Forever Christmas

by Robert Tate Miller

  “Then merry Christmas,” she said.

  And with that she was out the door and into the stormy Christmas Eve night.

  Andrew went to the window and looked down just in time to see Beth turn up snow-covered 89th Street. He hurried to the door and put his overcoat back on.

  There really was no choice. He had to go after her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As Beth stomped into the blustery Manhattan night, she felt the hot tears freeze on her cheeks. She had no idea where she was going; she just had to keep moving, as if distance would somehow ease the sharp pain of betrayal.

  She arrived at the corner of 88th and Third and hesitated. Which way now? She hadn’t a clue.

  She had always loved a white Christmas, and here she was standing like a lonely snow angel with no particular place to be. The grand city seemed lovely and serene, but Beth felt no peace. Her heart was in shambles, her stomach tied up in knots. A wave of nausea washed over her, and a foreboding shudder rolled down her. She wanted to run from it—whatever it was—but knew there was no escape.

  Then she heard a dog bark. An unusual sound in New York City. Why on earth would a dog be out on a night like this?

  Then it hit her. She knew that bark.

  “Lulu?”

  Beth spotted Mrs. Applebee’s furry little drifter standing in the middle of Third Avenue, a wary tail wagging in Beth’s direction. The pup had found a friend amidst the storm.

  “Hey, you crazy girl. What are you doing out here?” Beth cautiously stepped out into the street, careful not to spook the wayward doggy.

  A block away, Andrew rounded the corner and stopped to get his bearings. He looked down, and there in the freshly fallen snow, he found his answer: Beth-sized footprints heading up the sidewalk.

  He’d only tracked a few paces when he saw her, crouched in the middle of the deserted street, her back to him. He saw movement, a fluff of white fur, heard a yelp. It was that darn dog again.

  “Beth?”

  She didn’t hear him. She was too far away. Then, in a terrifying instant, he caught a glimpse of a taxi flying down Third Avenue, high beams glaring. Surely she’d see it. She had to see it.

  But she was still hunched over the dog, oblivious to the danger racing toward her. “Beth!”

  The cab was closing fast, terribly fast. Beth stood up, cradling the dog in her arms. She turned toward the blinding lights at the moment the cabbie spotted her. He laid down hard on the horn, a wasted gesture that was too little, far too late. For a moment, Beth stood frozen in the headlights as over three thousand pounds of compact metal bore down on her.

  Brakes screamed. Andrew screamed. The cab fishtailed wildly, then slammed into Beth at forty miles an hour.

  In the moment before impact, Beth tossed the helpless dog out of harm’s way. Lulu hit the snowy pavement with a whimper and scampered safely away just as the front bumper of the taxi slammed into Beth, sending her flying backward down the street. The thud was sickening and horrific, and Andrew knew immediately his wife was hit dead-on.

  “Beth!” Andrew ran to her, sobbing. “Beth . . . Beth!”

  He turned her over, cradled her head on his lap, as the horror-stricken cabbie jumped out of his taxi and ran toward the huddled figures in the street. When the driver saw Beth’s broken body, his knees buckled and he collapsed, his anguished face in his hands.

  Half a dozen people emerged from the storm, drawn like snow zombies to the scene of the tragedy. “Somebody call an ambulance,” Andrew shouted.

  A middle-aged man quickly moved to stop oncoming traffic while a young woman dialed 911 on her cell.

  Andrew took Beth’s wrist, tried to feel for a pulse, but he was trembling so badly he couldn’t hold her arm still. Her eyes were closed, her lips set in a soft half smile. Andrew pulled her into his arms and cried, “Please, God, no. Please don’t take my wife.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Half an hour later, Andrew sat on a cold leather couch in the waiting room of the hospital ER and watched a tiny artificial Christmas tree flicker. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” played low over the speakers. Beth’s favorite Christmas song.

  A pair of forbidding swinging doors separated the waiting room from the trauma center, where a medical team worked desperately to save his wife’s life. Andrew stared at the doors, closed his eyes, and tried to pray. He remembered what his grandmother used to say: “Just pray to know that God is in control, and then let it go.”

  He tried hard to concentrate, but his thoughts swirled wildly and he couldn’t focus.

  Andrew remembered reading somewhere that if you visualized something hard enough, you could bring it into existence, make the thing you desired come true. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a spiritual man, but at this darkest of moments, Andrew Farmer was visualizing for all he was worth. He needed Beth to be okay. He needed his wife back.

  “Mr. Farmer?” The ER doc stood over him, her wrinkled green scrubs spattered with blood. She appeared to be in her mid-forties, and her practiced poker face gave nothing away.

  Andrew stood up. Maybe his visualization had worked. The news would be good. It had to be good.

  “Mr. Farmer, I’m Dr. Atkinson. Can we speak privately, please?”

  Andrew looked around at the waiting room. They were all alone. “This is private enough,” he said.

  The doctor nodded and peeled off her surgical gloves. “Mr. Farmer, I’m afraid the news isn’t good. Your wife’s injuries are just too severe. We did everything we could. I’m so sorry.”

  Andrew stared at her as if waiting for the punch line. He searched her face for a sign of something more, something hopeful. But the anguished look in the doctor’s eyes told him all he needed to know.

  There would be no Christmas miracle. Beth hadn’t made it.

  Andrew cautiously approached the gurney where Beth’s frail body lay covered in a sheet. Her face was calm and serene and appeared strangely unmarked by the violent collision. He pulled up a chair, took her lifeless hand, and gave it a squeeze. Words of grief tumbled out in sobbing half syllables.

  “I’m sorry, Beth. I’m so sorry. How could you die like this? Please, God, give me one more chance. Don’t let her die thinking that I—”

  Andrew stared at Beth’s pale face. She was beautiful, even in death. A tear dripped from his chin onto her cheek. He gently wiped it off with his thumb. She was cold. So cold.

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, but at some point in the predawn hours of Christmas morning, a gentle hand on his shoulder told him it was time to go.

  Despite a hospital security guard’s offer to drive him home, Andrew opted to hoof the twelve blocks from the Lenox Hill Hospital to the apartment in Carnegie Hill. It was well after five in the morning when he staggered up to his street-side entry door. He fumbled in his pockets for the key, slipped it in the lock. But when he tried to turn it, just like he’d done a thousand and one times before, it wouldn’t cooperate.

  He pulled the key out, held it up in the security light for a closer look. There was the faded snatch of masking tape on it with Beth’s handwriting: “Bldg. Key.” He peered into the keyhole to see if maybe someone had broken something off in there. It seemed fine. He tried again. No go.

  Andrew sagged in frustration. Of all times. He again checked the key to see if maybe it had been bent or damaged. It looked okay. He peered through the glass looking for any sign of life in the building stairwell. Not a soul in sight. He even checked the address on the door just in case, in his mental stupor, he’d stumbled up to the wrong building.

  No, he was definitely in the right place.

  Andrew stepped over to the buzzer panel and, in a fit of frustration, started pushing apartment buttons one by one. Nobody picked up, even though he knew almost everybody in the building had to be home in bed.

  “Perfect,” he said. The worst night of his life had somehow found a way to get even worse.

  Then, reflected in the glass door, an orange glo
w captured his attention. He turned and looked for the source. Across the street, a lighted window sign read “Locksmith.”

  Andrew stared at it for a moment. There was no locksmith across the street from his apartment. There had been a coffee shop there when they’d moved to the neighborhood, but it had closed, and there’d been a “For Lease” sign in the window ever since.

  Was it possible a new business moved in without his even noticing? Besides, how could a locksmith afford a storefront in this neighborhood unless they sold fourteen-karat gold keys a dozen at a time? And beyond that, even if there were a locksmith shop across the street, why in heaven’s name would they be open at 5:00 a.m. on Christmas morning?

  Andrew looked up and down the empty street and shrugged. It wasn’t like he had a plethora of options, after all.

  “Hello?”

  Andrew pushed open the squeaky-hinged door and stepped inside. It was a tiny mom-and-pop shop that looked like it’d been torn out of a page from 1965. Shops like this don’t exist anymore, Andrew thought. Particularly not in Manhattan.

  The darkened room was scattered with table vises, files, and sanders, an old weathered workbench. A vintage Christmas calendar with a rosy-cheeked Santa drinking a Coca-Cola was tacked to the wall.

  “Hello?” Andrew said. “Anybody here?”

  “Close the door!” a man’s voice said. “I can’t afford to heat all of Gotham.”

  Andrew pushed the door closed behind him and turned to see that the voice had emerged from a back room and was now watching him from behind the counter. The man was wearing work coveralls and had a file in his hand that moved back and forth in rhythm as he filed down a key. He was black, of average build, and stood about six feet tall. At first glance, Andrew thought he was a very young man, maybe in his twenties, but upon closer examination he reconsidered and put him somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. His eyes were clear and penetrating.

  The man looked him over, as if browsing through Andrew’s mind, searching for something. For a moment, Andrew knew a split second of intense self-awareness, as if he had glimpsed a vision of himself that was wholly separate from his mortal existence.

  A shiver of fear shot through Andrew’s veins, and he tried to turn and leave. But his legs wouldn’t respond to his brain’s command.

  “So how can I help you?” the man said. “I’m very busy.”

  “I live in the apartment across the street,” Andrew said. “I’m locked out.”

  The man glared at him. “So what do you need me for?”

  Andrew glared back. “I need help.”

  The man nodded slowly as if Andrew had stumbled onto the answer of an obscure trivia question. “So you do.”

  “Well, can you help me or not?”

  The locksmith nodded again. “I believe I can. That is, if you want my help.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” Andrew said. “Now, if you could just follow me over to my apartment—”

  “Sorry to hear about your wife,” the locksmith said.

  Andrew tensed. “How do you know about my wife?”

  “Word spreads quickly. Lovely lady, Beth. Too bad you didn’t appreciate her.”

  Andrew tried to quell the churning in his stomach. “Who are you?”

  The man smiled. “Name’s Lionel.”

  “That doesn’t help me much,” Andrew said.

  “What were you thinking? Messin’ around with that woman in Chicago?”

  Andrew felt the blood rush to his face. “I wasn’t messing around . . .” He took a step closer to the counter. “What do you want from me?”

  “What do you want from me?” Lionel said.

  “I told you. I want to get into my apartment!”

  Lionel chuckled. “Not that. I’m talking about your prayer, Andrew. Remember?”

  “What prayer?” Andrew said.

  “Back at the hospital. You prayed for another chance with Beth. So here I am.” Andrew stared at him. “What’s the matter, Andrew? Don’t you believe in prayer?”

  “I . . . don’t know what to believe,” Andrew said.

  “If you don’t believe in your prayer, then why did you pray?”

  “Who knows?” Andrew said. “Maybe because I’m all out of options.”

  Lionel chuckled. “You and almost everybody else. Most people turn to a higher power only as a last resort. Pity you have so little faith.”

  “You know what I think?” Andrew said. “I think you’re crazy.” He turned to leave, but Lionel’s next words stopped him in his tracks.

  “The night your mother died you couldn’t sleep, so you climbed out of your bedroom window and sat on the roof. You stared up at the sky and said something. Do you remember what you said?”

  Andrew knew exactly what he’d said. He had relived that moment thousands of times. But he wanted to hear the locksmith say it.

  “God, if you’re really up there . . . ,” Lionel prodded.

  “. . . then show me a sign,” Andrew said.

  Lionel nodded. “At that moment you saw something in the sky. What was it, Andrew?”

  “A shooting star,” Andrew said. In his mind, he saw the star’s spectacular death arc across the black sky.

  “You had your sign,” Lionel said, “but you were so full of pain and bitterness you refused to believe it.”

  “You aren’t just a locksmith, are you?” Andrew said.

  “Very perceptive.” Lionel ran the rasp across the key again. “But in a way, that’s exactly what I am. I’m offering you a key. I’m prepared to give you a chance to make things right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A gift. A rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  “What gift?” Andrew said.

  Lionel finished filing the key. “You get three days. We get Beth.”

  “I don’t understand,” Andrew said.

  “Let me finish,” Lionel said. “Then you’ll be given the opportunity to either accept or reject the gift. If you reject it, then I go on my way, and this meeting never happened. You play golf, right?”

  Andrew nodded.

  “Then consider this a mulligan.”

  “A mulligan,” Andrew said.

  “A do-over. A chance to set things right. If you accept the gift, then when you wake up in the morning, it will again be Friday, December 22. You’ll have the past three days to live all over again. Beth will be alive, with no memory of what happened. You can spend those three days any way you wish, but you have an assignment. You have to prove to Beth that you truly love her.”

  “And what happens Sunday night?” Andrew said.

  “At 11:58 p.m. Christmas Eve, Beth must keep her date with that speeding taxi,” Lionel said. “She will die all over again just like before. Same place, same time. I’m sorry, Andrew, but that is her fate.”

  Andrew jutted out his chin. “Well, what if I won’t let that happen? What if I change the past?”

  Lionel smiled as if he fully expected this response. “If you try to change Beth’s destiny or interfere in any way, those days will be gone as if they never happened. If you want my advice, Andrew, take the offer. Give your wife a proper send-off. She deserves it. Besides, do you know how many people would kill for a chance like this?”

  Andrew stared at him, his thoughts twisting in all directions.

  “So, do we have a deal?” Lionel said.

  Andrew hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded.

  “Good,” Lionel said. “Now go home. And try not to screw this up.”

  Andrew stared mutely at this strange figure of a man wearing coveralls. He had a million and one questions, but hadn’t a clue where to begin.

  Lionel winked at him. “Oh, right, one more thing.” He tossed Andrew the key he’d been so meticulously filing. Andrew snatched it out of the air, studied it in the palm of his hand. It was a peculiar, ornate gold key that looked like it was made to open some pirate’s treasure chest. He was quite sure it wouldn’t fit his building door.
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  When he looked up, Andrew was no longer standing in the dingy locksmith shop. He was back outside his building, alone in the cold.

  He took the oversized gold key and slipped it in the door lock, fully expecting that it wouldn’t fit.

  One click. It turned easily, and the door swung open.

  Andrew looked over his shoulder at the shop across the street. The lights were off and the shades were drawn.

  A “Closed” sign hung in the door.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The traffic noise from the street below stirred Andrew from a restless sleep. He lay motionless for a few moments, listening. It was Christmas Day, a time when the traffic should be sparse, yet the city noises sounded as if it were any other workday. The sunlight seeping through the blinds told him that the storm had passed them by, making the weather folks wrong yet again.

  Then the events of the previous night crashed full force into his mind. The accident. Beth’s horrific death. His tearful good-bye at the hospital. The walk back. The strange locksmith with a most unusual proposition.

  Three days.

  He rushed to the window and cracked the blinds. No snow on the ground, not even a trace from the previous night’s blizzard.

  Andrew took a calming breath and looked back at the empty bed. Maybe everything that happened last night, from after he left the hospital to when he crawled into bed, was just an illusion, a hallucination. It was possible. Grief did strange things to people.

  But what about the snowstorm? Surely he wasn’t mistaken about that. Surely that was real.

  The truth welled up and choked him. Beth was gone, and nothing in the world could bring her back. He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe. He had to keep moving, had to find a way to go on.

  And he had things to do. An obituary, a memorial service. He had to phone Beth’s relatives in Florida. He desperately wanted to crawl back under the covers and hide from all of it.

  But if the situation were reversed, Beth wouldn’t be moping around, wallowing in self-pity. She’d have her cry, and then she’d pull herself together and give her late husband a send-off for the ages.