by Jenny Hale
“Is there some reason that you have more clothes than Saks Fifth Avenue but you’re choosing to wear the same outfit to bed?”
After a long pause, he looked down in defeat. “My back is hurting me, and I’m having trouble lifting this arm.” He rubbed his right shoulder. “I couldn’t get my sweater off.”
It occurred to her that a man of his wealth and stature probably wasn’t used to having to ask for help in this way, and perhaps that was why he’d been resistant to the idea. “That’s all it is? Well, let me help you get it off.”
He nodded. “When my eyesight first started to go, Elizabeth helped me. Now I just try to do it on my own, but it’s getting harder,” he worried aloud. “I miss her.”
“I was just thinking about her,” she said. “I liked the story you told me about the notes she’d leave on your pillow. Did you keep them?” They walked into the closet together as she guided him.
With a heavy sigh, he said, “I didn’t. I feel terribly guilty about that.”
“Don’t feel guilty. Not everyone keeps those kinds of things. How about tan trousers and a button-down shirt?” she asked, tugging on a shirt to view the color.
“Sure. And I don’t feel guilty just because I didn’t keep them. I feel guilty because I thought enough to keep letters from someone else, but not from her, and it haunts me now.”
“Someone else?” She turned around. He looked lost in his memories, so she walked with him back into the bedroom, the outfit hanging from her fingers. Once she had it all laid out on the bed, she had him hold out his left arm and she pulled his sleeve. When she’d gotten both arms out, she lifted it up over his head and lumped it on the bed.
William began to unbutton his shirt while she got the new one off the hanger. When he slipped it off, Noelle gasped before she could catch herself. He had an enormous scar running the length of his shoulder. His clouded eyes met hers, and she could tell he felt exposed.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice gentle, completely forgetting her other question.
He reached out and took the new shirt, slipping his left arm in. She helped him get his right arm through the sleeve and he buttoned it up. “I was hit by a car.”
“Oh my gosh! When?”
“I was nineteen.” He smiled an uncomfortable smile. “Coincidentally, it has a lot to do with the three letters I’d kept.” His expression turned downward with the heaviness of his thoughts. “They’re hidden away, but this will always remind me.” He placed his hand on his shoulder.
She stretched his sweater over his head, working on his right arm. “How did it happen?”
“How about I tell you over tea?”
“Certainly,” she said.
“Will you open the drawer of my nightstand? The letters are in there. I’d like you to read them to me. While we’re reading, I’ll tell you the story.”
When William was dressed and silver pots of fresh coffee and tea were delivered on a matching tray with a single rose in a vase and two cups and saucers, Noelle sat down to hear William’s story, with the letters in her lap.
William insisted on handing her coffee to her, the cup rattling in its saucer as he held it out. She added cream and sugar, stirring it with a delicate spoon.
He left his cup sitting and ran his hands along his thighs, pressing his lips together as if he were deciding where to begin his story. Then he looked up and said, “I used to pass this little café in town. It was a lovely spot with outdoor tables and a blue-and-green striped awning over the door. Every day I passed it and I never went in. I just wanted to see the girl who sat at the table outside with her croissant and coffee, reading her book. She had wavy dark hair that fell just above her shoulders, the sides pinned up in little clips. On cold days she sat inside but always right at the window, as if she were just waiting to get back out into the sunshine.”
Noelle was mesmerized by the way William’s face lit up when he spoke about this woman, and she couldn’t wait to hear what he said next.
“I wanted to talk to her so badly, but I didn’t know just how to do it, and I wanted to get it right because she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, so I started buying a cup of tea and bringing my own book every day. I sat on the other side of the café and read.”
“Did she notice you?” Noelle asked, already dying to know the answer.
His cheeks wrinkled with happiness as he thought of the answer. “If she did, she didn’t let on. One day, I finally mustered up the courage and sat down at the table next to her. I started talking to her—about the weather, our coffee, her book, anything I could think of to have her eyes on me. I was nervous, and I remember keeping my hands in my lap to hide it. After a few minutes I said, ‘I won’t keep you. I have to leave anyway.’” He smiled, almost laughing. “Her face fell into the most adorable frown and she said, ‘Oh. I thought you could stay. I’d like to keep talking… since I don’t have anything else to do.’ She said it in the sweetest teasing voice, the kind that made me think she did that a lot. Then she offered a little smile and my heart melted right there.”
Noelle couldn’t move a muscle, her mind abuzz, speculating how in the world this wonderful story could end with that nasty scar on his shoulder. She sipped her coffee, utterly enthralled. “Did you stay?”
“Of course I stayed!” He laughed again. “We talked about everything under the sun, but I have to admit that some of the time I was lost in my own thoughts, wondering how I’d gotten so lucky to have met her. I came back to meet her every single morning after that.”
“What happened then?”
“It was a whirlwind. We took trips to the beach for the day, we rode horses through the countryside, we drank wine together in a family friend’s vineyard. We shared secrets and opinions—and she was opinionated! But she was so careful with her words that I almost felt like I’d side with her in an argument even if my beliefs differed. I completely fell in love with her. But I had to leave her.” He cleared his throat the way he did, emotion rising.
“Why did you have to leave her?”
He drew in a breath, the lines in his face showing years of emotion. “My father heard about us and he told me I was forbidden to see her anymore. She wasn’t the pedigree he was looking for in a daughter-in-law.”
“Pedigree?”
“Family lines, you see.”
“You mean she didn’t have money.”
“Yes. I wasn’t allowed to go back to that café.”
Noelle needn’t try to draw any conclusions because she already knew how that applied to her own situation; it was now very clear. Any affection Alex had shown her would never amount to anything because when it came down to it, she wasn’t in his league. While it had loitered in the back of her mind, it was now emblazoned on her consciousness. She wondered if William was sharing this with her as a warning.
“Open the first letter,” he said, tearing her away from her thoughts. “Would you read it to me?”
She refocused on the paper in the delicate pink envelope, tugging on it until it slid out and gently straightening it. She turned it over in her hand. The handwriting was an old-fashioned, curly script.
“There’s no name on it,” she noted.
“Yes. We couldn’t risk putting names since my father wouldn’t allow us to see each other. I caught her once quickly to tell her that if she wanted to get in touch with me she could leave a letter behind a loose brick on the property wall, where I would return the correspondence.”
“What was her name?”
William looked at Noelle, climbing out of his memories. “I’ve never mentioned her name to anyone. While I don’t mind sharing her story, I feel very strongly about respecting her privacy. I don’t know if she’d told anyone about me. She’s from this area so I’d hate to give her secret away to someone by accident…”
Noelle didn’t know a soul in his age range that would have a story like this, but she respected his wishes. “Of course.” She nodded. Then she looked down at the l
etter as he urged her to read it.
“I feel that I can tell you anything, so I hope to share my deepest thoughts in these letters, so you will always know how you’ve touched me. I’m heartbroken. I’ve lost all hope without you. I go to the café and sit, staring at my book but unable to read the pages. The words just cloud within my tears. I yearn to have your company and I feel lost. I never felt alone before meeting you but now my heart aches with emptiness. I’m not telling you all this to make you feel awful. I just want you to know how much you mean to me.”
William sniffled and Noelle looked up. “Wow,” she said, folding the note and placing it back into the envelope. Noelle had never said anything like that to anyone, and she suddenly felt the weight of such a great love lost. What would this woman’s life have been had she married William? Would he have run away to New York all the time like he had while married to Elizabeth? Or would he have stayed?
“You can see why I saved it,” he said. “I’d never known another person who held me up as high as she did. From the moment I met her, she thought I walked on water, and when I was in her presence, she made me feel like I could.” He rubbed his chest just above his heart, where the scar from his shoulder ended.
“So how did you get that scar?” she asked, his gesture jogging her memory. She’d been so caught up in the love these two had that she’d almost forgotten about the scar she’d just seen. It was as if their love could fill a room without either of them even there—the vastness of it like nothing she’d ever seen before. She’d had glimpses of it by watching Gram and Pop-pop together, but this really affected her. It resonated with her. Perhaps it was because she knew that it didn’t have a happy ending. Like an explosion, it plumed, consuming everything around it, only to dissipate into nothing, leaving wreckage in its path.
“After her last letter, I’d secretly planned to meet her at the café. I had to see her. I was running late and I’d just arrived. She’d thought I’d stood her up. I saw her a few paces ahead of me, starting to leave, her back to me; she stepped into the road… The car was flying, literally flying, toward her. I called her name but she didn’t hear me.”
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“I ran—sprinted—toward her and reached her just in time, pushing her to the sidewalk, but the car hit me instead.”
She gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth, the coffee cup in her lap tipping. She got herself together and steadied it.
“That was the last time I saw her at that café. My father knew where I’d been by the location of the accident and he refused all visitors. She’d followed the ambulance that she’d called to the hospital, and she’d stayed with me until my father arrived. Once he’d cut off visitation, she was gone. And while I was recuperating, he forbade me to see her again and if I did, he’d withhold my inheritance and I’d have nothing. I was young and scared. I didn’t know how I’d manage the lifestyle I was used to without the money. It took me years to realize that money didn’t matter.” He sat up, moving as if his back were giving him trouble again. “You know, that café is gone now. It was bulldozed about twenty years ago to make room for an automotive shop. I saved one of the napkins that had the name printed on it. I keep a piece of it folded in my wallet. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe because it’s a symbol of life—how it moves, how you were saved that day, how you saved someone else.”
He smiled. “Maybe. I went on to love again, so my heart, too, was saved.”
“So what happened to the woman?”
“I saw her once more after that, but I’ll tell you about it another time if that’s okay. I’m getting tired.”
“It’s clear by looking at you that reliving those memories has exhausted you,” she said, wishing he’d share more, but understanding why he couldn’t.
“It’s not just the memories,” he said. “I carry the guilt of loving my wife and wanting to be everything to her, while having that kind of first love unfinished in the back of my mind. You know, I didn’t save those letters because I was emotionally unfaithful to Elizabeth. I saved them because that other woman made me feel alive, like I was a better person than I am, and every time I read them, I am reminded of who she thought I was. That is what exhausts me.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Come on, Noelle!” Phoebe pleaded. Phoebe and Jo had met Noelle to do a little Christmas shopping since they had less than a month until Christmas—all three of them taking the day off. Noelle had wanted to pick up some things for Lucas, and with her new paycheck on the way, she was thrilled to finally be able to buy him things that were actually on his list. She put them on her charge card without a second thought.
“We’ll never get this chance again,” Phoebe continued, as she ducked through a tunnel in the enormous Christmas tree set in the center of the mall for shoppers to pass through. Its lights sparkled against the gray sky. Phoebe popped out of the other side, meeting Jo and Noelle, who’d walked around the tree. “When will we run into Alexander Harrington or, much less, hear him sing karaoke?” she pressed her friend, boring into Noelle with her stare. “I think he isn’t really that hot, and you’re just trying to hide it.”
Jo laughed, peering into the window of a homeware shop, its display full of cotton snow, and red-and-silver packages surrounding a few choice pieces of furniture.
“I talked to Charlie,” Phoebe said, her eyes round as if this one statement would tell them both everything she was thinking. Charlie was the owner of the karaoke bar, aptly named “Charlie’s,” and a great friend of Phoebe’s. “He said if we could get Alexander Harrington to walk through his doors, drinks were on him for the first hour. That will save me at least fifty dollars.”
“Good grief! How many drinks do you buy in an hour?” Jo said, coming up between them and throwing one arm around Phoebe’s shoulder and the other around Noelle’s, her small shopping bags dangling from each wrist.
“I’m trying to get my money’s worth. It’s not often that we get free drinks.” She leaned in toward her friend. “Noelle, if you don’t say you’ll invite him, I’ll never forgive you.” Phoebe offered her best sad-puppy-dog face.
“Fine,” Noelle said, trying to hide her grin.
“Are you going to get Alex anything for Christmas?” Jo asked.
“I probably should. I’ve always gotten my bosses presents in the past.” But buying him a present would be difficult because they’d been so intimate with each other. Suddenly, she wanted to know what he liked to eat, how long he could read before he got tired, whether he matched his socks to his trousers or his shoes…
They stopped to watch a boys’ choir singing “Carol of the Bells,” their voices sailing into the cloud-filled sky, their hands wrapped around shiny brass bells that would ring in perfect time to their song. The whole time, Noelle thought about the Harrington family. It was just the two of them in such a big house with no other family and Elizabeth all by herself in that home. She just couldn’t stand by and let their Christmas go on like it was.
“Do you know who I should get a present for?” she asked. “Come with me. I need your help.”
Jim met Noelle at the gates of the property just as she’d asked him to do, driving the family’s black Mercedes. “Thank you for coming out here,” she said, standing in front of her little car, a spruce tree tied to the top of it. It had taken her, Phoebe, and Jo to get the tree up there and she’d driven at a snail’s pace all the way back to the mansion, praying they’d secured it well enough. Jim, who was outside his car as well, the engine still purring, eyed it with a puzzled look.
“It’s for William’s suite,” she explained. “He doesn’t have a tree.”
“Miss Parker, we would’ve been more than happy to place a tree in his suite for him should he have requested it.”
“Well, that’s just it: he hasn’t requested anything. He doesn’t know I’ve bought him one. I want to surprise him.” She reached into the back. “I’ve even got the biggest Christmas lights I could fi
nd so, hopefully, he’ll be able to see the outline of the light a little bit. And the spruce smell is incredible.” She tugged on a shopping bag, dragging it across her backseat. “I also got peppermint candles.”
Jim raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to sprinkle a little Christmas spirit over him. Now, I need you to distract him.”
“Noelle,” William said, as he and Jim came down the hallway together toward her. “I’m so glad you’re here. A dealer told me that there’s an antiques auction online that’s starting in twenty minutes, and I’ll need your help to bid on a few things. There’s a Queen Anne table I’m dying to get my hands on.”
“No problem,” she said, with a wink at Jim. “I wanted to show you something in your suite anyway.” She took William’s arm, her gesture dismissing Jim, and led William down the hallway.
“You’re excited,” he noticed, to her amusement.
“How can you tell?” She smiled at him, giddy with the idea of what he was about to encounter in his room.
“Your voice is unusually bubbly.”
“I’m always this excited to give you your heart medicine,” she teased. Then she laughed at his face, his lips set in a look of mock annoyance. “I have something to show you.”
She opened the door to his suite and he immediately stopped and pointed to the corner. “What in the world is that?” he asked, heading that way, his cane rapping along in front of him.
“It’s a Christmas tree.”
He reached the tree and extended his hand, touching the lights. “I can see them,” he said with a smile. “And if I can see the lights, they’re probably enormous and gaudy.”