Chapter 6 - The Christmas Box in March
Chloe found the box accidentally.
Grace was looking for spring clothes in the closet when a red cardboard box fell from the top shelf.
Photographs scattered across the floor.
Chloe picked one up.
“Who’s this?”
Grace sat very still.
Her mother.
Evelyn Parker.
Standing behind a chrome diner counter with flour on her cheek.
Grace beside her at sixteen.
“Grandma.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“You were a baby when she died.”
Chloe found another photograph.
A Christmas tree in the diner window.
“Was this her restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“Was it fancy?”
Grace smiled.
“No.”
“Good?”
“The best.”
“Better than James’s?”
Grace laughed.
“Don’t tell James.”
Chloe looked serious.
“I will.”
Of course she would.
Two days later, James was informed that Parker’s Diner had produced “better pie than all your restaurants.”
He looked at Grace.
She closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I need evidence.”
“It closed nine years ago.”
“Convenient.”
Grace smiled.
Then he noticed the photograph Chloe had brought.
Christmas Eve.
Evelyn behind the counter.
People eating at mismatched tables.
A handwritten sign:
IF YOU’RE ALONE, SIT WITH US.
James stared.
“What was that?”
Grace’s expression softened.
“Christmas dinner.”
“For customers?”
“Anybody.”
“She charged?”
“If they could pay.”
“And if they couldn’t?”
“My mother had a bad memory around bills.”
James looked at the photograph again.
“How many people?”
“Sometimes twenty. Sometimes eighty.”
Chloe said, “We should do it.”
Grace shook her head.
“Sweetheart—”
“At James’s restaurant.”
James looked at the child.
Grace immediately said, “No.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s March.”
“We can plan.”
James smiled.
Grace pointed at him.
“Do not encourage her.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The billionaire-project face.”
Chloe nodded.
“He does.”
James was outnumbered.
He placed the photo on the table.
“Christmas Eve Rowan House is normally closed after lunch.”
Grace stared.
“No.”
“I’m stating a fact.”
“No project.”
“Understood.”
He waited three seconds.
“However—”
“James.”
Chloe laughed.
The idea did not disappear.
But something important happened.
James did not take it.
He did not turn Grace’s mother’s tradition into Rowan Hospitality’s holiday campaign.
He waited.
May you like
Months later, it was Grace who returned to it.
That difference would matter.
