Their Christmas to Remember

by Amalie Berlin

  She’d stopped swaying. Or maybe he’d stopped them. They stood still to one side of the dance floor, and he knew that worry on his face gave him away.

  “So, I did it. I pled guilty and went to juvie for two months.”

  “Before you turned him in to get out?”

  “No. I did the whole sentence, took the probation.” She breathed slowly, her words still sounding forced. “But he ended up in jail before that was done for something else and was going to be gone a long time. It was a long time to think, and I came to see that having this lie on my record would keep me from achieving my own goals. Part of my probation involved a social worker and she was very kind, so I told her. She took an interest in me.”

  In Angelica.

  “She told the court and it was taken care of?”

  “I had to provide my journals from the time, showing I’d actually been away when the theft occurred. Then they looked closer and found details that led to his conviction.”

  “And this increased his prison time.”

  She nodded, and then took a deep breath. “And he’s still in. And life is still hard for them.”

  So, she sent them money.

  There was more to it, he could tell there was more to it, but this was enough. He didn’t know what to do with it. Or why it meant she was moving.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said. What else was he supposed to say? He couldn’t fix that. This was what she’d told her ex? This had gotten her fired? “Does Alberts know?”

  “My record was expunged,” she said softly, shaking her head.

  Thank God for that. “So...do you feel better?”

  She swallowed, then licked her lips, holding his gaze with a kind of desperate kneading of the back of his neck. “It’s not just him. It’s the whole family. We have a reputation. You moved away from your parents’ reputation, I did too. I know that when I don’t concentrate on keeping my language proper and clean, I slip into the colloquialisms and lazy diction of my native tongue, and it marks me as other to most people. It’s a slippery slope. Once you know where to look, a lot can be found out. And people are nosy, especially if they think you don’t belong. They’d look. People also wouldn’t understand me continuing to send money, which is kind of enabling their criminal existence, but I do it, and I’m not going to stop.”

  “Because you feel guilty.”

  “Because I feel responsible. And I know what it is to go without. I’ve left out a lot—it could take a lifetime of therapy to go over—I just want you to know that, even though I’m broken, and I don’t trust easily, I trust you. And...”

  Ice shot through his chest. No. This wasn’t supposed to be about him. He let go and stepped back, hands up to try and stop this, or slow it down. Because of the pregnant pause at the end of her statement. She trusted him, and...

  “Angel, we should go,” he said. They hadn’t been dancing really anyway, just sort of swaying and having conversations far too intense for a dance floor. Especially when he saw plainly written on her face what the next declaration was going to be.

  “I can’t stop now,” she said, following his retreat, until she grabbed his hands and that stopped him. “I just need to get it out.”

  “Darlin’, it’s not... I don’t...”

  “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here and be with you. Have all the fantastic sex.” She tried to laugh, but it was the whiffle of breath that rattled in her chest and up her throat. Trying to be playful when terrified. “I love you. I just need to know if you can accept that this is where I come from, that these are the things that made me...that I’m one of those Conleys of Tarpin... Terrapin Hollow.”

  Tarpin Holler. The words he’d thought she’d said early on, and then covered with something that sounded more sensible somehow.

  “Angel.” He pulled one hand free, rubbed his face, then the back of his neck to keep it from snapping, so brittle and tense with the need to run. “I wouldn’t have gotten involved if you weren’t leaving. If you’re staying, I can’t.”

  “Can’t what? Accept this? Accept me?”

  “I told you, I don’t know how to have a relationship. All this makes anything I say to you able to hurt you badly, and I have done that in the past. I don’t want to do it with you. You want to go to Atlanta, you’ve said so many times.”

  “I thought I couldn’t be happy if I stayed here, but if you can accept me, that’s all I need.”

  Acceptance. Acceptance. It wasn’t about that. But she was a doctor too, she had the same instinct to heal that he had. She’d try to fix him, and be hurt more in the process. He had a duty to do no harm. Or at least only harm in a surgical manner meant to stave off more damage.

  “I don’t want you to stay.” The only way he could think to soften it was to leave out talk of acceptance and past wounds, to just bring it to the bottom line. “If you stay, I have to go.”

  He didn’t need to look her in the eyes to know they were wet and couldn’t bring himself to look. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Where she could pack and save herself again.

  Atlanta would be better for her.

  A rustle of skirts was his answer, and he lifted his eyes to an empty spot before him, and her hurrying toward the door.

  He stepped back and felt something crunch under his heel.

  * * *

  “Get up!” Lyons’s barking voice broke through Wolfe’s sleepy haze, and the sensation of someone whacking his leg with something.

  “Get tae!” he growled back, in his still-half-drunken state and not wanting to deal with his brother gloating. Or telling him what he was doing wrong. Or telling him again to grow up. Or telling him anything.

  “Get up,” Lyons repeated, and Wolfe heard him drag a chair over toward the bed. A peek confirmed his brother settling in. “It’s past noon.”

  He didn’t care if it was past noon. Or if he’d lost a whole week. Sleeping was a comfort right now; whiskey had just facilitated the comfort of oblivion.

  “What do you want? Say it and get out.”

  Another thing he didn’t care about right now? If he pushed Lyons’s conflict buttons and this all went as badly as he’d feared with every interaction since the shooting.

  “You sent me a text then didn’t answer any of the three I sent you. So, get up.”

  Wolfe had heard his phone pinging earlier, he just hadn’t cared about that either.

  A full look at Lyons confirmed him sitting with that judgmental stare.

  If this was going to happen, it would happen with him upright, not flat on his back from the invisible truck that had driven him over.

  When he pulled himself up, he grumbled, “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what happened with Conley.”

  “I told you to leave her be.” Wolfe stood up, crossed to his bureau and dug out a pair of pajama bottoms to make himself partially decent.

  “I wasn’t planning on going after her.”

  “You weren’t planning on it, but you still act like a complete ass all the time. I’m tired of walking eggshells round you,” Wolfe almost shouted, then all the alcohol-diluted blood in his body rushed into his head in one massive throb. His hand flew to cover one temple, as if that would keep his head from exploding, and he lowered his voice. “I know last Christmas was the worst of a long line of bad Christmases. I know it’s changed who you are, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to help you get back to yourself. But I’m done. With all of it.”

  “Good,” Lyons said.

  “You need to get your mind right. I say that with love, and frustration, because we’re not okay. We probably both need therapy, if we’re being honest here.” He stopped, all will to speak leaving and taking with it the tension that always snaked over him when he got involved in important, personal conversations. Talking with her had been li
ke that. At least at first.

  “I hired an investigator after we spoke.”

  Wolfe cut him off, not wanting to hear him slag Angel. “I know she was in juvenile detention.”

  “And you’re still reeking over her?”

  “I love her,” Wolfe barked again, giving his head another tooth-shattering pulse with the words he hadn’t even been able to admit to himself.

  In contrast, Lyons took a breath and spoke patiently, even gently, “She’s a criminal. Her license will be gone when the board finds out.”

  Lyons had patience suddenly? Well, Wolfe had none left. If he was threatening her...

  “Shut it. You’re not telling anyone. She took the blame for her father’s crime to try and protect her family. I know you tried to protect me when you could growing up, I know you’re trying now, in your way, but you leave her be.”

  “The lot of them are criminals, Wolfe. The whole lot.”

  “She’s not. She’s a good person, and she’s leaving...” His voice actually broke when he said that, and he had to take a minute to try and shove that horrible ache from his chest before he could think of another thing. It was worse than when his head tried to split in half. “I know I can’t have her. I know she’s better off with someone else.”

  Lyons wasn’t losing control of himself, Wolfe thought again, despite him basically telling him he was broken and all the things he’d been dancing around for a year out of fear of making matters worse.

  No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what he was feeling. That wasn’t what had held him back.

  It wasn’t fear of making things worse—though he’d had some of that too—he hadn’t said important things out of fear of alienating his only brother. Of losing what tiny bit there was of family and connection.

  “You’re not angry?” he asked finally, jumping subject as he swiveled back to where Lyons still sat, elbows on his knees, in a fairly relaxed posture.

  “I’m not best pleased, but no. No’ really. I know you’re upset,” Lyons said quietly. “Tell me you don’t really love her, you poor bastard.”

  “Wish I could.” Wolfe finally sat back down on the corner of his bed. “You came here to try and sort me out.”

  “I came here to check on you,” Lyons corrected, shaking his head. “I know we’re not so close as family should be, but I do worry about you. I care what happens to you. And I will, no matter how many stupid mistakes you make, trusting—or loving—people you shouldn’t.”

  “Then why’s it got to be so hard to talk? It’s always hard to talk.” Except to Angel.

  “Because we’re broken, and there’s no fixing it. We are what they made us, and some other rotten misfortune.” Lyons half repeated his words back, but what he added... It was wrong. Nearly what he’d said to Angel, but not so hope-filled as when she’d turned it back to him. These are the broken pieces that made me, can you accept them? Because she’d already accepted that he was bad at relationships.

  She’d accepted his flaws enough to risk herself. And he’d rejected her for his own flaws. Had he said that?

  No.

  He loved his brother, but he didn’t want to become him. Even though, when Wolfe looked at him again, he saw the smallest quirk of a grin. Rueful. But present. First time in a long time. Enough to give him hope.

  Lyons wasn’t going anywhere after all that.

  He wasn’t losing his mind in a fit of rage.

  He didn’t even look angry.

  Then he said words Wolfe would’ve never thought to hear. “You’ve got it back to front, little brother. She’s not the one who’s better off, but maybe the damage is already done. You’re going to suffer for her now or suffer for her later.”

  * * *

  Early Sunday morning, well before the hours of decency, Angel called Alberts’s emergency contact phone number. She hadn’t been asleep from the night before, and she couldn’t sleep until she got some things sorted out. Her mind just wouldn’t stop spinning in circles, and every one came back around to the horror she’d seen on Wolfe’s handsome face.

  He’d tried to spin it as something else, the old It’s not you, it’s me nonsense. But she knew better.

  All she’d actually done after having fled the ball like a pathetic version of Cinderella—she’d even lost her bag with phone and keys, probably in the taxi—was get her super to open the door, report her cell lost, change out of her dress and sit. She did the things she had to do and spent the rest of the night figuring out what she was supposed to do now. Run? Hide? If she was going to survive December, she couldn’t be bumping into him in the halls, or Jenna’s room. She didn’t want to see Lyons either.

  The peacock bag didn’t suit her anyway. It was made for the kind of woman who attended those events. She was more suited to something made of pleather and available at big box stores.

  Sunday night, after sleeping during the day with the help of her partially empty wines, she clocked in for her first night shift. For her remaining weeks at Sutcliffe, she’d be on nights—a really crappy schedule to volunteer for, but one that might save what was left of her dignity. If the night rotation had even watched their live streams, they would’ve seen a stranger they didn’t already know as timid and standoffish. They most likely wouldn’t have had any opinion of her at all.

  It would be better on nights. Even losing her Sunday in order to get started was okay. One less night to mourn, a way to keep busy. It was easier to keep her mask in place when no one was there, poking at it with their eyes full of judgment or pity while she tried to keep her chin up.

  January sat on the horizon. She could make it. She’d survived worse.

  When you fell down you had to get up. In real life, no one came to carry you from the ice.

  That had been a Christmas fairy tale.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  AFTER THE THREE days it took to finally adjust to a nightshift schedule, not much could drag Angel into Sutcliffe during the day, but a message from Jenna announcing her discharge did it.

  She’d bought her only Christmas present after work yesterday morning and hadn’t had a chance to deliver it. When she’d gotten home this morning, before she’d even had time to change out of her scrubs, she’d gotten a message to come back. She looked ragged enough without adding rumpled scrubs to the mix—three really hard days had left her with frizzy hair and perpetually tired-looking eyes—but she wanted the kid to get out too, and wasn’t going to delay it by taking time to primp first.

  Even if it meant avoiding eye contact with her former coworkers as she passed them en route to Jenna’s room and repeating a prayer under her breath, like a mantra: Don’t let him see me. Don’t let me see him.

  She didn’t knock; the door was open, and Mrs. Lindsey was taking down the twinkle lights.

  Made it in time.

  “Dr. Angel!” Jenna chirruped upon seeing her, her color and cheer making Angel doubly glad she came. She wore actual pajamas instead of that awful hospital gown and was standing.

  “Look at you!” Angel smiled, probably for the first time since Saturday, and gave the girl a gentle hug. “You must be doing what the doctors tell you—eating, taking your walks, using your spirometer for breathing exercises. And now making it home before Christmas, making my Christmas perfect.”

  Perfect.

  “I am, and feel lots better.” Jenna hugged her back, then shuffled to the wall to retrieve her rolling tray where her laptop sat. “I got you a present!”

  “You got me a present?” Angel asked, slipping the small box she’d brought from her pocket as a focus—something tangible to keep her focus on what she was doing and how she was supposed to be behaving, a way to control her thoughts and keep them from drifting back to Wolfe. “I got you something too.”

  A handful of words, and Jenna instantly abandoned the computer, immediately shuffling back to c
laim the box, eyes widening as she whispered, “This is the size of jewelry boxes.”

  Angel wasn’t giving any other Christmas presents; she’d enjoy this one. “It is about that size, isn’t it?”

  Jenna eased onto the edge of the bed, and at first it looked as if she was going to untie the ribbon with a delicate touch, but it took only a second before she began wrestling the small bit of satin from around the box. As soon as it was free, she opened the lid with such vigor the top flipped onto the floor and the rest of the box followed after she tumbled out the little velvet box inside.

  “It is a jewelry box...” The velvet got a single swipe on her cheek, a tactile pleasure, and she flipped it open.

  “What did Dr. Angel get you?” Mrs. Lindsey asked, picking up the dropped boxes while her daughter reached inside to straighten the small silver pendant on the delicate chain.

  “It’s an angel necklace.”

  To remember her by. Something to bear Angel’s prayer for Jenna’s recovery and remission. A piece of something to alleviate the crush of guilt that came with knowing she was abandoning her first patient.

  “Do you know about the different angels? That’s Michael, he’s an archangel, a warrior. He never stops fighting for mankind,” Angel explained, nothing left in her hands to distract from the guilt. She was never far from crying the past few days and didn’t want to start now. Her keys in her pocket helped.

  For a moment Jenna looked almost sad, but it passed in a second. “I want to wear it right now.”

  “Are you sure?” Angel asked, picking up on some level of hesitation.

  Jenna handed the box to her mom to put it on her. “I just don’t want Michael to be my replacement angel.”

  Because she was Jenna’s angel.

  “I know.” Angel couldn’t bring herself to say again that she was leaving. She just didn’t have the heart. Especially after Mrs. Lindsey put the necklace on her daughter and Jenna reached up to press it into her neck, protectively covering it, almost embracing it with her hand. The same reverence that had kept Angel touching that dang beaded bag before she’d lost it. It was probably better for her sanity that she’d lost it.