Ghosts of Christmas Past

by Laura Briggs

  “Into madness with this midnight, I now go,” Libby sang along under her breath. She was relieved to hear something as comforting as Patty Craye’s voice instead of Christmas songs or the radio preachers who occupied the dial in this part of the country.

  It was painful, seeing Jake and Will together every day. As long as the chances dwindled for her dream to come true, the constant reminder of what she sacrificed was salt in her wounds.

  Jake understood…all too well, it seemed, for someone who didn’t know her secret. The way he kept Will out of sight in the makeshift green rooms during performance time, and spent his free hours with his son’s schoolwork instead of hanging out with the band aboard the bus. He never spoke about it, even though it was the reason she almost didn’t hire him. That, and the religious factors. The way he never performed or rehearsed on Sundays, the way he avoided hitting the bars with the band after performance time.

  She blocked the memory. Time to let go of Jake Dillard, like plucking a thorn from the palm of her hand. Time to let go of the Christmases past, like the one she spent rocking alone with empty arms in the hospital nursery.

  The first road sign appeared on the snowy side of the highway stretching between south Tennessee and the Mississippi border. It reminded her of the miles that still remained to Starsfell, Mississippi.

  ****

  The neighborhood street of Farthington Lane was quiet after five o’ clock. The house windows and doors were framed with clear and colored lights reflected on the thin layer of snow across the ground.

  Libby parked at the end of the street. Drawing a deep breath, she removed her trembling hands from the steering wheel.

  What would he look like? She pictured dark hair, tangled thickly around a face with faint freckles like her brother’s. He would be tall now, maybe even reaching her shoulder.

  No, shorter than that. Surely he had not grown so much in the eleven years since that moment. She felt the urge to whisper a prayer as she drew the box from the back seat. Lord, if You can hear me, please don’t let him be grown up. Please let me still see him as my baby.

  She walked up the sidewalk, gaze traveling from house to house, where the shrubs were draped with twinkling lights, wreaths decking the doors with holly and mistletoe. A few houses had toys in the front, scooters and sports equipment visible beneath snowdrifts as evidence that more than one family lived in the neighborhood.

  Ahead was a house surrounded by a picket fence, the number affixed beside the door the same as the slip of paper in her hand. A noisy snowball fight was in progress, two boys and a man pelting each other as they slipped and slid across the icy lawn.

  “Hold on, Nathan!” the man yelled. “Tie your bootlace first!” As he spoke, he was tackled into a pile of white by a smaller boy.

  The older boy stood laughing, mittened hands tucked in his coat pockets. He was tall and gangly in a pair of damp jeans and boots with dark hair sticking out from beneath a knitted cap. It was her son.

  Libby paused, holding the package tight against her body. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched the scene play out on the front lawn, unable to take her eyes off the tall boy. It was not the way she pictured him, but it did not matter anymore. He was perfect exactly the way he was.

  The younger boy scrambled to his feet again and threw himself at Nathan.

  “Hey, Allan, careful there,” the older boy said, almost stumbling into the snow himself. The man had already climbed to his feet, wrapping an arm around each boy as he steered them towards the house.

  Libby moved closer, afraid to lose sight of her son as he climbed the steps to the house.

  “What’s Mom making for dinner?” he asked, as they opened the front door.

  Mom. A sense of longing washed over Libby amidst her jealousy. Somewhere on the other side of the door was the woman who’d bathed her infant son, who taught him to read his first words, and color between the lines.

  From across the street Libby looked through the open dining room curtains. The two boys were at the table, a woman’s hand ruffling their hair in between filling plates with something from a casserole dish. She could see the man at the foot of the table, presumably Mark Hammond, tucking a napkin into the collar of his shirt. Faces red with cold and excitement, the two boys were teasing each other from across the table, sticking their forks into each other’s plates.

  Even from here, she could see the connection between them. The way Marcia Hammond laughed as she listened to them talk, leaning forward on one hand to be closer to them.

  Tears stung Libby’s eyes. She blinked them back frantically, her fingers brushing against her cold cheeks. She drew a ragged breath, frozen air flooding her chest. The package beneath her arm seemed unwieldy, an empty box her fingers clumsily held to her body.

  Inside, the family around the table appeared happy and complete. She was on the outside, left in the cold with her fantasies about how life should be for her.

  Crossing the street, she moved towards the front door, taking care to remain out of sight of the family in the dining room. Gently, she placed the package on the porch, turning the tag upright. To Nathaniel, it read, in Libby’s scrawled handwriting.

  She hadn’t signed her name on the tag. She walked away, leaving the second line blank beneath her son’s name.

  ****

  “Make it a double.” Libby barely glanced at the bartender at Cozy Joe’s, a place a few miles outside Starsfell and the only business in the vicinity that served alcohol. One hand propped up her head as she stared into the amber liquid in the glass.

  She could get a lawyer and fight for visitation privileges. Once she signed a contract in Nashville, she would have enough money to persuade the Hammonds to give up her son.

  Or she would just show up on their doorstep and tell Nathaniel that his mother was a famous country music star—did he want to stay in Starsfell or join her in Nashville? He was almost twelve, old enough to make up his mind about what he really wanted in life.

  Swallowing the contents of her glass, she motioned for more. “Jingle Bell Rock” strained over the bar’s speaker system in a way that made Libby’s ears ache with irritation.

  Her reflection swam in the glass behind the bar, a pale face surrounded by patrons absorbed with drinks and companions. For a moment, the man on her left morphed into Jake, his broad shoulders hunched over a soda as he glanced at her with his familiar expression of sadness and pity.

  Her vision cleared, the man’s face becoming another lecherous sneer like all the bar patrons who approached her after a concert. They were only interested in her looks, without giving her soul a second thought.

  The bartender reached for her glass to fill it a third time.

  She shook her head. “No thanks,” she said. “I think I’m ready to settle up.” She reached into her pocket for a handful of bills.

  5

  Libby turned the keys in the ignition, the rental car’s motor sputtering to life. Her numb fingers fumbled with the seat belt, yanking the strap for several tries before giving it up altogether

  The bartender had been suspicious of her condition, emotionally and physically; she could see it in his face as she stood up at the bar. She half-wondered if he would try to stop her when she left, feeling his gaze follow her as she crossed the icy parking lot to the car.

  Her tears were coming thick and strong, making the road blurry in the headlights. She drove slowly, aware that she shouldn’t be driving at all after the drinks and the bitter reflection at the bar. Guilty that she was taking a chance with her life, with the life of anyone else on this road.

  Clinging to the steering wheel, she tried to focus her mind on driving. The stark whiteness of the snow in patches alongside the highway made her think of the snowy lawn in front of the Hammond house where Nathaniel packed snowballs and let them fly towards his little brother.

  The first white flakes fell, pattering on the windshield. In a matter of minutes, they grew quicker, heavier, forcing her to turn on
the windshield wipers. A blanket of white drifted over the road ahead.

  When she got to Nashville, things would be different. It would take a little time, but she would find a way to bring it all together. Her career, her son—she would find a way to make both things possible in her life.

  But what about God? The thought popped into her head before she had a chance to shove it aside. What did it matter? If He cared about her, He wouldn’t have let her stumble into all this heartache.

  The white stuff on the windshield crackled against the wipers, coating the blades with stiff resistance. Not snow, but sleet spattered against the glass.

  Her fingers gripped the wheel, her body rocking forward in the seat.

  The radio station skittered into static again, the sound of Tina Wiley’s “I Can’t Keep On” vanished from hearing.

  The tires skidded against the ice. She jerked the wheel to the right, her eyes widening as she took in the white path ahead. The dark shape of trees loomed to the side, electrical poles paced along the highway as her foot felt around for the brake pedal.

  The tires skidded again, the car sliding to the side. She turned the wheel to the left as it fishtailed, spinning in the opposite direction. Frantic, she tried to correct it, the wheel jerking against her as the car’s rear swung towards the ditch. The opposite direction, right? Her mind raced for the right answer, the snatches of advice from her father long ago when it was a battered farm truck’s steering wheel in her hands instead.

  She yanked hard; the car spun in a circle on the highway, turning tracks in the snow. It kept going as she tried to control it, her panicking foot feeling for the brake and hitting the accelerator instead.

  The car’s front end spun towards the ditch, lurching into the snow. It moved straight ahead, towards the trees and telephone pole lining the road.

  The hood plowed into a utility pole, the horn blaring like a siren as the impact shot Libby’s body forward, the airbag exploding from the steering column. A second later, it was quiet again, except for the sound of ice hitting against the car.

  ****

  There was blood on her forehead. That much Libby could sense when she opened her eyes. She was aware of a dull ache in her head, a tingling in her hands—was that the liquor from the bar catching up with her? Or the cold seeping into the car?

  She moved her fingers to her face, feeling the stream of wet on her temple. The windshield was cracked, something red staining the point of impact, a gash along her hand where broken flesh suggested further damage within. Was it her blood on the glass? She wondered this, her vision blurring as she struggled to sit up.

  A sputtering issued from the car’s heater, a snarling from the radio as it sprang to life again for a moment. The sound of Tina Wiley’s voice, the chorus of “I Can’t Keep On” echoed clearly from within.

  “Don’t take my heart for granted, darlin’. Don’t think I will be kind. I can’t keep on forgetting, when your love is on my mind...” The song sputtered, then vanished again in silence.

  “Wait,” said Libby. Her voice was weak when it emerged from her throat. Her fingers felt blindly for the knob. The radio was dead, along with the heater. In the silence, she realized the car’s engine was no longer running. The blackness of the tree-lined highway was ahead, only the white blanket of snow visible.

  Her headache was growing worse, even as her fingers struggled to turn the key in the ignition. Not even a sputtering. She fumbled, then let her fingers go slack as she rested her head against the steering wheel.

  “Please, God.” Her words dropped to a whisper. “Please, help me. I don’t want to...” The prayer trailed off as her thoughts crowded together with a sense of panic. Thoughts of Jake and his son and her jealousy towards them, thoughts of her own son and her last chance to have him again. The Nashville contract dangling like bait, luring her forward.

  Her lost faith seemed to flicker in the darkness like a lantern before disappearing again. Her mother had called it a beacon, a candle to light the way for wayward souls. Maybe that explained the vision in Libby’s sight before she closed her eyes again.

  6

  A child’s plunky piano version of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” filled the air, accompanied by a simple sawing violin. The sound was vaguely familiar to Libby as she opened her eyes. A child’s voice in a faded recording sang above the instruments.

  Opening her eyes, her blurry vision adjusted to the sight of an embroidered white comforter, a battered wooden dresser across from her. On it, a plastic children’s record player, each record a different color. The one spinning beneath the needle was yellow.

  “Remember it now?” asked a girl’s voice. “You were six the Christmas you unwrapped it. Thought it was the neatest thing you ever laid eyes on.” This was said in thick, husky tones, a twangy accent floating beneath.

  It took Libby a moment to place the voice, one she had never heard in person, only on recordings or television interviews. It belonged to the girl seated at a crowded dressing table lit with stage bulbs, a gift from Libby’s thirteenth birthday.

  The room was her childhood one at home; seated at the dresser was country star Tina Wiley in all the glory of her teenaged career. An impossible sight, considering Tina Wiley was now a thrice-divorced retired celebrity living somewhere in Tennessee.

  “Am I dreaming?” Libby sat up slowly, touching her forehead to find nothing wet or sticky against her skin. “Am I in a coma?” Her voice registered panic, her glance shifting wildly around the familiar objects from long ago. The cover of Tina Wiley’s debut record was tacked to the wall with the newspaper clippings about Nashville stars. There was even a poster of Patty Craye onstage at the Grand Ole Opry in the ‘50s.

  She must be dying. There was no other explanation for hallucinating something like this.

  “What do you think is happening?” A little smile played around the edges of Tina’s mouth. “You made the choices that got you here, didn’t you?”

  Her long blonde hair was plaited in hippie-style braids and she wore a long peasant blouse paired with bell-bottomed jeans. She might have been a modern-day teenager if not for the authenticity of her love beads and sandals, and the lack of a cell phone or digital device visible anywhere. She hopped down from her perch on the edge of Libby’s dressing table and held out her hand.

  “Come on,” she said. “There’s something you need to see.”

  “No.” Libby’s voice emerged as a croak. “No, this isn’t real; this is some kind of delusion. I’m not—I’m not going to follow you anywhere.” In her mind, the doorway behind the teenage version of Tina was a porthole to the grave. A place she wasn’t ready to face, given the last moments of her life.

  “Why did you pray, Libby?” Tina asked. “Eleven years is a long time to go without one. Do you think it’s a coincidence that’s the first impulse you had tonight?”

  Tina Wiley was no ghost. Nor could she be an angel, given her track record of drugs and drinking during her career. This seventies-era teenager must be nothing other than a figment of Libby’s imagination, the result of her accident.

  Was she lying, freezing to death in her wrecked car?

  Tina held out her hand again. “Maybe God has something He wants to show you on the other side of that door.”

  “God?” Libby’s laugh was hollow. “A hallucination tells me that God has a message for me on the other side.” She pressed her hand against her forehead. “I crash my car into a tree, and He sends me a vision of a wild child singer.”

  It was ironic, she supposed. And probably all she deserved after the life she led—to be forsaken by her faith even in her final moments.

  “Are you gonna come along or not?”

  There was something commanding in those husky tones, compelling Libby to obey. She slid off the comforter and approached the figure waiting for her. On the other side of the door, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was playing again, surrounded by the murmur of voices.

  “Go on,” said Tina, jerking her he
ad in the direction of the doorway, where Libby’s family living room was visible with a large Christmas tree in the corner. Before piles of unwrapped packages, her six-year-old self was cradling the toy record player on her knees.

  “Thank you, Santa!” The child Libby’s face was aglow with happiness beneath straight black bangs, smiling for the camera as her father Stan snapped a photo.

  “That’s one for the family album,” he said.

  On the sofa beside him, Libby’s mother, Elise, was watching as she unwrapped a present.

  “Someday that’ll be one of your songs playing on there,” she said. “When you’re a big country music star making records of your own.”

  “Can I take it to show Grandad?” asked little Libby. “Please, Daddy, can’t I bring it to dinner?”

  “Sure, sweetie,” he answered. “Come on, now. Let’s open a few more presents, OK?” He pulled a large flat package from beneath the tree, ducking to avoid Libby’s older brother Walter as he sailed a plastic airplane around the room.

  Libby’s small fingers switched the yellow record for a pink one. The plastic disk spun beneath the needle, playing “London Bridge.” She switched next to the green one with a tinny-sounding fiddle solo: Three blind mice, see how they run... Even as other packages were passed her way, she remained absorbed with the record player.

  “Just a garage sale item,” said Tina, now at her elbow. “They paid what…five bucks for it? And look at you, playing with it like it’s worth a million dollars.”

  “Even when they bought me a real one, I still kept that toy,” murmured Libby. “But why? Why would that be God’s message to me now?” She glanced at the girl beside her, allowing a touch of mockery to creep into her voice. “Is that all He wants—for me to mark the moment I first screwed up my life?”