But being with the boys meant hearing them talk about their famous uncle, and I didn’t want to listen; but because I was an idiot, I found myself straining to hear every mention of his name.
“These ones next!” Alice rummaged in the box and pulled out a pile of string, and all twisted up in it, a bundle of the tiniest sparkling crystal teddies wearing sweaters. They weren’t ordinary sweaters mind you, they were the pale blue hockey sweaters of the Albany Harriers, and they were Kai’s donation to the family decorations—one for each year he’d played professional hockey and hadn’t made it back for much of a Christmas.
It physically hurt my decorating pride to see the tiny teddies all wound up with string because it was my fault that they were like this. I recalled the way Charlie had shoved all of them into the box when we’d cleared the tree away last year, and as I looked at them now, all I had was regret that I hadn’t untangled them.
What if my inaction meant that we’d broken something so beautiful?
The first of these ornaments had arrived the year Kai had left Wishing Tree, along with an apology for not coming home. When his mom passed, the ornaments he sent had become part of my parents’ collection. Up to this year, his dad couldn’t bear to have a tree, but refused to let the link to his son not be on display. He’d spent that first sad Christmas with us, and each one since. But maybe now that he was dating Megan, he’d want them back? I should have asked.
“Goal!” I couldn’t help but smile as it was Mitchell’s turn to run in circles around the stepstool, waving the plastic stick wildly. At least they’d stopped pretend-scrapping, but still, they were two boisterous boys in a house filled with delicate china and crystal lampshades.
“I’m like Uncle Kai!” Charlie did this arrow move thing just the same as Kai did after he scored a goal.
“No, I’m like Uncle Kai!” Mitchell said, and made an even more dramatic sliding celebration, heading knees-first into an umbrella stand.
“Careful, guys,” I warned as the stand wobbled. Mom and Dad’s place was huge, an amalgamation of many additions for various generations, and even though the hall the boys had sequestered was large, it was a minefield of easily broken things.
“Sorry, Uncle Bailey!” they called in unison, and I had to smile. They’d been born a few days apart, inseparable cousins, hockey fans to the max, boisterous, confident—everything I’d never been—and one day, I swore, they’d both end up playing professional hockey like their Uncle Kai.
Fuck’s sake, stop thinking about Kai.
“Can we put the teddies up now?” Alice’s sweet voice crowded out the sadness in my heart, and I smiled down at her with what I hoped was an angst-free expression.
I took the bears, all tangled together, and turned the bundle in my hand, seeing Kai’s last name on the back of each of the cute jerseys, along with his number twenty-nine. I patiently untangled the first one. Each bear was different, and I remembered that this one I was able to pick out, was from three years ago, when the Harriers had revealed a new alternate uniform in the brightest shade of royal blue. I hated that I could look at the teddy and recall how handsome Kai had been in his gear, his dark hair long enough to curl at the nape, his expressive caramel-colored eyes so filled with pride as he wore the new design for a magazine shoot. The bear with the blue jersey detailed in crystal caught the tiny lights on the tree and threw colors onto the wall. As I unpicked them, I could admire them for their individual beauty and the workmanship that went into each one, even if I my hopes of love with Kai disappeared a little more with each passing season. I guessed each decoration was worth a ton of money, individually crafted and unique; and the family had come to accept that they replaced Kai at family Christmases.
Sorry I can’t be there, but here’s an insanely expensive crystal ornament instead. Yours sincerely, Mr. Hockey Star.
“Uncle Bailey, your face is all wrong.”
I picked at a string caught around the brightest of the crystal teddies, teased it away from the hook it was tangled with, then glanced down at my niece, who stared back at me with a look of concern. I couldn’t help my expression when I was thinking about Kai, and I bet it was a combination of confusion, horror, embarrassment, self-pity, and sadness, with a growing side portion of hope.
“Look, this one has a hat like your teddy bear.” I changed the subject with desperation, and thankfully, she bought it, taking the delicate ornament, and cradling it carefully.
“The hat doesn’t have ears though.”
“But it has a bird, so it’s kind of the same thing.”
She sighed at me being wrong—she was getting so good at that.
“It’s cute,” she murmured. “I’ll put it here safe.” She laid it in the now empty decoration box, nestled into a space that had held one of the hundred or so family-made ornaments. She did the same with each one I unraveled, until all the bears were ready to go up.
“Maybe Grandpa Ryan will want them back?” She nodded as if she understood exactly what the ornaments meant to her grandpa.
I smiled at her. “Let’s leave them in the box then, and we’ll ask him.”
“Uncle Kai is here!” Charlie shouted so loud that Emma stirred in her sleep.
Which was when I heard the front door open, and there was a gust of cold air accompanied by the sound of stomping feet, and my nephews whooping at the fact Uncle Kai was visiting.
Great. Just freaking great.
I heard the three of them talking, and when Alice scrambled off the chair she’d been using to reach things, heading off to find Uncle Kai, I was bereft and vulnerable because he was right there in the hall, no more than six feet from me.
“Hi,” he said from the doorway. He was wearing jeans, fabric worn at the knees, probably designer, although they were creased as if he hadn’t taken care of them. He wasn’t wearing a Harriers jersey, which was different. His sweater was scarlet with a reindeer face on the front, and it made the big man look cute. He’d shaved since I’d last seen him, and all I could think was that his skin was so soft, and he seemed younger without the scruff on his face. In stocking feet, he padded toward the tree, his smile wide. I saw everything, from the jeans to the Christmas sweater, to the way his dark bangs were spiky from walking in the frosty air. Maybe he’d just gotten out of the shower or something? Maybe he’d been naked, and I could imagine him—
“Uncle Bailey! Ask him about Grampy’s ornaments!” Alice demanded.
I blinked down at her as she handed the tiny teddy to me.
I held it out to Kai. “We thought maybe your dad and Megan would like to use them?”
Kai took the fragile crystal from me, and his eyes were bright with emotion as he turned it over in his hands.
“No,” he said decisively, and then reached way higher than I could, to hang the teddy toward the top of the tree, leaning past me, so close I could press my lips to the side of his chest. God, he smelled so good, a mix of snowy winter and citrus, and I inhaled so hard I went dizzy.
Enough of this.
“I want to make different memories with Dad now, better ones that don’t revolve around hockey. Maybe I’ll head to the Gift Emporium and buy a few Bailey Haynes decorations for him this year.” I swallowed at the emotion in his words and the implication that he liked my stuff enough to buy it for his dad, but said nothing. “There. Don’t you think that’s beautiful, Alice?” he gestured for another teddy.