Maggie Shayne: An Enchanted Season

“I think—I think I did, for a while. I was with Mom and Dad and little Noelle. They’re okay.” She met her Aunt Sheila’s eyes. “They really are, they’re okay. You don’t need to worry.”

Sheila’s tears spilled over anew, and she pressed her palms to Holly’s cheeks, and kissed her forehead. And then she whispered, “Honey, do you remember what happened? There was a car accident. You were all in it. The doctors tried, honey, they tried their best.”

“I know,” Holly said. “But Mom wanted me to tell you that they’re okay. I saw them. I was with them for a little while. But Mom, she told me I had to come back. She said there were really important things for me to do. She said everything happens for a reason. And she said you needed me, Aunt Sheila. She said death isn’t real. And I know it’s true, because I was there—only it’s not really there , it’s here. She’s still here, she’s still with us.” She lifted her eyes, staring around the room, her lips pulling into a watery smile. “Can’t you feel her?”

Sheila gathered Holly into her arms, and held her gently. The tears were used up, but the grief remained.

“They’ll be okay as long as they know we are. I don’t know if I could have been if I hadn’t seen it all for myself. I crossed over with them. It was like walking them home. And it was beautiful, Aunt Sheila. If we fall apart, it’s going to break their hearts, but we don’t have to fall apart, because they’re great. They’re perfect, they really are.”

Sheila nodded. “You’re amazing, Holly, you know that?” She kissed her again. “So much like your mom.”

“She wants us to remember her at Christmas,” Holly said. “That was the one thing she made me promise to do for her. To always treat Christmas the way she did. She said she’d be there with me, every single year, as long as I keep that promise.”

Sniffling, Sheila murmured, “She adored Christmas.”

“And she never missed a Midnight Mass,” Holly said. “Or a Christmas special on TV. Rudolph, Frosty, The Little Drummer Boy. ”

“And then there were the decorations.” Sheila took a rumpled tissue from her pocket and blew her nose softly, shaking her head.

Holly nodded hard. “She shorted out the house last year when she added that full-sized sleigh and reindeer to the roof. Remember? Santa waved and the reins lit up and the bells jingled and the reindeer moved? But only for about a minute and a half. Then everything went black.”

“I remember how mad your dad pretended to be when he had to hire an electrician to put the lights on their own separate breaker. He wasn’t really mad, though. He loved having the house everyone wanted to drive past at night.” They both laughed softly, sadly, but warmly.

There wasn’t a nurse in the room whose eyes were dry.

“Sheila, look,” Holly whispered. Sheila lifted her head and followed Holly’s gaze to the window. Snow was falling outside. “The first snow of the season,” Holly said. “Mom always said it has magic in it.”

“We’re going to be okay, Holly. You and me, I promise.”

Holly nodded. “We will be. And so will they.”

“They will. And we’re gonna have a Christmas to beat them all,” Sheila promised. “One to make your mom smile.”

“She’ll love that,” Holly said. “I love Christmas, because she did. That’s kind of what she left me, I think. I’ll always love Christmas.”

Present Day, Binghamton, New York

HOLLY MADE HER WAY FROM THE KITCHEN TO TABLE SIX,with two breakfast platters, a carafe of coffee, ketchup, and maple syrup, all without batting an eye. She delivered the food piping hot and, as always, accompanied by a brilliant smile. “Anything else I can get you boys?”

Bub Tanner, as he was called, and that was the only name she knew, grinned at her, and rubbed his unshaven graying stubble with one hand. “I like how she calls us ‘boys,’” he said.

“She’s just flattering your ego, Bub,” Tater said. And that was the only name she knew for him. “She knows we’re both older than dirt.”

“Speak for yourself, Tater.” Bub reached for the carafe, but Holly beat him to it, filled his cup, and then Tater’s, with the decaf they hadn’t asked for.

“Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Here, take this with you, hon, will you?”

Holly looked back to see Tater holding out his thoroughly read newspaper. She smiled and took it from him. “Happy to get that outta your way,” she said, and then she paused, because the paper was open to page three and folded in just such a way that one particular story was looking her right in the face.

“Oswego Welcomes Natives Home for Holidays,” the headline announced. The story was a feel-good piece about all the people traveling in from out of town for the season, how good it was for business.

But that wasn’t the way Holly saw it. Frowning, she carried the paper with her behind the counter, and into the kitchen. “Aunt Sheila?”

Sheila turned her wheelchair around—she’d been parked right next to the short-order cook, probably lecturing him on his technique—and smiled at her. “What, babe?”

“Look what Tater just handed me.” She thrust the paper toward her, and Sheila looked at it, saw the story, lifted her brows.

“That’s the fourth time this morning, Aunt Sheila.”

Sheila nodded, tilted her head. “And how many signs did you have about your hometown yesterday?” she asked.

“Six.”

“Right. Including the billboard for the school play, To Oz We Go. ”

“Oz We Go, Oswego. Come on, Aunt Sheila, it’s almost blatant.”

Sheila nodded. “You need to spend this Christmas at home.”

“I don’t know that I need to. And I don’t want to leave you—but I feel like something…I don’t know, want s me to.”

“Which is why I called the Realtor.”

“You did?”

Sheila nodded, and wheeled across the kitchen, toward the office door, with a quick glance back at Will, the new short-order cook. He met her eyes and there was…something.

Holly lifted her brows. “Was that—?”

“Office, Holly,” Sheila said. She’d opened the door, and held it now, waiting. So Holly obediently went inside.

“The old place is empty,” Sheila told her. “It’s in rough shape, being that it’s been empty for twelve years, but it’s habitable, barely. If you want to go up there for a day or two over the holiday, I think you should. You haven’t been back since the accident. Maybe…maybe it’s time.”

“But you’d be alone for Christmas. And we always do Christmas together. For Mom, you know. And—”

“We can do it up separately just as well. And I won’t be alone.” She said it with a meaningful glance at the doorway, which was still open. Will was whistling as he flipped flapjacks and smiled at her in a certain way.

Holly blinked and shot her aunt a look.

“Hell, I have MS. I’m not dead.”

Holly smiled from ear to ear. Her aunt really did embrace life, in every possible way. She loved that about her. It reminded her of the way Mom had been. The way she was herself. It must run in the female line.

“I could take part of the decorations up with me,” Holly said, mulling it over as she thought it through. “It would be kind of cool to decorate the old house like Mom used to. Even if it is in rough shape.”

“I think she’d like that. The power will be turned on, a fresh tank of LP gas hooked up when you arrive. Key in the mailbox.”

“You—you really did talk to the Realtor, didn’t you?”

“I think you have to do this, Holly. You haven’t been back there since you lost them. And your eyes are lighting up just thinking about it,” Sheila said with a smile. “You’ve been taking care of me, taking care of everyone around here, ever since you came here, Holly. It’s time to do something for yourself, even if it’s only for a couple of days. Give yourself a present this Christmas. Okay?”