Memory Tree

by Pittman, Joseph

  And then he heard the whistle blow from atop the bank tower.

  “Brian, what’s that awful sound?” his mother asked.

  “The fire whistle,” he said, a sinking feeling taking hold of him.

  Men came rushing out of the bar amidst a flurry of activity, racing across the street to the firehouse, retractable doors flung open. And in what seemed like mere seconds the gleaming red engine pulled out and began to race down the highway, its sirens overtaking the holiday sounds of Bing Crosby coming from inside the bar. Other folks began to file out of the tavern and into their own cars, some concerned about what had happened while the rest figured with the storm worsening, it was time to get their families home to safety. It might have been only seven o’clock at night, but the annual tavern party was crashing to a fast end, and soon only a handful of people remained, most of them his friends and family.

  “Where do you think the fire is?” Nicholas asked. “Looked like the trucks went east.”

  “Whatever’s on fire, it can’t be good,” Bradley added. “Not with this wind.”

  His comment silenced the group, and it wasn’t until the door of the upstairs apartment opened and Trina emerged that the pieces began to fall into place for Brian. The direction the fire truck was headed, the nearby orange glow. There was only one place he could think of.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Trina, we don’t know. There’s a fire, but no one knows . . . ,” Brian said, trying to be calm.

  Fear washed over her, her face going ghost-white. “The motel,” she said.

  “We don’t know that . . .”

  “Richie . . . where’s Richie? Where’s my father?” she asked.

  She nearly fell against the wall, caught at the last second by Brian and a fast-acting Mark. That was when the phone inside the bar rang, Kevin grabbing it while the other bartenders were busy. He nodded once, and when he set it down, he said to everyone, “The Solemn Nights Motel is on fire.”

  Nearly midnight, and the fire had finally burned through its last ember, but even on this snow-ravaged night the damage had clearly been done. The fierce wind had been too strong, too wild, the flames hard to control, and so while the volunteer firefighters from Linden Corners and a couple of neighboring villages had fought valiantly, what remained along the side of the road where the Solemn Nights Motel had stood for twenty-five years was a burned-out husk, now coated with ice, like it was being preserved for a time when an angel could wave a magic wand and heal its frozen wounds.

  Brian stood on the edge of the highway, arms around Trina in an attempt to soothe her. Neither of them felt the cold, even though they’d been here for the last couple of hours. From behind a protective barrier, they had watched Richie Ravens’ dreams fall victim to violent flame. Ashes to ashes, fire claiming all in its path.

  The fire chief, Stephen Wallis, a longtime Linden Corners resident who had been at the party but not drinking, finally walked up to them, calmly shaking his head. “I’m sorry, there was really nothing we could do. Sometimes fire wins.”

  “What about my father?” Trina asked.

  “No sign of anyone . . . any . . . you know . . . You said there were only two guests staying at the motel; both of them are accounted for.”

  “Chief Wallis, can you tell us what exactly happened?” Brian asked.

  “Downed power line, probably snapped under the weight of the snow and ice. My guess is it struck the roof,” he said. “Old building like this, it was like kindling to a campfire.”

  They watched as the chief made his way back toward the scene, fire truck after fire truck packing up and leaving until only the soot-covered engine from Linden Corners remained. Brian heard footsteps approaching from behind, looked up to find Mark Ravens getting out of his car, the light from inside showing he wasn’t alone.

  He could easily make out Richie’s form in the passenger seat.

  “Where?” Brian asked.

  “Chuck Ackroyd’s place. Seems Uncle Richie drove himself over to the tavern when he ran into Chet, who needed some help getting the drunken Chuck home and sober. The three of them knew nothing of what was going on, not until Chet came back to the bar a short while ago.”

  Trina listened, even as she watched Richie struggle to get out of the car. She went racing over to him, her voice clear in the cold night when she exclaimed, “Oh, thank God . . . Dad.” She embraced him as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Brian, out of respect for their privacy, turned away as the tears began to flow down Richie’s cheeks, wondering if they were tears of sadness over his loss, or tears over what he’d just gained.

  Brian Duncan realized that despite the acrid odor of loss swirling around them, on this stormy night, Linden Corners still had a few surprises left up its sleeve this holiday.

  CHAPTER 18

  CYNTHIA

  Linden Corners was proving to be a place just like any other, where the notion of forever was nothing but a dream, and the Solemn Nights Motel was its latest piece of evidence to the fact. Yet while the loss of the only lodgings for visitors to town was gone, no one had been harmed and that in itself was cause for rejoicing. With Christmas now upon them, everyone in town had been relieved to know that Richie Ravens, ornery old coot that he was, had turned up fine and that the holiday wouldn’t be marred by tragedy beyond the burned-down motel. Linden Corners would rise from the ashes and endure without the Solemn Nights, but it would hardly be the same without its eccentrics, Richie one of its longest tenured.

  For Cynthia Knight, eccentric she might not be, but the village would miss her too.

  Monday of a new week meant Christmas Eve had at last arrived, and the buzz emanating all over downtown Linden Corners was electric, like the residents themselves were powering the bright lights that kept the village sparkling all through the season. With Bradley out “taking care of business,” as he had said, Cynthia had needed to run an errand over at Ackroyd’s Hardware Emporium, and when she arrived with Jake in tow, it appeared she wasn’t alone. The place was overflowing with formerly procrastinating shoppers in search of those last-minute items like tree stands, strings of lights, and those thin metal hooks used to hang ornaments that you still find embedded in the carpet months after the tree has been taken down. Cynthia was picking up a special order of votive candles that had arrived, and just in time. She thought she’d had enough, but realizing how grand her ambition was, she’d ordered a second box. She remarked as such to Chuck, who was standing behind a counter toward the back, sober now but no less surly.

  “Told you it would arrive by Christmas,” he said.

  “Cutting it close, Ebenezer,” she said. “We’re depending upon these for the pageant.”

  “Like the windmill isn’t bright enough,” he remarked. “Now you go and add candles.”

  “Luminaries,” she said, correcting him.

  “Whatever,” he replied, obviously uninterested. Jake, who was securely tucked against his mother in a baby sack, was facing forward, but still Cynthia could see him stick out his tongue. Her son might be young and his reaction was probably simple fidgeting, but still, how nice it was to imagine her son playing the role of protector.

  Cynthia smiled her friendliest, toothiest grin and told Chuck she would see him later, and when he harrumphed and said he doubted he could make the festivities, she reminded him that he had picked a name out of the Santa hat and someone else had picked his, “so there’s no changing your mind this late in the season, Chuck Ackroyd, so you better be there. I don’t know who you picked, but if it’s a child, imagine their disappointment when they realize someone forgot them.”

  “Life’s full of disappointments; it’s good for kids to learn that early on.”

  That sorry comment reminded Cynthia of Chuck’s drunken words from the tavern party. “You know, Chuck, what you said about Dan Sullivan . . . Janey was there. She heard everything.”

  He shrugged with obvious disdain. “And? Like I said, it’s good
for those spoiled brats to learn that no one’s perfect . . . Dan Sullivan included, and you can throw that Brian Duncan into the mix too.”

  “Chuck, despite what your twisted brain thinks, Brian and Dan are not the same man, nor does Brian deserve to be the victim for mistakes made before he got here.”

  Chuck had no response to that, excusing himself to help another customer.

  Deciding Chuck was one person she wasn’t going to miss when leaving Linden Corners, Cynthia moved away from him with her package tucked under her arm, Jake suddenly curious about it. She was glad to have prepaid for her order, since she was now able to avoid the long lines at the registers; the ensuing small talk would no doubt steal precious time from her. Cynthia was a lady on a mission, and the countdown clock had started. Time was fast slipping away from her, and things had to be just perfect.

  Once outside, she breathed in the bracing air, glad to be away from Chuck’s surly nature. She felt sorry for both the person who was required to buy a gift for him and the person for whom he had to buy. Just where in Linden Corners did one buy coal anyway?

  She returned home to find that company had arrived in the helpful form of Nicholas and Nora, and she was glad to see the two of them holding hands. But today was not a day for distractions, in the form of the line at the hardware store or whatever storm had been brewing between them, so she wasn’t going to ask about it, figuring it had either passed or they were in the eye of it, calm for the moment. The holidays were supposed to be about togetherness.

  “Am I late?”

  “We just got here,” Nicholas said, coming around the side of the car and taking command of the package. “What do you say Nora and I get started with the luminaries while you get Jake settled; then you can come and check on our progress.”

  “I have absolute faith in you. As for Jake, he’s fussy because he doesn’t like being put into his snowsuit. I guess he’s going to like the heat of Texas.” She paused, her eyes glistening with a sudden faraway look. “Um, where’s Gerta?”

  “Back at the house with Travis. The two of them have their hands full,” Nora said.

  “With what?”

  Nora allowed a smile when she said, “With a Christmas present,” and said no more.

  “Enough of the town gossip, ladies,” Nicholas said, “We’ve got a lot of setting up to do.”

  So Nicholas, with Nora in tow, started down the field, leaving Cynthia free to get Jake out of his winter constraints. The moment she did he began crawling around the boxes that were strewn about the living room, making way for the Christmas tree in the corner. It was like he’d been set free in the wild, and Cynthia watched him with a mix of amusement and sadness. He was growing up so fast, and as much fun as he seemed to be having now, she knew in his mind the memories of their last Christmas here in Linden Corners were fleeting, to be remembered only in photographs and, of course, in her heart.

  The ringing of the phone brought her back to reality. She ran to the kitchen and answered it on the second ring, all while keeping an eye on Jake. It was Bradley.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Home. You?”

  “Near. I’ll be there in five, ten minutes.”

  She could hear excitement in his voice, and when she asked him what was going on, he said she’d just have to wait until he got back, and suggested that she meet him at the edge of the driveway. Bradley Knight, good-natured, well-spoken, wasn’t much of a man of mystery, but what he said before hanging up couldn’t have surprised her more.

  “Our future begins tonight.”

  “Would you care to explain that one?” she asked.

  “I’ll see you soon, and then you’ll know soon enough.”

  He actually hung up on her, the sound of his laughter echoing inside her mind.

  Perhaps her straightlaced husband was beginning to loosen up. This move to Texas was rife with opportunity, and his growing sense of anticipation had reached, for him, a feverish pitch. The boxes in every room showed he was anxious to get going, and part of Cynthia had to agree. Being in limbo, packed somewhere between yesterday’s memories and tomorrow’s promise, had its frustrations. The last items to be packed would be their Christmas decorations. They almost hadn’t gotten a tree this year, relenting only recently, and even so the tree wouldn’t last into January like usual. The moving van was coming for their belongings a couple of days after Christmas, meaning a quick week later they would be living in their new home, new lives ready-made for them. That was the plan, and if she knew anything about her husband, always so neat, always so organized, it was that once he set his mind to something, there was no deviating.

  So she better be on time to meet him.

  She hated the idea of having to stuff Jake back into his snowsuit, so she made a quick call to Nora on her cell, asking if she wouldn’t mind coming up to the house and looking after Jake for a few minutes. Nora said she was down at the stone bridge and would be up in a minute, and in fact it was two, trudging through the snow making the trek difficult.

  “Thought you could do with a break,” Cynthia confessed.

  “It’s all good, Cyn. Nicholas and I . . . we’ve tabled everything until the New Year. I like him . . . it’s just, he’s asking too much of me right now.”

  “You’ll figure it out. You two are great together.”

  “And if we don’t, I’ll have to call you long-distance,” Nora said.

  Cynthia gave her a quick embrace. “Anytime.”

  Cynthia tossed on her coat and made her way down the driveway, arriving just as Bradley did, his car pulling to a stop just off the road. She accepted a kiss and then asked him what the big mystery was.

  “This,” he said, pulling from the backseat of the car a metal sign.

  It read: SOLD.

  Cynthia felt disbelief wash over her as she watched Bradley attach the sign atop the FOR SALE sign, seeing the satisfaction on his face when he turned back to her.

  “Well?”

  “How . . . but . . . who?”

  “All in good time,” he said, pulling her tight against his body.

  Cynthia just stared at the sign, her mind unable to absorb its implications. The past few weeks she had been living in a dreamland, where her days were filled with imaginings of a life in Texas, her nights dancing amidst the memories of Linden Corners. Neither seemed true, almost as though she were walking through fog. Here was the definitive proof that no matter the hour, no matter time or place or what her wishes might be, the hard truth of reality was staring back at her.

  “It’s really happening,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Yes, you do, Cynthia, because today is Christmas Eve, a day when we all believe.”

  Night began to fall early, just after three, almost as if the sky was as anxious as the residents for this year’s pageant to begin. By four o’clock darkness had settled over Linden Corners, except in the land of the windmill, where the bright lights of the memory tree soared into the clear sky. As the star above the tower spun in the ever-changing currents of the wind, it was as though its beam was putting out a call to points east and west, north and south, drawing people from everywhere with the allure of its golden glow. The villagers of Linden Corners had been assembling all afternoon, each of them bearing a gift for the town-wide Secret Santa exchange, setting beautifully wrapped presents and holiday bags beside the windmill. Sleds and toboggans had been set up around its wooden base, protecting the boxes and gift paper from growing soggy atop the wet snow. With gifts piling up two, three, four deep, it looked as though the windmill had been transformed into a giant Christmas tree, the bounty from all the residents representing the picture of generosity.

  Spanning out in circular fashion away from the windmill were tracks of luminaries, with candles flickering inside the white paper bags, seemingly hundreds of them locked to the ground by small piles of sand. They cut a path through the field and wound up toward the stone bridge and beyond
, to the Knights’ farmhouse, where the children’s pageant would begin its yearly procession. The final touch of the event would be the arrival of Santa Claus atop the fire engine, driven by fire chief Stephen Wallis; last year the truck had carried on it a bride about to be married, but this year something else was planned, a celebration of the many generations that kept Linden Corners the magical world it is.

  For Cynthia Knight, all of her planning had come down to this, and she took a moment to admire how beautiful the field looked. Nicholas and Nora and a few other helpful volunteers had worked all afternoon to set up the luminaries and light them, and now, as she stood on the stone bridge, itself adorned with holly and lights on its arches, she imagined that bridge was the portal that would take them from one world into the next, one where promise lived, where memories were stored. Watching now how many people had showed up for the pageant and the exchange of gifts, she knew this one final Christmas in Linden Corners would be just perfect.

  But she could enjoy the satisfaction of her achievement later; time had advanced and the pageant would wait no more, and so she returned to the farmhouse to hear the eager, joyful sounds of youth filling her home. Forty-one children in total, boys and girls both, were dressed in outfits of seasonal red and green—ties for the boys, crushed velvet scarves for the girls—Travis and an eager Janey among them. This year Father Burton had been chosen to guide them, and Cynthia now saw the kindly priest trying to organize them into a cohesive line, just as they had rehearsed earlier last week.

  At last he had them lined up, placing Janey front and center at Cynthia’s request. It was only appropriate that Janey lead them to the windmill.

  “Ready, kids?” he asked.

  They cheered their response, and at last, Christmas Eve in Linden Corners began.

  “Let me get settled with everyone around the windmill,” Cynthia told Father Burton, “so I can watch it along with them.”

  “Nonsense, Cynthia, you’ll process with us,” he said.