* * *
Sometimes it feels like things didn’t really happen, especially since Abby’s death. Derek will think of a sunrise from the morning before, or a good meal he enjoyed, or even a song on the radio, and then almost deny it because sometimes it’s still hard to laugh, or feel good, as though he’s being unfair to his daughter by doing so.
So when he pulls into Vera’s driveway and sees the small tree outside her barn still lit up in Christmas lights, he’s sure the night before really happened. He has a sneaking suspicion she’ll leave those lights on round-the-clock now because how could she bring herself to shut them off? Leaving them on is a way of holding on. Of maybe turning a corner she never saw coming.
He drops the truck plow and starts clearing the deep snow accumulated in her driveway, working his way from the street, past her Dutch Colonial, all the way down to the barn entrance, pushing piles of it off to the side. As he backs up to clear another section, at first he thinks it’s Vera coming out the house’s side door wearing a royal blue parka with a fur-lined hood pulled up over her head and clutching a silver and black thermos. But when the wind blows the hood off her head, he sees it’s Brooke tromping through the deep snow. He pulls up to her and idles the truck, rolling down the window.
“Hey there, Derek,” she says. “This is so nice of you, I can finally get my car out.”
“No problem,” he tells her. “It’s the least I can do after all that Vera did last night.”
“Oh! That reminds me.” She hands him the thermos through the window. “This is for you. Vera made you coffee, just the way you like it.”
He takes the thermos and glances over at the house.
“It was really nice seeing everyone gathered last night,” Brooke says then.
“It amazes me every year, how Abby brings so many people together that way.” He opens the thermos and pours coffee into the cup.
“I don’t know how to say this, Derek, but as sad as the circumstances, Abby somehow inspires us to celebrate life. Or more to celebrate the moment, I guess.”
He nods, taking a swallow of the steaming coffee.
“And we still raised a sizable donation for the Children’s Hospital. Between the high school kids from the Key Club selling out all the Addison sweatshirts, and then me and my mom selling coffee cake slices, well, people were very generous. Brett will be in touch when we’re ready to deliver the check in Abby’s name.”
“I really appreciate that.”
“Any time,” she says. “Well, thanks for clearing the driveway. I’m going to brush off my car and be on my way.”
“Good to see you, Brooke. And say hi to Brett for me, would you?”
She waves to him and turns to leave, but then turns back. “Hey Derek?”
“What’s up?”
“Listen. It’s just that … I don’t know what happened between you and Vera. But she speaks so highly of you.”
When she glances over her shoulder toward the house, to the kitchen window specifically, he does too. He knows Vera’s inside, unsure of what to do after last night. Maybe uncertain if she pushed things with Abby a little too far by opening up the barn to everyone.
“Okay,” Brooke says when she turns back to him. “I’m just going to say this, even though she’d kill me if she knew. But she misses you.” She gives him a small smile. “I hope you’re not mad at me for putting my nose where it doesn’t belong, but heck, she’s my sister. And she never meant any harm with the article she was writing, and well.” She takes a quick breath, eyeing Derek closely. “She really misses you, Derek.”
He looks to the house again, toward the step he repaired—buried now beneath snow, to the damaged wall and stuck door and loose bannister he’d fixed, to the mismatched white kitchen chairs he can picture on the other side of those walls, and toward Vera too, no doubt sitting in one with a snowflake mug of coffee cupped in her hands.
“So anyway,” Brooke is saying all the while. “Well, I thought you should know.”
“Thanks, Brooke.” He finishes the coffee he’d poured and screws the cup back on the thermos before setting it on the passenger seat beside him. “I’ll talk to her. Soon.”
“You promise?” Brooke asks, tipping her head as though she maybe doesn’t quite believe him.
He nods with a quick laugh, turning up his hands in consent. “Hey, if it keeps me on Santa’s nice list.”
Brooke leans in and gives him a hug through the driver’s window, then dashes off to clear her car.
Derek looks back toward Vera’s house, seeing Jingles watching it all from the window. Okay, and thinking he’s one darn lucky cat to have a warm place reserved in that kitchen just for him. He takes a deep breath, sits still for a minute, then puts the pickup truck in gear and finishes plowing out Vera’s driveway before heading over to the store to take care of that lot next.
Chapter Twenty-Four
VERA DIDN’T KNOW IF SHE could get her ad in on time, but given her connections at the paper now, a few strings were pulled. The Addison Weekly is delivered early every Tuesday morning. She and Jingles wait in her living room, looking out the paned window for the car that pulls up to each house, leaving the rolled-up paper in the newspaper box alongside her mailbox.
“Okay, Jingles. Here it comes.”
As soon as this week’s edition is delivered, she tugs on her snow boots, throws on her red-checked pea coat and thick scarf and hurries down her front walk to get the paper, tearing it open like a kid on Christmas morning. Her eyes scan each page while hurrying back inside where it’s nice and warm.
Before taking off her coat, she lays the paper on her kitchen table. Her hands press the pages smooth because, heck, feeling is believing. She reads her announcement twice, then lets out a whoop. Okay, then she reads it again to really believe it. To be absolutely certain, she goes to her side door, opens it wide and looks out at the big brown barn, its roof still covered in fresh-fallen snow, the lights still twinkling on the outside tree. And yes she does, she gives herself a little pinch. On the arm. To be sure it’s not all a dream.
Because that’s what it all feels like, a wonderful dream that she’s about to wake up from. She knows the old saying. If it’s too good to be true, well, it probably is. And at that very moment, don’t the stellar dendrites, winter’s prettiest snowflakes of all, start dropping in a flurry, white stars fluttering down from the sky.
And so it can’t be a dream. Because didn’t she make a wish on one of these winter stars ten months ago, driving home from Brooke’s wedding? Something about if ever she’d wish for a beautiful home of her own, wouldn’t this be it?
She looks up toward the sky at those crystal flakes and knows that to every rule there is an exception. Including the If something’s too good to be true rule. That exception is floating past her right now. Because any wish made on the prettiest of winter stars can never be too good to be true; snowflake wishes are just good enough to be perfect.
With that in mind, she pours herself a mug of coffee, sits herself down at her kitchen table and reads the ad in front of her:
Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes – A Christmas Shoppe
Grand Opening!
Wednesday, 10:00 AM
‘Tis the season. The old Christmas Barn at Addison Cove is reopened for the holidays. Stop in to see the original Christmas keepsakes and ornaments kept safely for all these years. Your favorite one-stop shop for Christmas nostalgia is back with beautiful, unique gifts.
Smile! Complimentary Pictures with Jingles the Christmas Cat available for the children.
Fresh coffee and pastry served daily at Addison’s newest holiday destination …
Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes
Visit us across from Addison Cove
* * *
The next morning, Vera snuggles beneath her soft comforter at the first hint of that sound again. Oh she so doesn’t need this, not on the day of her grand opening. With this cold snap going on too, it is just not the time for her furnace
to act up. Maybe if she snuggles deeper beneath the blankets, the banging will stop.
But there it is again, four bangs, pause. Four bangs, pause.
“Wait a doggone minute,” she says while sitting up in bed. “I know that sound.” She slips her feet into her snowflake slippers and shuffles over to the window, just to take a peek. After all, her furnace had been inspected, tuned up and is in tip-top shape. So only one thing can be making that sound. Or one person.
She lifts the blind and looks outside. Yup, her suspicion is confirmed. With a glance at her alarm clock, she decides on a quick shower and blow-dries her hair while the coffee is percolating. Hopefully he won’t leave in the meantime. Finally, after putting on jeans, a fitted flannel over a turtleneck and topping it all with her down vest, she pulls on her fur-lined snow boots and pours the coffee. Shouldering open the side door, she carries out two steaming mugs cupped in her snowflake mittens.
* * *
He parks his pickup truck at just the right vantage point: the exact place a customer might park when arriving at Vera’s barn. Then while finishing off the steak and egg sandwich he brought along from the diner, he calculates precisely where a sign would be most visible to any passersby.
Only then, in all that snow, does Derek finagle a stepladder up against the barn and lift the handmade sign into place to be sure: Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes is deeply engraved on a distressed-silver painted slab of barnwood, the words a midnight blue, with A Christmas Shoppe and Bakery added in red cursive below.
And of course, the requisite winter stars dot the sign: Three snowflakes are painted in shining gold.
Satisfied, he hammers nails into the barn wall and hangs the sign beside the main entrance door into the shop; hanging on the other side of the door is the barn star he’d given Vera for her birthday. And every worry he’s felt since the night of the snowstorm has fueled his preciseness, trying to get this right, at least, for Vera, after everything he put her through the past week.
“It’s just beautiful,” Vera calls out while setting their coffee cups on the hood of his pickup truck.
Derek looks over his shoulder. “I was thinking the same about you.”
“Derek!” she says, waving him off and looking at the sign again.
He leans back and eyes the sign, too. It’s got to be perfect. A little nudge to the right adjusts its angle and does the trick. He climbs down the stepladder into the snow and watches her closely. “Do you like it?”
She tips her head and taps her mittened fingers to her chin first, then eyes him as carefully. Can she tell that he’s cold even with a hat and gloves on, because he’s been here contemplating the right place to hang her sign for a long time now? That he measured and re-measured three times to be absolutely sure?
“I love it,” Vera says. “Where did you ever get it?”
“You’ve got great friends. I had a copy of the profile you wrote on Lauren Bradford and her barnwood paintings. Once I saw your business announcement, one phone call and she was right on it. I picked it up last night.”
“Lauren did this?” Vera steps closer and studies the wooden sign. “She’s my old beach friend from Stony Point. Huh.”
“What? Is something wrong?”
“Just the opposite. It’s actually amazing. Because it’s like people from all walks of my life are coming together, kind of like the points of a snowflake, making everything about my decision to do this right.” She looks at the sign again. “Makes it all real now, doesn’t it?”
Derek shakes his head, no.
“No?”
“Well maybe it makes your store real,” Derek begins. “But with us? It’s been real for a while now. Listen, Vera.” He pulls off his gloves and shoves them in his coat pocket. “About the other day, at the cove. During the storm.” He walks through the packed snow over to his truck and takes a sip of the hot coffee she’d brought out.
“That’s okay,” she says, following him. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Oh, yes I do. You said something to me there and I haven’t gotten it out of my head since then.” He sets the coffee down and leans against the truck. “Come here.”
She smiles and walks toward him, slowly, her boots crunching on the snow.
“A little closer,” he insists, reaching out and taking hold of her mittened hands. “First of all, I meant what I said just now about you being beautiful.”
“Derek,” she whispers, looking past him, then meeting his eyes again.
He tips his head down, talking softly to her. “And I know you meant what you said to me, in the middle of that blizzard.”
“I did.”
When he sees that her eyes tear with her words, he pulls her even closer. “And I cannot let one more minute go by without you knowing that I feel the same way.”
She looks at him, silently, the tears still there.
“And you also have to know that I am sorry, Vera. Sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner.” He hooks a finger beneath her chin and tips her face up to kiss her gently. “I love you, too, sweetheart.” His hands cradle her face then and he kisses her again, longer, feeling her arms wrap around his waist.
“Derek,” she says into the kiss, pulling back.
He leaves a hand alongside her face, leaning his forehead to hers. “What’s the matter?”
She looks away, smiling while a few tears escape, running along her cheek. He brushes one aside and she points to his sleeve, to the few perfect snowflakes covering it. “It’s snowing again. I feel like ever since it started snowing last week, my life’s just, well, my life’s snowballed. But in a good way.” She brushes aside another tear on her own, smiling wider now. “They’re happy tears, Derek. Very happy tears.”
He reaches into her down vest pocket, watching her the whole time, and pulls out a pocket magnifier he knew would be there, and hands it to her.
Vera holds the magnifier over the snowflakes on his sleeve. “Look,” she whispers, nodding down toward his arm.
And he does. Silver glittering stars of crystal are sprinkled across the fabric. And he knows what the point of those mini-magnifiers in her every coat pocket are really for—that reminder to stop and look. Because you just never know when a bit of wonder will drop into your life.
But sometimes the tricky part is holding on to that wonder. He turns then and picks up both coffee cups, handing her one and sipping from his, cupping the warm mug close. “Walk with me?” he asks. She nods and they start walking slowly through the snow toward the far side of the barn, facing Addison Cove. “You know, Vera, there’s something else, too, that I wanted to tell you.”
“Okay,” she says cautiously.
“No, seriously. It’s about my daughter. I do understand why you wanted to write her story. She has that effect on people.”
They stop alongside the barn and Vera leans against its brown timber. The cove spreads out before them, the trees lining it all laced with white snow, their branches looking delicate stretching to the sky. There was a time when he didn’t think he could ever look at the cove again, because of what his daughter went through there. But now, with Vera here, he can. He sees how life spins and turns you through storms that you think you’ll never survive; and yet, you do. You just come out of the storm different than you once were. Vera gave him that—her personal snowflake perspective.
“It wasn’t really that you were profiling Abby that day that upset me,” Derek explains. “Something else was on my mind. About you.”
“Me?”
He nods. “Writing for a Rhode Island paper?” He looks out at the silver water, seeing small ripples moving across it. “I figured you’d be leaving here. And seriously? It got me mad.” He sips his coffee, turning finally away from the water to face Vera. “Because I thought we maybe had something between us, and then to think that you were just passing through, well, I took it all wrong.”
Vera shakes her head, no. “I’m sorry I didn’t explain it then. I’m not passing through. I never inte
nded to. Addison’s my home, and writing Abby’s story was really my way to honor her, to celebrate her life and the good that comes from it.”
“I know that now. And it’s okay. You know. If you do write it. I don’t have a problem with it. I actually love sharing Abby’s memory with as many people as I can. It’s how I keep her alive.”
* * *
Vera reaches her mittened hand to his face needing a shave, and that’s when she realizes he rushed here first thing this morning to get that sign hung before the grand opening, rushed enough to not even shave. “I didn’t write the article, Derek. But Abby’s such a part of this town, I want to show you what I did instead. Come see.” She takes his hand and leads him around to the barn’s store entrance, pulls out her keys and unlocks the red-painted door.
It never stops delighting her, walking in through that door and seeing Christmas everywhere. And to think she might be able to have this every day of her life, if Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes does well, it’s a thought that makes every bit of trying worthwhile.
“I hope you’ll like this,” she says when she drops the keys and her coffee cup on the checkout counter. “Follow me.”
Derek pulls off his hat and sets his empty coffee cup on the counter with hers. They walk through the barn to a display set on a side table beneath the loft. She reaches over and hits a switch and the glittering swan carousel begins whirring slowly around in a circle, the swans’ necks arching gracefully, their motion calm and gentle as they pass the three ships in the center, three painted ships sailing at sea. On the wall behind the white swans is the tribute she made for Abby, one that includes photographs and quotes from family and friends of Derek’s, and from Abby’s friends too, along with a brief verse Vera wrote to one special little girl, with thoughts on love and peace and the fragility of it all.
Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes Page 15
