The afternoon is busy and goes fast, and the names Les and Susan Linton continue to roll through my mind. At four thirty, I’m organizing the mail room when a face pops into my mind and my pulse surges. I run upstairs to the break room and roll through the combination on the lock and yank open my locker, snatching the magazine off the top shelf. I read the names again, feeling my heart in my throat.
I run out the door and ask every employee in sight if they’ve seen my supervisor, Pat. “He was in the office,” the lady in jewelry, whose name I never can remember, says.
I take the stairs by two and fling open the office door. He’s standing at the copy machine. “Pat!” He turns and sees me standing with the door open. “Something huge has come up. I’m off in thirty. Can I go now?”
“How huge is it?” he asks, smiling.
“I’m going to be a sister!”
He looks confused but waves his hand in the air. “Go! Have a great Christmas.” I’m yelling the same thing to him as I bolt down the stairs and grab my coat and backpack from my locker and clock out.
I can feel my heart beating high in my chest as I ring the doorbell. Karla opens the door and smiles. “Merry Christmas!” I say. “I hope I’m not bothering you on Christmas Eve.”
She steps aside. “Get in here! Mom and I were having some coffee and some of the cake I bought last night. Want some?”
“Which one did you buy?” I ask, following her to the kitchen.
“Frosting the Snowman.”
I laugh at another one of Gloria’s names. “What kind is that?”
“White,” she says, which makes me laugh harder.
Mrs. Schweiger is at the kitchen table with her box of photos sitting on top of it, so I know she’s already been busy today. The kitchen smells yummy and I wonder why they’re having cake so close to dinnertime. “Cake before dinner?” I say.
“Mom has to have something on her stomach for her medicine,” Karla says. “I said, ‘how about some cheese and crackers’ and she said, ‘how about some cake?’ You see who won.”
I hug Mrs. Schweiger, and she cuts a slice of cake for me while Karla sets a cup of coffee in front of me. “I don’t need any cake,” I say.
“It’s Christmas. You do out-of-ordinary things at Christmas and wear big pants.”
That makes me laugh and I take a bite. “Mrs. Schweiger,” I say, getting right to it. “Do the names Les and Susan Linton sound familiar?”
Her eyes are big and she smiles. “From the apartments. Of course. They were wonderful people. Very kind.”
“Did you know much about them?” She opens her mouth to answer, but I rephrase what I said. “Did you ever suspect or imagine anything about them?”
She leans forward, looking at me and I see something in her eyes. She points her finger at me, grinning. “What are you up to, Melissy?”
I smile. “I think you know.” Karla looks from me to her mother and waits.
“It would have only been a thought,” says Mrs. Schweiger.
“And what was that thought?”
“I knew how their family was brought together. They were always very open about adopting all their children.”
“What else?” I ask, taking another bite of Frosting the Snowman cake.
“You and your mother had already lived at the apartments nearly three years when I saw Ramona watching the little Linton boy play one day in the parking lot. You remember how the children would play tag in that big, circular end of the lot. Your mother never stopped to watch the children, but that day she did, and as she looked at him, I looked at her and then back at him, trying to see what she was looking at. Something jiggled somewhere in my brain, and I didn’t know what to think by what I was seeing but noticed that your mother was upset.” She pats my hand. “In the couple of weeks following, all I could do was try to steal a glance of Ramona from time to time and look at that little boy and wonder, but I never knew anything for sure.” She pulls out the stack of photos from her box and flips through them.
I lean back in my chair. “That’s why Ramona moved out of there so fast, isn’t it? She knew that the Linton boy was the little boy she’d given up for adoption.”
Mrs. Schweiger’s mouth puckers and she cocks her head. “I think she suspected. And long after you left, I always wondered.”
“And the Lintons?”
“They never knew Ramona. Never even saw her, as far as I know.”
I hand her the magazine. “My boss just located my brother. His name is Bruce Linton.”
Karla says, “Are you kidding?” and tears fill Mrs. Schweiger’s eyes.
“His parents are Les and Susan Linton.”
Mrs. Schweiger lets out a whoop and plops Bruce’s picture down in front of me.
“And he’s a fire chief in California!”
* * *
There’s no time to make pistachio salad, but I hope everyone will forgive me, considering I’ve been a bit busy tracking down my brother! I forget to knock and walk into Kyle and Gretchen’s, holding up the magazine. “We have a baby brother!” I shout, hoping too late that no one is napping. The house is full, with Kyle’s parents and Phillip and Miriam. Gretchen steps out of the kitchen and she hurries to me, taking the magazine. She reads over the information and looks at me. “I played with him for three years. He and his family lived above us in the same apartments where the Schweigers lived. When Ramona figured out who he was, we moved away.”
“What are you going to do?” Gretchen asks.
“You mean what are we going to do,” I say. I pull out my cell phone, and her eyes are big, watching me. For the rest of my life I’ll wonder how all of this happened. I’ll go through the what-if’s countless times and settle on the same conclusion: I am seen. I dial the phone and put it on speaker so everyone can hear. Gretchen and I take our places in the wings, waiting. When a man’s voice answers, Gretchen grabs my arm and we both smile.
The next act is about to begin.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to:
Troy, Gracie, Kate, and David for loving Christmas and keeping it crackling at our house.
Jen Gates and Esmond Harmsworth for your belief and passion.
Jen Enderlin, Matthew Baldacci, Michael Storrings, Rachel Ekstrom, and the St. Martin’s sales staff for being outstanding in all that you do!
My longtime friend, Captain Bryan Ralls, United States Army, for guiding me through all things military. I appreciate your service to this country!
Mary Weekly for invaluable help and your gracious, sweet spirit.
Ann-Frances Barker, Carole Consiglio, Lynn Cook, Kim Cotton, Dawana Hunt, Dorothy Ley, Carri McPeek, Misty Riggs, Renee Sly, and Elizabeth Sweatt for your heart.
Also by Donna VanLiere
The Christmas Journey
The Christmas Secret
Finding Grace
The Christmas Promise
The Angels of Morgan Hill
The Christmas Shoes
The Christmas Blessing
The Christmas Hope
About the Author
DONNA VANLIERE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Christmas Hope books, Finding Grace, and The Angels of Morgan Hill. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband and three children. Please visit her at www.donnavanliere.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE CHRISTMAS NOTE. Copyright © 2011 by Donna VanLiere. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
VanLiere, Donna, 1966–
The Christmas note / Donna VanLiere.—1st ed.
p. cm.
e-ISBN 9781429989411
1. Neighbors—Fiction. 2. Mothers—Death—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fi
ction. 4. Identity (Psychology)—Fiction. 5. Christmas stories. I. Title.
PS3622.A66C4787 2011
813'.6—dc22
2011025835
First Edition: November 2011
DON’T MISS DONNA VANLIERE’S NEW NOVEL,
THE GOOD DREAM
Coming in Spring 2012
Set in 1950s Tennessee, The Good Dream tells of one woman’s unlikely path to motherhood, and of the power of secrets, vengeance and, ultimately, forgiveness.
Early Praise for The Good Dream
“The Good Dream is a great story of people saving each other in the unlikeliest ways. A heartwarming winner of a book.”
—Jenna Blum, author of Those Who Save Us
“The Good Dream snares the reader right from the start. Donna VanLiere’s pitch-perfect voice captures all the country charm and mystery of a long-ago time and place with its many acts of kindness and courage, as well as its secrets.”
—Mary McGarry Morris, author of Songs in Ordinary Time
“Donna VanLiere shows she’s not just for Christmas anymore.”
—Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box and Lost December
The Christmas Note Page 13