A Cozy Country Christmas Anthology

by Melange Books, LLC

  As the miles murmured beneath the tires, cushioned in luxury, Dorothy pondered the mysteries of a failing marriage. When had the first unhealed wound appeared? Rob’s schedule as a top-level trauma surgeon kept them physically apart much of the time, while his exhaustion and nervous tension from bearing life and death responsibilities nearly every day isolated them emotionally.

  Dorothy knew she’d helped to create this division between them, that he viewed her requests for a reduced schedule as criticism or her frustration, when rare evenings together were interrupted with intrusive pages, as selfishness. Counseling had enabled her to see his side of the story but since Rob had neither the time, nor the inclination to attend counseling, she stood alone in her self-knowledge. Nothing she’d tried recently seemed to bring them closer together.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d staked on this trip as a salvage mission. Rob might be able to avoid her emotionally but this weekend they were stuck together physically, without the beep of the ever present pager to allow him to escape, for at least 48 hours.

  Dorothy blinked and raised her head. She massaged her stiff neck and stifled a groan. Somehow, she’d dozed off and missed a view of some of the lakes and rivers that Minnesota bragged about on license plates and official websites. She’d also wasted precious hours of potential bonding. Her mouth felt dry and a faint headache tingled behind her eyes.

  She looked around. Wherever they were at, the road had been damaged by yet another severe winter, and not even the Mercedes’ suspension system could level out all the bumps. Luxury defeated by an overwhelming force. Just like their marriage.

  Dorothy had grown up in what Rob had jokingly referred to during their courtship as “the lap of luxury.” Holiday travel had been to glitzy resorts set on sparkling lakes where every need had been met with a smile. Places with spectacular views, everywhere you looked a vista of beauty.

  Her parents had never vacationed in places like this backwater, she reflected, peering through the passenger window. When Rob told her where Ham lived, she’d imagined thick woods smelling of pine needles and “nature”, not scrubby pines alternating with birches and tangled ditches that bloomed with orange, purple and yellow wildflowers. Or weeds, depending upon your viewpoint, Dorothy reflected.

  After perhaps fifty or sixty miles, they passed through only the third town since Dorothy had opened her eyes. More small lakes, more ditches, more wildflowers. She found herself wondering whether the names of those plants could possibly be as a colorful as they were themselves, trying to imagine where the people who lived in the small houses set well back from the road could possibly work. No big box stores or fast food restaurants in this “neck of the woods”, as Rob used to say.

  Used to. She yanked her thoughts back to the countryside. A bird flew alongside the car and then veered off, vanished. What did birds do after they raised a family? Fly south, find a new mate? No, Rob had once talked about ducks and geese that mated for life. This curiosity directed at something other than herself and Rob felt strange, yet welcoming.

  “That’s so strange.”

  Rob jerked his head around to stare and Dorothy realized, too late, that she’d said the word out loud. “I meant strange that there’s so little traffic on the road.”

  “I told you before that this isn’t a vacation paradise. No one in the Twin Cities has ever heard of—”

  “Sibley’s Corners!” Dorothy interrupted him, pointing to a faded sign that announced their destination. “We’re here!”

  “Don’t sound so excited.” Rob gave her a wary glance. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but...” His voice trailed away.

  Dingy houses huddled closer and closer together as though wary of open spaces as the Mercedes rolled through the town. For the first time, Dorothy realized that it must have been a dry season here up north. Lawns looked patchy and brown, drowsing under the relentless afternoon sun. A too-thin woman in shorts and faded tee shirt watered a circle of petunias, the life giving liquid trickling from a hose that sagged in empathy with her shoulders. She watched the expensive car glide past, her face expressionless.

  Two blocks past the woman, Rob swung the wheel and then slowed as he pulled into a narrow graveled drive. Switching off the engine, he dropped his hands into his lap. To Dorothy’s surprise, she heard him draw a sharp, inward breath.

  Was he afraid? Her smart, driven husband, who’d put himself through medical school and faced down her family to get her to marry him, looked nervous. He wet his lips, reached for his travel mug for another drink, his stare fixed on the small, shabby house.

  Dorothy turned from Rob to study it, also. Peeling layers of various shades of paint gave it the look of a bag lady caught on the nightly news, an elderly woman bundled in layers to ward off the chill of a Minneapolis winter.

  So small! The passenger door clicked open, breaking her concentration, and she struggled out, with Rob’s hand to assist her, an impassive, courteous butler. The muscles of her back ached with tension and her temples throbbed.

  With a flip-flop of nerves Dorothy realized, I shouldn’t have come. If Rob was trapped this weekend, so was she. No hotels in Sibley Corners, Rob had informed her, his lips white and head held high. “So much the better,” she’d retorted. Yes, so much the better. . .

  The sun beat down on her uncovered head; a wave of dizziness washed over her and she grabbed at the sleek, hot side of the car. Rob had disappeared.

  As her head cleared, Dorothy turned to find her husband a few feet away, almost slouched in the shade cast by a pine tree, his hands in his pockets, his poker stiff spine relaxed. Bewildered by this sudden shift in Rob’s body language, she started towards him, her expensive shoes crunching on the dried out needles. No grass, just sandy soil, burnt by the acid from the needles.

  “Ham, this is my wife, Dorothy. Dorothy, my grandfather, Hamilton Forest.”

  Forcing a smile to her lips, she slipped off her sunglasses and extended a hand in greeting. As her eyes adjusted, her mental sketch of an ex-cowboy as lanky and laconic crumbled into dust and fell among the needles.

  Her husband’s grandfather appeared to be an elf named “Forest”—or was he a gnome? The top of Ham’s head only came up to the top of Dorothy’s chin, while bowed legs encased in ancient blue jeans and gnarled hands remained as the only outward signs of his former occupation.

  Ham gave his grandson an enthusiastic hug before turning his attention to Dorothy. A startlingly deep voice boomed from that tiny frame, “Pleased to meet ya, Dorothy! You’ve lassoed a good man in my Robbie.”

  For a moment, she forgot her queasiness as she returned her host’s smile. “Yes, he’s quite a catch!”

  Rob’s swift glance and wary expression betrayed his feelings regarding her sincerity but his grandfather threw his arms around Dorothy and gave her a whole-hearted squeeze. Tears stung her eyes. Loving human contact after months of isolation. Her lip quivered and she bit it hard to maintain her composure.

  Ham peered up at her. “I can tell by looking at her that she’s a winner, grandson. As pretty as dogwood blossoms in the spring! We’ll get along just fine.”

  Although Rob stood beside her, Dorothy sensed his subtle withdrawal, the shifting of his stance so their shoulders no longer touched. Ham continued to beam as he regarded his visitors.

  “What are you working on, Ham?” Rob bent over a saddle draped across a board, poked at the piece of wood supported by four legs. “What’s this called, Ham?”

  “That’s a saw horse, Mr. Town fellow.” Ham picked up what looked like a can of shoe polish and a ragged piece of cloth from the seat of a lawn chair. “I’m doing my daily polishing.” He stroked the saddle’s dark, moist looking leather. “Takes a heap of elbow grease to keep leather as soft as butter. You have to keep at it each day or it dries out, could crack.”

  A saddle as an image for her marriage? Dorothy rubbed at the tension banding her forehead. Too simplistic. Stop grasping at quick solution
s, real life isn’t black and white, she told herself.

  “Still known as Handy Ham?” Rob punched his grandfather’s shoulder with a playful light touch. “I’ll bet you keep busy.”

  “Do most of my work for free now, Robbie. Someone’s gotta keep the widder women in fuses and mown grass.”

  A swarm of gnats suddenly appeared beside Dorothy, tracing invisible, cosmic patterns in the air, trapped in an endless cycle of futility. She choked back a laugh; on this trip she was seeing literary symbolism everywhere.

  Ham noticed her grimace and jerked his head toward the house. “Come inside, children. It’s hotter than a branding blaze out here!”

  Fanning herself with one hand, Dorothy followed Rob inside. Her vision of staggering into the guest room and collapsing on a bed covered with a cool white spread while lacy curtains fluttered in the breeze faded at first glance.

  An open door to the right revealed a miniscule bathroom. Turning, she glimpsed a galley style kitchen through a doorway. The presence of a lumpy couch and a card table indicated that the room in which they stood served Ham as both living and dining space. The air smelled of dust and heat. Tears gritted like sand underneath her eyelids. No room here for three adults to spend the night—it barely looked big enough for one.

  Rob had been right, she wasn’t welcome. Sibley Corners lacked a hotel or even a motel, he’d warned her, adding that Ham didn’t have space available for guests. But she’d been so desperate, grasping at this last chance to catch and focus Rob’s attention. . .

  “Thanks for putting us up, Ham.” Dorothy could tell by Rob’s sidelong glances that the house was even smaller than he remembered it. “Are you sure we won’t crowd you? Is there a motel within a few miles? We could call for a reservation, take you out to supper—“

  “Nonsense! I’m pleasured, Robbie. Don’t get much company. All the local widder women bring over casseroles and hand knitted scarves at the drop of a snow flake. Those gals don’t count as company, act more like a pack of wolves circling a downed calf.” He arched bushy white eyebrows and smirked. “But I’m still able to dodge and jump—so far I’ve managed to keep a ring out of my nose!”

  Rob grinned and Ham flapped his hand. “Now, boy, and tell me about yourself.” He turned to Dorothy and waved at the couch. “And you, Missie, just set and rest your feet. You must be so tired after travelin’ from the Cities.”

  Rob and his grandfather seated themselves at the card table, leaving Dorothy marooned near the front door. She hesitated before crossing the dingy carpet to the couch where she was immediately sucked down into the quicksand of the stuffing. Her husband was already deep in detailing his daily routine to Ham, whose wizened brown face creased in a proud grin.

  To disguise her intense interest in Rob’s revelations of his days, Dorothy selected a magazine from the battered coffee table. Stockbreeder’s Journal! Faded black and white photographs of bulls interested her much less than the torrent of conversation spilling from her normally taciturn husband.

  “So you call yerself a trauma surgeon, Robbie. What’s that when it’s at home?”

  Rob gave a husky chuckle. “It’s a fancy name for a doctor who puts people back together after they get hurt in accidents. Hey, my patient last Monday would have made you laugh, Grandpa. A big, burly guy, he told me before the surgery that he drives a diesel rig so he’s never home.”

  Dorothy stiffened. The parallel seemed obvious to her—was Rob sending her a message with his choice of anecdote?

  “—so this guy’s in the habit of climbing up and perching on the roof to get out of range of his wife’s constant ‘bellyaching’ about him being gone. So I asked him as he lay there in bed, his leg in traction, ‘What happened this time that was different? Did you fall off?’ And he said, ‘Not until she beaned me with our son’s baseball. Got something for a headache, doc?’”

  Ham wheezed, his gusts of laughter threatening the stability of the card table that he pounded with a gnarled fist. “Bet you got a million stories to share with your wife each week, right, Dorothy? Must be tough on you with your guy gone so much.”

  Ambushed. She forced a smile to her lips. Rob never shared, but why should he when she had expressed so much resentment about his profession? She felt again the ache of having lost someone precious, the sting of throwing away something that could never be retrieved.

  But Ham continued to beam at her. “But I suppose that’s the life you two have chosen for yourselves. I can tell Dorothy’s the strong, supportive type that she needs to be and, Robbie, you was a born doctor—‘member your first patient?”

  Guffawing, his grandfather hopped his chair around to include Dorothy in the conversation. “When Robbie waren’t more than knee high to a grasshopper, he found this little bunny with a broken leg. T’was then he found his calling. He splinted the break and right away Mr. Rabbit’s sufferings were eased.”

  Dorothy felt her jaw sag, picturing Rob in his surgical scrubs, a frown of concentration on his handsome face, bending over a ball of fluff. “A rabbit?”

  To her surprise, Rob’s eyes sparkled as he met hers, before switching his grin to Ham. “Better tell her the rest.”

  “Oh, yeah, see Robbie had to use his brain box, didn’t exactly have a medical kit, so he splinted that poor leg with stalks of rhubarb from his grandma’s garden. The patient ate the instruments of mercy, so to speak, and hopped off. Never underestimate the curative powers of rhubarb.” Ham bobbed his head, still chuckling to himself.

  Dorothy yearned to keep the banter going, basking in the light in Rob’s eyes when he’d looked at her. “Did he pay you in carrots?”

  Her stomach roiled when Rob flicked an irritated glance in her direction, as if she’d intruded, thrusting in where she wasn’t wanted. Somehow, in the past several months he’d managed to barricade himself behind invisible walls, leaving her standing outside, her fists bruised from pounding to be let in.

  A sharp knock that brought Ham to his feet, the old man moving with the rolling gait of a sailor just off the ship.

  After greeting the teenager clad in a faded red tee-shirt proclaiming “Mr. Quick’s Pizza”, Ham unfolded a bill from a roll tugged from his hip pocket and handed it over with an expansive grin. “Keep the change, Nicky!”

  “Thanks, Ham.” Nicky turned to include the visitors in the conversation. “My car knows the route here so well that my turn signal flips on all by itself.”

  “Quit yer kidding, sonny, and scoot, my company’s chomping at the bit for a mouthful of supper.”

  Rob waited until the visitor had gone before asking, “Is pizza your meal every evening?”

  He couldn’t mask his concern and Ham’s voice turned defensive. “I got this for a treat for you big city folks, Nicky’s mom makes the best ‘pie’ in Minnesota. Hey, Nicky’s just a kidder.”

  Greasy pizza and a can of generic orange pop served on a rickety card table didn’t agree with pregnancy. Dorothy poked at the congealing slice on her plate while Rob and Ham caught up on family news. Ham kept trying to bring her into the conversation but for all the attention Rob paid her, she might as well have stayed at home.

  She knew Rob felt guilty that he hadn’t visited his grandfather since their marriage but did he have to take it out on her? Dorothy found herself frowning again and glanced up. Despite their proximity, her husband’s gaze travelled through her as though her chair was empty.

  With painful clarity, the finale from their last fight played on the mental screen inside her head. “You don’t love me anymore—did you ever love me?”She’d spit those hurtful words at him, struggling to accept that he’d chosen an unending line of faceless patients over his wife.

  Shivering, the memory faded to a dull throb at her temples. Glancing up, Dorothy saw Ham’s deep-set eyes fixed on her untouched slice of pizza.

  “You ain’t et enough to keep a newborn calf steady on four hooves,” he commented, forehead wrinkling into canyons. “How’s Robbie gonna hug and chalk you
at this rate?

  “Hug and what?” Rob gave his grandfather a puzzled grin.

  “If yer wife’s healthy and plump, sometimes there’s a little too much to get yer arms around in one go. So ya hug a little, mark your place with chalk, and keep hugging till you’re done.”

  Rob pointed a long, capable finger at the remaining pizza. “Eat up, Dorothy. I’ll never get that pleasure if you persist in starving yourself.”

  A fly buzzed at the window. “As if you even wanted to!” The words burst out of a deep well of pain inside Dorothy. Naked longing mixed with hostility quivered in the echo of her words against the bare walls.

  Facing her husband across the cluttered surface of the card table, she read the truth in his refusal to meet her imploring gaze. He mocked her because of his conviction that her love had died, his belief unshakeable while he remained secure behind the barricade of indifference.

  Flicking a stubby finger at a milk bottle standing sentinel on the sideboard, Ham barked, “That tone of voice’ll cost you a penny, Robbie!”

  To Dorothy’s bewilderment, her husband rose and fumbled in his pockets before displaying empty palms.

  With a sigh, his grandfather reached into his back pocket and pulled out a shabby leather coin purse. Selecting a coin with shaking fingers, he handed it over to Rob who strode over and dropped the penny into the milk bottle, its metal making a hollow clang against the glass sides.

  Ham shook his head with a dissatisfied frown. “Now, now. You left out the most important part, Robbie.”

  After a brief hesitation, her husband bent to brush Dorothy’s cheek with his lips, a cool, passionless kiss that burned and stung like a slap.

  Maintaining a grip on her composure, she kept her gaze focused on the bottle, willing herself not to cry. The glass had a milky tint, as though through the years it had absorbed some of the liquid it was created to hold.

  Ham bounced up and proceeded to clear the table by sweeping paper plates and napkins into a plastic grocery sack. When he’d finished, he dusted his hands together and beamed at his guests. “Who wants the first bath? Dorothy?”