Their Christmas to Remember

by Amalie Berlin

  “I’m glad you like it.” Angel’s voice wobbled. “And so happy for you that you get to go home today.”

  “Jen?”

  Jenna looked at her mother, who carried the laptop.

  “Don’t you want to show Dr. Angel the video you made for her?”

  Instantly, the girl’s demeanor changed, and once again she was all smiles as she took the device.

  “You made me a video?”

  “Well, I helped.” Jenna patted the bed beside her and started the video while Angel sat to watch, and Mrs. Lindsey began fiddling with her phone.

  The video started with a round of the rooms and the children, many of whom had been her patients at one point, saying what they’d liked about the Christmas stories, as their videos had come to be called outside Wolfe’s shenanigans moniker. Without the keys to worry, she’d have started crying at the second room, both because of the sweet things the children said, and maybe a little pride that she’d been able to give those smiles to them. Even proud that Wolfe had helped. It warmed her, but it also burned—being so reminded and always hearing their names linked.

  Dr. Angel and Dr. Wolfe did this. Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Angel did that.

  Tree. Skating. Cookies. Presents.

  Presents? The first time that came up, she just smiled; kids always associated Christmas with presents. But about the fifth time, and with the mention of opening presents as something they looked forward to, she became alarmed.

  There were no more activities scheduled. Alberts had let them be done after the ball, mostly because she’d barely contained her tears while begging to change shifts for her final weeks.

  The video became footage of the hallway being traversed by wheelchair, and Jenna’s voice narrating. “We’re going to the activity room for a surprise.”

  Now? She looked at Jenna, who was smiling at her, her eyes so full of stars and happiness that Angel simply couldn’t speak. Instead, she looked back at the video.

  Inside the activities room, long bands of massive paper had been unrolled and affixed to the wall. Tables with cups of markers sat at regular intervals, and all over the paper were blocks of texts, little happy toddler scribbles, doodles of Christmas trees and presents. She didn’t know what any of it was, but it felt like a gift. They’d made her a video as thank you or...

  “I wrote this one,” Jenna’s voice announced from the video and it zoomed in on a block of neatly written blue text.

  “What’s it say?” another voice on the video asked.

  Wolfe. It was Wolfe’s voice. Her heart flopped out of rhythm twice, then began beating so hard and fast there was no way to slow her breathing, no way to hide her reaction.

  Why was he involved? He wanted her to leave.

  “‘Dear Dr. Angel, we love you and don’t want you to go. My mom said you can visit us, and it’s okay because I have bunk beds. PS, my mom’s a really good cook.’”

  Key-fidgeting failed her. Biting the inside of her jaw, another technique she’d often used to control her emotions, also failed to dam the flood rising in her eyes.

  The paper banners were for her. All of them. She didn’t have that many people in her life to write words of encouragement.

  “She’ll appreciate that invitation, lass,” said video Wolfe. “Hand me the camera. I want to get some of the top up close, so she can read them.”

  Jenna pressed a tissue into her hand and leaned in to hug her arm, but said nothing. The change in elevation and some rattling showed the camera being handed off to someone taller.

  Wordlessly, he walked, scanning the blocks of text, fast enough to show the numbers but she couldn’t read more than a few words here and there.

  Until he zoomed in on one, a name she recognized—the parent of a patient she’d seen and admitted last week, thanking her for her dedication and having the heart to treat their spirits as well as their bodies.

  Her chest squeezed hard, and she clamped her mouth shut to keep silent the sob she’d felt coming but couldn’t stop. Quietly crying in front of a patient was bad enough, even when the kid had had a hand in orchestrating it, but losing her mind and having a breakdown was too far.

  Was this him trying to give her a kind farewell? To make her feel better before she left? Something to ease the ache?

  He moved on, spot-shooting different messages while others flew by in a blur of colorful handwriting.

  Coworkers, lamenting not having known her before the videos. What they’d miss, not having her around. Thoughtful and unscripted, like genuine praise, genuine compliments. Reasons to stay. Which would mean he couldn’t, he’d said.

  Even Lyons had signed. No sentimental words, he just wrote: A good doctor is always missed, Lyons McKeag.

  “Mine’s not on here, lass,” Wolfe said softly, and Angel knew he was speaking to her before he turned the camera around. “I messed up. Don’t think I could have enough room to write my apology if I had all these papers to myself. Been doin’ a lot of thinking, and all I know for sure is this can’t be the end. If you go, I’ll go with you. My malfunctioning robot half worked out the programming error. Turned out it was a number problem. Ones and zeros don’t work when you were made to be one of two.”

  He took a breath, his gaze falling for a moment, but he kept the camera on himself, documenting it, showing her the struggle as he composed himself, and when he lifted his beautiful eyes again she saw dampness. And enough regret to fill an ocean. Tingling erupted all over her body, a lightness so powerful she’d swear she was about to astral project if she believed in that nonsense.

  Where was he? Was he coming?

  She didn’t want to look away from the screen, but had to look at the door, to check.

  “I realized where I went wrong,” he said after too long a pause. “It wasn’t easy to talk to you because I couldn’t mess you up if I was meaningless. That’s what I thought, that it was easy to talk to you as long as you weren’t important to me. But you became important to me that night at the rink. I didn’t realize it until I messed up, and nearly lost my mind trying to figure out how to fix it. You were never supposed to be mine, and I told myself that meant I was free to relax and not worry. But when you felt like you were mine, it got harder to talk—not because I was afraid of hurting you, but because I was afraid of losing you. Then I pushed you away because I’m a damn fool.”

  His smile, rueful and lopsided, made the words possibly real. “I think I need you to talk it through with me, so I understand why I do the things I do. I always think I know, but I’m starting to doubt much of what I think I know.”

  As apologies went, it was the best thing she’d ever heard, even before he said, “There’s more. I’ll tell you everything, but I need to say one thing that can’t wait. I love you. That’s not changing, doesn’t matter where you want to live. Everyone here wants you to stay, but if you can’t, I’ll go with you. Even if you want to go to Scotland and live under the shadow of the infamous, scandalous McKeag name.”

  She hit pause, the words rushing over her in a way that almost hurt. Was that a proposal?

  That sounded a lot like a proposal.

  Or was it just the shadow that would cover him to her by close association?

  It couldn’t be a proposal. It couldn’t be that good, that easy. Nothing had ever come that easily. She’d worked hard for everything she achieved. And she wanted this more than she’d ever wanted.

  She needed to see him in person. She needed to hear his voice without the wires and bits transmitting it to her. It was the only way to stop her heart from exploding with hope. She grabbed her new phone and scrambled, looking for his number.

  “Dr. Angel?” Mrs. Lindsey said her name, placed a hand over the phone and urged it down. “Watch the rest. It’s not much longer.”

  Watch the rest? She needed to breathe, but that couldn’t happen while she hung in this space bet
ween fear and knowing.

  Still, she bumped play again.

  “The kids and I prepared what I hope is a good apology.” He turned the camera away from himself and toward the wall she’d not seen, which was lined with children, waiting so patiently, smiling and quiet. And a dress form holding the most godawful adult-sized princess dress she’d ever seen. “I ruined the ball, Cinderella. I don’t have your shoe, but I’ve got this.”

  He moved the beaded bag in frame, resting in his open palm, then shifted the camera back to himself.

  “We’re in the activity room, and I owe you a proper dance. If you’ll come dance with me.”

  The video stopped, holding his pale blue gaze directly to the camera, ensuring she’d never mistake or forget the hope and love she saw there, and the fear. The fear she’d been rolling in at the ball. The fear she’d never leave him alone with, not when she could help it.

  She stood, looked at Jenna and Mrs. Lindsey, who were both crying with her, but didn’t need to speak.

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Mrs. Lindsey said, grabbing the wheelchair to load Jenna.

  It felt rude not to wait. Wrong and rude and not something a civilized person would do, but she was already in the hallway, running for the activities room.

  Her shoes squealed as she skidded to a stop in the doorway, and all eyes swiveled to her. The children and their parents sat just where they’d been shown. How long had they been waiting?

  Different clothes, her mind supplied. Many were in different pajamas, which meant they’d done the filming yesterday, and gotten up early today to see it finish.

  Wolfe walked into view, stopping in the center of the room. She met his gaze across the space, but she’d already made her decision before she’d even finished watching Jenna’s video.

  He waited, not pushing, not doing anything but watching her, waves of relief and happiness rolling off him so thick she’d swear she could see it, like disturbance in the air, heat rolling off a new fire to warm a cold, empty room.

  Still no words came from either of them. Even once she’d started moving again. His arms came out, spread and welcoming, a promise to hold, to hug and to dance... The light in his eyes promised more.

  She ran the last few paces and didn’t stop until she’d collided with him and he’d pressed her teary face into the safety of his neck.

  He tilted his head to whisper, “God, I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  She laughed a little, uncaring how many people were watching or knew their business, even how many of them cared about the two of them—and judging by the clapping, they all did. “I was sure you wouldn’t want me to.”

  “We’re going to need more faith in one another.” He didn’t sound scolding, just like Wolfe—ever a little bit amused, even in intense situations.

  “I’ve got another fear,” he whispered into her hair.

  “What is it?” She pulled back enough to look at him. What she really wanted was to kiss him, but the kids were there...

  “You’re going to have to wear that dress and dance with me before they’re going to agree to going back to bed.”

  It was her turn to laugh then and she swiped her tears away when she saw him reaching for her cheeks to do it.

  “If you did it, there would’ve been more,” she whispered to the flash of uncertainty she saw in his eyes. Just a flash, and she doubted anyone else would’ve seen it, but she’d seen behind his wall. She knew where the holes were now.

  A moment later, they walked to the dress and a couple of the mothers came to help her put it over her scrubs, which of course made it just that much uglier. Clearly an adult princess costume, the poufy iridescent blue volume of the skirt was supported by some kind of filler that managed to itch even through her thick cotton scrubs.

  Wolfe played his most charming, taking her hand and leading her to the floor while someone started music from an unseen music station. He apologized for that too, close at her ear. “I asked for something classic. They insisted that the puppet Christmas song was classic.”

  He tried to lead in a waltz, but that just wasn’t happening with the raucous, tambourine-heavy music blasting through the activities room and the off-key kiddie voices singing along, never mind her complete inability to waltz—something she suddenly knew she wanted to remedy. Just to dance with him.

  Laughing, both of them, he folded her closer, adopting something closer to a high-school dance sway as he looked into her eyes. “I’m going to assume you want to be with me.”

  “Good assumption,” she said, then asked, “What changed your mind?”

  He looked momentarily chagrined and admitted, “Lyons said something, the negative mirror of what you’d done, and I heard the wrongness in his words.”

  “What was it?” She might have to change her mind about Lyons, even if he only accidentally helped them get back together.

  “Lyons said, ‘We’re broken, and there’s no fixing it. We are what they made us, and some other rotten misfortune,’” Wolfe said, then added, “And you basically said, these are my broken pieces, can you accept them? Not change them. Not make me into something else. Accept them. And I knew you’d already accepted my own broken pieces. But I hadn’t.”

  She glanced to the children, not sure she could keep from crying again, but there was no way for her to stop this whispered conversation. “You hadn’t accepted mine?”

  “No, lass,” he said softly, “I hadn’t accepted mine. You had. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the wrongness of the other bit he’d said. That there was no fixing it. Because there is. I’m learning how to be with you. I’m committed to it. To you. And I want you to see that you already know how to be here. How much you’re wanted here. Not just by me, but, my God, if no one else wanted you, I’d spend every breath making sure to fill up any spaces left in your heart. And make a new family to replace the broken ones that made us.”

  Her lower lip wobbled and she squeezed tighter to him even as the music reached the cacophony of the bridge.

  “I spoke with Alberts,” he added, and she heard the worry in his voice, the same fear she felt rumbling her insides. “And a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer?” She focused on that first, pulling back to meet his gaze again.

  “You have a case against your former employer. Your record was expunged. There is no documentation to back it up. No legal footing for firing you,” he said. “And Alberts agreed. Did they actually say that you were fired?”

  She replayed the final conversation in her mind, words that had been burned into her that day. “No. He more talked about how embarrassing it would be for me to stay, and that they were doing me a favor. I could go somewhere else with a clean slate.”

  He’d played on her insecurities, and she’d taken it and run, accepted that she’d deserved that exactly. And judging by the banners on the wall, the words of encouragement and support, she was still doing it.

  Wolfe’s arms tightened, “If that’s how you feel if it ever comes out here, after I’m done crackin’ heads, we can go. Or we can go now, somewhere you feel more secure. You don’t have to deal with that while you’re learnin’ to feel secure with me.”

  “I already feel secure with you,” she whispered.

  He grinned then, eyes warm, and a little red, she noticed. She’d not been the only one suffering. “Where shall we be livin’, then?”

  “Church house,” she whispered in his ear, then added, “but I want you to insure the breakables. Really.”

  “There are no breakables worth extra insurance.”

  “Appliances, then.”

  He laughed softly, as was his way. “Fine, they’re already insured as part of the house, but consider the request met.”

  She looked over at the wall and the paper covering it, really getting an idea of the scope of the messages left for her in person. “How
did you do all this?”

  “I put up the paper in the staff room in Emergency for two days and brought it up here in the evenings so you were unlikely to see it. Asked people to sign your going-away banner.”

  “You didn’t tell them to write nice things?”

  “No, love. I told them to write a message if they wanted.”

  Her eyes started to sting again; she had to look away.

  “Don’t do that,” he whispered. “You don’t have to hide.”

  “Oh, I’m just crying because I don’t want to go to work later,” she teased, because she knew he knew better.

  “I already called off for the day.” He stuck his tongue out.

  “Brat.”

  “Yep.” He squeezed closer. “But I reckon we could take those stitches out, and I’ll write you a doctor’s note to get you off.”

  They were ready, but, more importantly, she was ready. Not for the stitches, though that would be nice, but to be alone with him. Thankfully, the puppet song ended, and their dance with it. They took a few minutes to talk to the kids, made promises that Santa would be coming soon and said their goodbyes.

  “I’ve got several hours before my shift starts,” she whispered, taking his hand and turning to smile as the last child rolled out, leaving them alone. “Do we have to stay and clean up? Because I’d really like you to take me home.”

  He turned her into his arms as soon as the door swung closed, his tender, loving kiss melting the last bit of ice that had settled in her chest on the night of the ball.

  Something bulky in his jacket pocket thumped against her frumpy-dress-covered hip and she pulled back enough to look down.

  “I almost forgot.” The look in his eyes contradicted him, but he feigned casualness while dipping his hand into his pocket to fetch the peacock clutch, which he handed to her. It had something lumpy in it. And not shaped like her phone. Or her keys.

  She flipped open the clasp and peeked inside. Nestled in the deep blue silk was an iconic pale blue box with a white bow. “Wolfe...”