Page 93 of Christmas In the Footlights
I squeezed his shoulder once. "You've got this."
"I know." No wobble or hesitation. He glanced up at me. "Thanks for—" He stopped, shook his head. "Thanks."
The overture swelled from the pit, strings layering over woodwinds, building toward the moment when the curtain would rise and everything would begin. I knew this music the way I knew my own breathing now. I'd rehearsed it, blocked it, argued over tempos with the conductor, and dreamed it on nights when sleep wouldn't come. It lived in my bones.
I moved to my mark in the wings, stage right, where I could see both the performers and the house. One last look. I couldn't help it.
Marcus was leaning so far forward his elbows rested on his knees, his whole body aimed at the stage like a compass needle finding north. Ryan had given up trying to contain his grin and was simply letting it take over his face, both hands pressed to his mouth. Holly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief that looked older than I was, her reindeer scarf catching the dim glow from the exit signs.
The curtain began to rise.
The familiar creak of the rigging filled the air. The stage lights bloomed, and the parlor set emerged from the darkness—the Victorian furniture Ben had refinished, the garlands the ensemble had strung during tech week, and the frosted window flats that caught the light and scattered it like actual ice.
I stepped forward without thinking about it. Not onto the stage—my place was here, in the wings, in the spaces between—but into the moment. Into the music that wrapped around all of us like a shared pulse.
The cast moved through their opening blocking, and I watched them the way you watch something you helped build: not with ownership, but with recognition. Charlie hit his mark perfectly. The ensemble's timing clicked into place. The soprano who'd struggled with her entrance for three weeks nailed it like she'd never doubted herself.
This was what I'd learned in the past year. Not how to command a stage, but how to hold space for others to fill it. Not how to be the center of attention, but how to be part of something larger than any single voice or body or story.
The music lifted toward its first crescendo.
I thought about the train platform a year ago, the snow falling in patterns too perfect to be natural and the panic clawing at my throat. I thought about falling on Holly's doorstep and looking up into brown eyes flecked with gold. I thought about my grandmother's letter, the recipe box, and the scrap of paper that still sat between the lasagna and the apple brown betty:I'm staying. Build something with me.
We'd built it. We were still building it. We would keep building it for as long as the valley allowed.
I was home.
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