A Stony Point Christmas

by K. D. McCrite

  He silently observed both women. Annie could see the rebellion on his face, but she refused to let an old man die because of his own stubbornness.

  ****

  As evening approached, the raging storm outside Grey Gables began to die down. Annie sneaked out the back door and walked through the fresh snow back to the beach path, carefully wending her way down to where she and Graham Cartwright had left his suitcase. The wind off the coast had kept it swept clear of snow, but a thin coat of ice encased it. Annie cautiously climbed back up the slope, surprising Graham with his suitcase once she had reached the warm confines of Grey Gables again.

  All the bedrooms were upstairs, and knowing he was not ready to climb stairs, Annie settled Graham on the comfy old sofa in the family room that night. At some point, if he wanted a hot bath or shower, he’d have to go upstairs since there was nothing on the main floor but the powder room.

  He chose to go to bed just as darkness fell, and Annie did not hear him stir all night. However, early the next morning as she was getting dressed, Annie heard the guest shower. For a moment, she wondered if it was Graham, but logic told her it was Alice.

  Annie checked on Noelle, and saw the girl in deep sleep, curled beneath the old quilts Gram had made.

  In the kitchen a bit later, she made waffles, bacon, and eggs for breakfast, and she laid places for everyone. Graham—freshly showered, shaved and dressed in jeans and flannel shirt—strode into the room. Right behind him trailed Alice in her robe, yawning, with her auburn hair looking as though she’d slept in a wind tunnel.

  “Graham!” Annie said. “That was you in the shower upstairs?” She had coffee simmering and his plate warming in the oven, so she set a plateful of food for him.

  He nodded. “Took me a while to go up, but a hot shower has done wonders. I’ve never been one to molly-coddle myself.” He sat down at the table. “The lesson here, ladies, is don’t sit around waiting for age to incapacitate you. The more active you are, the more you’ll be able to do, even if you have aches and pains. Even when you are as old as I am.”

  “Good to know,” Alice said, sinking into her own chair and yawning again. “My goodness, I’m sleepy today.” She glanced around. “Where’s our baby girl?”

  Annie cocked her head to one side. “I believe I hear her little bare feet pattering down the hall right now.”

  Noelle entered the kitchen, face rosy and eyes swollen with sleep. She padded straight to Annie and lifted her arms.

  “Sweetheart, go put your slippers on. They’re right next to your bed.” Annie kissed one soft cheek and put her down. Noelle did not pout or whine, and came back in a minute with her feet cozily inside fuzzy bunny slippers.

  Annie settled her in the booster seat. Noelle dove into the waffles and bacon like she had not eaten in days. Graham watched her for a while and then chuckled. “My word, that girl has an appetite.”

  Annie smiled as Noelle drank her cup of milk with gusto. “Yes, she does. It’s hard to believe she’s so thin. But she’s put on weight in these few days since she showed up. And her little cheeks are not nearly as pallid as they were.”

  They watched Noelle shove in her last bite of bacon, and she looked at everyone’s plate for more.

  “We can’t have you running out,” Graham said. “Here, little girl. Have some of mine.” He handed her a strip of crispy bacon. She blinked her large pale eyes at him and then looked at the meat. He held it closer, and she finally grabbed it from his hand.

  Alice grinned and winked at Annie.

  “Oh, I’m not sure she should have so much bacon,” Annie began, but Graham waved away her concern.

  “Look at her go. She loves it.” He smiled. “Don’t you, Noelle?”

  She munched happily and grinned, showing the half-chewed food in her mouth. He lifted his brows, as though surprised very young children had no table manners.

  “Charming little girl,” he said, chuckling as he turned back to his own breakfast.

  “I’m so glad to see you feeling better today,” Annie said. “I really was quite worried.”

  “I must admit I feel better this morning than I have for several weeks, even before I came to Maine.”

  “It’s the warmth and good food,” Annie suggested. “Well, I should say the warmth indoors.”

  “I daresay you’re right. And having a hot shower almost made me feel like a young man again.” He wiggled his eyebrows at Annie in a mock leer.

  She laughed at him and waggled a finger. “First you despise me and then you flirt with me. You’re a wily fellow, Graham Cartwright.”

  “You’d better be careful,” Alice teased. “Annie’s sort of spoken for by a certain public servant.”

  Annie shot Alice a sideways glance. Graham chuckled, but then sobered.

  “Once more, I apologize for my harsh words and surly attitude. I’ve been too much apart from the rest of humanity, answerable to no one but myself. I don’t like what I’ve become, and it’s time for me to make a change.”

  Annie settled her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “Once more, you are forgiven,” she said. “Do you want to tell us what brought about this change? I promise not to spread it around town.”

  “I won’t either,” Alice added.

  “I know that,” Graham said with a shamefaced smile. “You have been nothing but kind to me, Annie. Alice, you are Annie’s true and loyal friend. I’ve not been around many people like the two of you. In fact, most of my life has been spent in solitude, serving my art and serving myself. When one does that, there is no room for love or concern for anyone else.”

  “You have no wife and family?” Alice asked.

  “Never. Just myself. I knew early on I wanted a career as a writer. And not just a writer, but a highly successful one. I could pretend to be noble and say I didn’t want to burden another person with penury as I established my career, but the truth of the matter is I didn’t want someone demanding my time, attention, and resources. A wife and family would be nothing but an encumbrance.”

  Annie got up and refilled his cup. “Well, you do have a point,” she said as she returned to her place across from him, “and I can see where a young man starting out might avoid attachments of that kind. But what about after your career was established? Didn’t you want to share your life with anyone?”

  “Never considered it,” he said, waving one hand dismissively and shaking his head, “except maybe in the shadowy far reaches of my mind. I traveled the world. I had a home in Key West, an apartment in New York, and another in Zurich. My friends—check that—my circle of acquaintances was other writers, but we rarely spent time together. I had too much research to do. Writing about espionage during the Cold War, while the Cold War was going on, had its own set of rules and pitfalls. A marriage or a close friendship—nothing would have lasted under those circumstances, at least not with me at the proverbial wheel.”

  Annie sighed. “I find that extremely sad.”

  “I was extraordinarily successful,” he reminded her. “I met my goals and achieved my dreams.” He fell silent for a moment, his eyes on the kitchen window, seeing something far beyond anything human vision. “I was happy.”

  “But something happened, didn’t it?” Alice said. “Something changed all that for you.”

  “Yes,” he said so quietly Annie almost couldn’t hear him. “The Cold War ended, and I was no longer relevant. That’s what kept showing up in reviews: ‘The work of Graham Cartwright is no longer relevant.’”

  “Oh, my,” Annie said, faintly. “But that’s been years … and you’ve written nothing since then?”

  He heaved out a huge breath. “I’ve written a few things, tried my hand at something new—”

  “Potty!” Noelle announced, wriggling until Annie was afraid she’d fall.

  “Excuse us, Mr. Cartwright—” Annie interjected.

  “Call me Graham, please.”

  “All right. Excuse us, Graham. I need to take care of Noel
le, but I’ll be right back. I want to pick up where we left off.”

  He met Annie’s eyes, and she saw so much sorrow in his gaze that she wanted to weep. Perhaps Alice saw it too, because she said, “I’ll take care of Noelle—give her a bath and the whole works.”

  “Thank you, Alice,” Annie said gratefully, smiling at her friend. She knew this time the old man was opening his heart—and that was rare and golden. She did not want it to slip away.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” she said. “Shall I make us a fresh pot of coffee?”

  He patted his thin stomach. “No thank you. I’ve had plenty of food and coffee this morning.”

  They settled on the comfortable overstuffed furniture in the living room, Graham in the jade green armchair and Annie on the floral sofa.

  Graham’s sharp eyes took in the room. He seemed to study every point from the fireplace to the to the hardwood floors to the polished rococo table near the large bay window. But his gaze returned again and again to the large framed cross-stitch ocean vista above the fireplace.

  “I have rarely seen a piece of fabric art that I like as well as I do that one.”

  “It’s a Betsy Original. My grandmother, Elizabeth Holden, made it a few years before she died. It’s the view from my bedroom window upstairs.”

  “Ah! Well, she was a true artist.”

  “She was. She is very well known for her hand-stitched art. Hence the ‘Betsy Original,’” Annie explained. “She actually founded the New England Stitch Club, and now there are over fifty chapters in the New England area. And she was a wonderful woman—and a wonderful grandmother.”

  “Impressive. Did you inherit her skill?”

  Annie laughed, a little sadly. “No, not really. But she did teach me to crochet, and I do that rather well. That gold-and-white variegated throw behind you, for instance. I made it last spring. And I made that chocolate-brown one on the wing chair beside the fireplace. The muffler you hated so much yesterday was also my handiwork.”

  “I see. Well, one thing about that muffler, my neck, chin, lips and nose didn’t get frostbitten, so you did a good job.”

  “We have a wonderful craft club here in Stony Point. The Hook—”

  “The Hook and Needle Club. Yes, I know all about it.”

  She blinked in surprise. “You do? How on earth do you know about—”

  Graham gave a dismissive wave of one hand. She realized this was a characteristic of his.

  “Let’s just say I know some things about Stony Point and leave it at that, shall we?”

  Annie’s natural curiosity stepped up about a dozen notches. “Did you used to live here?”

  “This is my first time in your little community.”

  “Then you have relatives here?”

  “No.”

  “Friends?”

  “I have very few friends. If you and the lovely Alice allow me to count you among them, then let me say I have four friends in Stony Point, Maine.” The look he gave her held a strong measure of warning and resistance. Annie knew she needed to tread lightly, or they might be back to where they started.

  “Then let me ask you this: Why did you choose Stony Pointers to be the recipients of your anonymous gifts?”

  “Why not the good people of Stony Point? Is there something in this hamlet that should repel gift-giving?”

  “Of course not. But, if you had never been here, have no family here … did your friends compel you to come and give?”

  “I had no friends here until I arrived,” Graham said. “And wipe that puzzled frown from your face, Annie Dawson. If you vow to keep my identity a secret—”

  “I’ve already done that,” she reminded him.

  “Then I will tell you why I chose to become Father Christmas in this neck of the woods.”

  20

  “It really is no big mystery why I decided to turn a new leaf at this time of year,” Graham Cartwright said. “I have hated Christmas for most of my adult life. It got in my way—the noise, the celebration, the overabundance of garish decor. I really felt Christmas was just one more annoyance and distraction in my life. I resented it.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Well you may ask, Annie! One does not make an abrupt change overnight … usually. However, a few weeks ago, I had a little scare. I think it may have been a heart attack, but I’m not sure.”

  “A heart attack! And here you’ve been living in that old shack, barely a modern convenience to help you, fighting the elements as if you’re a man of twenty! My goodness, what did your doctor say?”

  “Doctors!” he scoffed. “What do they know beyond keeping a diseased body alive longer than it should be? Perhaps I only had indigestion. The point is, Annie …” He paused to give her a sharp look as though daring her to interrupt him. “The point is the pain stopped me, literally, in my tracks. Pressure in my chest, shortness of breath, tingling up and down my arm. I decided if I were going to die, I’d do so with a measure of decorum, in my bed, not sprawled out on the floor.”

  “Oh, my,” Annie said.

  “I went to bed, in the middle of the day. I lay there and waited for death. Death did not come, but sleep did.” He leaned forward. “And so did a dream.”

  Annie felt her eyes grow wide. “Oh, my,” she whispered again. “Go on.”

  “I dreamed my entire life, in capsule form, as if I watched it from someplace far away. I saw the poverty of my childhood, the desperation of my father as he tried to hold the family together during the Great Depression. I witnessed my teenage years, working like a dog at any job I could find, on the outside looking in, but recording it all in my mind, writing a mental story of how I would never be destitute as long as I had breath in my body.”

  Annie’s soft heart ached, but she didn’t say a word.

  “Then I watched as I moved through young adulthood, saving enough money to leave home so I could shut myself from everything dear to my heart, devoting every waking moment to my craft. The world became my classroom. I learned how to turn a phrase or create a scene that would draw a reader between the pages of a novel.”

  “You accomplished that!” Annie said. “My grandfather sat immersed in your world as he read your books. I could stand beside him and speak, but sometimes he didn’t hear a word I said.”

  Graham nodded.

  “I’m both humbled and appalled. I am humbled that your grandfather stepped into my novels with such devotion. I’m appalled I created stories that did for him what creating them did for me: shutting out others.”

  “Oh, but he didn’t—”

  He held up one hand, and she fell silent.

  “By the time I was twenty-two years old, my first book was on the New York Times best-seller list. And every new book thereafter sold more and more. In my dream that night, I watched my arrogant self turn away in disdain from fellow authors wanting support or fellowship, and from young, green writers who needed a little help or a word of encouragement. I shunned my hardworking parents because I couldn’t waste time with them. They were old and needy; I had a public to please and a bank account to fill. Women? I rarely gave them a thought. Children? Even less.

  “I saw myself alone in my home, squirreled away in my office, tapping on a typewriter, writing about a life that may or may not reflect the real affairs of the world, and—outside of my opulent domicile—humanity breathed, moved, and lived.”

  He paused long enough to swallow hard, as though trying not to choke.

  “Then, Annie, the dream turned dark—as dark as murky water in a dead pond. A stench rose around me, a hideous odor like nothing I’d ever smelled before, something like death and rot, but far worse. From that far place of observation, I looked down into my bedroom and saw myself, or what was left of myself, decayed almost beyond recognition. At that moment, I knew that heart attack had been real. I was dead. But rather than die with grace and decorum as I thought I would do, I had died alone and unnoticed, never missed, while the world outside cont
inued on without me.”

  Annie bit her lower lip and said nothing.

  “I felt myself falling from that far-off observatory, plummeting toward my rotted body. I screamed, clutching at nothingness as I tried to find anything to keep me from entering that putridity of death. And just as I reached myself, I awakened. I lay there and stared up at the ceiling, trembling like the last leaf on an oak tree in the grip of a winter wind. Slowly I lifted one arm and saw it was whole and healthy. I touched this grizzled old face, felt the wrinkles and the warm skin, the bristle of my unshaven jaw. I took a deep breath, felt my chest rise and fall. When I looked around my bedroom, it was the same as always, but bright morning sun fell through the window like beams from Heaven itself.”

  Annie could not take her eyes off the man. She had taken that dream journey with him; she felt his desperation, and then his determination and arrogance, and— lastly—his terror.

  “What … what did you do then, when you got up?”

  He leaned back in his chair, relaxing for the first time since he began his tale.

  “It took me a while to have the strength to rise from that bed. Maybe a couple of hours. I was weak all over; whether from leftover fear brought on by that dream or from pure relief that my death had been an illusion, I’m not sure. But as I lay there, I realized something had shifted in my mind and in my heart. The fortune I had so single-mindedly pursued and amassed had brought me to a place that no longer meant anything to me. Because I had hoarded much of my wealth, spending only on myself, I knew it would take years for me to spend it all. In fact, I was sure I would be moldering in my grave, and my money would still lie in the world’s banks, helping no one. At that point, I chose to change. I would share what I had stubbornly clung to. And I hoped that—when I do die—I would not be a rotted, undiscovered corpse.”

  He met Annie’s eyes. “It has taken me a while to realize that helping people is a far better motivation for giving than the hope your body would be found soon after death.”