The Forever Christmas Tree

by Sandra Hill

  “And you like it?”

  “Most of the time.”

  He cocked his head to the side and studied her face.

  “We lost a teammate recently. A suicide bomber in Baghdad.”

  He squeezed her hand and stopped to stare at her. “Now, see, that’s what I’m having a hard time accepting. I’m the reason . . . my stupidity . . . is the reason you’re in such a dangerous line of work. What a fucking nightmare! How do you think I’d feel if you had been the one at the receiving end of that explosive?”

  “Not as bad as I would be feeling,” she joked.

  “Not funny, Wendy. Not funny at all.”

  “Take it down a notch, Ethan. What you did was stupid, and it’s all on you, but what I did from then on was my choice, my responsibility, not yours.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she said.

  At the same time, he dropped her hand and used a finger to trace the scar that ran from her ear to her windpipe. It was barely noticeable anymore. Hardly anyone mentioned it, but he had apparently been more observant than most folks. “Did you get this in action?” he asked in a voice husky with emotion.

  “I did. No biggie!” Although, yes, it had been a big deal at the time.

  He motioned with his head for them to resume walking, but instead of taking back her hand, he tucked both of his into his parka pockets. It was for the best that he kept his distance, she realized. She’d been liking his hand-holding too much.

  “So, are you happy?” he asked.

  “Yes, mostly. And you?”

  Instead of answering directly, he said, “My little girl is the best thing that ever happened to me. She makes up for any regrets I might have ever had.”

  Wendy felt a twinge of hurt at his words. Time was, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. How pathetic was that of her! Jealous of a little kid!

  They’d arrived back to where they’d started, and the sky seemed suddenly overcast. To her surprise, snowflakes began to fall softly. Big fluffy puffs of white that would dissolve on hitting the ground, but were so beautiful in the air. She raised her face upward, then smiled at Ethan, as they both said, “Fairy snow!” It was a name they’d given this kind of phenomenon as kids. Another shared memory.

  “So, is this how closure looks?” she asked him, as they stepped onto the short wooden stairway leading to the parking area. She opened the door to her car but didn’t get in yet.

  He leaned against the back door and stared at her. “I don’t know. Here’s the kicker, and I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but what the hell! My little girl told me something yesterday that knocked me for a loop. Her mother apparently advised her that when she grew up she should never settle for anything less than a ‘Wendy kind of love.’ It was one of a bunch of life lessons Beth Anne wanted to impress on Cassie before she passed on. They’re all recorded in a diary.”

  “Oh, Ethan! I’m not even sure what that means.” But she did. In her own way, she’d been holding up an impossible threshold for all the men she met, waiting for an “Ethan kind of love.”

  “I thought I hid my bitterness from Beth Anne all those years. I thought I loved her, in a way. I certainly wasn’t the walking wounded, as far as I know.”

  “Oh, poor Beth Anne!”

  “I don’t like the bitterness that seemed to consume me since you sashayed back into town. At least, I thought that’s when it started, but now I know it must have been festering under the surface for twelve damn years.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that “sashayed,” as if he was judging her, but she picked her battles and asked, “And so you sought closure with this meeting today? Is the bitterness gone now?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” He glanced at her. “Was bitterness your issue, too?”

  “A little. More hurt than bitter, I think. So, yeah, the air is cleared in that regard.”

  “So, we’re good?” he asked, reaching out to flick a snowflake off her nose. Or maybe he just wanted to flick at her, a playful jab, to show they were good, now.

  She, on the other hand, couldn’t stop staring at the ones caught in those sinfully long black lashes of his.

  He knew, or he used to know, how much she admired and envied his lashes. In fact, he’d used them to his advantage on occasion, lowering them to half mast, ever so slowly, then back up, high. Now, noticing her regard, he blinked rapidly to get rid of the flakes. Nothing flirtatious or enticing there!

  Still, she was entranced. That was her only excuse for revealing, “Do you know what JAM suggested I should do to attain closure? Screw your brains out, except he was a little more explicit.”

  Ethan did one of those slow blinks, then let out a choked laugh. “I didn’t know that was on the table.”

  “It’s not,” she said.

  But she was wishing it was. Oh, yes, she was.

  Chapter 12

  He was thinking about screwing, but it wasn’t a hardware issue . . .

  The next day, on Friday morning, only four days till Christmas, another emergency meeting of the town council was called, and Ethan couldn’t duck this one.

  “Either show up, or I’ll have your mutt arrested and quarantined by Bill for the holidays,” Doreen threatened.

  Bill Henderson was the sheriff/police chief/dog catcher for Bell Cove and vicinity, and he also happened to be Doreen’s son-in-law.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Trespass. Stalking. Humping a poodle. You name it.”

  Doreen wasn’t usually so crude. Maybe he should nominate her for the grinch contest, or threaten to. On the other hand, if I alienate her, she would probably cast more votes my way. Damn! I’m becoming just as monkey-ass crazy as the rest of this town. Being nice when I don’t want to just to avoid winning some damn contest.

  “Have the Levys complained again?” he asked, more politely than he was thinking.

  “The Levys are always complaining.”

  “What’s the big deal? Harv’s been snipped.”

  “Yeah, but just because a dog’s been neutered doesn’t mean it isn’t inclined to make the moves, like it used to. Do I need to explain that to you?”

  This was not a conversation he wanted or needed to have with Doreen. “This is blackmail.”

  “So sue me.”

  Be nice, Ethan. Be nice. That’s my new mantra. He gritted his teeth and said nothing, which meant he was going to the meeting. Which would be a useless effort, if Doreen only knew. Ethan couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. Wendy’s words kept lurking in the back of his brain:

  Screw my brains out? For closure?

  Oh, boy!

  When he got to the town hall at nine o’clock, all the bells were ringing at once. A miracle of the bells, you could say. Or else, Frank Watson, the tuner over at Bell Forge, might have been cajoled to work on them, again.

  All the other members of the council were present when he sat down at the conference table. He wondered what threats Doreen had used on the others. In front of each chair was a folder, and, inside, yep, an agenda. And a Revised Calendar of Events for Bell Cove Christmas, 2018.

  He rolled his eyes. In the past, they hadn’t needed any frickin’ printed schedule to announce the same old/same old events. Christmas Bazaar at Our Lady by the Sea. Festival of Food at St. Andrew’s. The children’s bell choirs performing at both events. The Bell Ball. The Christmas Eve Candlelight Bell Walk throughout town, complete with folks in period Edwardian costumes, caroling and ringing handbells. That was followed by Midnight Mass with full vocal and bell choirs. Christmas Day services at St. Andrew’s, featuring the children’s bell choir. Often people attended events at both churches, regardless of their religious preferences.

  But now . . . Oh, Lord! There were all kinds of new activities planned.

  “What are you griping about now?” Laura asked.

  Be nice, Ethan. Remember, that’s your new mantra. Niceness. “What is all this stuff? A parade with floats and antique cars
. What floats? Who’s doing all this work? And the only antique car I know of in Bell Cove is Sam Wheeler’s rusted-out Camaro, but that hardly qualifies as a vintage worthy of a parade.

  “And, holy hell! A grinch crowning at the Whoville dance. What dance? What crown?

  “And TV coverage of all Bell Cove events, with a live mic next to the Nativity scene in the gazebo. The rest of the world is taking down Nativity scenes to be politically correct, and we’re going to start one?”

  He looked at Laura and she just smiled. “All that and more, sweetie! It’ll be great fun.”

  Yeah, just swell.

  “By the way, Ethan, you’re gritting your teeth.”

  He bared his teeth at her to show he wasn’t actually gritting.

  She just laughed.

  Being nice is harder than it looks, he decided. “Look, I’m all for raising funds for a good cause, and even for promoting the town to increase business, within some limitations. I don’t even care if it’s hokey as hell. But this is all happening too fast without any planning or regard for efficiency. It feels like you’re throwing a wad of pasta against the wall to see what sticks and what just makes an ungodly mess all over the floor.”

  “What about pasta?” Tony asked from Ethan’s other side. “Did you hear about the green pasta we’re serving on Snarky Sunday?”

  “I’m offering a special on Reuben’s Great Masterpiece sandwiches at The Deli on Snarky Sunday,” Abe interjected. “I ordered in forty pounds of fresh sauerkraut. Sure hope we get the crowds we expect, or I’m gonna be stuck.”

  Sally Dawson from the bakery, Jeremy Mateer from The Cove general store, Frank Baxter from Hard Knocks, and Doreen from Happy Feet Emporium all mentioned their special efforts related to the grinch contest.

  And apparently his grandmother had offered to sell something called Whoville Mistletoe Balls.

  He didn’t want to think about the connotation that might be put on those offerings. “Kiss My Balls” came immediately to his cynical mind, but that’s what happened when a person tried too hard to be nice. It wasn’t natural.

  On and on the festive suggestions went.

  And all that time, he kept thinking, Screw my brains out.

  When the meeting was finally over, he had a world-class headache, and it was only eleven a.m.

  “Are you coming to The Bell party tonight?” Laura asked as he stood, gathering up the paperwork, so he could leave and pick up Cassie at her children’s choir practice. Well, actually, he had another hour yet. Maybe he’d go out to the lot and check out those balls.

  “I don’t think so.” Forget about going to the lot. He just wanted to go home and think about, Screw my brains out.

  “Gabe will be really disappointed.”

  “Huh? Why would Gabe care if I attend your newspaper party?”

  “Because we’re holding it at his house?”

  Ethan plopped back down into his chair and just stared at her. “When did all this happen?”

  “If you’d stop skipping special meetings of council, you’d be better informed.” She smirked at him.

  He just stared her down until she gave in and explained, “I talked Gabe into letting us rent his house for our annual party. Plus, he’s letting us run a few tours of the old place over the next few days to raise more funds for our community redevelopment fund. It’s where the grinch crowning and dance will be held, too. I convinced him that all these things would show his goodwill toward Bell Cove and, in return, the house will be cleaned up a bit to show to Realtors if he still decides to sell.”

  “I’d like to have been a bee on the wall when all this convincing was taking place,” he remarked.

  She smacked his arm and said, “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  The gutter was right. Screw my brains out.

  “So, are you coming?”

  I’d like to, he thought, but that wasn’t what Laura meant, of course. “I don’t know. I’m not much for social drinking.”

  “That was a long time ago, Ethan. Get over it!”

  “I wasn’t referring to that.”

  “Everyone will be there. Don’t you want to see what the inside of that mansion looks like now? The bathroom with the gold-plated taps in itself is worth a look-see. Plus, it’s another chance to work with Gabe and maybe influence the fate of Bell Forge.”

  He knew now how Laura had convinced Gabe. She wore a person down.

  Still, he resisted.

  Until she tossed in the final zinger.

  “Wendy will be there.”

  It wasn’t surprising what phrase went through his mind then.

  Christmas visitors are the best kind . . .

  Cassie paid Eddie Van Hoy, the cab driver, six dollars and fifty cents, including a tip, for her fare, then hitched her backpack over one arm and carried her crutches in the other, before turning to the rough brick sidewalk leading to the Patterson house. Eddie, who also delivered groceries for the Shop-a-Lot and prescriptions for the pharmacy, watched her till she got to the door, as she’d known he would, him being a nice old man, a friend of her grandmother’s. She waved that she was all right, and he could leave.

  Propping her crutches beside the door, Cassie rang the doorbell. She loved that every house in Bell Cove had a different sounding chime. This one went bing-bing-bing, bing-bing-bing, bing-bing-bing. Theirs at home sounded more like ba-dinnnng, ba-dinnnng, ba-dinnnng. Her friend Marsha’s was the coolest of all: bong, bong, bong!

  The door opened almost immediately, and Cassie was assaulted by the sound of loud music and the smell of fresh-baked cookies or cake, something buttery and sweet. Cassie recognized the woman standing before her from the ferry a few days ago. It was Wendy Patterson.

  She was shoeless, wearing white socks, gray yoga tights, and a Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt that said, “A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.”

  Cassie smiled. Winnie the Pooh was her favorite storybook character. “You’re Wendy Patterson, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am. And you’re Cassandra Rutledge, aren’t you? Can I help you? Did you come to see my aunt?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I came to see you, Miss Patterson.”

  Wendy blinked with surprise. “Well, come in, then. And you can call me Wendy. Miss Patterson makes me sound old.” She made a funny face that sucked in her cheeks and puckered her forehead.

  Cassie laughed and stepped inside where a lot of old people—some really old like her great-grandmother, and others as old as her father and Wendy here—were sitting around by the Christmas tree or in front of the fireplace where a huge fire was blazing. A couple were playing cards. There was even dancing at the one end, to “Survivor,” of all things. Who knew that old folks listened to Beyoncé, let alone knew the moves?

  “Aunt Mil, we have a visitor,” Wendy said to an older woman who was coming from the kitchen, which could be seen at the end of the long hallway. Cassie remembered Miss Patterson, who had been the music teacher at her elementary school until she retired when Cassie had been in first grade. She wore a white ruffled apron over a red sweater and red plaid pants.

  “Cassie! How nice of you to come visit! Is your grandmother with you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Your father?”

  “No. I came alone, Miss Patterson. In a taxi.”

  The older Miss Patterson exchanged a look with Wendy, then said to Cassie, “Come along to the kitchen, honey. We’re just about to have a cup of ginger chai tea with cookies. And you can call me Aunt Mil, just like Wendy and her friends do.”

  So, two people who didn’t want her to call them “Miss,” a sign of respect Nana had drummed into her. Cassie stored that knowledge away to think about later.

  In the meantime, no one had ever offered Cassie a cup of tea before, let alone tie tea, whatever that was, and it made her feel grown-up, and that maybe she wouldn’t get in trouble for coming here, without permission.

  Wendy helped her off with her coat, but
Cassie held on to her backpack as she braced her crutches against the wall.

  “Don’t you need those?” Wendy asked.

  “No. My dad makes me take them everywhere for Justin, but I don’t always need them.”

  “Justin?”

  “Just in Case,” Cassie replied.

  Wendy laughed.

  It pleased Cassie that Wendy got the joke. Not everyone did. It also pleased her that Wendy didn’t remark on her limp as they walked down the hall, or slow down as if Cassie couldn’t walk as fast as anyone else.

  Cassie got another shock when she entered the big kitchen where there were even more people. A half-dozen men and women were arranging all kinds of cookies in foil pie tins, pulling plastic wrap up into big twists, which were then tied with red and green curly ribbon.

  “Those are donations for the church bazaar,” Wendy explained. “I notice you’re wearing pink again today.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cassie said, looking down at the pink fuzzy sweater she wore over white tights with her pink Uggs. “Pink was my mom’s favorite color. Once I even put her pink flannel nightgown over my pajamas to help me sleep.”

  “I know exactly how you feel. I lost my mother when I was twelve years old, and I often wear her red coat. It makes me feel like she’s hugging me.”

  Cassie was stunned that someone could explain exactly how she felt.

  “You should wear blue sometimes, too, though. Like this color,” Wendy advised, pointing to the blue background on the Christmas tablecloth featuring silver bells and green holly. “The exact same color of your eyes. It would make you look even prettier than you already are.”

  Wow! No one had ever told her that before.

  Just then a bald man wearing red suspenders came in from the back door, followed by three dogs, a tiny Pekinese, a bulldog, and a big brown dog, all of whom headed immediately for Cassie.

  She braced herself against the back of a chair as the dogs caught sight of her and came barreling toward her, immediately sniffing out the newcomer.

  “Get those dogs out of here,” Aunt Mil ordered from the counter where she was preparing a tray.