Waking Up For Christmas

by Jill James

  Chase stared as the man left the room and slid the glass door shut. He was the second person today to tell him to talk to Darcy. Someone was trying to tell him something. Maybe for once in his life, he should start listening.

  He grasped his wife's hands and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

  "Darcy, do you remember the day we first met?"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Bennett College

  20 years ago

  "I need to take a picture of this for Uncle Dimitri," Chase murmured to himself. He glanced around the quad at the golden kids born with silver spoons in their mouths. Maybe on the weekend when the space was empty. Unless he wanted to look like the hick he was.

  Sure, he'd seen the brochures, but if the dictionary had a photo next to the definition for ivy-league school, it would be Bennett College. It looked almost too good to be true. Everywhere he looked he saw well-dressed, well-fed bodies. No grunge fans in sight. No goth girls rebelling against the establishment. It looked as if an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog was doing a photo shoot. He'd bet his scholarship fund there wasn't a cavity in the whole lot of bright-eyed, shining teeth lot.

  He scanned the area searching for his friend, Jason. The message on his answering machine had said to meet in the quad at four. Glancing at his watch, he shifted the messenger bag with his new laptop higher on his shoulder. The thing was only slightly less heavy than his desktop computer. The girl at the electronics store said they weren't too delicate but he moved it closer to his side as a pair of skateboarders whooshed by on the sidewalk. If something happened to this one, there wouldn’t be a replacement anytime soon. Scholarship money only went so far.

  His mind whirled with all the things he'd need for the semester. The scholarship money needed to cover it all. If not for it, he'd still be at Lake Willowbee Community College. He laughed to himself. The only time being an orphan paid off, as it had been the main requirement for the money.

  He spotted Jason and his waving hand and headed across the grass to an enormous, ancient Oak tree. As he neared, he couldn't miss the gorgeous blonde wrapped around his friend. From clothes better suited to a Polo match than a college day and the jewels wrapped around her neck, she screamed money; a lot of money.

  Jason slugged him in the arm once he joined them. "Misty, this is my buddy, Chase Thanos. Dude, this is Misty Van Ellsberry."

  She shook his hand with a smile that brightened her deep-blue eyes. "Jason has told me so much about you. I feel as if I already know you. Is it true that you can carve anything?"

  His face heated. Helping Uncle Dimitri build furniture was one thing. It was useful and productive. His carving was something else altogether. His uncle never said it was frivolous but plenty of the old man's friends around town had.

  "Did you finish it?" Jason asked.

  He nodded, reaching into the front pocket of his messenger bag. He pulled out a box and handed it to his friend.

  "Thanks."

  "No problem," he mumbled as Jason handed the box to his girlfriend.

  Her eyes twinkled as she untied the ribbon and opened the box. He stared at her gleaming necklace and wondered if he would survive her laughter at the stupid gift.

  Her mouth gaped open and she stared at him.

  "It's okay if you don't like it," he stammered. "It's just a little something Jason wanted me to make."

  Misty frowned. "Don't ever do that. You have a gift." She pulled the necklace out of the box and cradled it in her palms, letting the box fall to the ground. There in her soft hands sat a month's worth of working after the day was done at Thanos Handmade Furniture.

  His face heated more as she'd ordered Jason to take off her other necklace and throw it into her purse. Jason did the clasp on the necklace he'd made and stepped back.

  "How does it look?"

  He couldn't find the words. This was the first time he'd made something for someone to wear. His other projects had been knickknacks and useful trinkets.

  The carved wood glowed against Misty's tanned skin. The polished grain contrasted with her light-blonde hair. The grapes shone with ten layers of lacquer and the grape leaves shimmered a deep, emerald green.

  Her fingers caressed the smooth wood. "My parents are going to love this. I can't believe it was a piece of driftwood."

  He nodded. "Just a piece of driftwood from Lake Willowbee."

  She shook her finger at him. "There you go again. Not just a piece of wood. You took a piece of wood and make a piece of art. If you ever decide you are an artist instead of a business major, just let me know. We'll have a big showing at Ellsberry Vineyards and we can all say, ah, I knew him when," she said with a laugh between her and Jason.

  He gulped past the knot in his throat. Ellsberry Vineyards was world-renowned. Their champagne was the best outside of France. Their family was on the front of magazines with the rest of the rich and famous, jetting off to Europe for a quick shopping spree.

  Maybe he could give back the scholarship money. What was a Lake Willowbee kid doing here?

  His thoughts were torn away with a shout of 'I've got it' and the thunder of running feet. Chase turned and found himself in the path of a wide receiver from a football game played nearby.

  All he had time to do was open his arms and catch the falling girl as she leapt for the ball. They crashed to the ground with a curse (her), a groan (him), and a crackle of breaking electronics (the new laptop).

  He opened his mouth to tell her off when he got the first good look at her. Her long, mahogany hair cascaded around them, carrying the scent of strawberries. Her deep-brown eyes sparkled as she smiled at him and his heart exploded in his chest. He would love the scent of strawberries until the day he died.

  Her smile died as she wiggled to get off him to the tune of grinding shattered glass and plastic.

  "Really, Darcy. Your mother is going to have a conniption fit if she hears about you playing football in the quad." Misty's voice broke the connection between them.

  The girl smiled. "Why do you think I do it?" She got up and put her hand out to him to pull him off the ground.

  His rough palm slid along the smoothest hand he'd ever felt. He wanted to hold it forever, until the crunching noise from his messenger bag brought him back to Earth. He didn't need to look inside to know the piece of equipment was toast. Chase swallowed deeply. It would take months to save up for a new laptop. It would be paper and pen until at least Christmas, if not longer.

  "I'll take care of it," the girl said, gazing at him. "It's my fault it's broken. Just let me know the model and I'll have one for you by tomorrow."

  "I don't take handouts," he gritted out.

  "It's not a handout. I broke it, I'll replace it," she spat back, anger making her brown eyes deepen and sparkle.

  Misty's voice broke in again. "Darcy, this is Chase Thanos. Chase, this is Darcy Bennett."

  His heated anger broke like a face full of ice-cold water.

  "Like Bennett College?"

  "Yes," Darcy said with a frown on her beautiful face. "My mother is president of the college and our family has been in charge going back five generations, blah, blah, blah."

  The blood left his head, leaving his dazed and dizzy. "Okay, that just makes it doubly wrong for me to take anything from you. I'm already here on scholarship, I'm not upsetting your family."

  Misty spoke as Darcy continued to stare at him as if she could wear him down into compliancy with a glare.

  "I have an answer for this problem."

  They both stared at her.

  "You're a business major and Darcy is a failing business major. You can tutor her and get paid with a new laptop. Then it won't be a handout and Darcy won't flunk out of her own family's college."

  Darcy's smile brightened her whole face and set his heart to a pace sure to give him a heart attack if it kept going. She put her hand out and he grasped it in his own.

  "Deal," they intoned together.

  * * *

  Do I remember? I remem
ber a feeling of shame. How could I fail at my own family's college? How could I fail at everything I tried to do? How could you see me shining so brightly when all I saw was just another mistake to cover up with money and connections? Why can't I see the Darcy you see?

  Why can't I see? Why is it so dark here? Why does no one know I'm here?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Stupid tests," he muttered, punching his phone off and throwing it on the guest room’s dresser with a clatter of plastic hitting coins.

  He bent over to pick them up, finding a silver dollar among the smaller change. His thumb rubbed over the smooth surface. Years of using the silver coin as a worry stone, first by his father and then by him, had obliterated the image on it. Nothing remained except for a few letters and the year—his birth year. The then-bright shining dollar had been a gift from Uncle Dimitri to his brother, Chase's father, on the birth of his first child.

  He gathered the rest of the fallen change and slammed it into his pocket with a curse. No little Thanos would ever get the handed-down memento. His family tree would end with him and his soon-to-be ex-wife.

  He fell onto the bed and hung his head down between his knees. "When did it all fall apart?" he whispered. If he could just pinpoint the moment that got them here, he could fix it. As he fixed broken chairs and tables. As he fixed family heirloom knickknacks with more sentimental value than monetary. As he fixed everything he held in his hands except for his damned marriage.

  Sighing, he pulled himself together. He couldn't help Darcy if he couldn't help himself. He glanced at his watch. Four hours before he could go back to the hospital. What to do with himself? As if in answer to his unspoken question, a knock came at the door.

  "Can I come in?" Mrs. Macgregor's voice sounded through the wood.

  "Of course," he replied, going to the door and pulling it open. "Did you need something?" he asked the older woman.

  She came into his room, her arms full of clean sheets, the scent of linen, fresh air, and sunshine following her. "Tis bed turnout day."

  He took the pile from her. "I have free time this morning. I can do the bed myself."

  "No visit with the wife this morning?" A frown marred her round, soft face.

  "They are running tests. They spotted some additional brain activity yesterday."

  She smiled. "Isn't that what you wanted? This is a good thing, no?"

  He shrugged. "I've been down this road before. Get my hopes up and it turns out to be a flaw in the wires or the machines are reading wrong."

  "If you could do me a favor, it would at least get your mind off the hospital for a while."

  "Anything," he replied, hoping it would divert his mind for a short time.

  Her smile broadened. "Nick could use some help to get a tree for the inn. If you go and help he can get a nice, brawny one for the sitting room."

  The last thing he wanted to do was get in the holiday spirit by getting a tree, but he would do it for this kind lady who had been there when he needed support the most. She’d been a calm voice in the turbulent sea of Darcy’s hospital stay.

  "Of course, I can do that. Is he ready to leave now?"

  "He tis. Nick is outside getting the ropes and stuff."

  Chase set the tower of sheets on the bed and grabbed his jacket. "We'd better get to it, then."

  * * *

  The heavy metal sounds blaring from the van's speakers set his fillings to humming. He'd asked if Nick could turn on something else. Ten seconds of holiday music had him begging for a return to the screech of what he could only assume was music to the young man's ears.

  A short drive out of town had them to rolling hills and acres upon acres of Christmas trees. He spotted the familiar shape of Douglas fir and the fullness of pines. They pulled into the gravel lot with the blessed silence of the radio and the crunch of rock under the tires.

  Opening the door, he inhaled deeply the scents of pine trees and fresh air. He exhaled deeply. No plume of air showed it wasn't cold enough yet in the central valley of California for frigid temperatures. His heart filled with a longing he hadn't known he had for the mountains and the lake and his small hometown. The vista here stretched for miles of unbroken rolling hills and spots of trees here and there. Only the vast green tree farm came close to feeling like home in the Sierras.

  Nick got out of the van and shut his door with a slight slam. Chase followed suit and let the young man set the direction of their Christmas tree getting. He walked beside him as they passed the trees already cut and mounted on nailed boards. They passed the flocking tent and Nick shuddered at the thought of desecrating the noble trees.

  "Grandma would boil me in oil if I came back with one of those 'not how nature intended' trees, as she calls them. I think she believes they are one step down from the silver aluminum ones she told me about when she was a little girl."

  Chase laughed. "My mom and dad had a picture of one of those, with the color wheel turning underneath."

  Nick laughed. "Do they get a real tree now?"

  His laughter died. "They died a long time ago. When I was a little kid. I grew up with an uncle. He’s all I have now.”

  Nick put his hand on Chase's shoulder. "You have Darcy."

  He nodded his head but in his heart he wondered. Did he have Darcy?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Chase grinned as his fingertips caught and clung to the covers like a suction cup. He'd cleaned his hands several times, but the sap from the tree stubbornly adhered to a couple of his fingers. The time away from the hospital had been fun and refreshing with Nick and the large pine tree now gracing the inn's sitting room. Mrs. Macgregor gushed with excitement over the large and full tree now taking up a large portion of the room. When he'd left, Nick was touching up the white paint on the front door and the molding going into the sitting room. The young man had gotten a laughing fit as they tangled among the large branches and hit every flat surface from the front porch to the room. He'd scrambled down the front steps with Mrs. Macgregor's scolding tone ringing in his ears.

  The sliding glass door slid open and Darcy's doctor walked in. The smile on the man's face set his heart to racing. Steeling himself for disappointment, he couldn't help the tingling of hope taking his breath away.

  "The tests went very well today. We are seeing increased brain activity. Not quite enough to pinpoint when she could wake up, but very good signs all around."

  He let his held breath out. "Why doesn't she just wake up?"

  The doctor shook his head. "Medical science doesn't know everything, Mr. Thanos. We've come a long way since Darcy was brought in here after her accident. I believe she is making excellent progress. Now we just wait for her to want to wake up."

  Swallowing the lump in his throat, Chase spoke his thoughts aloud to the doctor. "How long can she stay like this? What if she never wakes up?"

  "Mr. Thanos, we are nowhere near that concern. With the increased brain function, I have high hopes for more progress in the next few days."

  "Thank you, Doctor Jameson."

  He nodded and left, the sliding door opening and closing behind him.

  Chase sat alone with his thoughts. The hunt for the perfect Christmas tree this morning led him down the path of his Christmases with Darcy. Each one a photograph in his memories. From the first one as her college tutor to last year when he'd been at their home alone and Darcy had been with her parents in Europe.

  Each holiday an ornament on their tree. A simple frame he'd carved with their photo inside. The one Darcy made that he never could figure out what she had been trying to make. An expensive bauble her parents bought them in Paris for their fifth anniversary trip. A trip that included the in-laws.

  The missing ornaments. The baby's first Christmas bought with high hopes and put away with tears when the hopes died. His mother's antique glass ornaments broken when the tree fell. Bennett family ornaments Darcy threw away in a fit of anger at her parents' attitude at Chase.

  Was every Christmas tree a chr
onicle of a family's highs and lows?

  His thoughts ripped to the present at a moan from Darcy. He sat up, his pulse pounding in his chest, his breath coming in heavy pants. He fumbled with the call button and punched it several times before a voice replied.

  "Darcy is making sounds," he yelled into the speaker in the bed.

  Within seconds, a nurse appeared. She took his wife's pulse while she laid there silent. Just when he thought the nurse would leave, another moan issued from her. "I'll get the doctor," she replied, a sparkle in her eyes and a lift in her steps as she left the room.

  Doctor Jameson returned, a smile on his lips. "Let's see what we have here."

  He moved to the foot of the bed. "We'll check if this is voluntary or involuntary."

  The doctor pulled a metal tool from his pocket. He moved the covers from her feet. Running the tool along her foot, Chase couldn't tell if the movement and moans were a good thing or bad thing from the doctor's facial expressions.

  Placing the tool back in his pocket, he pulled the covers back down and patted Darcy's feet. "This is a very good sign," he commented as he moved to the head of the bed and shone a light into her eyes.

  "We'll run a CAT scan in the morning, but I have high hopes Darcy is not as deeply in her coma as before."

  Chase stood, tears blurring his vision, and shook the doctor's hand. "Thank you," he whispered.

  "I'll check back later."

  He barely listened as the man left, the slider opening and closing. His gaze locked on Darcy. A faint blush painted her pale cheeks. In his mind, she appeared to be sleeping instead of the coma that had continued for weeks now.

  If it had been summer she would have had her golden tan that always seemed to linger long into fall and the beginning of winter. The girl playing football who had dropped into his lap hadn't changed much over the years. She still tried every sport and lived outdoors, far more comfortably than inside, stuck in a house.