by Dara Girard
Jessie tapped his chest with her forefinger. “I won’t leave my husband because I love him too much. And he needs me.”
Kenneth lifted a brow in surprise. “He needs you?”
“Yes, so he can stop pretending.” She drew away from him. “What’s wrong? And don’t act like you don’t know what I’m saying. You’re free now, you don’t have to pretend anymore, remember?”
“I want Christmas to be perfect.”
“Christmas will be wonderful, okay? What’s with you and Syrah recently?” she asked. “You don’t have to be Mr. Perfect anymore. We’ve got our schedule planned from Christmas to New Years’ with family and friends. Even if things go wrong it won’t matter because it will be one of many memories we’ll get to share. I don’t know why she thought we needed the protection of those stones.”
On Christmas Eve, they sat in front of the fireplace, the tree lit and the remnants of the sugar cookies and eggnog they’d enjoyed set to the side. Jessie told him and Syrah tales of when she and her sisters would wait up for Father Christmas. She made Syrah laugh and Kenneth watched them, wondering why he still felt so tired instead of happy. It was Christmas Eve.
Stop pretending, Jessie had told him. You must trust her with everything, Teresa had said. And she was right. Jessie was the one person he could be real with.
He needed to be honest. He hadn’t really been afraid of her ignoring him regarding the stones, or getting killed. Those fears gave him a shield against what truly scared him, that the Christmas he was hoping for would be out of reach.
He worried that he wouldn’t feel as he was supposed to. He’d never found Christmas a magical season. He’d never had a chance to believe in Father Christmas. All his life, he’d smiled his way through the season to please others, but he always felt like a fraud because the presents and the lights never warmed his heart. And he knew the truth would disappoint her. But pretending had become too much of a burden.
He kissed Syrah goodnight before she went off to bed, then Kenneth sat alone with Jessie on the couch.
He realized that he hoped by making Syrah and Jessie happy, and that their joy would somehow stir something in him. That he’d feel what the season was about. He didn’t want to tell her that every song left him feeling numb and he felt exhausted under the weight of a cheer he didn’t feel. “I’ve never liked Christmas. I always lie and say I do, but…”
She looped her fingers through his and he gained strength in her touch. “Go on.”
“When I first saw those stones, I didn’t know why they bothered me so much, but then I remembered one Christmas when my father got drunk and smashed the ornaments on our tree. I don’t know how old I was but I remember how they sparkled even as they shattered and scattered on the ground.” He briefly shut his eyes. “I can’t feel Christmas. The importance of it…. I can’t…I can’t feel it. I know I’m supposed to be ecstatic.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“And there’s this memory that keeps trying to come back.”
“Why won’t you let it?”
He rested his head back. “Because I don’t want to.”
“Maybe you need to.”
He turned to her, his eyes clinging to hers. “Most of my memories hurt.”
“I know.” She patted her lap. “And you don’t have to fight them alone anymore, you have me.”
A smile softened his mouth. “Are you inviting me to sit on your lap like a good little boy?”
She frowned. “No, I was offering you a place to rest your head.” She began to stand. “But if you’re not interested—”
He pulled her down. “You know I am,” he said in a deep voice.
Kenneth took a deep breath and laid his head down, letting himself surrender to the memory that had been haunting him, trying to become fully formed in his mind. He drifted to sleep, remembering another Christmas blanketed in white.
White was everywhere. White like snow, except he saw the white of a doctor’s lab coat, the nurse’s shoes, the hospital walls and floors. There were paintings of cartoon characters in the halls, but he didn’t recognize most of them because he didn’t get to watch TV much. He remembered a white pillow and a metal bed and the sound of holiday music floating from somewhere. And he remembered making a wish…
A wish he’d forgotten about.
He opened his eyes and although it was still dark, the darkness that had seized his soul was gone. He felt his numbness fade and it hurt, but he welcomed the pain because at least he could feel, and the anger and restlessness had gone. He sat up and looked around the room in renewed wonder. He saw the brilliant lights on the tree, the red flashing flames of the fire, but most of all, he saw a home. His home. The one he shared with his daughter who was safe in her room. The one he shared with his wife who’d fight his battles with him.
For the first time in years, he let himself remember the wish of a little boy, spending the holidays in the hospital after a beating, and his wish for a new family that loved him no matter what.
Stop pretending.
He didn’t have to pretend anymore.
“Kenneth, are you okay?” Jessie asked him.
He turned to her, the fire glow caressing her brown skin. “Yes,” he said, the truth of his words filling him with joy. “Yes,” he said again, then stood pulling her up with him. He walked to the window and looked outside at the white snow as it lay under the gaze of the moonlight. He no longer hated the sight. Instead, he saw a whole new beginning.
As they stood by the window, he told her about his memory. His voice was soft as he spoke, his arms wrapped around her waist. She didn’t speak, just listened as she rested her back against his chest.
When he was through, he took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he said. “It will be a wonderful Christmas.”
Every Christmas before had been a disappointment to him, but not this one. This one would be like no other. One he’d remember for the rest of his life. Not because it was perfect, but because his long ago wish had finally come true.
If you enjoyed The Perfect Christmas don’t miss Kenneth and Jessie’s romance in The Sapphire Pendant.
VII
A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember
Bitterness didn’t have a taste. It had a smell and it smelled like cigarette ashes and vintage wine. To her, bitterness wasn’t roads not taken, it was too many options and not enough time. It was facing mortality with grim surrender.
Sharon Burnell sat alone in her dressing room, the soft patter of snow tapping against the window. The sight was a rare treat for Washington DC. It had been a rather warm December and few expected to see snow until January and certainly not in time for Christmas.
She knew she shouldn’t have been there. She should be at home, resting in the quiet solitude of her apartment. But she’d returned to the theater for something—a scarf or an earring, she didn’t remember what. Now it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the silence. A silence filled with bitterness. Only hours before she’d been bedecked in jewels and silk, but that was now gone as was the audience and the unknown faces behind the scenes. The theater lay empty and silent, except for the guards and the cleaning crew.
As she sat in her dressing room, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and sighed. The stage makeup she’d worn had been wiped clean from her face, leaving it bare. She had an ordinary face. A face that seemed, with each day, to grow more familiar to her, though she didn’t know why. There was no one in her family who had a nose that was quite like hers or a mouth that was a little crooked. Her walnut skin was still smooth though she saw some sagging around the edges of a jaw that used to be more angular, a neck that had been more regal.
She was at that lonely, unremarkable age when she was too old to live and too young to die.
Tonight, as she’d performed, she felt like a fraud. An imposter. What once had filled her with joy, left her empty. The applause no longer fed her spirit as it once had. The accolades meant n
othing. They said she was one of the greatest, but she didn’t think so. Her voice wasn’t what it had once been. She hadn’t reached the notes with the same power and verve. When had her life become worn floorboards and petulant conductors? When had a stage ceased to delight her? Tonight, when she’d looked at the stage, instead of seeing the lush Riviera she only saw broad paint strokes that were supposed to be waves.
Where had the magic gone? The mystery and the majesty of music had escaped her, but she didn’t know when or how she’d allowed it to slip from her grasp. But it had left her desolate like a lover whose heart had grown cold.
She was no longer a young darling, but far from being a legend. Again, too young for that, but too old to be one of the fresh young things now flooding stages and concert halls around the globe.
Oh how she wished to see the magic again. But once you know how magic is done, can you ever see it again? She closed her eyes against tears.
When she opened them, she saw a young girl of about fourteen wearing outdated clothes from the 60s, standing on the other side of the room.
A young girl who looked familiar.
Sharon jumped to her feet. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
But the young girl didn’t hear her. Instead, she walked around the room, her face filled with wonder. “It’s so beautiful. Oh, how I’d love to have my own dressing room and sing in a theater like this one day,” she said.
Sharon’s heart raced. Why didn’t the young girl see her and why did her face and voice seem so familiar?
“Come on, you don’t recognize yourself?” an amused female voice said.
Sharon screamed and glanced around the room not knowing where the voice had come from. The young girl walked past Sharon, still not seeing her or hearing anything. Goose bumps scattered up and down Sharon’s arms as a familiar scent lingered.
“What’s going on?” She held the side of her head. “Am I having a stroke?”
“You’re not having a stroke, Sharon,” the voice said. “Must you always be so dramatic?” She hurried over to a corner and her gaze darted around the room, searching for the source
of the voice, but she didn’t see anything. “Who are you?”
“No,” the voice said. “That’s not the question you need answered. The real question is, Who is she?”
Sharon looked again at the young girl who now sat in her chair and pretended to put on makeup. She then understood why she looked so familiar. She was looking at herself. The girl she’d been many years ago.
Soon the dressing room fell away and she saw her old bedroom—a stack of vinyl records she’d bought, although they didn’t own a record player, a black and white photo of her friend from Liverpool; she smelled the scent of eggs and chips wafting from the kitchen. Outside, a drizzly grey rain soaked the city of Manchester, England, and the young girl stood by the window staring down at one of the records she couldn’t listen to.
Sharon felt tears touch her eyes remembering that moment and noticing the welt on her arm where her grandfather had struck her with a switch because he thought she was trying to poison him. Her parents didn’t want him to go into a nursing home, although caring for him had become more difficult. Her parents had taken her out of school so they could work and she had to look after him. Music helped her endure the confinement. At least they had a radio and at night she’d hold the dial just right so she could get to listen to her favorite station.
Having a piano helped too. Through the music she created on the black and white keys, she was transported to the hot streets of New York City and to the classical dance halls of Vienna. Music transported her grandfather too, because when she sang with him, he was like his old self. He would smile and dance and when she sang his favorite tunes it was as if years were erased from his face and his mind became clear. If only she could sing forever.
The young girl looked straight at Sharon, as if she could see her. And Sharon’s heart began to race. Would she scream? Call the police? But the young girl didn’t look surprised. “I didn’t think you’d come back,” she said, setting the record down on her bed.
“You mean I’ve been here before?”
The young girl frowned. “Yea, you don’t remember?”
No, but now she started to understand why the mature face she’d seen in the mirror had felt so familiar to her. She’d seen it before as her younger self. “Hmm.”
“Did you really mean what you said before?”
Oh no. What had she said? Sharon thought in a panic then the words came to her. If you keep the magic alive, it will never leave you, but if you forget you will wither and die. Why had she said that? But even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. It was a warning. She’d allowed herself to forget the magic. What music had once meant to her. Like the memories stolen from her grandfather, she’d quietly lost what had made her whole. She couldn’t let herself do it again, this was her second chance. “Yes,” she said with a desperate fervor looking at the young face before her and seeing it wasn’t the smooth skin or the lack of years that would later catapult her into her long career, it would be her passion. A passion that would send her around the world, to marvel at the five languages she’d learn to speak, gasp at the sight of tears rolling down her parents’ faces when she sang in Carnegie Hall. A passion she must continue to let burn.
She hadn’t tended to it. She’d taken it for granted, until slowly it had burned out.
“Sharon!” her grandfather called and she remembered that her name was one of the few he still remembered. Her younger self went to where he sat in the living room. He didn’t see the older version.
“Ask him to play something,” Sharon told her younger self.
And the young girl did. The older man shuffled to the piano, but once he sat down, his back straightened, his arms and fingers flexed and as he played all the years fell away. Sharon remembered the tune and sang along and her younger self joined her.
And as the magic rained down around them, tears of shame touched her eyes. She felt ashamed by how easily she’d allowed herself to forget how fortunate she was, how far she’d come, how much she’d let herself forget, and how much she needed to remember.
Soon the pair fazed away and she sat in the audience and saw herself on stage in one of her performances ten years ago and although she didn’t see a legend or an ingénue, she saw someone more radiant. She saw a woman in love. In love with the magic that surrounded her as the music soared through the room, flowing through her and touching the hearts of those around her. And behind her, she saw the waves instead of the brushstrokes; she saw the horizon and could hear the seagulls. The scenery came alive.
Her breath caught when the woman performing, looked at her—and she felt the connection. She could hear her urgent plea ‘Never forget me’.
She understood that request. She would never forget why she sang. She sang for the girl growing up in a small flat in Manchester who dreamed of a different life. She sang for the woman who couldn’t believe where her life had taken her. She sang for her grandfather who first showed her the magic, by playing the piano and teaching her show tunes. Sharon nodded, making a promise not to get caught up in the criticisms, the trinkets of fame and fortune or her own ego. She was there to serve the music.
The woman seemed to smile and finished her song to thunderous applause.
Silence soon descended and Sharon found herself standing in the corner of her dressing room again, but the scent of bitterness was gone.
And she knew she’d never smell it again. The magic had returned.
No, she realized as she gathered her things to face the snowy weather outside, a new sense of joy bubbling inside, it had never left.
VIII
A Mother’s Day Wish
A Mother's Day Wish
"We don't need you. We have a lawn service to take care of things," Beth Armstrong said looking at the lanky fifteen year old who'd asked to mow her lawn. She was surprised he'd even offered. He was a Bai
ley after all and everyone knew the Baileys were a lazy bunch. The only effort his father extended was to find a woman and get his pants down or open a bottle and fill his belly with liquor. People knew better than to hire him because he'd never show up, but would always come up with an excuse as to why. Just like his father before him. Even his great-grandfather had a notorious reputation back in Trinidad. He'd been a man not to be trusted. Beth didn't expect young Cole Bailey to be much different. He was a good looking young man with dark lashes and brows, but the Bailey men always were.
She hardened her heart against the look of disappointment that dimmed Cole's light brown eyes and turned the corners of his mouth down. She couldn't bend. She wouldn't. People had been trying to help the Baileys for years and nothing ever worked. She gripped the door handle, stiffened her spine and let a slight, polite smile touch her lips. "I'm sorry. Goodbye and good day."
"Good day," Cole said not meaning a word. He forced a smile then turned. It didn't feel like a good day but that was all he'd been forced to hear. The Armstrong house had been his last stop. Nobody would hire him. He'd offered lawn care, window washing, spider web cleaning and painting, but he always got a polite 'good day' and a door in his face. He knew the people of Hamsford didn't want a Bailey inside their homes, but he'd hoped they'd at least let him help outside with the grunt work. Wasn't he good enough for that? None of the local shop owners would give him work, his father and grandfather's reputations always proceeded him. But he wasn't his father or grandfather.
Unfortunately, no one would give him the chance to prove it. And he needed a break. He needed to make money to help his family, especially his younger sisters who deserved more than what they were getting--a fridge that was usually empty and a cramped, dank apartment. His parents were already two months late on the rent. Cole knew the rent was really six months overdue, but his father had managed to bargain it down to two months since he was sleeping with the landlord's wife and she'd somehow persuaded her husband to lower what was owed. Cole didn't know how long the arrangement would last, since his father never stuck with anyone or anything long. He wanted to make sure he had enough money to take care of the family in case something went wrong, which it usually did.
