When Sharon looked about to argue, Harvey shut her down. “You said when she found proof, then we’d discuss it,” he reminded her. “And I’d say that’s pretty convincing proof.” Looking across at Malaika, he asked, “Can we have a new vote on it?”
“Sure. Make a motion.”
He made it with confidence. “I move we broaden our mandate to add in the story of Lydia Wilde and the French guy.”
“I second,” said Don.
With a faint smile, Malaika asked who was in favour, and only two hands stayed down—Sharon’s and Eve’s.
“Motion passed.”
Frank leaned over and patted my shoulder and winked. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
? ? ?
It was never going to be an easy holiday, this first year without Niels.
I knew that going in, but I still tried. I did the things we’d always done. I went and bought a Christmas tree and strung the lights and decorated. I switched my car radio to the all-Christmas-carols station, watched the TV specials and the movies that we always watched, and tried, if not to find the feeling for myself, to conjure it for Rachel.
She was having a hard time and sinking deeper into sadness; sleeping poorly, eating worse, and crying when I wasn’t supposed to see. If Gianni had been there it might have helped, but he and Mrs. Bonetti had gone down to Florida to gather with their family at her sister’s house. “Away from all this snow that’s coming,” Mrs. Bonetti had said with feeling when she’d dropped off a tin of her chocolate mostaccioli cookies. “You can take those with you when you go spend Christmas with your parents in Toronto. And next year, I’ll make you some nice braciole for your Christmas dinner.”
Their house next door looked lonely with the lights off when I came home in the evenings. And I noticed, driving down the shore road, that there were no Christmas lights at Bridlemere. My grandmother must also have been gone, or else not in the mood for celebration.
At the Wilde House, though, Malaika made us all draw names and do a Secret Santa gift exchange. “Nothing expensive,” she had warned. “And Willie, put your name in there. And you, too, Sam. You’re family.”
I had hoped I might draw Sam’s name, but I drew Rosina’s, which was fine. I bought a pair of earrings for her, in the pink and yellow tones she liked. And while I didn’t know for certain, I suspected it was Lara who drew my name, because my gift was a scarf that looked an awful lot like those from the last shipment I had helped her to unpack the week before, at her boutique. But when we’d given all our gifts and I went back upstairs to work, I found a narrow gift bag on my desk, the tag marked Charley in a sure and slanting hand that looked familiar.
Opening the door between my office and the old part of the house, I told Sam, “Hey.”
He turned from where he’d gone back to his own work on the panelling.
I held the gift bag up. “What’s this?”
“Looks like a present.”
“I already got my Secret Santa gift.”
He shrugged and told me, “Santa does what Santa does.”
The wine bottle inside the bag had an expensive label. “Santa shouldn’t have,” I said. “But thank you.”
“Guess he thought you needed it.”
I really liked his smile. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on it—on him—until he, too, was gone; until he’d packed his truck and driven up to spend the holidays in Rochester, with his mother and stepfather. He’d stopped to pick up Bandit at our house before he left, and when I’d walked out on the porch with him he’d hugged me. Quick and casual, but it took all my self-control and concentration not to hug him back too hard or hold him longer than I should, when all I really wanted was to lean on him and tell him all my troubles.
I could do that with my parents, I thought.
I was looking forward to our time up in Toronto, lapsing back into the less demanding role of daughter, being able to pass off at least a piece of my responsibility to someone else. My mom would cut my sandwiches and talk with me while we washed dishes and my dad would have me help him with a jigsaw puzzle, and at nights I’d sleep in my old room. It would be restful. I might even get to read a book.
And then a big low-pressure system started moving over the Atlantic, with the promise of becoming a nor’easter. And my phone rang.
“No,” my mother said, “it’s just not worth the risk. They’re saying that it’s going to be bad, and we don’t want you driving in that.”
“So we’ll fly.”
But I had known she wouldn’t let that happen, either. Even if we could get tickets at a price we could afford, and even if the planes were flying, they would worry. And the last thing my dad needed, with his healing heart, was worry.
“We can send the gifts,” she promised. “We can Skype.”
“Not if the power’s out.” I heard the gloomy tone in my own voice and knew that it would make her feel bad, so I forced myself to sound more cheerful. “But you’re right. It’s fine.”
It isn’t really Christmas anyway, I felt like adding.
As it was, the forecasted nor’easter didn’t even come at Christmas. Tracking slowly up the coast it kept the weather just as miserable as Rachel’s mood, and finally slammed ashore on New Year’s Day. It struck with vengeance. I could feel the house shake under the relentless gusts of wind that rattled glass and shrieked at every window, blotting out the world behind a blinding swirl of snow so thick I thought we might be buried.
We lost our electricity, and when the worst had passed and I could venture out to check the damage, I saw why.
Two trees had been knocked down in the backyard. It was a miracle they’d fallen in the way they did, and not towards the house, but one had taken down the power lines. The other one had landed squarely on my brother’s shed and now the whole yard was a mess of branches, broken shingles, shattered siding, and scattered debris encased in ice and hardened snow that came up to my knees.
I didn’t cry. Not then. I took one look at Rachel’s face when I came in, and knew I had to hold myself together so she wouldn’t fall apart. I tried to focus on the positive. “Your father never liked that shed,” I said. “At least now we can get a new one.”
She tried to smile. I saw her make the effort. But it was too much. She turned and went upstairs and went into her room and got in bed and pulled the blankets up and stayed there.
After spending all the next day on the phone in fruitless calls to our insurance company, I was strongly tempted to go join her. But instead, I took the wine that Sam had given me, and found myself a glass and, sitting at the kitchen table, hitched my chair close to my brother’s.
“See?” I told him as I filled my glass. “Look how much fun you’re missing. You should be here.” Unexpectedly, my eyes filled. “You should be here,” I repeated, but the words this time came quietly and hurt my throat. I took a drink.
The bottle was half empty by the time I fell asleep.
? ? ?
I woke up the next morning to a sky that promised sunshine, and a digital alarm clock that was blinking to announce we once again had electricity, which seemed enough encouragement to get up, pull on jeans and an old sweatshirt, and go down to brew a very badly needed cup of coffee.
I was standing at the sink to fill the kettle, looking out the kitchen window, when I saw the dog bounce past, a joyful, flop-eared burst of movement in the drifted snow.
I put the kettle down. Turned off the tap.
Outside, the snow was deep enough to work itself between my boot tops and my jeans as I walked down the slope of our backyard. I felt it soaking through my socks. I didn’t mind.
Sam straightened, having gathered up a load of splintered siding. “Morning.”
He’d been working for a while already, I could tell. He’d cleared a section maybe six feet square, and worn a deep track through the snow from walking back and forth to where he’d parked his truck. It had a snowplow on the front. He’d cleared the driveway.
Bandit deftly changed course and began to bound towards me, long ears sailing up with every stride.