The Christmas Market

Well, I have been a little elsewhere of late, but I have just slipped in this one for the Vocal+Assist Facebook group December prompt below:

Fat flakes fell in an a swirling ballet, misting the weatherboard frontage beneath already snow-laden gables in gleaming white, pierced in the dimming dusk by the twinkling of golden fairy lights, and the blue of Jake’s pleading eyes. Sarah looked out from the amber glow of her window, the crackling fire bathing her in warm light, the golden star still held in her hand, waiting to take its place atop the tree beside her. At her hip, her daughter watched her pause time, felt her mother’s heart stop a moment, as she spotted those eyes, out there in the cold, searching for hers. A small smile softened the corners of her tired eyes, slight, but unmistakeable, and shin deep in virginal snow, his mouth echoed and amplified hers, perfect teeth flashing amidst the light stubble of a man disarmed by love.

Earlier, at the Christmas fair, they had walked arm in arm, their friendship thawing into something deeper in the warmth of the goodwill enveloping the small town. Terri, who had known them both since Jake was a boy and still had a father, and Sarah was a girl and had not yet dreamt of the city, smiled with sage humour as she handed them the last wish to hang on the tree, telling Mara “Perhaps Jake and Mommy will have to share a wish this year” with a wink that Mara took for her own. They had laughed, and then stopped, eyes locked in a moment of unspoken candour, when Mara, stood beneath the shelter of their two bodies, had written the wish for them.

“I wish for Mom to be happy, like when Jake comes round.”

They had not spoken much, after that, until old Mr Collins had fallen from his ladder, still clinging to the garland of bright lights he had been hanging across the front of the bank. For thirty years, the gaiety of the town’s Christmas colours had been interrupted only by the hard façade of The Collins Bank, but this year, when Zeb Collins had called on Sarah to go through her father’s will, something about that sweet child had softened his heart and Christmas had seeped into the bank, first by way of a little forgiveness, and then by the funding of the surgery for Tom the security guard’s mother. Once he was that far in, Mr Collins had gone the whole hog.

Though he seemed unhurt, Jake was keen to drive the old man to the hospital fifteen miles south, and while Terri took Mara home to make cinnamon cookies, Sarah went with the two men. It had been at the hospital that the fight had happened, after the doctor, tall and improbably handsome, had remembered Jake, had mentioned how he had not seen him since he had signed the papers to turn off the life support for Sarah’s father.

Sarah, grief and guilt still spicing her heart, had not waited to hear more. Her pain had loomed like an ogre and she had fled back to Mara, to gather their things, to return to the city where they knew to trust no one and couldn’t get hurt. But Mara had been sleeping, pink cheeked and long lashed in Terri’s lap, and Terri had stroked the child’s soft hair as she told Sarah of the fishing trips and chess games Jake had shared with her father after she left, and later of the grocery shopping and the pharmacy trips and, eventually, of the carrying to bed, of the night time vigils, of the calling of the doctor, when Sarah still did not return. She told her of the day in the hospital, how Jake had wept as he honoured his friend’s wishes, and how he had retreated into the cabin on the edge of town after the funeral. Of how he had emerged, and started to smile again, when Sarah and Mara came to town. She told her of the goodness of Jake’s heart, and of how she saw that goodness, too, in Sarah, shining in her love for her daughter.

It was late when Mara woke, but Sarah had pulled the decorations from the attic and as it started to snow, she and Mara hung baubles on the tree, each one a memory of Christmases past. And that is when Jake showed up, chiselled and shivering, outside the house. Now they kissed, languid and slow, their whole lives ahead of them as Mara threw snow like confetti into the starlit sky and music swelled in their breasts.

“Cut! And that’s a wrap. Thanks folks, we’ll be resetting for scene 6 in the morning, the market scene. We’ve got to reshoot for the sponsors, they weren’t at all happy with how their products came off, so can we make sure they are front and centre please. And Charlotte, we need to believe you like the wine this time, OK? It makes you happy, Christmassy. The network doesn’t want to see you looking pissy and the advertisers don’t want to see you looking pissy. Pissy doesn’t sell, ok?”

Charlotte stomped back to her trailer. “That wine tastes like shit” she said to Becky in the mirror, the stylist’s deft fingers unpinning her hair. “But the problem is him. If I have to kiss that man one more time I’m going to vomit into his mouth. Eugh”. She shivered despite the California summer heat.