Ghosts of Christmas Past

by Laura Briggs

  There were no tears visible on her face as she climbed inside her car. Her lips were pinched shut, her eyes stared without seeing the view through the windshield, its surface dotted with an early Tennessee Christmas snow.

  The first tear appeared, rolling slowly down her cheek. Then her fingers turned the ignition and pulled out of the long parking lot, past the lingering fans with their paper signs and the father and son making their way slowly from the scene.

  19

  In a matter of minutes, there was nothing left of the concert crowd except a handful of tourists and fans dispersing to their cars.

  Only Patty Craye and Libby were outside the auditorium. Silence reigned between them.

  Libby’s eyes were filled with pain equal to her future self as she stood in the darkness, reliving those last few minutes with Jake and his son.

  “It’s not really so different from now, is it?” The voice behind her was gentle. “Think about it for a moment and you’ll see how possible it really is. Nothing will change just because your big chance comes along.”

  Libby shook her head. “Leave me alone,” she said. “I’m sick of this. I’m sick of all these things being in my head. Just go away and let me alone.” Her hands felt cold as she touched her face, feeling clammy perspiration clinging to her face and brow.

  “I can’t do that,” Patty answered. “You know that. Can’t erase what’s in your mind and heart unless you’re ready to face it.”

  “And move on, you mean,” said Libby. “Give up my career, give up everything I wanted. All for what? For a faith that won’t have a purpose because there’s nothing left for me?”

  As she spoke, the lights from the parking lot vanished, reemerging as faint, round bulbs in a square pattern. A ring of bulbs framing the dressing table mirror in the Ryman. She sat before it the way she had seen herself do after the stage concert, with no expensive cosmetics or roses blocking the framed image of herself in the glass.

  A reflection of her pale face stared back at her, her long dark hair lank on either side. No rhinestone-studded gown or diamond stud earrings, only her ordinary shirt and jacket.

  “I know it wouldn’t be what I wanted,” she whispered. “Nothing can make it perfect. All the sacrifices take the sheen off the moment you think you’ve made it. They make it seem worn out before it even happens.”

  She saw Patty’s reflection in the mirror behind her. “It’s not just the sacrifices, Libby. It’s you. What you saw tonight was what happens when the dream doesn’t have a meaning anymore. When it’s all about the status and the lifestyle.” Patty touched Libby’s shoulder, her hand resting there. “You had the music, but only for the fame. You had your son, but only because you bought his affection. Your faith was in the next song keeping it all going, not in anything real.”

  “Is this God’s way of telling me that it’s all gone?” asked Libby. “My career, my son, everything I wanted?” Her arms rested on the dressing table as she felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her, fully expecting the painful answer that would emerge from the hallucination’s lips.

  Patty smiled, faintly. “It’s not gone, Libby,” she said. “It’s a choice. You have the chance to make the outcome better if you let Him help you.”

  “With what?” Libby’s voice trembled. “Even if I make it through, it’s probably too late for the contract.” Her face rested in her hands as she continued, bitterly. “After what I saw tonight, it’s too late to make a connection with my son.”

  She felt both hands on her shoulders now, holding her with gentle pressure. “Do you think you can’t be a part of your son’s life unless you undo that decision from the past?” asked Patty. “That your last chance to tell him you love him was that moment you were holding him?”

  Libby’s face crumpled. “I should let him go. I should have let it all go. After what happened out there, the things I’ve done.” Naming them would be pointless; she could spend hours listing the nights of drinking and pain pills, the bitterness expressed towards her band and her family.

  “Or you could let someone else help you. Let God help you be part of Nathaniel’s life in whatever way’s best. You could let God have a say in your future instead of trading your love of music for fame.”

  She felt pain inside her heart, as if her dreams were trees rooted to the ground and being torn away by fierce winds. The idea of building herself into a music legend, of snatching her son back from the moment she let the Hammonds adopt him—she would have to let them go to accept His help. There was no other way.

  “Nathaniel—he’s where he should be,” she said after a moment, her voice struggling to form the painful words. “A stable life, a loving family…that’s everything I wanted for him. It’s why I gave him up in the first place.”

  She broke off in a sob, aware her heart could no longer deny the truth. Her son’s adoption was the last moment of self-sacrifice in a long stretch of misguided behavior. It had been the right choice for Nathaniel, whatever the consequences to herself.

  If only she could have seen that before somehow.

  “It’s too late for me,” Libby whispered. “I can’t go back. Not now. It’s been too long...I wouldn’t even know how to start.” Her body was shaking with cold and mental anguish, a pain the imaginary touch of Patty Craye couldn’t erase.

  “Pray, Libby,” the voice behind her answered. “It’s been a long time, but give it a try.”

  Libby buried her face in her arms as her strength collapsed, her weight resting upon the dressing table. “Oh, God,” she sobbed. “Father, please...” Beneath her, the surface of the dressing table grew cold. The pressure of Patty’s hands on her shoulders grew stronger, the flesh and warmth of human hands grasping her as if lifting her from the dressing room. The image in the dressing mirror vanished into darkness as the lights around the mirror blazed with the intensity of search lamps in the gloom.

  ****

  “Heart rate’s steady.” The voice was masculine, an edge of concern audible in its sound. The feel of a latex hand brushed Libby’s arm.

  A bright light surrounded her, pressing on her like a crushing weight. Her eyelids flickered before she opened them, squinting against the florescent glow. A wool blanket covered her body as a plastic IV line trailed from her arm.

  One of the EMTs pried her lid wider, peering inside her eye with a light. “It’s OK, Ma’am,” he said. “Everything’s gonna be all right.” He turned and spoke to his partner, his words fading from her hearing.

  “Where’s Patty?”

  One of the paramedics glanced down at her.

  “What was that?” he asked. There was a look of incomprehension on his face as he pressed her fingers softly.

  “She’s out of it,” answered his partner. “She may have had a few drinks tonight.”

  “With all the ice on the roads earlier, even a sober driver would’ve ended up in a tree,” the second EMT answered, his fingers busy adjusting the bag of liquid dangling from her stretcher.

  It was all in my head. Libby thought as her eyes began to close, her shivering body aware of the warmth around her, the sense that her limbs were made of lead beneath the blanket. Images swam before her half-closed eyes, shapes and shadows flickering like stage lights and flowing lace skirts. A metal clicking became the love beads strung around Tina Wiley’s neck. The flash of red from an electronic light was the glow of Alecia’s painted nails.

  It was all in her head. This time, her eyes closed all the way, lulled into the heavy darkness by the sway of the ambulance over the salted highways.

  20

  When Libby opened her eyes again, she was lying in the hospital. White sheets were tucked beneath her arms, an IV line running from beneath a strand of tape to a plastic bag hanging beside her bed. She heard the beep of a monitor, her heart rate a steady rise and fall on its electronic screen.

  A bandage was taped over a cut on her arm, a thick one applied to her forehead. She touched it tentatively, feeling the heaviness in her arm
as it responded slowly with movement.

  The room was empty except for her, the adjoining bed silent behind its curtain. In the windowsill, a miniature Christmas tree was displayed, its felt candy canes permanently affixed to the branches.

  Her second Christmas in a hospital. The second time in her life she was stranded in an empty room without comfort or consolation for the reasons that brought her there. She knew it was her fault that it ended this way every time. The choices she made had left her isolated from the people who would care about her in these moments. The family she ran away from years ago, the concerned touch from Jake that she rejected every time.

  Her eyelids threatened to close again, even as she stirred restlessly beneath the blanket. The sound of Christmas carols drifted from the other side of the door, faint strains of “Silent Night” from the nurses’ station somewhere in the hall.

  The same song had played outside her room as she rocked Nathaniel. One of a handful of carols that repeated themselves on that lonely night as she sat in the rocking chair afterwards. She knew the hospital staff was trying to share Christmas joy with those who suffered, yet her pain was undimmed by the words and melody.

  The Christmases afterward were no better. The shameful flood of memories included episodes of drinking, of indifference towards others. Holidays spent alone and bitter, each one the same as the last.

  Tears stung her eyes, her slow-moving fingers barely wiping them away. Would it always be like that? Her pain and pride had stolen everything she once loved, leaving her with more memories of loneliness than being loved.

  At this point, she had no one but God. If He still wanted to hear her prayers after her long absence from His presence, that is.

  “Pray, Libby. It’s been a long time, but give it a try.” The words from her hallucination returned, carried on a tide of Christmas melody.

  She couldn’t stay here. Not to talk with God. While she knew He was listening, her mind couldn’t focus with the ghosts of the past lingering in this place. She needed to be somewhere else to find the words.

  Libby’s body wavered with fatigue, but her mind was determined. Her fingers shoved back the blankets with effort, her feet feeling for the floor. She stumbled, then limped forward, stretching the IV line and monitor as far as they would reach, until her fingers snagged the generic bathrobe dangling from a hook on the adjoining door.

  It took two tries to force it over one arm, the cord from the monitor blocking her way on the second. Her fingers fumbled to strip the tape from the IV cord and pull the needle from her arm. She pulled the monitor clip from her finger, sending the little machine into a beeping frenzy.

  Ignoring it, she opened the door to the room and stepped into the quiet hallway. Holding to the walls as she swayed along, she did her best to go unnoticed as she followed the chart direction for reaching the hospital chapel.

  ****

  The sanctuary on the second floor of the hospital was empty, a sign that midnight Mass was long past. Stained glass windows depicting saints and angels glowed on either side of its pews, the Good Shepherd visible behind the empty altar. Christmas garland decorated the room, a nativity laid out before the pulpit. In the corner stood a silent piano.

  Libby sank into one of the pews, her legs wobbling with the effort. She folded her hands as her bandaged forehead rested against the velvet padding before her.

  “Dear Lord.” Her lips moved softly in the chapel’s silence. “Please forgive me. For what I’ve done with my life the past few years, for not caring what You thought of my mistakes. For not listening to the voice telling me to change.”

  She felt a tear travel down her cheek, coursing a warm path against her cold skin. “I want to do something better with my life,” she whispered. “I want it to matter. My work, my relationships, everything. Please help me.” Her breath came in a shuddering motion, a trapped sob rattling her chest.

  Was it too late? Libby felt no answer, feeling nothing except the effects of cold and pain from the accident. Her head throbbed beneath the bandage, a reminder of the swift plunge into the branches of the fir tree, the malfunctioning seat belt allowing her body to plunge forward into the glass on impact.

  God had not let her die in that moment. Perhaps that was sign enough that He wanted her to change.

  As she raised her head from the prayer, she heard the faint strains of music. Not the pre-recorded sound of the hospital’s holiday soundtrack over speakers, but the notes of a piano. Soft and light, the keys trilling a tune that seemed familiar to Libby.

  The sound was coming from the piano in the corner, where someone was seated at the open keyboard.

  “When I’m all alone, and there’s nobody to hear what I say.” A man’s tenor voice rose above the piano’s melody. “There’s a stillness around me, that only your touch can break.”

  Although she had never heard him sing without her own voice soaring above his tones, she knew him with the first words.

  It was Jake at the piano.

  21

  Libby stared at him, her breath halting for a moment. His tousled hair fell over a forehead lined with concentration, one hand striking chords on the keyboard as the other played the melody in accompaniment to his song. The song she had modified in the past, mocking its meaning without thinking twice about its impact.

  “When it’s over for me, and nothing turned out like I planned…” His voice held a genuine ache, unlike the one she crafted so carefully from Patty Craye’s records. “All that saves me is feeling the touch of His hand.”

  Beneath the chapel lights, his figure was surrounded by a pale glow. A light almost supernatural, except for the human appearance of his battered leather jacket and unshaven five o’ clock shadow.

  “His hand holding mine...the Savior’s last line, to a sinner left drowning in shame. When I’m losing myself in sorrow and trouble’s the one friend I find, there’s nothing to save me except feeling His hand in mine.”

  As his fingers struck the lost chord he raised his face, giving her a familiar grin.

  “Evening,” he said.

  A moment passed, silence between them as her lips failed to reply.

  He slid from the piano bench, moving towards her with his hands in his pockets.

  “Are you real?” she asked, as he sank down beside her in the pew. “Or are you a dream? A hallucination or something.” She fumbled with the words, unsure what she was suggesting.

  “What do you think?” Jake’s dark eyes met hers, a look within them that gave her no answers.

  She lowered her gaze, trying not to seem disappointed. “I don’t know. I feel so lost. Anything could be real or be in my mind. I can’t tell anymore.”

  His hand reached for hers, taking it in his grip. “When you changed my song, Libby, remember how upset I was at first? Storming up to you like that after the concert?”

  She lowered her eyes guiltily, and then felt his fingers touch her face, lifting it up again.

  “But remember afterwards, I wasn’t angry any more. I was there for you when you thought you were all alone.” His hand stroked her cheek. “Sound familiar?”

  “So this is a sign?” she asked. “But if I’m just imagining you, then how could it be real?”

  “The prayer was real. The desire to change is real. What makes you think when you wake up, the forgiveness won’t be real?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, her free hand leaving them unchecked as they spilled down her cheeks. The touch of his hands felt real, the look in his eyes reminded her of all the times in the past when he had reached out to her. Whether this moment was real or imaginary, the connection between them didn’t exist solely in her mind.

  “Even if I don’t see you again, I want you to know that I’m sorry,” she said. “I care for you, Jake. I pushed you away without a good reason. That’s something I’ll always regret.”

  He drew her closer, letting her rest against him the way he held her before on the bus. His fingers stroked her hair softly as he whi
spered, “I would forgive you. You know that. You know how I’ve felt about you for a while, now.”

  He was on the verge of saying the words Libby had wanted to hear for a long time. Until now, she hadn’t been willing to admit it was true, but she loved him. She had longed for the connection almost as much as she longed to keep the distance between them all this time.

  “There’s so much I should have told you,” she murmured. “So many things I should have done for you. And for Will.” A note of pain entered her voice with this last part. “He had no idea why I wouldn’t let him any closer.”

  “He understands more than you think,” answered Jake. “I think you don’t give people around you enough credit for what they know about you, Libby. Anybody could sense your pain from a mile away. Only you thought you were hiding it well.” He chuckled.

  She didn’t reply, her eyes growing heavy again as she nestled close to him, shivering in the empty chapel as she missed the blankets from the bed.

  “Feeling sleepy again?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered, all her lips could manage to say. She felt his fingers stroke her hair, his face bending closer to hers.

  “Then close your eyes,” he whispered. “Get some rest.” Libby felt a gentle rocking motion as his arms wrapped around her, his hand still holding her own tightly. Under his breath, he hummed something quietly, a lullaby that came to Libby’s thoughts in snatches, reminding her of the final moments she held Nathaniel in another hospital long ago.

  “Is that,” she began, sleepily, “That song, Jake...” She made it no further as her eyes drifted closed.

  “Go to sleep, Libby,” he answered, rocking her quietly in the chapel beneath the soft glow of the lights and the glistening color of tinsel and garland in shades of green and red.

  22

  “Silent night, holy night...all is calm, all is bright.” Jake sang, softly.