“See, Linden Corners is not without hope after all, and the day is just beginning.”
In just thirty minutes’ time the snowfall had intensified, with the streets and sidewalks coated in a few inches of soft, powdery fluff. That’s how long it had taken Nora to get ready and for her and Brian to make their way toward Edgestone Retirement Home. The roads were wet, slippery, which might just work in their favor, Mother Nature’s plot to keep Thomas from his trip.
“Though you know Thomas. He’s very determined,” she said.
“So are we,” Brian said.
“What’s your plan?”
“Just follow my lead,” he said as they made their way inside The Edge’s main lobby. A joyful sound of Christmas music and the chatter of many people filled the air; an early breakfast gathering was taking place in the recreation room, Nora recognizing the familiar gang of her mother’s friends, Myra and Jack and other of their cronies. Approaching the lobby desk, Brian asked the attendant if she could ring Mr. Van Diver’s apartment.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Brian, he’s already left.”
“Left, where?”
“I saw him get into the back of a cab, said something about wanting to leave extra time because of the weather,” the woman named Julie said. “My guess is the train station, just as he does every week . . .”
“But I thought Elsie was driving him to the station?”
“In this weather? I doubt a man as honorable as Mr. Van Diver would have asked Elsie to drive him in this weather. It’s awful out there, coming down harder now than it was when the party started.”
Brian and Nora exchanged looks that said the same thing: Now what?
“We drive to Hudson, see if we can stop him,” Brian said.
“Brian, maybe we should just leave it alone . . . he’s got his own destiny.”
Holding up the box with Thomas’s original edition of The Night before Christmas, Brian begged to differ. “Not without this book—it’s why he came back to Linden Corners, and he’s not leaving without it. Didn’t he tell you he wanted it for Christmas Eve? Well, that’s today and we found it.”
“You found it. Fine, Hudson it is,” she said, knowing Brian was right, this was the only way, even if they couldn’t stop Thomas from hopping on that train, they would do their best to place the book into his hands. “You can tell me the circumstances of how you found the book on our way down. But you better drive carefully, we’ve each got a kid who’s counting on us to be there Christmas morning.”
Back in the truck they went, making slow but steady progress along the county roads. The plows were thankfully out, and for a few-mile stretch they followed directly behind but far enough back not to get the salt spray, not that it mattered, Brian said, this old truck was barely held together by rust. And as he drove, Nora sitting with white knuckles as they slid a few times, she listened to the story of the book, reading the inscription by Lars Van Diver to his son on the title page, listening intently when Brian told her of the letter from Dan Sullivan to his precious Janey. She couldn’t believe how simple it had all been, but how so very heartfelt, with both fathers recognizing the power of these words, the beauty of the illustrations, and wanting to share them with their children and with future generations.
“Brian, this was a gift that Janey’s father left her—does Janey know about it?”
He shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. Heck, I almost didn’t unwrap it, I might have left it for a time when Janey could handle it—emotionally. But curiosity won out. What’s key now is Thomas, he’s been waiting eighty years to be reunited with a piece of his father. Janey’s had a shorter time but no less important loss, and once I explain everything to her . . . I’m sure she would insist that Thomas have the book. She’s a generous soul, that one, and I’m lucky to be a part of her world.”
“Good, now watch the road,” Nora said.
They entered the village of Hudson once again as they had weeks ago on the visit to Mrs. Wilkinson’s house on the hill, and unlike that calm day the village was covered in snow. Few people were out and about and Brian easily cruised down Warren Street, neither of them certain what time the train left. Last week it had been a ten thirty departure but that was a weekday; it could be different today . . . earlier.
As Brian turned toward the train station, the next sound they heard was not the one they wanted to hear; the train whistle was wailing in the snowy morning. Whether the conductor was blowing it to announce its imminent arrival or because the train was pulling out of the station, they couldn’t be sure.
Into the parking lot they drove, noticing the number of people milling about the platform, some peering north—which to Nora meant the train toward New York was soon approaching. They’d arrived in time. An announcement from the station confirmed this, just as Brian hopped out and went running through the small parking lot intent on finding Thomas. Nora saw him nearly slip, regain his footing at the stairs, and enter the station. She heard the puff of the train as it pulled into the station, saw at least twenty-five people gathering on the platform, all of them with suitcases as well as shopping bags filled with wrapped gifts, last-minute travelers headed toward their holiday celebrations. Her eyes quickly scanned the crowd, finally landing on Thomas’s figure. A red tweed hat sat atop his head like a beacon in this snowy storm, Rudolph himself alerting them to his arrival.
“Thomas,” she called out. “Wait.”
The Amtrak train was coming to a stop, releasing a great hiss of steam into the air. Nora leaped onto the platform, making her way toward her old friend and client, her heart beating as she realized how close they had come to missing him, a minute or two more behind one of those slow plows on the roads might have been all the difference. She came up beside him, her hand against her heart in an effort to calm it down. She was here and so was he.
“My goodness, Ms. Rainer . . .”
She didn’t have time to remind him to call her Nora, not now. “Thomas, you can’t get on that train,” she said.
“Oh, but I must, my dear,” he said, his tone heavy.
“Not until you see what we have.”
“We?” he asked. “Have you brought young Travis with you?”
“No, me,” said Brian, approaching from behind them.
“Brian, whatever are you . . . both of you, doing here?”
The train whistle blew again, a warning shot as the last of the passengers were boarding. A conductor made his way toward them, asking if they were traveling.
“Yes, I am,” Thomas said.
“No, we’re fine, thank you.”
“Brian, I have to make this train,” he said.
“There are others, Thomas, there have to be, it’s Christmas Eve,” he said.
“Just wait until you hear what we have to say,” Nora said.
“And if you don’t like it, heck, I’ll drive you myself.”
Nora gave her sidekick a look that said she hoped he wasn’t planning on following through on that, not with her and not in the weather, not on a day when family and friends and a tiny village were waiting for them at the Christmas Festival. But of course, they had the trump card, once they presented Thomas with the gift of the book there was no way he would refuse them.
“Whatever could you two be up to?”
“Brian, just show him.”
With a wide smile gracing his eager expression, Brian said, “I’d be happy to,” and that’s when, just as he had done with Nora, he presented the box to Thomas. The old man looked up from behind thick, mist-coated eyeglasses, first at Brian, then at Nora, finally resting them on the box. The whistle blew once again as the chug of the train distracted them. The doors had closed and the train began to ease out of the station.
“Go ahead, Thomas, open it,” Nora said.
He did as she asked, his frail hands fumbling with the lid. Unsteady fingers dug beneath the tissue paper, Brian assisting him by taking hold of the box. When finally Thomas pulled out the antique book, Nora felt her heart s
well with an uncontrollable wash of emotion, joy and sorrow and surprise, and that was just her. She could only imagine the range of feelings inside Thomas, disbelief perhaps the most likely, followed by wonder and surprise and a tug at his heart that transformed him from an eighty-five-year-old man to the wide-eyed boy of five.
“Is it . . . ?” Thomas asked.
Nora felt his gaze on her, and she just nodded.
Brian said, “Here, let me show you.”
He opened the front cover to the title page, displaying the inscription.
“Papa,” Thomas said, his voice more of a wail, one filled with the joy of discovery and the remembrance of loss. “Where . . . where . . . oh Nora, you found it.... I didn’t even think it was possible anymore, not when you gave me that reproduction. You never stopped, did you?”
“I didn’t, and I have a story to tell you about that. But all credit goes to Brian.”
“Thomas, come back to Linden Corners, celebrate Christmas Eve with us and be a part of the festival,” Brian said. “With this book in your hands, how can you refuse?”
Thomas was silent a moment, leaving Nora nervous about his answer. What if, after all she and Brian had done, if he refused, and even if he did what did it matter? As she had said, Thomas had his own destiny and it had been aboard that departed train, intent on taking him down along the river’s edge to wherever in the world he wished to venture, his reasons private. Now, his journey had been delayed, his story was incomplete.
“I cannot, Brian,” Thomas finally said amidst the falling snow, like magic dust unable to transform his will to theirs. “I made a promise, I would read this book on Christmas Eve.”
“And you will, to the children of the village,” Brian said.
“This promise I made is to another,” he said.
“Thomas, please help me understand,” Brian said. “I want to help you.”
Again, silence washed over Thomas, closing his eyes as though through the power of his mind he was being taken somewhere else, something he wanted to be but couldn’t yet. Nora saw him weakening, his lips moving, as though words were formulating, a secret he’d held close to his heart finally finding voice.
“My wife,” he said. “My beautiful, lovely Missy.”
Now it was the two of them who were silenced. She’d had no idea, she hadn’t even known that Thomas was married. Too many questions peppered her mind, none of which she felt she had the right to ask of him. She wouldn’t even know where to start, what to say. Thankfully, Brian spoke for them both, and when he did, she knew he was right.
“Thomas, come home for the festival,” he said, “and then I promise—and I know how you feel about keeping promises—I will get you to your wife’s side. Whether we have to drive all night, you’ll have your Christmas holiday with her.”
Nora realized that wasn’t enough, she remembered the request Thomas had made that first day at A Doll’s Attic. He needed the book not for Christmas Day but the Eve, and here it was, nearly eleven hours old already.
“No, Brian, we need to get him there today,” she said.
“Nora, I can’t ask you to do that . . . either of you,” Thomas said. “Who am I but an old man, I should have known not to expect that all my of wishes would be granted on Christmas. I’m no longer that five-year-old boy, foolishly filled with empty hope as his father heads off to a war he’d never return from. Life is real, wishes are just hopeful ideas you toss to the wind.”
“That’s what you think,” Brian said.
And without another word of protest, Brian led Thomas back to the truck. Nora stopped to gaze at her surroundings, at the historic train station and at the flowing river just yards away, and for a moment she recalled the paintings she had seen inside the Casey Museum, not just those of Santa in the green suit, not just those that recorded the building of the windmill, but those of the land that enveloped them. She heard Nicholas Casey’s words about the ever-changing beauty of the seasons, what made each unique. Alex Casey’s theory of how they came and went and came back again, living out its cycle on an endless loop, only to return with the same vigor, the same power, always the same time, always next year. Here they were in a place of transience, she could easily hop the next train and let it whisk her wherever, the same for the river, a boat and forceful currents that would transport her far, far away. Both of them modes of transportation seen as windows to the past; everyone was always in such a hurry, driving and flying, flinging themselves into the wind rather than taking a moment and letting their hopes soar first, soar higher.
She let out a heavy sigh, saw her breath as frosty mist before her. She had sacrificed so much coming home to Linden Corners, doing so for herself and for her son, and while she could imagine sharing such wonderful times with her mother, never in her dreams had she imagined a world filled with windmills and wishes, of dreams and desires, of heavy hearts and a thing called hope. Her world might have grown smaller in coming to this tiny town, but somehow she had learned how much larger the heart could grow, and it was this that fueled her now, as Brian called out to her.
“Nora, you coming with us, or are you going to stand there counting snowflakes?”
“I’m coming,” she said.
“Good, because we’ve got one more thing to take care of,” he said.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Brian Duncan Just Passing Through,” she replied, happy to have her own holiday surprise tucked away in the back of her mind, ready now to be opened up to this world. “We have two things, and don’t they always look better in twos?”
The curious look on Brian’s face said it all: Hadn’t he heard those words somewhere before?
Making her way back to the warmth of the truck, she settled in next to Thomas, who sat between her and Brian. For the three of them, their worlds had collided, their hopes were forever entwined, and soon, too, would their Christmas traditions.
CHAPTER 20
BRIAN
What he saw spread out before him, he could very well have been stepping inside a postcard, and on the reverse side he would find the hokey sentiment written in a friendly scrawl: “Wish You Were Here,” but in truth for Brian Duncan, sometimes called the Windmill Man and often Just Passing Through, he was glad he was right where he was, Linden Corners. Thankful that this was real life and he was witness to all that was unfolding in this village, a rare place on earth indeed. With its rainbow of shiny ornaments, the elegant pageantry, the glow of white light that permeated all throughout the village, he marveled over how busily productive the residents of the village had been while he and Nora had been off convincing Thomas to return. His thought turned to how fortunate Mark and Sara were, not just to have found each other, but to be able to exchange their vows in such a sacred, lovingly created scene, and then realized that he was the lucky one. Not only to be a part of the grandeur of the day, but having played a significant role in what was soon to transpire.
Time had advanced to three fifty-five in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, five minutes to go before the Linden Corners Christmas Festival would formally commence. He stood on the snowy steps of the gazebo, a nervous Mark Ravens at his side—or rather, he at the groom’s side—warming his hands. The snow had stopped falling around noon, the wind dying down, too, and so what was left was a crisp, cold day where tree branches were coated with a few delicate inches of powder, the sidewalks white and virtually untouched, leaving the entire village covered in a blanket of white. Maybe not a postcard after all, perhaps a snow globe that had settled after being shook, all was calm and peaceful.
“Thought despite the cold you’d be dripping with nervous sweat,” Brian said.
“Nah, not when I’ve got a best man that I can count on to defeat even a snowstorm and a loss of power, not to mention the best girl in the world, what’s to worry about? Like I said, maybe all I’ll do is show up,” Mark said. “Really, Brian, the entire village looks amazing . . . I don’t think Linden Corners has ever . . . well, it just glows, seriously, that’
s the only word I can come up with. Don’t get me wrong, the windmill would have been a beautiful setting, and I probably cursed it when I said you could blow its circuits . . .”
“Don’t think about it, Chuck did his best, but the windmill remains dark.”
“Can’t say that about the village square,” Mark said.
And indeed, you couldn’t. Wrapped around the tall pine trees that lined the edges of Memorial Park were strings of white light, and dangling from their branches were numerous ornaments that introduced the small village to the greater world; Travis and Janey and Bradley and a ragtag team of others had spent the morning adorning the sticky needles with glass, silver, and porcelain ornaments, all of them from around the globe, purchased by a woman who had taken to the wind as soon as she could fly, sending back home treasures that had tales of their own, into the hearts of parents who could only dream of all their daughter saw. Mary Wilkinson might have steered clear of small-town America, but it was her travels that were dotted all over it now, sparkling against a smattering of stars that had fallen from the sky she so took to. At Janey’s insistence, silver tinsel had been gently tossed across the many branches, each of them a tiny mirror that reflected the joyous smiles of those gathered.
But what struck at Brian’s heart the most were the lights that lined the edge of the park and all down the street, from George’s Tavern down to A Doll’s Attic, by the Five O’ and lining the lot of Marla and Darla’s Trading Post and Ackroyd’s Hardware Emporium, an endless line of glowing luminaries that flickered in the wind. How this feat had been accomplished in such record time, all while the storm raged, Brian couldn’t guess. Small votive candles, encased by a white paper bag and secured to the ground by a handful of sand in the bottom of the bag, only a strong wind could knock them over or silence their glare, and thankfully, for now, all was quiet.
Chairs also lined the village square, set upon a green matting over hard-packed snow. All of them faced the gazebo, where the ceremony would take place, and the pathway leading up to its steps had been cleared of fresh snow. It, too, glowed with the luminaries, creating a swatch of light between which Sara would walk. Half the town seemed to have turned out already, with others arriving by the minute, everyone bundled up against the cold but somehow warmed by the celebration about to take place. All of them were settling into seats, waiting for the festivities to begin. In the front row, Brian could see Gerta, and at her side was a friend she had just met this afternoon, Katherine Wilkinson, who was still gazing around the trees at her own memories of Christmas; it had been Nora’s idea to ask her to join them, and it had been the right decision. Sitting behind them, the gang from The Edge, Elsie and Myra and even Jack, who looked wide awake and attentive. Sitting alone, in his own world, was a rail-thin, pale-faced Richie Ravens, Mark’s uncle and the proprietor of the Solemn Nights Motel. Richie, a bit of a recluse, rarely attended village events, so it was extra special to see him here for his nephew’s wedding. Marla and Darla were there, of course, they were the opposite of Richie, as they never missed a celebration, and unless Brian was mistaken they were taking turns toasting the night with a flask; hey, whatever to keep them warm. At their sides, a pair of golden retrievers, whom he had come to know as Buster and Baxter. Around the corner, he could see a yellow school bus, and he knew inside were all the children of the village who would make up the parade of lights, keeping warm until it was time for their entrance.
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