I mouth the words I’ll always love you too. Mark’s image slowly fades, and in its wake the most magnificent rainbow appears. I remember when he gave me my necklace and made me promise to look at the rainbow charm whenever I felt sad or hopeless. Tears fall down my cheeks as I realize Mark won’t be visiting me anymore. But it’s all right because for the first time since he died, I’m finally ready to let him go.
Epilogue
Lake Garda, Italy, one year later
I stare at the image of the bride decked out in a wedding dress that pays homage to Princess Grace with a modern twist. The A-line gown is silk except for a Chantilly lace overlay that adorns the top half of the bodice. The sleeves are also covered in lace and are short, reaching almost to the bride’s forearms. Peeking beneath the lace bodice is a modest, straight-edged neckline. A veil with a delicate lace trim is pinned to the back of a loose bun that hangs low. Two small white rose buds are tucked into the side of the veil. Pearl teardrop earrings are the only jewelry the bride wears.
It’s still hard for me to see myself as a bride, even though the image of one is staring back at me in my dresser mirror. My mother, who will also be my matron of honor, has given me some time alone before I make my walk down the aisle.
For the first six months after I met Jack, we had a long-distance relationship. It was difficult, to say the least. But then Jack landed a job as a senior manager at The Vanderbilt Grace, a historic boutique hotel in Newport. I was worried about Christopher and how he would adjust to making such a big move, but that kid never ceases to amaze me. Though he was a little “bummed,” as he put it, to leave his friends in Innsbruck behind, he told me he was happy that he’d be closer to his grandparents, and to me as well.
A month after Jack moved to Newport, he proposed to me, and I didn’t hesitate in accepting. The best was when Christopher told me he couldn’t wait to call me Mom.
I told him he didn’t need to wait until the wedding and could start calling me Mom right away. Naturally, Christopher will be Jack’s best man. I can’t wait for the three of us to be a family.
So here I am in Lake Garda, Italy, one week before Christmas, about to have the winter wedding I’d always dreamed of. After the wedding, Jack and I will spend our honeymoon in nearby Verona. Jack thought it would be romantic to start our marriage in the city of Romeo and Juliet. Jack had asked me if I was certain about getting married during the Christmas season since I had lost Mark then. I told Jack that though I had suffered loss during Christmas, that was also when I found love and hope again.
Looking out of my hotel window at the turquoise waters of Lake Garda and the serene mountains standing guard over it, I think back to my trip to Innsbruck last year. Revisiting the places I had been with Mark and remembering the feelings we shared had reminded me how special love could be when it’s with the right person. I also now see the signs he was giving me to show me that it was okay to love again and that Jack was the one: finding Chauncey on the hiking trail . . . Christopher singing “Silent Night,” Mark’s favorite Christmas carol . . . Jack giving me white roses.... There’s no doubt in my mind that Jack was Mark’s final Christmas gift to me. Closing my eyes, I send out a thank-you to Mark, wherever he is.
I turn away from the window and check the clock. It’s time. Taking my bouquet, I glance in the mirror once more before heading out to begin my new life with Jack and Christopher.
Dear Reader,
I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the paranormal, so when my editor approached me about writing a Christmas-themed novella, naturally I thought of doing a story about a woman who loses a great love but is later visited by his ghost.
Why the fascination with ghosts? It all began when I was five years old. A friend of my sister’s, who was nine years old at the time, had lost her father a few months earlier. One summer evening, my sister, her friend, and I were playing in the backyard of my home. The backyard faced a long driveway, and the street could be seen from the yard. We were standing, talking to one another and deciding what we would do next to occupy ourselves. I was facing the driveway, looking out toward the street, when suddenly I saw a man come into my line of vision. He was walking very, very slowly as he crossed the street. I could only see the back of him, but I remember thinking that he looked a lot like my friend’s father, who had passed away. He had the same hairstyle, the same clothes, the same gait. And then I noticed he was carrying in one hand a cake box from a bakery. I remember thinking how that very day was my friend’s birthday. And then the man held up his free hand, as if he were waving to us. I whipped my head toward my friend, who had also turned her head toward me. Both of our eyes were wide open, and she said, “You saw him too!” I nodded my head. My friend told my sister that we had seen her father. But my sister hadn’t been facing the driveway, so she had to take our word that we’d seen him when she hadn’t. My sister gave our friend a sympathetic look, obviously not believing her. We ran down the driveway to the street to see if there was any trace of her father’s ghost, but there wasn’t.
Later that evening, over dinner, my sister recounted what had happened to my family. She told them how I had also seen my friend’s father. My mother asked me if that was true. I nodded my head emphatically. But none of them would believe a five-year-old really knew what she was seeing and was probably just agreeing with her friend. I remember feeling so sad for my friend and that no one would believe her if she told anyone else what we saw.
As the years went by, I forgot about that incident until after my own father died when I was sixteen. When someone you love dies, you’re left with a lot of questions and struggle with your beliefs. And when I did remember seeing my friend’s father’s ghost, I tried to hold on to it, to believe that there was an afterlife and I would see my father again. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I had seen my friend’s father—to remind me there is life after death.
But as we get older, we inevitably become more rooted in reality and become more skeptical. So again, I forgot about what I’d seen all those years ago until I had another brush with the paranormal three years ago. Through the job I had at the time, I was able to receive comp tickets to hear an author speak about her book, which was about communicating with spirits. A medium who supposedly could communicate with spirits would also be speaking at the event and trying to reach the spirits of audience members’ loved ones. My husband and I decided to attend. We both kept our expectations low, and my husband told me that when the medium spoke to me, I should offer as few clues as possible about my father. After the author spoke, there was a break, and I introduced myself to the author and the medium. I’d forgotten about what my husband had said and mentioned I had lost my father, and that some of what the author said I could relate to. When we stepped outside to stretch our legs during the break, my husband of course was annoyed with me that I’d offered the details I had.
The time for the medium to contact the spirits of loved ones came. For a few people, she was able to reach the spirit of the person they asked her to contact. For others, she was not able to do so. I wavered between skepticism and being surprised at some of the specific details she was able to give a few of the audience members. She reached me last, and by that time it was late, and most of the other audience members had left. She asked me who I wanted her to reach and the death date of the deceased. So the clues I had given her earlier didn’t end up mattering. Instead of speaking to me first, my father wanted the medium to relay a message to my husband. Both of us must’ve gone as white as a sheet when we heard what the message was—for it was something that only my husband and I knew. Tears quickly ran down my face. I was moved that my father seemed to be looking out for me in death as he had looked out for me in life. My father had a lot to say to both of us. In fact, of all the readings the medium gave that day, she had the most information for me. I felt bad for the other audience members who had only received some information, and for the people whose loved ones she couldn’t reach, especially since they had paid fo
r their tickets. Here I was with complimentary tickets to this event, and she had the longest message for me from my loved one.
My husband became a believer from that night forward, but I still remained skeptical. I desperately wanted to believe that my father had been communicating through the medium, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the medium was just psychic, and that’s how she knew all the details she was giving us. The next morning, my husband asked me if I had turned around his office swivel chair before we went to sleep the previous night. I told him I never touch that chair. He told me the chair was turned all the way around and was facing the table where we had our meals. (Our apartment features an open layout in which we have our living room, office, and dining area combined.) He remembered the author and medium saying that after a spirit has communicated with their loved ones, they often give a sign to let us know it really was them communicating with us. We never found the office chair facing out like that again.
I’ll never know if that really was my father communicating with us through the medium. But I still have no doubt that my friend and I did see her father’s ghost that day all those years ago. I know what I saw, and the fact that my friend had seen exactly what I’d seen only convinces me more.
I also know for certain that anything is possible, and if we choose to believe in ghosts, guardian angels, Santa, or whatever else to help us know that we are loved and someone is looking out for us, then what’s the harm in that?
I hope that my novella, Seven Days of Christmas, has helped you to believe in the power of miracles—no matter what form they might come in.
My third stand-alone novel, Stella Mia, will be released in January 2015. And like Seven Days of Christmas , it too tells the story of a great love set against the backdrop of beautiful Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. And if you haven’t read my first two novels, Bella Fortuna and Carissima, they are currently available.
I love hearing from readers. You can contact me by visiting my website: www.rosannachiofalo.com.
Happy Reading!
Rosanna Chiofalo
A Smoky Mountain Gift
LIN STEPP
Chapter 1
Veda dug in her purse looking for her key as she made her way across the front porch of the O’Neill farmhouse. She grinned as a loose board by the door creaked. That board had creaked in the same spot for as long as she could remember. As a young girl, she’d learned to step artfully around it when sneaking in late.
She dropped her suitcase and duffel to the porch to dig deeper for the house key. Shivering in the December cold, Veda turned to look out across the green lawn and winding drive leading up to the house. The narrow road curled through the valley to the old farmhouse before continuing up the mountain, each side of the roadway lined with the beautifully shaped cedar trees the O’Neill Farm was famous for.
The wind whispered around the corner of the farmhouse as Veda paused, rustling her hair and giving her an odd chill.
“The wind’s kicking up on a still day.” Aunt Rita Jean’s words drifted across her consciousness. “There’s a touch of change in the air; someone’s coming.”
“Well, that someone is me today.” Veda whispered the words with a sigh as she twisted her key in the old lock and pushed open the front door.
Familiar emotions swamped her as she stepped inside the old house—a soft eagerness to be here tinged with resentment and regret. Veda’s mother, Skyler, had dumped her at the O’Neill Farm every summer as a small child, flying off to one glamorous photo shoot after another, always too busy to deal with her. Then, after her tragic death in a car crash, whizzing down some European roadway, Veda had come here to stay. She’d had nowhere else to go and no one else who wanted her. But now, except for flying in briefly this summer for Rita Jean’s funeral, she hadn’t been back in eight years.
Veda carried her bags inside the door, dumped them, and headed to the car for more. After two trips unloading, she walked out on the porch to look around for her dog.
“Lucy,” she hollered with a whistle. “Where are you?”
A stubby, gold-and-white corgi ran around the house in answer to Veda’s call and began working her way up the porch steps on short, stubby legs—her tags jingling, her eyes bright with the excitement of exploring a new place. At the top of the steps, the corgi looked from Veda to the yellow Volkswagen parked in the driveway with a question.
“No, we’re finished with traveling.” Veda reached down to pet the corgi affectionately. “It was a long trip for you all the way from St. Augustine, Florida, eleven hours and almost six hundred miles, to be exact.”
Lucy barked as if to affirm Veda’s words.
Laughing, Veda headed across the porch to push open the door. “Come on in, Luce. You can explore our new digs since we’re staying here for a while.”
The words brought a fresh sweep of regret to Veda. She shrugged. Oh, well, it wasn’t as though she had much choice in the matter. As Aunt Rita Jean used to say, the wind had changed, and not in Veda’s favor.
Remembering her Uncle Sutton’s note, Veda carried her bags back to Rita Jean’s old room at the back of the house. She’d have preferred staying in her old girlhood room upstairs. However, Sutton had taken over much of the second floor after his and Rita Jean’s father died, moving from his own smaller house on the upper property, not wanting Rita Jean to live alone in the big house. Veda also knew there was only one bath on the second floor. Sutton wanted her to be comfortable while she was here, and since he’d cleaned and prepared Rita Jean’s room for her, she’d comply.
A rush of memories assailed her as she walked into the back bedroom. Nothing had changed, and Veda’s heart wanted to weep at the loss of the aunt she’d loved so much, who’d mothered her for so many young years. She wandered around the room, running her fingers over the flower garden quilt on the bed, touching the floral-painted base of the old bedside lamp, pausing to look at photos on the chest of drawers, and then gazing up at the painting over the double bed of a field of mountain flowers blowing in the spring wind, the Smoky Mountains in the background. Framed on the dresser sat a picture of Rita Jean dressed in her old-time storyteller’s garb—long dress, apron, and mobcap.
Beside the bed lay one of Rita Jean’s many black journals in which she wrote her thoughts and quotes, things that might later be woven into her mountain stories. Veda picked up the book and leafed to a back page.
“ ‘The wind has its reasons,’” she read. “ ‘We just don’t notice it as we go about our lives. But then at some point we are made to notice. The wind envelopes you with a certain purpose in mind.’” She stopped, noting the author of the words was the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Unusual. More often Rita Jean’s quotes and stories came from old Cherokee legends and writings, since her grandmother, Unole Watie O’Neill, had been full-blooded Cherokee.
“Unole is a funny name,” she’d said to her aunt once.
Rita Jean had smiled. “It means Wind. And every first daughter in the bloodline is said to carry the gift of hearing the wind sing if she will listen.”
Funny Veda remembering that conversation now. Her aunt Rita Jean was a firm, practical, hardworking woman who’d raised both her two young brothers and her baby sister after their mother died. Then, later, she’d raised Veda. Pragmatic and sensible, with a firm jaw, plain looks, and no-nonsense ways, it seemed odd whenever Veda glimpsed this other side of her aunt—this almost fanciful side.
“Are you a first daughter?” she’d asked that day.
Aunt Rita Jean patted her head. “I am, and so are you, Veda Regina Trent.”
Veda wrinkled her nose. “I never hear the wind sing and I never hear it say anything either.”
“You will when the time is right,” Rita Jean said. “Now you get out the silverware and set the table while I finish dinner.” And that was the end of that conversation.
Hearing someone clear his throat, Veda turned to see Sutton standing in the doorway. She ran across the room to throw herself
into his arms. She knew it embarrassed him—but pleased him, too.
He held her out at arm’s length and studied her. He made a sign about her being too thin. Veda glanced toward the mirror. Perhaps he was right. She did look thinner. Stress always stole her appetite.
Her eyes slid over him with fondness. Sutton looked good for a man in his sixties, his face ruddy and healthy from the outdoors, his physique strong from his work with the trees on the farm, his hair almost white like Rita Jean’s had been, and his eyes dark, merry, and astute. The O’Neills were ordinarily of hardy stock and long-lived. A bout of bronchitis, even with complications, shouldn’t have taken Rita Jean’s life, but the infection went systemic, her aunt’s immune system turning on her and aiding it. And she’d slipped away from them.
As if sensing her thoughts, Sutton patted his heart and looked around the room with a touch of sorrow.
“You miss her,” she filled in for him. “I do, too.”
He made a few signs to let her know he wanted her keys in order to move her car around to the shed. Veda found herself easily following Sutton’s old system of signing and messaging. He was mute and had been since birth, but Sutton had developed his own unique methods of communicating with others—easier for him since he could hear and see well. He’d learned simple ways to write notes and utilize signs and gestures to communicate with his family, teachers, and school friends. Here in the country there had been little special education help or Individualized Education Programs in those days. But Sutton experienced few problems or teasing for his infirmity as he grew up. Townsend, Tennessee, was a little town at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where everybody knew everybody else, and where the O’Neill family was loved and well-known.
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