A Mitchell Sisters' Christmas Read online

  A Mitchell Sisters’ Christmas

  A holiday short story by Samantha Christy

  Copyright © 2021 by Samantha Christy

  All rights reserved, including the rights to reproduce this book or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Mitchell Sisters’ Christmas

  Baylor Mitchell

  I remove the Christmas ornament from the velvet box, tracing its edges before I hang it in a prominent place on the tree.

  “It came!” Piper says. “Dang, he’s a cutie.”

  It’s a ‘baby’s first Christmas’ ornament. I glance over at my sleeping seven-week-old son, knowing it might not have seemed so nine months ago, but Maddox is the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

  “When are Mom, Dad, and Skylar coming home?” she asks. “I want to open my Christmas Eve present.”

  “They’re closing the restaurant early tonight. They said they’d be home by eight.”

  At thirteen, Piper is still your typical kid, but she sure does like helping out with Maddox. She and Skylar have been a Godsend. Because of them, I’ve even been able to keep up with my classes at community college. I refuse to let a little bump in the road derail my career plans of becoming a journalist. Though community college is nothing like UNC, where I spent freshman year, it’s still a means to an end.

  My bump in the road cries and I go to him. “Time for dinner?” I pick him up and settle on the couch, opening my shirt so he can nurse. Staring at Maddox is my favorite thing to do, despite how it hurts. With every passing day he looks more and more like his father. I wonder what Gavin is doing at this very moment. Is he in Texas with his mom? Or maybe he’s with her—Karen—the sorority girl who pretended to be his best friend, but who I know for a fact wanted him. My eyes become misty. They did spend six weeks together in Brazil right after we broke up. It was a work-study program they had signed up for long before I came in the picture. That’s plenty of time for a friendship to turn into something more.

  I brush a finger across my son’s soft cheek thinking of how things could have been. Stop it, I tell myself. Gavin didn’t want him. He didn’t want me. He made it very clear in the letter he wrote.

  The front door opens. “Knock, knock!”

  My smile grows wide when Chris comes up behind me and wraps me in his arms. He touches Maddox’s light hair. “How’s the little guy?”

  “Perfect as always.”

  He places a wrapped gift on the coffee table, looking excited. “Do you want to exchange ours now, or wait until your family gets home?”

  I put Maddox on my shoulder and burp him as I appraise the long, flat, rectangular box.

  “Now,” he says impatiently. “You have to say now.”

  “Okay, fine. Hold him and I’ll get yours.”

  He takes Maddox. Chris is only twenty years old, just a year older than I am, but he’s a natural with my son. He’s been my rock, along with my family. When I went into labor, he dropped everything and drove up from UNC to be by my side. Chris and I grew up together, both of us working at Mom and Dad’s restaurant. And with them wanting to expand to New York City, he’s first in line to take over managing the one here in Maple Creek, Connecticut.

  I never wanted to go into the family business. Skylar is the only one of the three of us who has shown any interest. Well, she and Chris—the son my father never had.

  I get Chris’s present out from under the tree and hand it to him. “You first.”

  He puts Maddox in the bassinet and unwraps the shoe box. I saved for a month to buy him a pair of Sperry’s. “Baylor, I love them. Thank you.” He puts them on. “Perfect fit. You know me so well.”

  I do know him well. In fact, we used to date before I was with Gavin. But I think we both realized we were better off as friends. Okay, so I might have realized it first, but he came around eventually.

  He shoves the gift at me. “Now you.”

  “What’s got you so excited?”

  “Will you just open it please?”

  I open one end of the red and green paper and pull out a thin but heavy box. I wiggle in my seat as I lift off the lid. I may be nineteen, but it’s still fun to get surprises. Then I swallow and stare, not believing what I’m seeing. I turn to him. “They published it?”

  He nods emphatically.

  A few weeks ago I had submitted an article to a newspaper. Not the New York Times, I’m not crazy enough to believe they would ever publish something from a nineteen-year-old UNC dropout, but a smaller one with maybe a few hundred thousand in circulation. Last Friday, I got an email thanking me for the submission, but rejecting it all the same. I wasn’t too upset. I submit articles all the time that get rejected. But this one was different. I bore my heart and soul, writing about my first month as a teenage mother.

  “How? They rejected it.”

  He sits up straight. “I asked them to reconsider.”

  “You what?”

  “I hope you’re not mad. On Monday, I drove to the city and talked to the editor. I told her how much you deserved this. And I may have mentioned she’d be doing me a solid because I had no idea what to get you for Christmas. I showed her pictures of you and Maddox and told her your backstory. I guess she had a soft spot. I asked her to let it be a surprise. So, surprise!”

  I pull the frame out of the box. I’ve never been published before. I quickly skim the article then focus on my name at the top. My name! I put it down and hug Chris. “This may be the best present I’ve ever gotten.” My gaze shifts to the bassinet. “Well maybe the second best.”

  He holds me tight, in a brotherly way.

  “Do you think he’ll read it?” I ask.

  Chris’s smile falls. “Baylor, don’t go there again. He won’t read it. It’s a smalltime paper printed halfway across the country from him.”

  “But if he searches my name, maybe he’ll see it.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and look into my eyes. “Is that what you really want?”

  I shake my head. “No. He left me. Left us. I don’t want him back. Not really. He doesn’t deserve Maddox.” For the millionth time, I ask myself how it’s possible to hate someone so much, yet still be in love with him.

  “That’s my girl.” He takes the frame from me. “Now, where should we hang it?”

  Skylar bursts in through the garage door. “Merry Christmas!”

  Chris laughs. “Christmas isn’t until tomorrow, Skylar.”

  “Don’t rain on my parade, Samson. It’s Christmas all season. Now where’s my present?”

  Skylar and Piper dig through the presents under the tree as Mom and Dad come inside and pour eggnog. It’s been a holiday tradition since we were little that we get to pick which present we want to open first and open it on Christmas Eve.

  Maddox cries. It’s his ‘pick me up’ cry. Over the past week or so, I’ve learned to identify all of them. He has a different cry for everything. Hunger, soiled diaper, boredom. Mom pulls him on her lap and shows him the plastic baby mirror. He loves looking at his reflection. I’m not sure he knows it’s him, but he finds it fascinating. I watch my son in awe, wondering if any other mom has ever loved her son as much as I do him.

  “I see we have a new ornament,” Dad says, admiring the one I put up earlier.

  “It’s beautiful, sweetie,” Mom says. “Bruce, that reminds me—can you get the box out of my purse?”

  Dad does what she asks and hands
it to me. It’s unwrapped. “Is this my Christmas Eve gift?”

  “No,” Mom says. “This is just a little something I picked up today.”

  I open it. It’s another ornament. A picture of me holding Maddox in the hospital right after he was born. The love I feel for him had been perfectly captured in the moment. It’s framed inside a red heart. I know I’ll always treasure it. “Thank you. I love it.”

  “We’ll make a new one every year,” Mom says. “Like we’ve done for us. You’ll have a lifetime of memories whenever you look at the tree.”

  My gaze goes to the tree, finding several of the ornaments my parents have made over the years. Family pictures of the three, four, and then five of us. The difference is, my ornaments will only ever be photos of Maddox and me. His father will never be in them. Will Maddox one day look at them and feel sad instead of happy?

  A tear rolls down my cheek. Mom reaches over to wipe it. I don’t even have to tell her what I’m feeling. She already knows. “It’s his loss, honey. Now, here, take your amazing son and let’s start making those memories.”

  ***

  I hope you enjoyed this holiday short. To read about Baylor’s journey, pick up Purple Orchids. After that, you’ll want to read White Lilies which follows Skylar, and Black Roses which follows Piper. I’ve even written about Maddox and the other Mitchell Sisters’ children in Texas Orchids, Texas Lilies, and Texas Roses.

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  Samantha Christy, A Mitchell Sisters' Christmas

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