... I didn't even know, but something painful bubbled in my stomach and I worried it may just boil over. So I pulled out my toolkit and found the best mechanism for silencing an errant emotion—deflection.

"So, what do we need to do for tonight?"

"First, we need to get to Bob and Jill's grocery store. You'll be happy to know Georgina paid for everything when she placed the order." I was relieved, but I bit the inside of my cheek so he wouldn't see it. "So we just need to pick up our stuff and then head back. Some volunteers from town will show up around then and they'll help us cook and prepare the meal. Volunteers with the actual organization will be around to help serve it tonight, since the folks from town usually go home before dinner, so they have some time to be with their families."

"Give me a minute to change into jeans and find my shoes, then we can head out."

"Glad to hear it," he said, closing the door behind him.

With him gone, I took a few breaths and not a single tear fell. By the time I opened the door and asked him to show me the way, I'd boxed the pain up completely and left it to rot in the back of my mind.