Unwrap My Heart

Capítulo 6

WILLY

The first Saturday of every December was reserved for the town’s Christmas parade, and I woke that morning with a ball of mixed emotions knotted in my gut.

My mother loved the holiday parade, with the tree lighting at the end, followed by hot cocoa and fireworks in the park. I’d loved it just as much growing up, and I’d shared that love with Delores. It had been the last fun thing we’d done together before the accident.

This would be my first Christmas parade since Delores’ death and my mother’s first parade without my dad, so it was going to be an emotional day. There was no way around that. I just wanted to make sure the sadness didn’t overwhelm the joyous atmosphere, though, and ruin the day for my mother.

And then there were Ruelle and her son, whom my mother had invited to join us. This would be their first Christmas parade in town, and if I had to guess, I’d bet money this was their first small-town Christmas parade ever.

I doubted the bastard she’d been married to had made it a point to take them to a park for hot cocoa on a chilly December day to celebrate the holidays, if they even did such quaint things in the circle they’d run in.

So after I’d filled up on caffeine and showered, I dug through my closet for his sweatshirt. It was kind of a thing in town to wear goofy Christmas sweaters or reindeer antler headbands or blinking Christmas tree light bulb jewelry—or all of the above at the same time. But I wasn’t really a flashy kind of guy.

I favored an old sweatshirt with The Grinch printed on it.

When I finally went downstairs to see what my mother was up to, I wasn’t surprised to find Rue and her son in the kitchen with her.

Andrés had on jingling reindeer antlers I was pretty sure had been Fernanda’s, and Ruelle was wearing a sparkly red sweater dress that draped over her body and made my mouth water.

Dammit.

“You guys know the parade doesn’t start until four o’clock, right?” I asked as I walked into the room.

“Somebody’s a little excited,” my mom said, tilting her head toward Andrés who was probably going to need a nap in a few hours if he didn’t sit still.

“I’ve never seen a Christmas parade,” he said. “Grandma Rosa said there will be tow trucks!”

“Tow trucks are his favorite,” Ruelle said as if it needed explanation.

Tow trucks are very cool.

But maybe only guys knew that.

“And we’re going to go down a little early,” my mother said. “Since we’ll eat supper late, we’re going to have a late lunch in town and then scope out the best spot for watching the parade.”

I nodded and headed for the coffee pot. We knew the best place to watch the parade. We’d been standing in that spot for as long as I could remember, back when I’d been so little my dad had hoisted me up on his shoulders so I could see everything.

But Andrés had never seen a Christmas parade, so obviously my mother was going to go all out and give him the full experience, even if she had to subtly nudge him toward the best location.

Since there were still several hours to kill, I took my coffee out to the garage and looked for something to do. For want of anything better, I pulled the tarp off of Big Red and gave the old three-wheeler a good-looking over.

My buddies and I had had one hell of a good time with the machine back in the day, and I found myself wanting to fire it up. But it would need fresh gas. And I had to break it down and clean the carburetor first.