Christmas Comes to Dickens

by Nancy Fraser

  The door of the shop opened before he could answer, and a group of women streamed in. All of them seemed to be talking at once.

  Fee introduced them en masse as the Klatchers. A few of them looked vaguely familiar to him, and he watched as they got coffee and pastries and headed for the stairway.

  “Have fun,” Fee called, and went toward the door, waiting for Jed to follow her out and locking it after him. “They’ll turn on the alarm when they go,” she explained. “Now, you said something about giving me a ride to my house? It’s only a few blocks from here, so I can walk, but I really don’t mind if you know where I live.”

  The Klatchers’ entry had saved him from answering the questions Fee had asked. Not that he minded telling her, but sometimes he had to build up to it.

  They were at Antonelli’s within the twenty minutes she’d promised, with breadsticks and craft beer on the table in front of them and music playing on the jukebox Jed thought looked like the same one that had been there when they were kids. When a song from their high school days began to play, he was sure of it.

  They played the “whatever happened to...” game for a while, at least until the pizza came and they changed out beer for soft drinks. Then, with a healthy slice of Antonelli’s best combination on her plate, Fee said quietly, “Tell me.”

  He remembered the last time one of them had said those two words, when he’d found her in the picnic pavilion at the lake shuddering and sobbing, with her arms clasped around her knees. He’d known somehow not to touch her, when normally he would have put an arm around her trembling shoulders. Instead he sat on the bench at the next table, facing her. He’d never been particularly glad that his father had forced the habit of carrying a clean handkerchief on his sons, but he was then. He laid the soft white square on her arm and waited until the storm within her calmed.

  Then he said, “Tell me.”

  She shook her head, and he waited, his heart beating so hard it was nearly painful. It had been so new to them, the discovery that the way they felt about each other was more than friendship. They’d laughed at the very idea of dating—they were best buds, for God’s sake—but by the time he walked her up to her front porch at three minutes before her midnight curfew on their first date, they’d known better. By the third date, everyone knew they were a couple. By the fifth, she was wearing his high school letter jacket instead of her own winter coat.

  It was when he came to meet her for the sixth date that he found her crying. That he said, “Tell me.”

  And then she told him what had happened, about a ride home in the rain that had gone horribly wrong, and things had never been the same again.

  Looking at her across the scarred table at Antonelli’s, Jed remembered how he’d felt about Fee. How unfinished their relationship had been. Life seemed to be all about unfinished things.

  He also knew she wouldn’t back away until he answered. He had more questions for her, too, but she’d asked first.

  “Heather died,” he said, the words making his throat feel raw even after all this time. “Two years ago, of breast cancer.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “We didn’t have kids together, although I have two stepsons—one a junior in high school and the other in college. They live with their dad, but they travel with me sometimes.” Whenever they were with him, he felt the weight of Heather’s passing more deeply, yet he missed them when he didn’t see them.

  “It’s been hard.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact, and he appreciated it.

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  He shook his head. “No one in my family was having a celebration for me to crash. The folks are going on a cruise and Mark and Lacey are spending Christmas with their in-laws and then taking their kids skiing. Dad suggested I come back and get the camp ready to sell since no one uses it anymore.”

  “None of them asked you to go with them?” Fee looked surprised.

  He grinned at her. “They did, but you remember seeing me ski, right? All the kids were better at it by the time they started kindergarten than I am to this day. I remember Mark’s oldest patting me on the back and saying, ‘You’ll get better with some ’sperience.’ He was four and I was twenty-three.”

  She laughed, the deep, full-throated sound he remembered. It was such a surprise coming from such a sparkly person, but there it was. He felt better, warmer. More hopeful and less sleepy.

  It was her turn to answer questions, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask them. He knew she’d be honest—they’d always told each other the truth. Or, if they couldn’t, they stayed silent. He had a feeling she’d stayed silent for a long time.

  Then, as if she’d heard his thoughts, she spoke. “She’s nineteen. She was born six months after you left.” Fee turned her glass in the wet ring it had made on the cardboard coaster. Around and around. She stared at the glass. So did he. “I was going to get an abortion, you know. That way, no one but you and I and Roger would ever know what had happened. He was out of my life after that night, not that he’d ever really been in it. I’d be able to go on as if I’d never even heard the term ‘date rape.’ It wasn’t even a date—you know that. Just a ride home because it was raining. But it wasn’t that easy, because the baby would be a part of me, too, not just him, and I couldn’t do it.” She let go of the glass and looked up, meeting his gaze over the flickering candle in the middle of the table. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  He thought of Heather, of the pain of the past two years. Of the joy of the ten years they’d had together. Not that they’d been easy, by any means, but they’d loved each other every day of them. They’d been worth everything. “I get that.” But, still... “You knew you were pregnant when I left.” There was no changing that.

  “I couldn’t tell you before you went,” she said, still holding his gaze. “You’d have stayed.”

  “You might be giving me more credit than I deserve.” There wasn’t a maybe to that—she was giving him more credit than he deserved. He thought most nineteen-year-olds were pretty selfish, but he’d excelled at it.

  She smiled, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

  HE DIDN’T KISS HER when they parted outside of Antonelli’s, but they shared another hug, and Fee would have been happy to have just stood there for a while with his arms around her. She didn’t know how his scent and his warmth and his heartbeat against her ear could be so familiar after all this time, but they were. Being with him, sharing the same air and laughing at memories in common had made her feel something so...special she didn’t even know what identifier to give it.

  Except that, other than Ailey, no one had ever made her as happy as Jed Healy. She was contented with her life and with being single, but human contact came rarely. Especially with someone male who roused more emotions and hormones than she’d realized she had.

  “Get some sleep,” she said. “Let me know if I can help with anything.”

  He nodded, his lips lifting in the half smile that had a whole page of its own in her life’s scrapbook. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” Please.

  “Be careful going home.”

  Antonelli’s open sign flickered off as they talked between their cars in the restaurant parking lot. Fee laughed, startled. “I can’t believe we sat there all that time.”

  “I can.” He cupped her cheek, the touch so light it was all she could do not to lean into it. “It was so good to see you, Fiadh.”

  “You, too, Healy.” She had more to say, but stopped herself. She smiled instead, and patted his arm, fancying she could feel his warmth through the thickness of his clothes.

  The fifteen-minute drive to the rental house in Dickens that she shared with Ailey would be forever a mystery to Fee. She knew she didn’t meet any other vehicles on the lake road, but it was a little worrisome that she’d made all the right turns without realizing she’d done it. For that time in her car, she was eighteen-year-old Fiadh again,
a new kind of hope making a place in her heart. Something else making her long-neglected girl parts zing.

  The lights were one in the kitchen, and she went inside. Ailey was at the table, books open in front of her. She looked up, her smile bright, when Fee entered. “Did you have a good time with your friend?”

  “I did.” Fee hung up her coat. “Did you?”

  “Yeah. I think we got all the problems of the world and boyfriends figured out for while I’m gone.”

  Something in Ailey’s eyes alerted Fee’s mom sensor. “You okay?” she asked.

  Her daughter nodded. “Maimeó called tonight.”

  “Is she all right?” Fee hadn’t talked to her mother for a few days, which wasn’t unusual. Kate Brady was the busiest person she knew. When she’d retired from the florist’s shop where she’d worked for years, she’d fulfilled her lifelong love of travel by becoming an escort car driver for a trucking company. Fee never knew where she would be.

  “Yeah. She wanted to talk to you, but I finally talked her into telling me what she was calling about.”

  Fee got down cups and cocoa mix for hot chocolate, waiting. Finally, she said, “And?”

  “She’s going to Ireland for the holidays.”

  That was no surprise. She often had since Fee’s father’s death many years before; all of her family was in Kinsale except for Fee and Ailey. She always invited them to go, too, but they never had. Fee could never take the time away from whatever her job was and she and Ailey were attached at the hip—Ailey wouldn’t go without her.

  Fee knew suddenly and without doubt what Ailey was reluctant to say now. The thought of a Christmas morning without her daughter almost brought her to her knees, but she was nineteen; she’d graduated from high school at sixteen and never looked back. It was time to loosen the invisible cord.

  “You want to go with her.” She saved Ailey the trouble of saying the words.

  “I do. And when she comes home, I can stay at Aunt Siobhan’s house until classes and my job start in January. I can change my ticket—I already checked.” Pink rushed over Ailey’s cheeks and excitement brightened her eyes. “You could go, too, Mom. You could close the shop over the holidays and—” She stopped. “No, you couldn’t, could you? We can’t afford it.”

  For just a minute, as she poured the chocolate into the Christmas mugs she’d bought at Trim-A-Tree the Christmas season before, Fee considered it. The assistant manager, Joanna, could reduce the store hours and the Klatchers would be willing to help.

  But she had projects lined up for the longarm quilter, all due before Christmas. Even though Jo could run the machine Ailey had named Eleanor after a master quilter Fee admired, no one understood its eccentricities the way Fee did, and she couldn’t yet afford to buy a machine that didn’t come with built-in foibles. Besides, the weeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year were the most valuable ones to any retailer—especially in a town like Dickens.

  “No, I can’t,” she said briskly, sitting across from Ailey and warming her hands around the cup. “But you can, and it will be wonderful. I went to Ireland with Maimeó when I was a few years younger than you, and it’s one of my favorite memories in the world.”

  “I know.” Ailey looked near tears. “Will you mind, Mom? I mean, what will you do on Christmas if I’m not here?”

  “I’ll sleep until the sun’s up, is what I’ll do.” Fee grinned at her. “I’ll go to church on Christmas Eve like we always do, then wear my old robe you hate and read books and watch old Christmas movies all day long on Christmas. I might even ask Jed Healy to have dinner with me if he’s around. We can talk about the old days.”

  She wouldn’t do that. Of course, she wouldn’t. But Ailey worried far too much about her mother’s mostly nonexistent social life. Pretending she had one wouldn’t hurt anyone, and Jed would go along with it. It would be fun being allied with him again.

  Ailey looked sly, the expression so unaccustomed on her face that Fee nearly burst out laughing. “So, tell me about Jed, Mom. He’s sure good looking. For an old guy, I mean.”

  “Old? He’s thirty-nine. Just a little more than a year older than me.”

  “Like I said, an old guy. And you’re stalling. Is he a major blast from the past?”

  The only one who ever counted. The thought startled her—it had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to delve that deeply into how she’d felt in those days.

  “We dated my senior year,” Fee said carefully, “but we were friends long before that. His sister and mine were best friends and we were always tagging along and bothering them.”

  “Are you going to date him now? It’s not a dirty word, you know—dating. I’ve been doing it for about five years now.”

  “I know.” Fee forced a laugh. “That’s why I have all these little silver things showing up in my hair. Let’s talk about you, speaking of dating. How does Peter feel about you leaving four weeks earlier than you’d planned?”

  Ailey and Peter had been together since the beginning of Ailey’s second year at Michigan State. Fee had been surprised when her daughter applied for the international studies program, knowing she’d be gone for at least a year and possibly longer, but Ailey had shrugged. “If it’s meant to last, it will.”

  Fee wondered sometimes where she’d gotten such a sensible daughter.

  “He doesn’t like it much, but he understands it. I’ll miss him,” Ailey admitted. “I’ll miss you, too, but I don’t want to let these chances pass by, Mom. You understand, don’t you?”

  “I do, and what’s more, I agree with you. I’m depending on you to keep Mam out of trouble, though.”

  Ailey laughed. “I’ll give it my best shot, but you know Kate Brady. She dances to her own tune.” She took off the glasses she wore at the end of the day and closed her books. “Now, about Mr. Healy...”

  “We’re friends, Ailey. We were friends before we were a couple and now we’re going to be friends again.”

  She meant those words. Really she did. An hour later, after she’d rinsed the mugs, locked the doors, and kissed the top of Ailey’s bright head, she lay in bed and thought about the evening with Jed.

  He looked so much older than the kid who’d kissed her goodbye all those years ago.

  Feeling like an idiot even as she did so, she got up and went into the bathroom, turning on the harsh light bar over the sink and looking anxiously into the mirror. If Jed looked older, what about her? She hadn’t been kidding about the silver sparkles in her hair. Little crows’ feet were working themselves into the soft, thin skin below her eyes, and her lips weren’t as defined as they used to be. On the days she took the time to wear lipstick, she had to start with a defining liner.

  She thought of Jed as she looked at herself, thought of those few months when they’d been a couple. It had been the only time in her life she’d ever been sure of anything. Not counting the day Ailey was born, that was.

  Back in bed, she realized that here she was again, hoping he’d call and hoping he wouldn’t. Glad he’d come back to Dickens and wishing he hadn’t. Aching for his touch and to feel those sensations they hadn’t allowed themselves to experience when they’d been together.

  Aching, period.

  She rolled over, opened one eye to look at the clock and groan, and fell asleep. If she dreamed of silky light brown hair and stormy blue eyes and a certain scent she’d missed for more than half her life...well, that’s just the way it was.

  “WE DON’T WANT TO SELL this.” Jed sat on the deck that overlooked Tamarack Lake and spoke to his sister and brother on a conference call. His feet were on the rail, his coffee staying hot in an insulated cup beside him. “It feels just like it did when we were growing up. Can’t we talk Mom and Dad into just keeping it?”

  “They want to stay in Sedona permanently, Jed,” said Mark, “and they don’t want to have to worry about the camp. Tab and I are too deep in college bills to buy them out and Lacey—”

  “Can speak for hersel
f,” came their sister’s laughing voice. “But Finn and I can’t afford to buy in now, either, and I know Mom and Dad would feel better if they had the money selling the camp would bring. They could afford a mortgage, probably, but they don’t want to.”

  Jed finished his report to his siblings about the cottage, promised he’d install the new sink faucet that was still in its box in the kitchen, compared notes on how the folks had been feeling the last time he saw them, and disconnected. He went inside, pouring more coffee and sitting at the kitchen table to drink it. It had been a long time since they’d all been in the same place at the same time. The last time had been at Heather’s funeral, and he’d been so numb he didn’t remember much.

  It grieved his mother that their lives were so separate, but he’d never thought that much about it. He saw everybody a couple of times a year, sent gifts from wherever his travels took him, and made sure he never put himself in the position of failing anyone else the way he’d failed the two women he’d loved.

  He changed the faucet, glad there were enough tools in the garage to do the job. While he was at it, he tightened screws in the cupboard door hinges and measured the spot where the refrigerator used to sit. Whoever spent time at the camp had been living out of coolers in the cottage ever since the old one with the compressor on top had died.

  While he was at it, he measured the stove. It wasn’t as old as the fridge had been, but only two burners worked on it, and he wouldn’t have the nerve to try the oven or the broiler. Most of the cooking had been done outside in the days they spent time at the camp, but it had almost always been summer.

  It felt a lot different being here with snow on the ground and Christmas songs filling the air everywhere he went. Not worse, exactly. Just different.

  He and Fee had exchanged phone numbers the night before. It was a workday for her, and he hated to bother her, so he texted instead of calling. Lunch?