Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes

by DeMaio, Joanne

  “And the caboose,” she adds, pointing to the other car. “It doesn’t light up. It’s supposed to, isn’t it?”

  He studies the red and gold caboose with green garland painted along its edges. “Seems it,” he says, looking up at Vera then and waiting.

  She smiles quickly. “Well. I know you’re busy and all. But I thought if you could stop by to try them on the track, maybe you could get them running for me?”

  “You’re sure they don’t work? You tried the controls properly, plugged things in?”

  She nods. “I can wait, while you polish the boat.”

  “You want to do this now?” He looks from the train cars to his boat. “All right. I can finish up here later.”

  “No! No, wait.” She reaches into another brown bag and pulls out a long string of white twinkly lights. They hang tangled and bunched up from her hand. But she smiles hopefully while shaking them out and says, “You finish waxing and I’ll help, too. With your boat.”

  He looks at her lights. “Vera, I’ve got Christmas lights for it already.”

  “But I’ll bet not this kind. Look.” She walks to his boat and clips two ends of a three-strand swag of lights along the side rail, then turns to him with a raised eyebrow.

  “Those are pretty fancy.” He laughs. “Really, I only use a single strand of lights, Vera. Just to outline the shape.”

  “Yup, that’s what I figured. Typical man thinking.” She looks from him, to her swag of lights, then back at him. “So I brought enough to line both sides of your vessel. Because really,” she says, her eyes tearing up as she drops her voice to a whisper, “these look like jewelry, like a sparkling necklace. And what little girl doesn’t love jewelry?” She stands there holding another set of the lights, waiting for his answer. Which he doesn’t give, she notices.

  Not until he glances at his watch first, then rubs his knuckles along his jaw. “Okay,” he relents.

  “Perfect. So anyway, I’m just going to start hanging these on the sections you already waxed.” And she does, lifting the next strand to the boat side. “Because Abby would love them.”

  When she hears him moving, she takes a peek and sees that he’s put his work gloves back on and is picking up the buffer, glancing at her as he does, too, oh she doesn’t miss that.

  “I’m sorry about the other night, Vera. When I left you at the tree lighting thing.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “No, it really isn’t. And I want you to know that even though it doesn’t always seem it, I have made peace with Abby’s death, I really have. It’s just that this time of year is different. You know, it triggers stuff.”

  “Well of course it would.” Vera strings along her swag of twinkling lights, fussing with them to straighten each strand precisely. “So many special times must come back to you, when you think Oh, I remember when, or Hey, Abby used to hang the tinsel this way, or That’s a Christmas carol she loved.” She shrugs while looking at her lights. “Things like that.”

  “You know,” he says, buffing a small circle on the boat, then stopping. “I don’t talk about Abby much because most people are uncomfortable with it.” He looks at the boat and lifts the buffer again, circling it over a small section. “They don’t really know what to say. But with you, it’s different.”

  She smiles and nods as she clips on another swag. “So this boat must be the lead boat at the festival, right?”

  “I thought I was done finalizing the procession, but I got a few more calls from interested boaters, so I’ve got to work them in. But my boat always leads the way. Always.”

  “I thought so. So the thing is, Derek, it has to be grand. You want it to really stand out as the most significant boat on the cove.”

  He polishes a section of the boat side, talking over the sound of the buffer. “I actually map out the procession ahead of time. Whoever’s participating registers first and I set it up like a boat parade. Each vessel is lined up based on size, how its decorations fit with the theme, and even how it’ll look visually on the cove once all the lights are turned on.”

  “Sounds like quite an operation.”

  He steps back and checks the section he buffed, lightly running his hand over it. “We start out on the water in the dark with very few lights. Just enough to see. And one by one, the boats light up. In order.”

  Vera sets down her next strand of lights and goes over to Derek, taking his buffer and setting it down, then taking his hand and giving a tug. “Come on,” she insists. “Can you finish this tomorrow? Because I have something you really need to see.”

  * * *

  “What do you think?” Vera steps aside as she opens the door onto her widow’s walk. Derek follows behind and walks to the railing. “See that light reflecting on the water?” she asks. “The cove always catches the last bit of sunset like that.” She looks at his face studying the water from this vantage point. “I’m glad there’s still some light for you to see.”

  “This is amazing. It really looks different from up here.”

  “I know. That’s why I wanted you to see it. And I was thinking, maybe you can map out your procession from here. You know, come back during the day when there’s sunlight and visually plan the whole thing. I’d love to help. We can set a couple chairs out here and work it out?”

  “I’ve got a photo album of the boats from other years. I can bring that too, so you’ll have an idea of how the procession looks.” He scans the water while he’s talking. “We can work from that, adjusting the boat order for this year.”

  The sun sets further behind a line of trees cast in black silhouette now. Derek still looks out over the darkening water and Vera’s not sure what exactly he’s feeling, seeing the cove darken at dusk, this place where he lost his child. “Well you let me know when you want to do this,” she says, “and I’ll get some of Brooke’s apple muffins and put on fresh coffee and we’ll plot out the whole Deck the Boats procession, okay?”

  He doesn’t say anything, and she’s not sure if he’ll go ahead with her plan until he finally turns to her. “Thank you, Vera.” He takes her hand in his. “It means a lot.” He looks back out over the water as though that’s what has quieted him. “I used to hate this time of day,” he says then. “There was something about the darkness that made me sad for Abby, thinking of the horrible darkness she faced. But being up here, it helps. There’s light left in the sky, right at the horizon.”

  “There is. And when the sun goes completely down, the moon rises, and starlight lightens the water, too. So there’s always light from up here,” she whispers.

  They look out together. “Abby would’ve loved this bird’s-eye view,” Derek says. “It feels like you’re just soaring.”

  “And do you see those clouds?” The clouds her father pointed out earlier are dark streaks against the sunset sky. “There, out on the horizon? They’re cirrus clouds.”

  He nods.

  “My father says they mean change is coming. Snow, he hopes.” She leans into Derek beside her, looping an arm through his. “The wonder of snowflakes, Derek, is their impermanence. Each one is a piece of art, nature’s art. Delicate white shapes in so many pretty patterns, but the thing is? They’re all fleeting. They don’t stay. As soon as they land, they change. They melt, or their delicate edges go round, and in no time at all, they’re gone. It’s why we’re so in awe of them when we see them gently falling.” She closes her eyes for a moment and hopes he’ll understand what she’s saying. “What makes them so very, very special is the short time that something so precious is here with us.”

  * * *

  “How do you do it?” Derek asks quietly. In the twilight’s stillness before she answers, he hears only the distant slow-lapping waves reaching the cove’s shore.

  “Do what?”

  He turns to her on the widow’s walk, the sky and water darkening into one. “Make it okay. No matter what I’m feeling, you just take it and, I don’t know, give it your snowflake spin and suddenly what sc
ares me, or breaks my heart, becomes something beautiful.”

  She smiles then, but doesn’t say a word. Because this time, he knows, it’s up to him. As daunting as it is to let himself love her, love someone, anyone again, he’s the one who has to decide it. She brought him to this moment and steps back from it, he knows, to see what he’ll do with it.

  So when a breeze lifts off the evening water, he brushes a strand of hair from her cheek, his hand pressing it back behind her ear and staying there as he leans in and kisses her. Behind closed eyes, he feels her arms reach around his waist and hold him close. He kisses her longer then, both hands cradling her face, and the kiss grows so insistent, so deep, he finally has to stop, physically stop, pull back and rest his forehead to hers, only breathing. Because with Vera, there is no darkness, and the insistence is because he wants those light moments again. Craves them. Beyond the widow’s walk, the midnight blue horizon is edged with a smudge of lavender light from the setting sun. And still he’s only breathing. Only hearing the gentle waves. Only touching her face.

  “Vera. Beautiful Vera,” he finally whispers. “Let’s go inside.”

  Taking his hand, she leads him down the widow’s walk stairs to her bedroom. With just a bedside lamp shining on a faded scrolled wallpaper she’s yet to remove, Vera draws the curtains over the windows before shutting off that light, setting their coats over a chair and turning to him in the darkness. And when he lies with her on the bed, lying on his side facing her, he wonders if she knows. If she senses how many years have passed when the night was only darkness, and nothing else.

  But now, even though he can’t see it, can’t see the dark sky with tiny stars just emerging from behind those thin, wispy clouds, he knows it’s there. Some things are always there and always will be there. Love, and loss too. Longing, and happiness. It’s not just one or the other. There’s always the other, shimmering on the edge of the horizon. Being so close to the cove, knowing the sky above it shines some small celestial light on its water, this moment with Vera gives him that.

  Reaching for his face, her thumb strokes his skin, moving along his chin, his throat. The sensation of her touch, and her mouth, has him close his eyes remembering that moments can be beautiful. Derek, she whispers with her hand slipping off his shirt and reaching for his shoulder, pulling him close and saying soft words he hasn’t heard for so long. Words that lighten the edge of the darkness and lead him to turn to her, to stroke her face, to draw his hands along her body. Each moment one he’d almost forgotten. When he moves over her, pressing her hair back, looking at her face, her neck, her eyes, kissing her tenderly, slowly, he hears her whisper again, hears her say his name.

  But it is when her hands skim across his back with the softest touch, bringing a physical sensation to him, making him aware of each kiss, each sound, each second passing beneath the rising moon on this early winter night, the sky outside the same as it’s always been, the water ever shifting beneath it, that is when love and possibility return to him as sure as some innate tide.

  And he knows then, really knows, how because of only her, time finally moves forward again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  OH BY GOSH, BY GALOSHES!” Vera’s father reports on the Monday morning weather segment. “This first storm of the season has the potential to be a record-breaker, folks.”

  “Please, no,” Vera says. She stands stock-still in her fluffy bathrobe with a big mug of hot coffee cupped in her hands while staring at her little kitchen television set. Jingles sits on the windowsill, his raccoon tail hanging along the wall, watching brown leaves swirl in the wind outside.

  “It’s only Monday,” her father continues, “so it’s too soon to know the exact details. But we’re definitely expecting a major storm arriving late this week. The approaching low pressure system is drawing in cold air from Canada, which will keep this an all-snow event. And if what I’m seeing on the models continues, some areas could receive up to a foot of the white stuff!”

  Vera glances out her kitchen window toward the sky, slams her coffee cup down on the counter such that it startles the cat, who jumps to the floor and runs under the table. “Oops, sorry Jingles, didn’t mean to spook you.” She gives him a quick pat before running upstairs to shower and change with a sneaking suspicion that her father’s on to something. It was in his voice, an excitement he subdued until he can report for certain that this storm will be a doozy.

  And if that’s the case, she’s got lots to do in the meantime.

  * * *

  He’s been hearing it all morning now. Talking to hardware store customers is as good as watching the news; they all tell him a storm’s coming and they want to pick out a tree before they’re covered in a foot of snow. The store hasn’t sold this many trees in one morning all season long. When his customers add snow shovels and a bag of ice melt to their orders, it’s as good a prediction as he needs.

  But as he finishes tying a netted balsam fir to a car rooftop, the last person he cares to talk to about the weather, at least for now, is the one in her red-plaid pea coat, earmuffs over her blonde hair, snowflake mittens on her hands, who just arrived and is studying the largest trees over on the other side of the lot.

  Derek turns away, but he knows, oh he just knows that Vera is working her way over to him. “You’re all set,” he says with a light knock on the driver’s side window of the car. “Merry Christmas to you.”

  “Will you be giving sleigh rides soon?” the man asks as he rolls down the window.

  “This weekend. Carriage rides, unless that snow comes. Then we’ll bring out the sleigh.”

  The man driving lightly toots the horn and slowly pulls out of the parking lot, leaving Derek wishing there was another customer’s car behind his waiting for a tree. Instead, there’s Vera.

  “Hey, Derek,” she says, smiling as she nears.

  “Vera,” he answers while taking off a leather glove. He shakes it out then carefully pulls it back on.

  “How are you today?” she asks, stopping just shy of him.

  “Okay. Was there something you needed?”

  “Needed?” She looks closely at him.

  “I’m busy.”

  “I’ll bet. My dad says snow’s on its way. Did you see his forecast?”

  “I’ve actually been working all morning.” He walks toward the trees and straightens some left leaning crooked by anxious customers, picking up one lying on the ground.

  “Derek?” Vera asks while following behind him.

  He turns around quickly. “What is it?”

  She stops with a short breath. “I just wanted to find a tree before the snow falls, that’s all.”

  The wind gusts suddenly and he turns his collar up against it. “Take your pick.”

  She walks between two rows of large white pines, shaking her head. “The needles are too long on these. The ornaments might slip right off. And I need something taller.”

  He picks up a broken branch from the ground and tosses it to the side. “If you’re going to be long, well, I’ve got things to do.”

  “Oh. I thought maybe you’d help, and we could decorate it this week?” She turns to another row of trees, tall balsam firs, and reaches her hand to a branch, touching the tip of it gently. “Derek?” She looks over at him when a young couple walks past, laughing while carrying a large tree to the netting area. “Is something wrong?” she asks after they’re gone.

  He straightens a tree leaning against the frame beside the one she’s at. “I talked to Bob Hough earlier. He stopped by and bought a tree.”

  “The Fire Marshal?” she asks.

  “You’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “That he’s the Fire Marshal. You’d know that after talking to him the other day. Because Bob’s got a big, white boat he decorates each December for Abby.”

  Vera walks to another tree, silently pulling it upright and checking how tall it is.

  “He said you talked to him for a
story you’re writing for some Rhode Island paper. Something about a feature story on Addison’s Christmas boat display.”

  Vera looks a little longer at the tall fir, then sets it back against the wood frame.

  “Excuse me,” he hears as another couple approaches. Derek turns impatiently to them. “Do you have anything narrow?” the man asks. “Our tree has to go in a corner and can’t be too wide.”

  “Over there,” he tells them, pointing near the store. “The smaller trees are in that section. The Frasier firs might work for you.” When he turns back to Vera while they’re still thanking him, she is standing close, looking straight at him.

  “Yes, okay?” she begins right away, huddled into her coat against the cold. “Yes, I am writing that piece. They’re so excited to read it and there are even boaters interested in joining in. Or expanding Abby’s tribute there, in Rhode Island.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She turns up her hands. “I was going to. But I wanted to surprise you with it.”

  “Surprise?” He looks long at her. “What a nice coup for you.”

  “What?”

  He begins walking alongside the trees, wanting to just keep walking. To not even bother with Vera, with Christmas. They’d never amount to anything, not anymore. So he turns quickly to face her and she nearly walks right into him, she’d been following so closely. “A nice coup, a way back into the big time. I don’t really appreciate you cashing in on my grief, or on Abby’s death.”

  “Is that how you see it, Derek? Cashing in?” She reaches out and takes his gloved hands in hers. “You don’t understand. It’s not about the money.”

  “Well, Vera. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  An awkward moment passes before she explains. “Okay. For starters, my fee’s actually being donated to Addison’s Search and Rescue team. I wanted to do that, for you.”

  “And what else did you do?” he asks, stepping so close she has to take a step back. “Get me to your widow’s walk Saturday night just to get your headline?” He pulls his hands away then and turns toward the store, brushing past a family with two small children.