A Christmas Hope (25 page)

Read A Christmas Hope Online

Authors: Joseph Pittman

“Oh no . . .” he said.
He went running down the stairs and out through the back door, not even stopping to grab his coat. Into the cold of the early morning, his legs swept him across the land almost without touching, and when he reached the crest of the hill what he saw was that the windmill had been silenced, its white glow vanished. The wind had picked up, a strong force gale nearly blowing him over in his vulnerable state. Flakes of snow had begun to fall.
Christmas Eve had arrived, and with it had come a winter storm.
As though the wind had swept in one miracle, and taken with it another.
 
“You completely blew out the circuits.”
“Yeah, I could figure that part out myself.”
“So why'd you call me?”
“Because I need you to fix it, and fast.”
“Hmm, not sure I can.”
There was a reason Brian had never taken a liking to this guy, and he was trying his hardest right now not to strangle him, seeing as how it was Christmas Eve, time for goodwill toward men and all that other holiday gibberish. Brian was frustrated, to be sure, but Chuck . . . all of his comments were negative and carried a notion of cannot rather than can. While that was Chuck Ackroyd's usual nature, it wasn't what Brian wanted to hear on such an important day.
“Too many lights on the windmill, I told you that last year,” Chuck said. “Looks like you added a few more strings this year, so it's no wonder the circuits failed. Even these little lights require power, despite their low wattage.”
“I get that,” Brian said. “But we've got a wedding here at four o'clock, sundown.”
“Gonna be hard to see everything,” Chuck said.
“No, it's not. Because you're going to repair it and get the windmill glowing again.”
“Doubt I have the parts. I can order them, but given the time of year probably won't see them till after the New Year. So, Duncan, what's your Plan B? Got any other ideas on how to light up your precious windmill?”
Plan B? Brian hadn't even considered the possibility. He just stared at the darkened structure, denied even the bright glare of morning sunlight. Not with all the gray clouds hovering overheard, not with the snow falling. Brian's mind was spinning, wondering what he was going to do. What was he thinking, helping to plan a wedding? He didn't even know how to plan his own life, hadn't that been his problem all these past months, wondering just what he was going to do after the new year? Helping to plan today's holiday festival, capped by the wedding of Mark Ravens and Sara Joyner, had worked its wonder, kept him from digging too much into his own mind. But now, even this had failed. At this point, Mark and Sara would be saying their “I do's” with candlelight.
With a determined clap on the man's shoulders, Brian said, “Just do your best, Chuck. Get those lights burning so bright they cast Linden Corners in its own glow.”
Leaving him openmouthed around the silent windmill, Brian started off toward the farmhouse, his feet crunching through the snow.
Chuck called out, “Hey, wait, where are you going?”
“Like you said, I need to implement Plan B.”
What that plan was, he still had no idea. As he crested the hill, he could suddenly hear the telephone ringing from inside the house. He picked up his pace, tracking melting snow into the warm comfort, picking up the cordless hoping to still catch his caller.
“Hello?” he asked.
“Brian, hello, it's your mother.”
“And your father.”
The latter voice hollered from the distance, though considering they were overseas Brian could say the same about his mother. He shouldn't have been surprised to hear from them, for the Duncan family Christmas had always held its own special meaning, wrapped up as it was in the story of the ornaments adorned with their names. Still, to hear her voice, and on Christmas Eve, meant the world.
“We just wanted to call and wish you a merry Christmas,” Didi Duncan said.
“Thanks, to you, too,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Rome, some beautiful apartment right near the Colosseum, it's really quite lovely.”
“I'm glad.”
“We're going to try and make our way toward Vatican City, though I think half the world has that idea, too,” he heard his father announce. “You know, when in Rome and all that, as they say. The entire city is awash with white lights, gives Paris a run for its money, though I suppose it's only this way for the holidays.”
“It reminds me of our old house back in Philly, doesn't it, Kevin?” Didi asked. “The way the neighborhood was left so bright from the luminaries we would set out on Christmas Eve.”
“It's one thing I miss,” he said. “Traditions are important.”
Great, now they were having a conversation with themselves, with him as a long-distance listener. Still, his silence gave his mind a chance to think, and what it saw were the flash memories of Christmas past his parents were talking about. An idea began to flow.
“Brian, dear, are you there?”
“Yes, sorry, just daydreaming,” he said.
“Well, daydream on someone else's dime,” his father said, though with a laugh.
“Good-bye, Brian, and again, merry Christmas,” she said.
“Think of Phillip,” he said, and received back a studied silence before he heard the word, “Always.”
When he set down the phone, he found he needed to wipe a tear from his eye. Of course on this wondrous day he was thinking about his long-gone brother, Phillip, who instilled within the Duncans a holiday tradition that embraced family. Making his way to the living room, he turned on the bright bulbs of the Christmas tree he and Janey had decorated, sought out his name ornament, the green glass glistening against the tinsel. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, but when he turned around he found himself faced by a small group of people. Janey, Bradley, and Cynthia with little Jake wrapped in her arms.
“Oh good, glad you're all here,” Brian said.
“Why, what's going on?” Cynthia asked.
“Why is the windmill turned off?” Janey asked.
“And why is Chuck down there?”
“We've had a slight setback,” Brian said. “So I need everyone's help.”
“With what?”
“With pulling off a Christmas miracle.”
C
HAPTER
19
N
ORA
A
dd a weekend day, plus a holiday, toss in a winter storm, it all equaled time off from work, and so Nora Connors was quite content on that Saturday Christmas Eve to relax under the toasty cover of her blankets, the minutes of morning ticking away without a tad of worry to spoil the peace. She was all set for Christmas morning—gifts were bought and wrapped, the decorations were up inside her mother's house, the tree beautiful, the lights around the perimeter of the house glowing, the smell of pies and cookies already wafting up the stairs. There was nothing left to do but lounge around and enjoy this one-two punch of rest and relaxation, where she could sit quietly with a cup of tea and watch as the snow piled up.
The ringing of the doorbell downstairs announced that the world had other plans for her.
“Who could that be?” she asked, sitting up in bed, looking at the clock on the bureau. It was eight forty-four . . . five. As though that just-passed minute was a signal to her that a shift had occurred, peace had become chaos, a second, persistent ringing of the bell confirmation. She tossed back the covers, listened from atop the stairs as she heard a commotion in the foyer, a happy chorus of voices that told Nora it was more than a visitor . . . it was visitors. Certainly not carolers at such an early hour.
“Nora, Travis, are you awake? Come down, please,” she heard her mother call out. “Put on your robes, we have company.”
Just then Travis emerged from his room, wiping sleep from his eyes.
“What's going on?”
“I suppose there's only one way to find out,” Nora said.
Two minutes later, with robes wrapped around their bodies, she and Travis entered the living room to find Brian, Janey, and the Knights all sipping hot beverages, Gerta arriving from the kitchen with fresh toast and jam. Was this an impromptu breakfast, or had Nora not gotten the memo about another crazy Linden Corners holiday tradition? The Forty-Eighth Christmas Eve Toastacular, or something charmingly inane like that. She was about to ask what was going on when the doorbell rang again, and without waiting for it to be answered the door opened and in walked Martha Martinson and Elsie Masters. Now Nora knew this wasn't any ordinary social call, from the looks on everyone's faces it appeared to be a call to action.
“Good, you're all here,” Brian announced, taking center stage in the room. “First, let me thank Gerta for making her house available as the staging area, we couldn't meet at either the diner or the tavern, not with Mark and Sara potentially at either location. Seeing us all together like this, might sound some alarm that something's wrong, that's the last thing a bride and groom need on their wedding day.”
“Brian, what's going on?” Nora asked.
“One second, Nora,” he said, turning his attention to Elsie. “Has Thomas left yet for the train station? He's expecting you to drive him today, yes?”
“No and yes, so I can't stay long, I need to get back. Fool weather be damned, I cannot let him down.”
“Don't worry about it, you'll stay here. I'm going to drive Thomas.”
“Oh well, this sounds intriguing. What can I do?”
“It's what you can all do,” Brian said, explaining to the group how the lights on the windmill had blown last night and how doubtful Chuck was that he could repair it in time for the Christmas Festival, “and so, we need to come up with an alternate plan, and it's going to take all of Linden Corners to come together and get it ready in time. Nora, in lawyer-speak, we need a change of venue, as romantic as the windmill would have been.”
“Got any bright ideas?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “See, that's the key—bright. That's what Sara wanted, a day of lights to brighten her wedding day. We're going to host the festival at Memorial Park, and Father Burton will perform the ceremony there—inside the gazebo.”
“That's a perfect choice,” Martha said, “if all this falling snow doesn't bury it first.”
“So, Brian, tell us what we can do to help,” Gerta said.
“We need to turn our village square into a Christmas wonderland,” he said, and then, with a check of his watch, added, “and we've got less than seven hours in which to do it. So, Bradley, I need you to take charge of the decorations—Travis, how would you like to help him?”
“And me, too!” Janey piped up.
“Fine by me,” he said. “Be good to have such sturdy troops.”
“And hey, I've got a great idea,” Travis said.
“What's that, honey?”
“All of Mrs. Wilkinson's ornaments . . . wouldn't they look good on the trees in the park?”
The idea sparked a fresh discussion, and soon all of the assembled parties were talking and planning, Bradley jotting down notes and Martha interjecting with some comments of her own. As they made plans, Nora followed Brian into the kitchen.
“You got a job for me, too, Windmill Man?”
His grimace displayed his disappointment. “I'm hardly that, not today,” he said. “Of all the luck.”
“The universe is telling you something, Brian, sometimes you can't pull off perfect,” she said. “Even in Linden Corners.”
“Now what kind of talk is that? Especially when I show you what I've found.”
It was the way his brown eyes danced in the glare of the overhead light that grabbed Nora's attention. Setting down her coffee cup, she steeled herself for what further surprise awaited her on this unexpected morning. But when she saw it, when Brian opened up the box he'd put on the counter and placed the objects into her hands, she felt an electric spark pass through her. Like a piece of the past had shot forward into the present, leaving a heated trail between that world and this. She stared down at the book, and even as she read the title and realized what it was, her mind still refused to process it.
“But . . . where . . . how?”
“Believe it or not, it was in the farmhouse, packed away nicely in Dan Sullivan's things,” he said. “I'll tell you everything, but right now you need to get dressed because we need to get over to The Edge and gave Thomas his Christmas present—and we need to do it before he catches his train. In fact, I need to convince him not to leave, and I can only do it with your help. We need him for the Christmas Festival—and now that we have the book, I think we'll be able to convince him.”
“Brian, this is just remarkable, I can't believe this.”
“See, Linden Corners is not without hope after all, and the day is just beginning.”
In just thirty minutes' time the snowfall had intensified, with the streets and sidewalks coated in a few inches of soft, powdery fluff. That's how long it had taken Nora to get ready and for her and Brian to make their way toward Edgestone Retirement Home. The roads were wet, slippery, which might just work in their favor, Mother Nature's plot to keep Thomas from his trip.
“Though you know Thomas. He's very determined,” she said.
“So are we,” Brian said.
“What's your plan?”
“Just follow my lead,” he said as they made their way inside The Edge's main lobby. A joyful sound of Christmas music and the chatter of many people filled the air; an early breakfast gathering was taking place in the recreation room, Nora recognizing the familiar gang of her mother's friends, Myra and Jack and other of their cronies. Approaching the lobby desk, Brian asked the attendant if she could ring Mr. Van Diver's apartment.
“Oh, I'm sorry, Brian, he's already left.”
“Left, where?”
“I saw him get into the back of a cab, said something about wanting to leave extra time because of the weather,” the woman named Julie said. “My guess is the train station, just as he does every week . . .”
“But I thought Elsie was driving him to the station?”
“In this weather? I doubt a man as honorable as Mr. Van Diver would have asked Elsie to drive him in this weather. It's awful out there, coming down harder now than it was when the party started.”
Brian and Nora exchanged looks that said the same thing:
Now what?
“We drive to Hudson, see if we can stop him,” Brian said.
“Brian, maybe we should just leave it alone . . . he's got his own destiny.”
Holding up the box with Thomas's original edition of
The Night before Christmas,
Brian begged to differ. “Not without this book—it's why he came back to Linden Corners, and he's not leaving without it. Didn't he tell you he wanted it for Christmas Eve? Well, that's today and we found it.”
“You found it. Fine, Hudson it is,” she said, knowing Brian was right, this was the only way, even if they couldn't stop Thomas from hopping on that train, they would do their best to place the book into his hands. “You can tell me the circumstances of how you found the book on our way down. But you better drive carefully, we've each got a kid who's counting on us to be there Christmas morning.”
Back in the truck they went, making slow but steady progress along the county roads. The plows were thankfully out, and for a few-mile stretch they followed directly behind but far enough back not to get the salt spray, not that it mattered, Brian said, this old truck was barely held together by rust. And as he drove, Nora sitting with white knuckles as they slid a few times, she listened to the story of the book, reading the inscription by Lars Van Diver to his son on the title page, listening intently when Brian told her of the letter from Dan Sullivan to his precious Janey. She couldn't believe how simple it had all been, but how so very heartfelt, with both fathers recognizing the power of these words, the beauty of the illustrations, and wanting to share them with their children and with future generations.
“Brian, this was a gift that Janey's father left her—does Janey know about it?”
He shook his head. “No, she doesn't. Heck, I almost didn't unwrap it, I might have left it for a time when Janey could handle it—emotionally. But curiosity won out. What's key now is Thomas, he's been waiting eighty years to be reunited with a piece of his father. Janey's had a shorter time but no less important loss, and once I explain everything to her . . . I'm sure she would insist that Thomas have the book. She's a generous soul, that one, and I'm lucky to be a part of her world.”
“Good, now watch the road,” Nora said.
They entered the village of Hudson once again as they had weeks ago on the visit to Mrs. Wilkinson's house on the hill, and unlike that calm day the village was covered in snow. Few people were out and about and Brian easily cruised down Warren Street, neither of them certain what time the train left. Last week it had been a ten thirty departure but that was a weekday; it could be different today . . . earlier.
As Brian turned toward the train station, the next sound they heard was not the one they wanted to hear; the train whistle was wailing in the snowy morning. Whether the conductor was blowing it to announce its imminent arrival or because the train was pulling out of the station, they couldn't be sure.
Into the parking lot they drove, noticing the number of people milling about the platform, some peering north—which to Nora meant the train toward New York was soon approaching. They'd arrived in time. An announcement from the station confirmed this, just as Brian hopped out and went running through the small parking lot intent on finding Thomas. Nora saw him nearly slip, regain his footing at the stairs, and enter the station. She heard the puff of the train as it pulled into the station, saw at least twenty-five people gathering on the platform, all of them with suitcases as well as shopping bags filled with wrapped gifts, last-minute travelers headed toward their holiday celebrations. Her eyes quickly scanned the crowd, finally landing on Thomas's figure. A red tweed hat sat atop his head like a beacon in this snowy storm, Rudolph himself alerting them to his arrival.
“Thomas,” she called out. “Wait.”

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