by Judy Baer
Merry handed the photo to Jack. “Is this your family?”
He stiffened at the sight of it. His features grew ashen, and his jaw set in a hard line. “Yes.” Jack laid the album aside.
“What darling boys. Are you a twin?”
“No.” He hesitated before adding, “Yes. Just not anymore.”
Merry’s heart twisted in her chest. “Oh, I’m sorry. He passed away?”
“Yes.” His voice was toneless.
“Can you tell me about it?” As usual, Merry went where lesser angels dared to tread. “I know how it is to lose someone . . . my parents . . .”
He stared straight ahead, his face expressionless. “I prefer not to talk about it.”
Her face crumpled, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. I have such a big mouth. . . .”
He put his hand on hers to stop her. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t matter. I suppose it was because we were sitting here in the attic, chatting like friends. I just . . .”
Jack put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so she faced him. “Forget it, okay? It’s nearly five. How about taking a break and going out for dinner? Your choice of restaurants, my treat.”
“Really?” She brightened. “That would be wonderful.”
“Consider it done.”
“Give me ten minutes to replace my makeup.” Merry jumped to her feet and wiped away a tear that had coursed down one cheek. Someday she’d learn to keep her mouth shut, but obviously it wasn’t today.
* * * * *
The restaurant in Mankato was nearly full when they arrived, and they were escorted to a horseshoe-shaped back booth. The waitress put the menus side by side in the center of the U-shaped banquette. Merry scooted into the seat from one side and Jack the other. That left them side by side, shoulders touching, staring out into the main dining room.
“Want to see something cool?” The waitress pulled the decorative green velvet curtain that lined the back of the booth so that it partially encircled the table. “That’s for privacy. The owner’s wife comes for dinner and they always sit here to get a little privacy. Sometimes she does bookwork here as well. I suppose they have to grab time together when they can. The restaurant business is pretty demanding. The small redhead grinned. “The two of you look like you need some nice personal time. I’ll be back shortly to take your orders.” She pulled the curtain closed a little more before she left them.
“The things you learn!” Merry commented. “I don’t know if we should be embarrassed or flattered that she thought we were . . . you know.”
“A couple?” There was amusement on Jack’s features. “Maybe we should be flattered.”
Merry hid her reddening face in the oversized menu and pretended to read. She was grateful that things went smoothly from the salad through the entrée.
Only when the dishes had been whisked away and replaced by dessert menus did an awkward silence develop.
“What’s your favorite?” Jack asked, indicating the list of sweets.
“All of them, of course, but I especially love their bread pudding and apple tarts.”
Jack ordered one of each and a pot of coffee. After the dessert, he leaned back on the bench and took a deep breath. “Merry, I’ve been thinking. You deserve an explanation about my response to that photo earlier. I didn’t intend to be rude. Frankly, I rarely talk about my brother, Jamie.”
“You don’t have to now, either. It was terribly hard to discuss my parents’ deaths for a long time. It was a terrible shock to me. Please don’t . . .”
He put his hand on hers. “Let me tell you. You should know.”
He ran a finger along the inside of his collar as if it were suddenly too tight. “Jamie was my younger brother by ten minutes,” he said softly. “He was nearly a pound lighter than me, so I got the moniker of big brother even though only minutes separated us in age.” His eyes focused on a spot somewhere back in time.
“Were you close?”
“We finished each other’s sentences, had the same ideas at the same time, and could practically read each other’s minds. My father told me it was eerie sometimes, how much we were alike. Jamie caught up to me in size quickly, and very few people were able to tell us apart.”
“Even your parents?”
“They had their ways. I don’t remember how old I was when I realized that the barber always cut our hair slightly differently. If you look at that photo again, my hair is cut shorter around the ears. It’s nothing the general populace would notice, but it kept Mom and Dad from mixing us up.”
“Very clever.” Merry smiled widely. “If I ever have identical twins I’ll have to remember that.”
“Also remember that when they’re old enough to take themselves to the barber, they can have their hair cut any way they want.”
“You didn’t!”
“We did. The barbershop was only a couple blocks from our house, so we started walking there together when we were quite small. My parents never considered that we might fool the barber as well. Jamie and I switched haircuts back and forth until no one but Jamie and I knew who we were.”
“Did they suspect?” Merry covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to laugh, imagining the confusion and chaos the two boys created.
“They suspected we were up to something but weren’t sure what it was. They figured it out when we were twelve. Jamie and I thought it was a shame. We’d hoped to continue our charade into high school so we could mess with the teachers.” He smiled faintly. “I think the term they used for us was ‘incorrigible.’”
“What about girls?”
“We were too young for girls back then, but we had that planned too. We would each date the same girl, and if one of us liked her we could claim her. We weren’t very sophisticated at that age, so we didn’t even consider what the poor girls might think.”
“Did you do it?” Merry inquired, thinking how she’d feel if one of the boys she’d dated turned out to be someone else entirely.
“No. We never did.” He looked at Merry intently. “Jamie died before then. I killed him.”
Chapter Ten
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Merry grew very still. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the curtained cocoon in which they sat. She wound her fingers together in her lap, helpless to do anything else with them. She wanted to reach out, to tell him he was surely mistaken, that his imagination had run away with him, but she didn’t. The ring of surety and truth in his voice had been too convincing.
Jack didn’t relieve the tension by speaking. He was lost in his emotions. Sadness, regret, guilt, and blame, by turn, skimmed across his features. There was no jest in his words. Finally he looked at her. His eyes appraised her, as if he were measuring how she was taking the information.
If he’d planned to find any judgment or censure there, he was disappointed.
Merry felt compassion flood through her. If Jamie had died when he was twelve, then Jack was also twelve. Whatever blame he’d taken upon himself, Jack couldn’t have caused his brother’s death. But to carry that belief, that burden, for more than twenty years? That was a second tragedy—two lives affected, not just one.
“You aren’t going to say anything?” Jack sounded surprised, as if not everyone had taken the news with such composure.
“I’m so sorry about your brother’s death, Jack. But I don’t believe . . .”
“Believe it. I killed my brother.” His voice was flat, as if he’d practiced saying the words until he could utter them without sentiment.
She couldn’t speak. Merry simply stared at him and prayed for help from above.
“So now you know.”
“I know nothing, Jack, except that your brother must have died a tragic death that you, at twelve, blamed yourself for.”
“I don’t just blame myself. I did it. I pushed my own brother to his death.”
The waitress arrived with their desserts at that inopportune time.
Jack looked up and said calmly, “If you don’t mind, Merry, can we take these to go? I don’t feel much like eating right now.”
The waitress disappeared with the dishes and quickly returned with take-out containers. Jack threw money on the table, far more than the bill would amount to, and stood.
Merry collected the white Styrofoam boxes, and they moved quickly to the front of the restaurant and out the door.
Jack turned the key in the ignition, backed the car from its parking space, and swung it around. He sped out of town. The only sound that could be heard was that of bits of gravel spraying the underside of the vehicle.
She watched his stoic profile in the glow of the dashboard and ached inside.
When he finally began to speak, he seemed to be recounting the events for himself more than for her, digging at the wound.
“Jamie and I were always looking for adventure,” he said softly. “We had no fear—and no common sense, either. We’d spent our young lives looking for the next thrill—tubing on the river, stuffing frogs in girls’ lockers, skipping school to go to the arcade, trying to do dangerous jumps at the local skating rink, skiing black diamonds when we had instructions from our parents to stay on the bunny hill.”
Merry shivered at the very idea. How must it have been for the mother of these two wild, rambunctious children? Heart-stopping, no doubt.
“The only thing we’d never done a lot of was sledding. There’s not much of that in California, at least not where we lived. But one Christmas holiday, my parents took us to the mountains. We had a great time, Jamie and I. By then, my parents had given up trying to tame us, and the entire staff at the resort knew our names. That’s how we managed to check out a sled.”
Something twisted in Merry’s gut, and she realized this was a story that would end badly.
“We spent the morning sliding down the designated hills, but after a while that became boring. So, without permission, Jamie and I took our sleds to a steeper hill to give that a try.” The light from the dash played on Jack’s even features and revealed the effort it took to tell this story.
“Jamie always wanted to go first at anything we tried. Sometimes we fought about that, but not that day. It was Christmas Eve, and I suppose I thought I’d be generous to the little squirt this once.
“He was balanced at the top of the hill, the front of his sled already hanging over the edge, when our parents saw us. They were running toward us with one of the ski instructors and yelling at us to stop. Since that had never slowed us down before, and Jamie was afraid he wouldn’t get to try this if we listened, he asked me to push him. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission was Jamie’s philosophy. ‘Hurry up, Jack! I’ll never get to try this if I don’t do it now,’ Jamie said.”
Jack paused and then said, “And I pushed him!”
His voice broke, and it was some time before he could speak again. “He just lay there at the bottom of the hill, like a broken toy. I don’t know what happened. He must not have been strong enough to steer the sled away from that tree. I didn’t think he was aimed in that direction or I never would have given the sled a push . . .”
“Oh, Jack,” Merry said helplessly.
“When I finally looked back, someone had radioed for help. Dad was running toward an easier path down the hill, and my mother had sunk to her knees in the snow. It all happened so quickly, I couldn’t take it in. Jamie had to be fooling around, I thought, pretending to be hurt in order to scare us all.” Jack took a deep breath. “But he wasn’t joking.”
“Then what?” Merry whispered. She felt for that twelve-year old Jack, the confusion, the terror, and finally, the guilt.
“An ambulance came but they couldn’t drive down the hill. Finally several men carried Jamie out on a stretcher. It probably took twenty minutes, but it seemed like twenty years. I kept waiting for Jamie to jump up, but he never did. And my mother just kept sobbing.”
Jack’s voice had grown low, and he was completely immersed in the memory.
“We went to the hospital but didn’t get to see him for a long time. When we did, he was on life support. My parents wanted me to go back to the hotel and rest, but of course I couldn’t. We stayed at the hospital that night. I never did sleep. I just kept willing Jamie to wake up. I also prayed that God would make this all go away, that He would take us back to the moment before I pushed that sled, but God did neither.”
Merry closed her eyes, and tears leaked from beneath her lids and coursed down her cheeks.
“In the morning, three doctors came in and told my parents that Jamie had no brain activity and that they recommended taking him off life support. We said our goodbyes and then Jamie was gone.”
“On Christmas Day?”
“Yes.” He turned to her and the pain in his expression seemed as fresh as if the accident had just happened. “So now maybe you can understand why Christmas is not a time for celebration for me. And when I say I killed my brother, I really did.”
“Jack, you were a child! It could just as well have been you on that sled. It was an accident!”
Merry was going to continue when she realized they were parked in her own driveway. Where had the time and the miles gone? “Come inside,” she said gently. “No use sitting out here.”
He followed her into the house, where they both shed their coats. Jack began to prowl about like a restless lion in too small a cage.
Merry let him pace until he finally settled in a large wing chair by the fireplace. Then she sat down across from him. “Tell me about your mother.”
“Before or after my brother died?” Jack asked bleakly.
“Both.”
“She was very traditional, very proper, a lady. She was accustomed to having things her own way. That comes with having money, I guess. But she always said that her twins were the ones who taught her to loosen up, to relax. She couldn’t have power over us like she controlled others, so she finally had to accept that we were a force to be reckoned with and enjoyed. She became a lot of fun after that. My father was the disciplinarian, and Mom sometimes even consorted with us in our tricks and mischief.” He smiled faintly. “Those were good times.”
“And after?”
“My mother just . . . disappeared. It was as if she faded before our eyes. No more laughter, no more smiles. It took everything in her just to keep herself together. She took medication until her eyes glazed over, saw therapists until their names all ran together, and spent the rest of the time locked in her room. She was kind to me but distant. After all, I’d killed her son.”
“You were her son too! You didn’t kill anyone.”
Jack shifted in his chair, crossed one long leg over the other, and finally seemed to see her. “No? I guess no one else blamed me, but I blame myself. I should have known better. I should have stopped Jamie.”
“You were twelve! Do you know any twelve-year-old boys with the common sense of an experienced adult? I don’t think so!”
“Maybe not, but I grew up thinking I should have been the exception.”
“You always talk about your mother in past tense,” Merry observed. “Is she . . . ?”
“She died four years after Jamie. It was as if she just couldn’t muster up the will to live once he was gone. Like I said, she faded away. She grew quieter and thinner. She slept less and paced the house at night. One day my father found her in bed—gone. Just like that she disappeared completely from my life, without a word, without a good-bye.”
He skewered her with a look that held her rapt. “And that, Merry, is why I can’t celebrate Christmas. It was the beginning of the end for my family. I know God is the one who carried me through those bad years or I probably wouldn’t be here either, but that doesn’t mean I like all the brouhaha and manic glee I see around Christmas. Quite frankly, I despise it.”
Despise was a pretty heavy word to use for the things Merry loved about the holiday.
It hurt her, but at least now she understood why he was so adamant about his feelings.
She tucked her feet beneath her on the couch and pulled an afghan over her lap. It felt cool in the house despite the fire. Or perhaps it was just the flame of excitement she felt about the holidays being extinguished.
“Thank you for telling me, Jack. I know it was difficult for you. At least now I understand why . . . you are the way you are.” She pulled on a lock of golden hair that had strayed from behind her ear. “But even though your feelings are real and your story tragic, it doesn’t mean you should keep other people from taking pleasure in the birth of the Savior. Granted, some go too far and forget the real meaning of Christmas, but it’s also a wonderful time to spread the Good Word. Everyone identifies with the baby in the manger.”
“I just can’t help it, Merry. It’s like a knife in my heart when I see elves and reindeer and hear silly songs about Rudolph or Frosty. Christmas is a matter of life or death for me on so many levels. It’s the beginning of the end for my family and for Christ who also had to die.”
“It’s not my place to judge you, Jack. I respect your views. You earned them the hard way. You lost so much. You don’t have to agree, but you do have to understand that there is more than one way to approach a subject.”
He studied her somberly. “Agree to disagree, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“And quit trying to impose my views on Frost?”
“Please.”
“I can’t promise you that, Merry. I will say that whatever property doesn’t belong to me can stay as it is. As for my land and property, I don’t want it to be Santa’s runway anymore, okay?”
She could agree to that. Thankfully her house wasn’t under Jack’s ownership. At least Merry’s Christmas Boutique was safe.
Chapter Eleven
• • • • • • • • • • • •
“Do you like horses?”
