Aubrey wouldn’t be denied. “It may not be an emergency, but it is really important to me.”
“Well, out with it then, Aubrey! You never know when Darren will pop his head into my office and need me for something.” Walter’s tone was a bland imitation of a father scolding a daughter.
Aubrey inhaled deeply. This was it. She had promised herself that morning she would ask. “Why didn’t you get me anything for Christmas this year?”
Silence puddled up on Walter’s end of the line. He stammered several times before finally managing a feeble, “what?”
“I said, why didn’t you get me anything for Christmas this year. You know how much it hurt me last year when you didn’t get me anything, and yet that didn’t keep you from making the same mistake again this year. What I want to know is, why?”
“Aubrey, I don’t think this is the right time or place…” Walter grasped at excuse straws. In his office back in New York City he was on his phone typing Christmas gifts for fiancées into the search bar.
Aubrey cut him off. “There is never a right time or place, but I don’t care. You will answer my question.”
Walter was silent again. He hoped Aubrey would bail him out by saying something else so he could leverage her comments into a way to change the subject. When he realized she wasn’t going to say anything until he responded, he admitted the truth. “I don’t know why.”
Aubrey saw Walter had never given her Christmas gift a single thought until she brought it up. It helped finalize the decision in her mind. “It’s over, Walter.”
Through the phone line there came the sound of something heavy crashing to a hardwood floor. It was most likely a notebook, or his laptop. Walter had probably been balancing one of those on his lap while working from the tower computer on his desk. Aubrey guessed this because she had seen him work that way hundreds of times from their bedroom apartment in New York. “Wha… what?” He stammered out again.
“Us.” Aubrey loved giving the news. Having separated herself from Victoria, it seemed natural she also severed ties with the other person in her life who sought to control her every move. In that moment, she felt freer than she had in a decade.
“What are you talking about, Aubrey?” Walter’s world spun around him like it was going down a large drain. It hadn’t occurred to him Aubrey might be unhappy or want to leave him. The idea anybody could be unhappy with him, or want to leave him, was sacrilege to him.
“You and me. Us. Our engagement. Whatever you want to refer to as the period of time which began almost four years ago and is coming to a screeching halt today, those last four years in which we spent the majority of our free time together, that thing is over.”
“Aubrey, are you okay? Have you hit your head? Been in some sort of accident?” Walter manufactured Hollywood reasons for Aubrey’s behavior. He needed to be able to account for this with something. Head trauma felt like the best option.
“Seriously,” Aubrey couldn’t believe Walter stooped this low, “the only way you can imagine I wouldn’t want to be with you as if I’d suffered some sort of head injury.”
Walter mounted a flimsy defense. “You’re twisting my words. I knew it was a bad idea for you to go to Hicksville.”
Kyle had heard enough. “It’s Timberville, Walter.” He couldn’t resist coming to the aid of the woman, and the small town, he loved. My goodness, he had thought to himself again, and in that natural of a way, he loved Aubrey.
“Who in the world is that?” Walter demanded.
Aubrey sensed the slow-motion plane crash she was putting Walter through had gone on long enough for her to make her point. “Walter?”
“Yes, Aubrey?”
“We’re through.” With that, Aubrey hung up on Walter in the same fashion as she hung up on Victoria a few minutes ago, with finality and purpose.
Kyle rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry I said something, Aubrey. I couldn’t stand to hear him talk to you like that. I couldn’t stand to hear him talk about my hometown like that. I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds.”
Aubrey dismissed Kyle’s fears with a wave of her hand. “It’s my place to say sorry. I shouldn’t have put you and Mr. Clarke through that. I still can’t say why I did it. I’m such a private person in general. Will you two forgive me? I honestly felt I needed your help to make sure I did the right thing.”
“Once again, I’ll decline to speak for Kyle,” Mr. Clarke began, “but I felt no imposition at all.”
“Oh, you can go ahead and speak for me. I feel the same.” Kyle volunteered.
Mr. Clarke had something else on his mind. “Ever since you two showed up in my store this morning, I’ve had this nagging feeling something is pulling us together this Christmas. And just so you know, I never feel like that. My Annette always chastised me for being overly rational. ‘Lead with your heart sometimes, Tim.’ I can still hear her advice clanging around in my ears after all these years.”
“Thank you. Both of you, for supporting me. I don’t know where all of this is leading us, but I do know one thing for certain.” Aubrey found it hard to suppress the tear that wanted to well up in her eye at the thought which bloomed in her brain.
“What’s that? Kyle asked.
“It is really beginning to feel a lot like Christmas now.” Aubrey smiled. She was so happy to be headed back to Timberville with Kyle and Mr. Clarke and without Walter and Victoria.
Chapter Twelve
Aubrey stood next to the driver’s side window of Kyle’s truck. Because it was a dual-wheeled, heavy-duty suspension work truck, and because she was not the tallest tool in the shed, her head barely peeked over the door latch. Mr. Clarke had taken her place in the front seat next to Kyle. Both men were staring through Kyle’s driver’s side window at Aubrey.
Aubrey directed her statement at Mr. Clarke as though Kyle weren’t sitting right there to hear her. She was in such a good mood she wanted to tease. “You have my number if Kyle gives you any trouble. Call me at the first sign of mistreatment. I will come running. I know he looks like he’s tough stuff but it’s all an act. Believe me, I can take him.”
“Hey, I won the right to shelter the important department store chain owner fair and square. Don’t be a sore loser, Aubrey.” Kyle said this with a manufactured sense of sticking Aubrey’s nose in his victory. In case she needed more demonstration to understand what he was referring to, he also mimed tossing a coin. “Fair and square. Besides, as soon as I pick up mama, and lend Tim some of my Timberville clothes, we’ll be coming right back over here anyway.”
Mr. Clarke was still worried Aubrey’s mom hadn’t been given enough notice. “Are you sure your mother won’t mind an extra seat at the table, Aubrey?”
“Don’t you worry about that one, Tim. Every time my mom turns the oven on, she makes enough food for eight people. That’s not an exaggeration. There will be more than enough to eat. I actually think she would be happy if I found a couple more people to bring to dinner. In fact,” she directed this next part to Kyle, “can you keep your eyes open for anyone that looks hungry on your way back.”
Kyle winked at Aubrey as he nodded his assent to her silly request. “We’ll see you in an hour or less,” he said.
Aubrey stared into Kyle’s bright blue eyes for a second longer than was appropriate. She couldn’t help herself. “I’ve had another great day with you.”
Kyle’s smile took over his whole mouth. “You’re not bad company yourself, Miss Wilson. Although, I am partial to Tim’s rendition of Jingle Bell Rock.” Aubrey playfully slapped Kyle in the arm, as was her new custom. She then walked toward her house. Kyle called after her, “Aubrey?”
Aubrey stopped in order to give him her attention, “Yes, Kyle?”
“I had a great day with you too.”
Aubrey shrugged her shoulders and laughed. “I’m sorry, Kyle, but you missed the moment.”
“Really?” Kyle looked at Mr. Clarke and then back at Aubrey. “Tim doesn’t think so.”
Mr. Clarke shook his head in disagreement. “Oh no, Tim thinks you blew it too.” The trio erupted in laughter.
Kyle waited until Aubrey entered her mom’s house before rolling up his window and driving away. Mr. Clarke studied him from the passenger’s seat. He tried to figure out what was going through Kyle’s mind. Since Kyle’s face wouldn’t betray his mind, Mr. Clarke went ahead and asked. “You’re not seriously going to let her get away, are you?”
The question caught Kyle off guard. He wasn’t sure he knew what Mr. Clarke was talking about. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, a blind man could see you two are perfect for each other, and yet it seems like you are content to advance in your pursuit of her at a snail’s pace, if you advance at all.” Mr. Clarke made his thoughts as obvious as he could. He wanted to prevent anymore vague volleys of back and forth between him and Kyle. “Therefore, my question to you is, are you really prepared to let her get away.”
Kyle thought about it. He realized he didn’t have a good answer. “It’s complicated,” was the best he could come up with.
“Oh my.” Mr. Clarke sighed. He didn’t like that response at all.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“You are prepared to let her get away.” Mr. Clarke couldn’t believe this was true considering what he knew Aubrey to be, but Kyle’s answer showed something pulled him away from her harder than his attraction to her pulled him toward her. “Youth is wasted on the young.”
*
Less than an hour later, as Kyle promised, Kyle and Mr. Clarke were joined on the Wilson Family front porch by Kyle’s mother, Melissa. Like Mr. Clarke and Greta, Melissa wore her years well. No one would have thought it foolish to guess she was fifty-five, even though she would be seventy in two months. Of course, that meant Kyle had been a near miracle baby coming, as he had, during Melissa’s fortieth year. Edward, Kyle’s father was ten years older than Melissa. Both of them had long since given up on having any children of their own by the time he finally came. They were content to help with the youth groups at their church, and with the children in their neighborhood.
But then they had the news about Kyle, and it felt to Melissa like a dream come true. After over fifteen years of trying, she and Edward had a child they could call their own. In spite of their advanced age, and the fact it always seemed there was special meaning to be derived from Kyle finding them among all the parents in the universe he could have chosen, Melissa and Edward managed to raise a bright, sensible young boy. He didn’t believe the world revolved around him. In fact, Aubrey’s morning critique of Kyle was accurate. If Melissa had heard her make it, she would have agreed. Kyle was a little too selfless.
So, of course, when Greta called her last week and asked her for some help with this crazy plan she cooked up with her husband before he died, Melissa jumped at the chance. It had always been tough on Melissa’s spirit, especially in the years since Edward passed, to watch her son withhold so much of himself from the world. She knew, as any mother would, Kyle had never gotten over his first love, Aubrey, but she had no plan for how to get him out of the self-inflicted trauma that descended over him like a fog during the years since their breakup. At least, she had no plan until that morning when Greta detailed her wild ideas about Aubrey and Kyle. Melissa wasn’t sure they would be able to bring them all the way back together, as Greta hoped, but she did believe that, either way, her son would get some closure. She imagined he would finally be able to move on with his life—a result Melissa knew was worth pursing no matter how crazy the plan which sought to make it happen.
That’s why she agreed to do all the things she’d done behind her son’s back these past few days. She wouldn’t have done any of them if she didn’t believe there were a chance Greta’s hair-brained scheme might work. Sneaking around wasn’t in her character. At her best, Edward always said she preferred to be direct. At her worst, he would say she preferred to win a war of attrition. Sneaking wasn’t in her arsenal. However, it was toward a sneaking purpose she now found herself standing on this porch, freezing to death, with a man she didn’t know (although she did quite like Mr. Clarke even if she’d only just met him) instead of sitting at home beneath her electric blanket watching her mystery programs. In the end, she put her faith in the same magic that gave her Kyle in the first place—against all the odds and the best available science of the very late eighties. Sometimes in life the best thing to do was to believe.
Kyle rang the doorbell. A few seconds later, Aubrey answered. When Kyle saw her, he felt his heart fall out on the Wilson Family front porch. He was afraid his mother, or Mr. Clarke, would step on it if they weren’t careful. Aubrey was stunningly beautiful. He was struck dumb. Why did this keep happening to him?
“We’re back.” Thankfully Mr. Clarke noticed Kyle’s condition and bailed him out by speaking first. This gave Kyle a few moments to recover his voice.
Aubrey dove past any potential awkwardness in the situation by giving Melissa a big hug right there on the porch. “It’s so good to see you, Melissa.” She then addressed the entire group. “All of you come on in here where it’s warm.” Aubrey stepped back to allow her guests into her mother’s home. She took their coats and lead them into the dining room where her mother had carefully arranged the food dishes so they had the appearance of being haphazard.
Greta appeared in the doorway with another dish clutched in her hands between oven mitts. This one was a casserole full of scalloped potatoes. She set these down in what was the last remaining empty spot on the dining room table. “Please everyone, have a seat.” They all did as she suggested by taking the seat which was closest to where they happened to be standing. Somehow, this caused Aubrey and Kyle to end up sitting next to each other.
“Mom,” Aubrey began the lone introduction that needed to be made, “this is the Mr. Clarke, I was telling you about. Mr. Clarke, this is my mother, Greta.”
“Very nice to meet you, Greta.” Mr. Clarke extended his hand to Greta and she very pleasantly shook it. “And, I’ve told your daughter five times my name is, Tim.” Mr. Clarke said in a playful manner. There were no hard feelings over Aubrey’s insistence on formality.
“Well, Tim, you can call me Greta or mom, whichever you prefer. I promise I will respond to both,” Greta joked.
“I reserve the right to use either depending on what the situation calls for,” Mr. Clarke intoned. Everyone at the table smiled at the polite banter passing between him and Greta. A lifetime in retail had turned him into a consummate charmer. This fact became clearer the more time you spent with him.
The Christmas feast prepared by Greta went off without a hitch. Everyone complimented the food so much Greta began to wonder if they were being sincere. This led to a whole new round of proclamations about how good the food was. A process which culminated with Mr. Clarke promising to swear out an affidavit in the morning if that’s what it took to convince Greta her dinner had been on the exceptional end of tasty. In other words, the comradery between all the participants was perfect. It was exactly the kind of dinner Greta hoped for on this first Christmas without Scott.
When they were finished, Melissa and Mr. Clarke wanted to retire to the living room, where they could let the contents of their stomachs settle. Greta, however, would not hear of anyone leaving the dining room until they had dessert. The fact no one had room for dessert did not affect Greta’s desire to force it on them. She could be insistent when she needed to be, and it turned out the dessert was a line in the sand for her.
“Aubrey, will you come with me and give me a hand?” Aubrey popped up and followed her mom to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Greta surprised everyone remaining at the table by bringing in dessert drinks instead of desert cakes. “See,” she said, “I told you that you couldn’t be too stuffed for what I had planned.”
Greta set drinks in front of Kyle and Melissa. Aubrey gave one to Mr. Clarke and set the other glass in front of her mom’s seat. Greta then went back into the kitchen t
o fetch the remaining drink for Aubrey. While she was in there, she also grabbed a tin of chocolate chip cookies just in case one of her guests was not serious about being too full to eat anything else.
Mr. Clarke was the first to take a sip. “Oh my, what is this? I love it,” he exclaimed.
“Gingerbread eggnog.” Greta said, as Kyle and Melissa both took sips as well.
“I think we should make this a new holiday tradition in the Morgan household. What do you think?” Kyle directed this question toward his mother.
“Where does the line form for seconds?” Melissa asked.
Mr. Clarke joined in, “when you find it, let me know.”
Greta reveled in the continuation of the playful banter in her honor. “It’s a recipe Scott found.” Greta realized no one had mentioned Scott to Mr. Clarke yet. She thought she should catch him up to speed with a brief explanation. “Scott was Aubrey’s father. He passed away this past summer.”
Mr. Clarke solemnly nodded his head. “Aubrey told me a little about him this afternoon.” Mr. Clarke looked at Aubrey for a moment and then swiveled his attention back to Greta. “To be honest with you, I might not be here if we hadn’t shared our similar stories of loss. Her story was about her father, mine was about my wife, but Aubrey and I bonded when we spoke of those we loved that passed. About how we both may not have been all we could have been prior to that passing.”
Aubrey saw that talking about her dad was making her mom happy, and she wanted to hear more of the Gingerbread eggnog story herself, so she kept that thread of conversation going. “When did he find the recipe, mom?”
Greta drew herself up into her memory to pin down the date. “Oh my, it must have been thirty Christmases ago. It was one of our very first traditions. Since this is our first Christmas without him, I thought it would be an appropriate way to honor his memory.” Greta looked at each person sitting at her table. Genuine gratitude flooded her face. “I am so happy to have the four of you here with me so that I could.”
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