“I am so, so sorry,” she said. “I never meant to hurt your little girl. I just couldn’t breathe.”
We stood there, two women in a dim living room, surrounded by ghosts and bad choices.
Then I did the least “me” thing ever.
I hugged her.
She froze, then collapsed into me like something in her had given out. She sobbed into my shoulder. I cried into her sweater. It was awkward and raw and strange.
When we pulled apart, we were both blotchy messes.
I wiped my face and thought about Ella’s cracked ornament.
“Okay,” I said, still sniffing. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
Marlene blinked like she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“You’re going to come outside and help me fix my lights,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. “I… I don’t do Christmas.”
“You just did. You just did it wrong.” A reluctant, tiny smile tugged at her mouth.
“And,” I added, “if you can handle it, you’re coming over on Christmas Eve.”
“You won’t. You’re not going to sit in here alone staring at stockings while my kid is next door asking why we don’t have a ‘Christmas grandma.’”
“A what?” she whispered.
“Her words. She misses my mom. She keeps saying she wishes we could ‘borrow a grandma for Christmas’ to teach her old songs.”
Marlene’s eyes filled again. “I don’t sing.”
She actually laughed.
That evening, I picked up Ella and braced myself as we turned onto our street. She saw the house and grabbed my hand.
“Our sparkle broke,” she said.
“It got hurt,” I said. “We’re fixing it.”
Marlene stood on the porch with a box of lights, looking like she wanted to both stay and run.
Ella stared at her.
“You’re the lady who doesn’t like sparkle,” she said.
I almost died on the spot.
Marlene’s cheeks went pink. “I used to. A long time ago.”
Ella tilted her head. “Do you want to learn again?”
You could see the question hit Marlene straight in the chest.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Okay,” Ella said briskly. “You can help. But you have to be nice to our house.”
We spent the next hour outside, bundled up, rehanging what we could save.
Ella handed us clips like a tiny manager.
“Mama does the ladder,” she decided. “Marlene does the sides. I’m the boss.”
“Obviously,” I said.
Marlene worked quietly, face set in a careful focus. Her hands still shook a little. She clipped the wooden angel onto a new strand over the porch.
When we finally plugged everything in, the porch and rails glowed again. Not as bright as before, but warm and steady. The maple stayed dark. Marlene stared at the lights, eyes shining in the reflection.
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “Maybe they are.”
On Christmas Eve, she showed up at our door in a navy sweater and black slacks, holding a tin of store-bought cookies like a shield. She hovered on the porch.
Ella flung the door open.
“You came!” she yelled.
“You said there would be cookies,” Marlene said, lifting the tin.
“You sit next to me,” Ella ordered. “That’s the rule.”
So she did.
We ate at my scuffed kitchen table—ham, green beans, and boxed mashed potatoes. Nothing fancy. Just hot and filling. Marlene moved like someone afraid to break the moment. At one point, Ella looked up at her.
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