The Color of the Season

by Julianne MacLean

  I cleared my throat and opened the door wider. “It’s no problem. We were up. Would you like to come in?”

  Looking distinctly ill at ease, he nodded, stepped inside and followed us up the stairs.

  “Can I get you anything, Dr. James?” I asked. “Coffee? A soda? Scotch?”

  He didn’t look at me. “A Scotch please, Josh. Thank you.”

  So far, it was the most civil conversation I’d ever had with the man. I wondered if I’d been dropped into the Twilight Zone. I’d certainly landed in stranger places.

  “As long as you don’t mind the cheap stuff.” I went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle from the cupboard over the stove, while Holly took her father’s coat and scarf and invited him into the living room to sit on the sofa.

  I poured Scotch on the rocks for all three of us and carried them in.

  “Thanks,” Dr. James said.

  “You must have worked late tonight?” Holly asked, glancing curiously at the Christmas box he’d set on the coffee table.

  “Yes.” He took a deep swig of the Scotch. “I came home and saw the cookies and poinsettia in the kitchen, and what you did in the parlor. That was very…kind of you.”

  I suspected it took a lot for him to cough up that word.

  Holly tucked her legs up under her. “I hope you didn’t mind. I still had a key so I let myself in. Then we thought the house seemed too quiet. It needed a little Christmas spirit.”

  “It did,” he replied, never quite meeting her gaze.

  I found myself letting out a slow breath as I leaned back in the leather chair.

  “It has definitely been very quiet at the house,” he explained, taking another gulp of Scotch and finally setting the glass down on the table. “I still can’t believe your mother’s gone. Sometimes I come home from the hospital and I imagine that she’s come back. I can smell her perfume or I think I smell cookies, but she’s never there. It’s um…” He paused. “It’s been unsettling to say the least. Especially now, at Christmas. She always made everything so special.”

  I said nothing while Holly touched her father’s knee. “I’m sorry it turned out this way, Dad. It’s not what I wanted.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and looked down at the floor. “Either way, you can’t deny I had this coming.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Of course Holly knew exactly what her father was referring to, but I understood that she wanted to hear it from him.

  Dr. James twisted his wedding ring around on his finger. “You know I wasn’t the easiest father in the world. I demanded a lot. Riley had it the worst.”

  “It was hard sometimes,” she gently said.

  He shut his eyes, cupped his forehead in a hand and shook his head. “I know. I’ve been talking to someone,” he admitted. “Your mother was after me to do that for years and… Well, after she left…”

  “Do you mean a therapist?” Holly asked.

  He nodded. “I’m starting to realize that I’ve needed structure and rules in the house because I want to avoid the sort of conditions I grew up in. It was basically pure chaos.”

  Holly and I remained quiet and her father continued.

  “There were days when my father used to come home drunk, take one look around at the mess and the noise with a wife and nine kids all living in a rundown shack, and he’d fly into a rage. My poor mother couldn’t keep up with all the housework and we did our best to help out, but it was never enough.”

  He picked up his drink and held it in his hands.

  “You didn’t want to be like him,” Holly said. “That’s why you set all those rules—so that you would never come home to chaos.”

  Dr. James’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “But I was like him…at least with Riley. What was I thinking? To believe you can avoid chaos where children are concerned, and Lord knows, Riley was a handful. He was always strong willed, even as a toddler. He constantly tried to push me and test me. For a long time I thought he was put here on this earth just to bring me down. The harder I’d fight against it, try to keep things in order, the more like my father I became.” He gritted his teeth and took another swig of Scotch.

  “Is that why you wanted Riley to stay away?” Holly asked. “Did you think you’d become like that again if he came home?”

  Dr. James nodded. “But obviously, my preferred solution to the problem didn’t work out too well, because everybody’s gone.” The ice cubes clinked in his glass as he jiggled it and took the last sip. “All I wanted to do was make it through Christmas without torturing myself over all the stupid things I’ve said and done over the years. I’ve been trying to ignore the festivities mostly. I thought I could make it to January and just get on with life, but then I came home tonight and saw the tree all lit up in the parlor. It was one of those moments that shakes you. I felt like the Grinch when he heard the Whos singing down in Whoville. Remember that?”

  Holly nodded and gave me a look, as if she was surprised that he remembered.

  “Then I couldn’t help myself,” he continued. “I went upstairs to your room—just to look at all your books, medals and trophies and stuffed animals in all those baskets. Not much has changed in there since you were in high school.” He pointed at the box on the table. “Then I saw that sitting on your bedspread, and it was like a giant light bulb flashed in my head.”

  Holly stared at the box. “I don’t understand.” She leaned forward, flung the lid aside, and pulled out the tissue paper. “Oh…”

  “It’s Oliver,” Dr. James explained.

  She held up a stuffed green bunny.

  Shock erupted in my chest. I, too, sat forward in my chair.

  Suddenly I was traveling again, into that dark tunnel toward the incredible light on the other side, to the place where I had recently relived the memory of the day in the hospital when I sat holding Holly in the rocking chair.

  Leah reached for the gift on the floor at my feet…the gift for the baby.

  “It’s a bunny,” she said, lifting the toy out of the bag. “Look, Mom.” She carried it to her mother so she could feel how soft it was, then returned to my side. “She’s going to love it.”

  The bunny in front of me this evening had changed a great deal. No longer fluffy and new, his color was faded. He was missing some stuffing and his head flopped to one side. Clearly this toy had been well loved.

  “You still have him,” I said with disbelief.

  “I’ve had him forever,” Holly replied. Then she cocked her head to the side. “But what do you mean?”

  I couldn’t speak for some reason.

  Thankfully, Dr. James helped me out. “Josh gave you Oliver. He brought him to the hospital on the day you were born.”

  Holly’s voice rose in surprise. “You gave me Oliver?”

  All I could do was nod my head.

  “No one ever told me that,” Holly said. “Or maybe they did but I was too young to remember and I wouldn’t have known who you were anyway.” Holly turned to her father. “Why did you bring this?”

  “Because I wanted you to know that I understand you’re not a child anymore and I need to let you live your own life and be with whoever you want to be with. Maybe it’s Josh. All I know is…as soon as I picked up that fluffy old bunny and remembered how you used to squeeze him when you were scared, I had to come over here. I had to see you.”

  Holly wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders. “I’m glad you did. Thank you, Dad. This means a lot to me.” She drew back and held his hand. “I think we should call Mom.”

  Dr. James said nothing. He merely sat and watched with some unease while Holly found her phone in her purse and dialed the number.

  “Hi Mom,” she said. “I hope I’m not calling too late. Yes, we’re fine. I can’t believe it either. Only a few more days.” She turned to look at both of us and smiled radiantly while she listened to Margie talk about her visit with Riley and the kids.

  “That’s sounds wonderful,” Holly said. “Bu
t I’m calling because Dad is here.” She paced around the living room. “Yes, I know it’s late. He says hello. He brought us a gift. Uh huh. It was Oliver.” She paused. “That’s right, Josh gave him to me. I can’t believe you never mentioned it. You did? I don’t remember. Was I only two? Well, that explains it. I know, it was a long time ago. But Dad brought him over and we’re just sitting here, talking about Christmas. Yes, that’s right. I know. Me, too.”

  Holly turned to her father and handed him the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Dr. James’s cheeks flushed red. He rose from the sofa, took the phone from her and walked to the kitchen.

  Holly sat down across my lap. I cradled her in my arms and kissed the top of her head.

  We listened discreetly for a few minutes, then exchanged a look when we heard her father say in a shaky voice, “I’m sorry Margie… Please tell Riley I’m sorry…” Dr. James sat down at my kitchen table and began to weep.

  Quietly, Holly and I rose from the chair in the living room and went into the bedroom to give Dr. James some privacy.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Margie, Riley, Lois and the children couldn’t get flights out before Christmas, but by some miracle, they were able to fly to Boston and arrive late Christmas Day. It required two vehicles to pick everyone up at the airport, so Holly came with me in my car and Dr. James followed in his.

  The whole way there, snow was falling in giant fat flakes that floated in the air like something out of a dream.

  “I hope you realize,” Holly said, reaching for my hand as we approached the airport, “that none of this would be happening if you hadn’t knocked on my door that day.”

  “Or if I hadn’t been shot,” I added with a sidelong glance that alluded to a host of other strange and inexplicable things—like the fact that I had seen and spoken to Leah, who died the same night I was shot and who had perhaps decided to stick around long enough to turn me into her final psychiatric case.

  Had I needed her help?

  Most definitely, yes.

  Or maybe she just wanted me to be her messenger.

  o0o

  I won’t lie and pretend it was an easy, joyful greeting at the baggage carousel. The children were oblivious to any family tension, of course, and Mrs. James was quick to rush into her husband’s arms. Riley and Lois, however, were reserved, as was Dr. James when they shook hands. I suspected the tension and hurt would linger for quite some time to come. Maybe it would never be resolved completely, but at least Riley had agreed to bring his children home for Christmas, so it was a positive first step.

  After we collected everyone’s bags, we returned to the house where Riley spent many of his most difficult teen years—the house he had not seen in over a decade. He was quiet as we entered and he took his time looking around at all the familiar pieces of furniture, photographs and knick-knacks.

  Before we’d departed for the airport, Holly had prepared a traditional turkey dinner which she reheated on the stove when we arrived. The children were rambunctious and misbehaved terribly, but Dr. James somehow managed to bite his tongue and allow sippy-cups in the parlor when it came time to open the gifts.

  o0o

  “Come outside with me?” I said to Holly after Riley and Lois herded the children off to bed. “It’s a beautiful night.”

  She smiled and took my hand.

  A few minutes later, we were standing in our coats and boots on the covered veranda by the outdoor tree we had set up that morning.

  “It all went well, don’t you think?” Holly said, reaching out to touch a golden angel ornament that hung from one of the lower branches.

  “It was perfect.” I watched her stroll around the tree and felt completely beguiled by her every move.

  “The kids had a good time,” she added. “Danny liked the toy gas station we picked out for him with all the dinky cars.”

  “I loved that stuff when I was his age.”

  She paused to re-arrange a section of lights. I waited until she draped it properly, then I moved a little closer. “There’s still one more present, though.”

  “Really?” She seemed distracted by a twisty length of garland she wanted to straighten. “Who’s it for?”

  “You.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at me. I tossed my head slightly to indicate a small blue velvet box tied by a silver ribbon to the tallest bough.

  She let out a small laugh and I suspected she was about to humor me. “Who’s it from?” she asked, refraining from taking it down. She probably couldn’t reach it anyway.

  “Why don’t you open it and find out?” I reached up to free it from the bough, then got down on one knee.

  Holly covered her mouth with a hand and smiled.

  “Holly James,” I said. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you, twenty-five years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday, and now here we are.” I paused to swallow and take a breath. “I think maybe you’re the reason I came back from wherever it was I went on the night I was shot, and thank God for that. Or maybe it was Leah who sent me back. Gave me a shove… Maybe she knew you were meant to be my wife.”

  I opened the box and showed Holly the ring I had chosen just for her—a classic diamond trinity. She gasped and dropped to her knees in front of me.

  “Will you marry me?” I asked.

  She nodded in a hurry, laughing as I slid the ring onto her finger. “It’s so beautiful!” she cried, holding it up to the light shining down on us from the top of the tree.

  We both stood up and she wrapped her arms around me. I held her close, closed my eyes and touched my lips to hers.

  A moment later, we looked up to admire the decorations on the tree, and listened to the distant sound of carolers somewhere down the street.

  “There’s something I’ve been wondering about,” Holly said tentatively.

  “What is it?”

  “When Dad went to your apartment with Oliver in the Christmas box, he said he came home to find the tree all lit up. But didn’t we turn off all the lights when we left? I was sure we did.”

  For a long while, I thought about what she was asking, then I looked up at the angel on top of the tree. “A year ago I would have come up with some sort of rational explanation for that, but after everything that’s happened, I’m beginning to accept that maybe some things just happen, and they aren’t meant to be explained.”

  The grandfather clock began to chime from inside the house, but I barely heard a thing as I pulled Holly close and bent my head to kiss her.

  Epilogue

  Three years have passed since the day I proposed to my wife. That was the year her family broke apart, but found its way back together again, even stronger than before.

  Except for Leah, of course. I’m fairly certain she’s moved on to another place now, as I’ve had no more dreams of her, nor any clear encounters with the afterlife. Although maybe it’s arrogant of me to think she’s gone just because I can’t see her.

  Holly tells me she feels her sometimes when she walks into a quiet room at her parents’ home on Russell Street, but I wonder if it’s just the memory of Leah. Or the love that still exists. Unfortunately, there’s nothing concrete about love or the soul. No way to prove either actually exists. You can’t touch love or reduce it down to a mathematical equation.

  But how odd it is for me to think in those terms when I was once a thick-skinned, uninspired man’s man. Holly often calls me “sensitive,” which I politely ask her not to say in front of my buddies at the department, especially now that I’ve been promoted to lieutenant. It’s not how they see me or know me, and it’s certainly not how I was before the shooting.

  It’s not that I’m not genuine at work, but they don’t know the real me. The heart of that man is reserved for Holly alone, and the members of our family.

  Maybe it was fate that arranged for Holly and me to meet when we did, otherwise, if she’d known me before, she might never have given me the ti
me of day—which only confirms my belief that everything happens when it’s meant to happen.

  Dr. and Mrs. James recently celebrated their fortieth anniversary and we all gathered together at their summer house on Cape Cod. Even Riley, Lois and the kids flew in for the party.

  Holly graduated from medical school last spring and is now doing exactly what she always dreamed of doing. She’s working forensics with the FBI. She still does karate three times a week and I’m her new sparring partner. I’ll be testing for my brown belt next year.

  As for Robert and his son, Riley… They’ve come a long way. Robert’s counseling has helped a lot, and Riley is no stranger to human weakness, given all that he’s seen and heard in the support groups he leads in Billings. He’s the most forgiving man I’ve ever met. Lois is that way, too, but life hasn’t been easy on either of them the past few years. They’ve had their ups and downs.

  But haven’t we all?

  The important thing is to keep getting up each day knowing that everything can turn on a dime. For better or for worse. Sometimes bad things happen, and people will always make mistakes, but isn’t that how we learn and grow stronger? That’s why we need to treasure each moment of every day, learn how to accept and forgive, and never fear what might be over the horizon, even if it looks dark and cloudy. Because it just might turn out to be the best day of your life.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read THE COLOR OF THE SEASON. I loved writing this book and I am raring to go on the next one, THE COLOR OF JOY, which will explore the love story and lives of Riley and Lois not long after this book leaves off. I don’t want to give too much away, but they go through some incredible life-changing events with their children. The book will again touch on the themes of real life magic and how anything is possible and miraculous in our amazing, beautiful world.

  If you want to stay informed about my progress and what’s coming next, please subscribe to my email newsletter at www.juliannemaclean.com. My subscribers are always first to know about upcoming books, new cover art reveals, and special events and giveaways.