Free Home Is Where the Christmas Trees Are by CJane Elliott Page B

much unlike being a single gay man in Portland, but that was okay for now. The kid wasn’t going to be twelve forever.
    Yawning, he checked the time on his phone. Rowan should be back soon from her afternoon band rehearsal. Sure enough, he heard the key in the lock and the front door banged open—the front door with its new adornment of a Christmas wreath made from fresh pine boughs. He wondered if Rowan would notice.
    “Hello, Noodle. Welcome home!”
    She nodded, head down, texting.
    He tried again. “Notice anything different?”
    “Huh?”
    “The door!”
    She glanced behind her. “What about it?”
    He sighed. “I got us a holiday wreath. It’s on the other side.”
    “Oh. Okay.” Rowan wandered to the kitchen, still lost in her phone.
    The landline rang—a rare occurrence. Dex knew without looking that it was either Gwendolyn Barrett, Rowan’s paternal grandmother, or a sales person. He reached for it and saw Gwendolyn’s name on the display. “Hi, Gwen.”
    “Dex, darling, how are you?” Gwendolyn’s patrician accent betrayed her Boston Brahmin roots. She came from money—”old money,” Jan had told him with an impish smile, not impressed at all—but despite her regal appearance and manner, Gwendolyn Barrett was good people. Dex liked her a lot.
    The same couldn’t be said of her son, Thomas Barrett. Jan’s ex-husband had left her and three-year-old Rowan for Washington, DC to be some hotshot lobbyist for the oil industry. Along the way, he’d started a picture-perfect second family, with a picture-perfect second wife. All the more reason for Jan, Rowan, and by extension Dex to want to have nothing to do with him.
    Gwendolyn was a different story. Although she had moved to DC to be close to those grandchildren, she’d never stopped being a loving grandmother to Rowan.
    “Fine. And you?”
    “Surviving quite nicely, thank you. Are you all ready for Christmas?”
    What does that mean? Dex wondered. How did people get “ready for Christmas?” Mrs. Alcott seemed to have a handle on it, with her festive bass and her gingerbread cookies. Dex figured Gwendolyn had her own version, something like decking out her elegant Georgetown townhouse from top to bottom and scheduling cocktail parties featuring eggnog and Christmas music. Bah humbug. Why was he so bitter? He’d never cared about Christmas before—had he?
    “Sure. I’m ready.” He hadn’t actually thought about it. Rowan was going to be with Gwendolyn—or Gaga, as she called her, Gwendolyn having refused to be called “Granny” when Rowan was born—and her father in DC. This was a trip engineered by Gwen, who had always maintained close ties with Rowan, despite the divorce and subsequent estrangement. In fact, it was Gwendolyn who’d stood for Rowan’s choice to remain in Oregon with Dex, against Thomas’s feeble gesture—mostly for show—that Rowan come live with him. Rowan had been out to visit Gaga several times, enduring the forced “togetherness” with her father in order to spend quality time with her beloved grandmother.
    “What will you be doing while I’ve got Rowan?”
    Not a thing, actually. If he’d still lived in Portland, he would probably be out partying with some friends. Maybe he should go up there for the holidays, but the idea wearied him. He really hadn’t thought this through. “Working, probably. Home health never sleeps.” Which was technically true, but as a physical therapist, his services weren’t exactly so essential that he’d need to work on Christmas Day. He had no fucking idea what he’d be doing.
    “Oh, now, that’s a shame. I should have thought to include you in my invitation to Rowan. You’d be welcome to spend the holidays with us in DC, you know. I’d be happy to get you a plane ticket.”
    “Oh. Um, thanks, Gwen, but I… uh, need to be around here. For, you know, work.”
    “All right. But know that my door is always open. May I speak with Rowan?”
    “Sure, sure. Hey,