A Christmas Hope (19 page)

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Authors: Joseph Pittman

BOOK: A Christmas Hope
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“I think it's different when you lose a mother at such an impressionable age, it's like Janey wants to stay a little girl—despite her claims of having to play the adult sometimes,” Brian said. “The older she gets, it just means she's that much more removed from the time she had with Annie. This time of year is particularly sensitive, she and Annie had what seems a treasure trove of traditions that I've tried to uphold. The annual visit to Green's Tree Farm is one of them.”
“That's so good that you're so considerate of her feelings,” she said, but in a defensive tone added, “But you know, their situations are hardly similar. Travis didn't lose his father.”
“It wasn't a case of comparing the two of them,” he said. “It's just . . . maybe in a kid's mind, death and desertion are not dissimilar.”
“He didn't desert his son,” she said, her voice rising in anger. “Bastard just . . . just . . .”
“Nora, it's okay.”
“No, it's not,” she said, angry with herself for letting the conversation go even this far. “I'm better than this. I've had more pressure in the courtroom, and trust me, Dave is a pussycat compared to some of the brutal judges I've been before. No matter, I've never once spoken ill of Dave, not in front of my son and I'm not going to start now. He made his choice, I made mine.”
Brian put a comforting hand to her face, trying to soothe the anger lines from around her eyes. “I don't know how we got started on this, but what do you say we drop it? This is supposed to be fun. Let's just go pick a tree.”
“No, no, let's finish it. You've got a question, I can tell.”
“Okay, but if you don't like it you can tell me to take a flying leap,” he said. “But, I will remind you that it was you who said she needed a friend.”
“Fine, Brian, my good friend. Ask away.”
“What's the real reason Dave left?”
She didn't respond, not right away, not even sure she could get the words out. Set amidst this seemingly endless forest of trees, the sky was smaller somehow, like the world was closing in on them, around her heart. The only way to conquer this growing sense of claustrophobia was to let out a scream, something she wasn't all that keen to do, not here, and not now. She didn't want to scare Travis or her mother . . . or any of the other people who were busy wandering the trails with axes and saws and other tools. So she just allowed herself a tiny chuckle, one tiny slip of emotion.
“His boss recommended him for the job, and he accepted it.”
“And the rest of the story?”
“Oh right, Dave's boss was going overseas, too,” she said, “and of course the two of them were, and continue to be having, an affair.”
“And Dave's boss is . . .”
There was a protracted silence before Nora realized what he meant and she laughed so loud the sound rattled nearby trees, snow on their branches floating to the ground. “Oh, oh . . . no, thankfully we didn't have to deal with that issue, too. No, no, Brian, Dave's boss is female. That was rich, though. I don't think I've laughed that hard in weeks. Oh boy, that would have been something. Come on, enough of this nonsense, we came to get a tree, let's go grab one.”
“Two,” he said, “things always come better in twos.”
Nora decided the better response was to just punch him in the arm, and she did, her fist landing hard. He seemed to accept the jab with ease. When they rejoined the group, she noticed Janey tossing her one of her patented, curious looks, but the young girl didn't say a word. She simply grabbed Brian's hand and pulled him helplessly toward the tree of her choice.
 
Travis finally picked out the perfect tree, an eight-foot Douglas fir that smelled as beautiful as it looked, with full, green branches spreading out above a thick stump that was proving difficult against the rusty teeth of the saw. With Brian's assistance, Travis sliced at the base of the tree and as Nora urged them on, the tree finally separated with a crack. One crack and then it came crashing to the ground into a powdery puff of snow. In short order, Janey's tree followed, almost as though she'd chosen it already but didn't want to be upstaged by Travis. Their bodies near frozen from the long trek deep into the farm, they dragged their bounty down the snowy hill and to the truck.
Mr. Green complimented Travis and Janey on their fine choices and helped first tie them then load them into the rear of the truck. Glad to be back inside the heat of the truck, they drove back to Linden Corners poorer in pocket though richer for the experience, Travis going on and on about what it had felt like the moment his saw sliced through the last of the stubborn bark. With Gerta promising fresh apple pie and steaming cups of hot chocolate, “yeah, with tiny marshmallows,” Janey happily adding as an afterthought, they headed back to Linden Corners with the promise of heat and nourishment.
But as they arrived into the dusky downtown area of Linden Corners, Nora asked if Brian wouldn't mind letting her out in front of A Doll's Attic.
“Mom, what about the hot chocolate?”
“Save me some, okay? There's something I've got to take care of at the store and it can't wait,” she said, turning her head back to assure Travis that she'd only be an hour, not more. “Besides, nothing we can do with the tree yet, it needs to relax its branches before we can start decorating it. Help Brian get it out of the truck and into the stand, I'll be home before you know it.”
Brian pulled into the small parking lot near the old Victorian-style home, the truck idling as Nora quickly hopped out. Before pulling away, he remarked on how dark the building looked, even in the falling light of day. “You should put some up Christmas lights, compared to the rest of the village the outside of your shop looks like the single burned-out light on a string of bulbs. If you want, I can help. Janey gave me boxes of staples last year for Christmas, there are plenty left to attach them to the building.”
“It's because he used so many when lighting up the windmill,” Janey offered.
“I'll keep it all under advisement,” Nora said, wishing she hadn't. She sounded too much like a lawyer right then, all businesslike. She smiled meekly in an attempt to keep her options open and then closed the passenger side door. The truck drove off with a friendly honk sounding in the air, but to her the effect was hollow, emphasizing the fact that she was alone.
It might have only been three in the afternoon, but around her she felt the sunlight was fast diminishing, darkness coming sooner for her than others. Maybe that had to do with the lack of Christmas lights around the edge of her store, lacking any kind of invitation. For half a second she reconsidered Brian's offer of help, told herself that could wait. Something else was motivating her, and so she made her way up the path toward her entrance, unlocking the door. Again she encountered that jangle of bells overhead, their sound lingering as she closed the door, making her way quickly behind the counter. Without hesitation, she fired up her laptop and, waiting for the screen to come to life, she ran to the kitchen to boil water for tea—she was still freezing from their winter excursion into the woods.
At last settled in the quiet of her store, she sipped at herbal tea while she looked through her recent online searches. Because somewhere between complaining about the cold and cutting down a Christmas tree, Nora had found herself thinking not of her family but one that had existed years ago. No, the moment was not about she and Travis and her mother celebrating the holiday on the twenty-fifth, not about Brian and Janey waking to another Christmas morning in the shadow of the windmill reminding them of Annie. Who consumed her thoughts was Thomas Van Diver, he who seemed to have no one in the world with whom to exchange gifts. Yet for some reason he still sought out the book he had lost during his childhood, and if not to give it as a gift to someone, then what purpose did it serve? He hadn't been very forthcoming with a reason why, all he'd asked of her was to find it. And she knew she had failed him, settling rather than pushing.
The sense of failure ate at her, as it had all week. Even without Dave—the man to whom she had promised a lifetime of love to, even with him gone from their lives, probably for good—she still had a lot to be thankful for this season. Her son and ever-patient mother, this store and the opportunity it had afforded her, they all played their part in giving her the chance to strip away the façade of her business life and return her to a simpler time. That was life in Linden Corners, embracing a quality of life where neighbor looked after neighbor, where help was just a phone call away. Or, in this case, in an attempt at modernization, an Internet search away.
She went online and returned to the bookmarked pages where she had found the facsimile edition, looking at the picture of the cover on the upper left-hand corner, reading through the details that helped potential buyers make their decisions. Something about the book was nagging at her, a detail that she had overlooked. She read over the specs one more time—the title, author, illustrator, publication date, as well as the many customer reviews posted below, and that's when she found it . . . wonder filling her eyes, a true
eureka
moment. Because there among the posted reviews was a five-star review from a man named Nicholas Casey, who wrote the following: “This lovingly restored edition is a faithful reproduction of my great-great-great-grandfather's personal interpretation of Moore's classic story, complete with the Victorian legend of Saint Nick dressed not in his traditional red suit but in a green suit.”
Nora looked back at the credit line again and for once her eyes focused beyond the author's name, Clement Clarke Moore, and instead on the illustrator's name. Of course, how could she have been so stupid? The key to the book lay in the unique illustrations; Moore never wrote of a green suit, it was something that grew out of the painter's fabrication. With each book published, the variable in each edition came courtesy of the artwork. Alexander Casey was credited as the illustrator here, and now, over one hundred years later, his descendant was posting an online review about the publisher's restored version of the long out-of-print volume.
Closing out of the web browser she was on, Nora typed in the name
Alexander Casey
in a search engine and found a short Wikipedia article about the little-known artist. He had been born in 1842, died in 1907, and he had spent his life as a vibrant, colorful chronicler of scenes of the Northeast region of the United States, having resided in Lee, Massachusetts, a historic village located in the heart of the Berkshires. Not quite an artist of Rockwell's reputation, Alexander Casey was not without his admirers. Nora couldn't believe what she was reading, just a couple hours ago she had been in the midst of those lush mountains, no more than thirty minutes from Lee. Now she knew the secret to Thomas's lost book might just lie close over the border. With her heart beating over her surprise discovery, she began to type furiously, the
tap tap tap
of her fingers across the keyboard like a staccato burst of ideas. When she was done, she had found the descendant, Nicholas Casey, still alive, still living in Lee, and with it came a phone number. His first name was not lost on her.
But she didn't call, not right away.
She thought of calling Thomas to tell him she had a lead on the real edition. She thought then of the expression on his face when she had handed him the facsimile edition and she wasn't sure she could handle a second dose of disappointment. Despite what she'd learned, what if this Nicholas Casey couldn't help her, what if the reproduction had been published because there were no original editions left, long out of print and gone from this world? She had to tread carefully here, it was when you tried too hard to do your best that you offered up the biggest risk.
Heck, she thought, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
She was about to pick up the phone when it rang, the sound reverberating off silent walls.
“Hello?”
“Mom?”
“Hey, baby.”
“Hey, you promised . . . no more nicknames. . . .”
“Sorry. Yes, Mr. Rainer, how can I help you?”
“And you don't need to be so formal,” he said, “but you do need to come home.”
“Soon, I said I'd only be an hour.”
“Mom, it's six o'clock, Grandma's got dinner on the stove, Brian and Janey are still here.”
She'd lost all track of time, the hours flying by as her search had consumed her. Right now she was torn between her son's needs and Thomas Van Diver's request and realized there was little choice. She remembered her promise to Travis on the day they'd pulled into Linden Corners. She'd messed up big-time with Halloween, and Thanksgiving had been a cloying day at her sister Victoria's house, with Travis lost among all his girl cousins. She had assured Travis that Christmas would be as special as she could make it. He was her priority.
Thomas Van Diver had waited nearly eighty years to find his book, what was one more day? Nora knew she could phone the illustrator's relative tomorrow and who knew what she might learn? She just might be journeying farther beyond Green's Tree Farm and into the misty hills of the Berkshires, where perhaps she would finally find the solution to a mystery that until today had seemed to offer up no clues.

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