We hope you enjoyed this tale of a man, a woman, a young girl, a windmill . . . and the terrible storm that forever changed their lives. If you are wondering what happened next, you are cordially invited to celebrate the holidays with Brian, Janey, and the rest of the Linden Corners family. Turn the page for a special preview of Joseph Pittman’s inspiring new novel:
A Christmas Wish
A Linden Corners Novel
A Kensington paperback on sale in October 2011.
PROLOGUE
Theirs was a seemingly unbreakable bond, one that had been built by the power of the wind and by the presence of the mighty windmill. Today the windmill spun its special brand of magic, even as the harsh cold of winter approached and nature readied to hibernate for the long, dark months ahead. On this Wednesday afternoon in November, he found himself walking through the light coating of snow that covered the ground, venturing beneath the turning sails. It was here, on this eve of the holiday season, he sought inspiration and knowledge and strength, all of which he would need to navigate his way through the memories of a past tinged with sadness, one that threatened to undo their fragile happiness. Because as wonderful as they were together, the days and especially the nights hadn’t always been easy, and the coming holiday season would prove to be the most trying time yet, a test of that bond.
“Annie, sweet Annie, can you hear me?” he asked, his voice a hint above a whisper. He hoped the swirling wind would carry his words forward, upward. “I need your help, Annie. Janey needs your help, and I know you’re the only one who can show me—who can show us—the way through this difficult time. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, Annie, and how I wish you were here to celebrate with us. It would have been our first—yours and mine, with Janey. The three of us together, trimmings complimenting the bounty of our love. But that’s not how things worked out. We are two only, and we both miss you. Before long, Christmas will be upon us, and if we can get through a holiday based on joy, on celebration, I think we’ll be fine, just fine. Until then, Annie, I just can’t predict how Janey will react to certain situations. Can you help me, can you show me the way to make this holiday a special one for your precious daughter? She’s only eight and she’s alone, except for me and sometimes I wonder, Annie, am I enough for her?”
There was no answer, not today. Snowflakes fell lightly all around him, the wind was gentle, and the sails of the windmill spun slowly. It was as though the old mill could reach out with those giant arms and embrace the quiet soon to descend on the tiny village of Linden Corners, on its residents, and on its treasured way of life. On a Christmas wrapped in tragedy, somehow able to transport them beyond their grief.
For this man, a kind but broken man named Brian Duncan, this coming season would be a new experience, knowing the success of the holidays rested solely on his weighted shoulders. And as much as he looked forward to celebrations, of joys, of shopping, and of gift-giving, there were times when his warm heart was frozen with fear. Uncertainty could stop him in his step at a moment’s notice. Now was one of those moments.
As they prepared to journey beyond the comfort of Linden Corners—he and Janey taking their first official trip out of town—panic once again seized him, a feeling he usually sensed only after Janey had gone to sleep. A time when the night awakened his insecurities. Often he went to where he could feel Annie’s presence the most, seeking her wisdom. Standing now in the shadow of windmill—of Annie’s windmill—he began to realize she couldn’t always be there for him. Some decisions he had to make on his own.
“I told my mother, Annie, that I wasn’t coming for Thanksgiving unless she made peach pie,” Brian said with a touch of levity he thought was needed. He had been introduced to the sweet, gooey pastry just this past summer on a picnic high above the lazy Hudson River, on a rocky bluff he had subsequently named for her. “Mother claimed never to have heard of such a thing. I had to search your recipe box, and even after I found it I doubted it would taste the same. Sweet it would be, but missing that special ingredient you sprinkled into the mix—love. A piece of that pie for Janey was crucial, knowing it’s a piece of you. To make her feel at home even when she’s not.”
There were more questions, more requests. Brian spoke and he listened. And still there was no answer, just gentle, flowing wind and falling snowflakes and the languid spin of the sails. Nothing was different, no sign came to him that he’d been heard. Just then Brian smiled, perhaps interpreting this calm silence as an acknowledgment that if the wind didn’t see fit to shift its direction, neither should he. Steady the course, follow your instinct. Trust your heart.
“Okay, Annie, I think I hear you now,” he said with a wry smile.
She was like that, mysterious, elusive, even when she’d been in his arms.
He removed his glove and placed a bare hand on the windmill’s wooden door, as though searching for a pulse from inside. Its touch was cold. Then, turning back toward the farmhouse, he saw young Janey emerging from over the hill, her fingers laced through those of Gerta Connors, neighbor and friend, honorary grandmother. They both waved at him, with Janey suddenly breaking free of her hold. Janey began to run down the hill, her boots making faint impressions on the snow, as though she was barely touching the ground.
“Brian, Brian, I’m ready for our trip, come on, let’s go. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us,” she said with easy glee, conjured from her redoubtable spirit. Where a small girl stored such energy, Brian didn’t know. Then she wrapped herself around his waist and held him tight.
“I was just making sure everything was secure,” he said. “I see now that it is.”
Together, they made their way back up the hill where Gerta waited patiently. Gerta, who had invited them to spend Thanksgiving with her and her four grown daughters, Gerta who had herself faced terrible loss this past year and persevered, just like them all. It was a Linden Corners trait. Brian had politely declined her invitation. Maybe they both needed this first holiday with their own families, he explained. Holidays are about families. She should be with hers and he, his.
“My mother, she needs her family during these times more so than any other time of year,” Brian stated with little explanation. He didn’t often speak of his family. They hadn’t shared his recent journey, didn’t understand his new life. “It’s a time of year when the Duncan family remembers what we have and what we lost. Maybe the only time we do remember. We so rarely understand each other.”
In every family there were both treasures lost and found, Gerta had said with her customary grace and understanding.
Back at the farmhouse, Brian Duncan and Janey Sullivan said their good-byes to Gerta with quiet hugs and heartfelt emotions, and then piled into Brian’s car. Suitcases were already stored in the trunk, ready to travel. Was he? Brian wondered.
“Ready?” Brian asked Janey. Just to be sure.
“I already said so,” she replied, not without a sense of exasperation that reminded him of the young girl he’d met at the start of summer, before anything had happened. Of the time they had first met that sweet summer day, right here, at the base of the windmill. “Why, did you change your mind?”
Brian realized she was giving him a chance to change his mind. He grinned at her maturity, her intuitiveness. Sometimes he wondered which of them was the adult, which the child.
“The open road awaits us,” he said.
Soon they were tucked in their seats and then they had pulled out of the driveway, tires crunching on the small amount of snow in the driveway. Then the winding road captured them, taking them out of Linden Corners, passing the windmill one last time as the car rounded a curve. Janey waved to it, while Brian, smiling nonetheless, kept his eyes on the road. Because he’d already made his wish upon the wind, and it was up to nature now to send his message to that special place where all his wishes belonged.
Christmas was coming.
Surprises awaited them all, not all of them to be unwrapped.
A season of love,
of hope, was just around the corner.
They would be back in Linden Corners to celebrate.
For now, it was time to learn about each other, of what lived inside their hearts.
PART ONE
OLD TRADITIONS
ONE
If tradition dictates the direction of your life, then it was inevitable that my mother called me two weeks before Thanksgiving to ask whether I would be joining the family for our annual dinner. Every year she makes the same call, every year she asks in her deliberately unassuming way, and every year I respond in my expected fashion. Yes, of course, where else would I be? This year, though, so much had changed—in my life and in my parents’ lives too—that I had to wonder whether the notion of tradition belonged to a bygone era, appreciated only by thoughts of the past, no longer put into practice. How I answered my mother on this day proved that indeed change was in the air, a first step toward tomorrow. Because I informed her that before I could give her an answer, I needed to consult first with Janey.
“Brian, dear, that’s very sweet, but you don’t ask children what they want to do. You tell them,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“No, Mother. Janey and I, we’re a team. We make decisions together.”
“Brian, dear, you have so much to learn about children.”
Actually, I thought my mother had a lot to learn about her son.
I had been in the kitchen at the farmhouse, mulling over dinner. I hung up and was left to brood the remainder of the day while I cooked, even when Janey came home from school filled with an undimmed light that usually brightened me. I put on my best front as she busily talked about her day. We ate a bland chicken, turkey’s everyday fill-in, and still I didn’t bring up the idea of the holiday. I waited until bedtime to ask Janey her thoughts on the subject of the coming holiday.
“Thanksgiving? Away from Linden Corners?”
I nodded. “It’s your call.”
“Do you want to go, Brian?”
“I will if you will,” I replied.
“That sounds evasive.”
“Where did you learn such a big word like that?”
She rolled her eyes. Vocabulary had never been at issue with Janey. “See, evasive.”
I laughed. “Okay, okay. Yes, I’d like to go.”
“Good. Then I will if you will,” she said, her smile uplifting. “Funny, I get to meet your family. I never thought about them before. That you have parents . . . do you have a big family? Where are they? Do they have a dog . . .”
“Slow down, slow down. All in good time.”
“I’m just curious. Up until now you’ve always been . . . well, you’ve been Brian.”
“We all come from somewhere.”
She thought about that a moment and I feared it would lead the conversation down a path she wasn’t ready for. I certainly wasn’t ready for it. But then she just innocently stated, “I can’t wait.”
Her sudden pause had my wondering what else she was thinking. You could always see the wheels of her mind turning, almost as though they spun her eyeballs. “Is your mom like mine?”
No, my mind said. I chose not to answer that one directly. “Everyone is their own person.”
“Evasive,” she said.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “So, it’s agreed, we go. You and me, hand in hand.”
“Hand in hand,” Janey agreed.
That’s how it worked with us.
As night fell and Janey slept, I phoned my mother back and told her to add two plates to the Duncan family’s dinner table. The Linden Corners faction of the family would join them.
“You know how much this means to me, Brian.” Yes, I did.
And while accepting the invitation may have been a relatively smooth process at the time, now, as we turned the corner off Walnut Street in Philadelphia and were only two blocks from my parents’ stately new home, anxiety and trepidation ran through me like a monsoon. Sweat beaded on my brow, nerves taking control once I’d parked. The trip had taken us six hours (with a dinner break), but really, it had been an even longer time coming. Nine months had passed since I’d last seen my parents, and during that elapsed time my world had drastically changed in a way none of us could have predicted, myself at the top of that list. I had quit my well-paying job as a thankless corporate drone, sublet my tiny New York apartment, and left behind the supposed woman of my dreams. Setting out on a journey of self-discovery, I had landed in a place that was not far from all I’d known in terms of miles, yet worlds away. I’d met Annie Sullivan. I’d loved her and then I’d lost her, we all had. And as a result, I had been given the care of her daughter, eight-year-old Janey Sullivan, a wonder of a girl, the true one of my dreams. Since then, I’d been very proprietary in terms of exposing Janey to new things. I hadn’t allowed any visitors, no friends or family from beyond Linden Corners, wanting this time of transition between me and Janey to take shape without any further disruption. Even now I had my concerns about taking this precious girl out from the safe confines of her life, but realized too there was a time for everything, even for moving forward.
“Which house is it?” Janey asked, pointing out the car window at the long row of houses lining both sides of the dimly lit street. This was Society Hill, where both Federal- and Colonial-style townhouses prevailed, these classic, restored structures adorning each side of the tree-lined street. It was a sea of brick and white lattices. I didn’t blame Janey for being confused; all the houses looked the same. Still, I indicated the building on the far left corner. “The one with the porch light on.”
“Good thing they have that light, since it’s so dark. How else would we find it?”
“Well, Janey, I do have the address.”
“Oh,” she replied with a giggle that made me grin, a good thing right now. Settled my nerves to see how relaxed Janey was.
We had parked on a side street, left the suitcases behind for now. We had enough baggage with us already. So, with Janey’s hand in mine, we made our way toward the upscale residence of Kevin and Didi Duncan. For years they had lived in the Philly suburbs (in the house I’d grown up in) and then had just this past summer done the opposite of all their friends. They had gone urban, selling the old house and instead buying this very nice home in this very nice section of the city of Brotherly Love. Some investments of Dad’s must have really paid off. I had yet to see it myself, thinking this was a good thing. There were no memories of past holidays awaiting me behind those doors. Neutral territory. Though you could never really escape your memories, no matter the walls you built up, your mind tore them down when it wanted, prompted sometimes by the simplest of senses. As we reached the steps, I looked down at Janey’s freckled face and asked, “Ready?”
“You keep asking that,” she said. “I think the question is, are you ready?”
“And I think the answer is: Not really.”
“Silly—they’re your parents, Brian.”
As if Janey’s words were a magic key, the front door opened and a bath of light from inside illuminated us, sending our shadows retreating to the sidewalk. Yet we stepped forward to where my mother waited in the entranceway. She was dressed in a simple navy skirt and white blouse, a string of pearls dangling from her neck. Perfume wafted in the breeze. Her familiar scent. See what I mean about memories? I had the picture of my mother from years ago, tucking me in to bed before she and my father went out to dinner. She smelled the same then as now. What had changed was her hair—she’d allowed it to go gray, and it was salon-perfect. She wouldn’t be Didi Duncan if not properly attired, even at this hour.
“Well, who have we here?” she asked.
“Your son,” I replied, and then Janey said, “And me, I’m Janey.”
My mother moved off the top step and gave me an embrace that felt more like an air kiss before bending down so her face was level with Janey’s. “Well, you’re a pretty thing, aren’t you, Jane?”
“Janey,” I corrected her.
She ignored
me, keeping her focus on Janey. “That’s such a childish name, now, don’t you think?”
“I am a child,” Janey remarked.
“Nonsense, dear. You’ve grown tremendously the last few months, haven’t you? Come in, come in the both of you.”
And we did, shutting out the encroaching cold behind us. We entered a hallway crafted lovingly with antique wood, and then were ushered down to the living room, where a warm fire was blazing in the large fireplace. My father, Kevin Duncan, sat beside the crackling fire in a wingback, leather chair, still dressed in his business suit, the tie still on, the top button to his shirt still clasped. That was the thing about my father. Still was a word that described him perfectly. He never changed. He was reading the Wall Street Journal and on the table near him was a tumbler filled with his traditional dry Manhattan, the successful entrepreneur in relaxation mode. When he saw us enter, he gently set the paper down on a nearby matching ottoman.
“Hello, son, it’s good to see you,” he said, shaking my hand with his strong, firm grip. His greeting was as efficient and businesslike as ever; it was just his way, all he knew. He was a tall man, six-four and built strongly, and I imagined in his office, even if he hadn’t been the boss, he would still strike an intimidating pose. Yet a surprising feat happened on this evening. As Janey poked out from behind me, she craned her neck up high so she could see my father and that’s when she exclaimed with wide eyes, “Wow, you’re big.” The stern businessman’s face crumbled and a smile found its way to his ruddy face.
“What ho! Well, let’s get a look at you, young lady,” he said.
“You’d have to sit on the floor to do that.”
Kevin Duncan was a big, barrel-chested man, with thick gray hair and a pair of glasses upon his nose, and right now the figure of the man who had always intimidated me actually laughed—something he wasn’t exactly known for. Then, instead of bending down as Janey suggested, he lifted the little girl into those big arms of his and I realized that the impossible had been accomplished. Janey had softened the heart of a moneyed giant. I felt pent-up tension leave my shoulders and I realized then that maybe this Thanksgiving wouldn’t be so bad. My mother had followed behind us, witnessed the entire exchange between her husband and her . . . my goodness, I almost thought granddaughter. I would have to watch my words; Janey and I to this point had avoided all such labels, all such complications.
Tilting at Windmills Page 26
