A Vineyard White Christmas

by Katie Winters

  “None of us want to know this,” she whispered. “It happened this afternoon. We got a good deal of snow here, and then this week, it just kept piling on. We’re all used to driving in it, or at least, we tell ourselves we’re used to it. But Dad, he’s getting up there in years. He—”

  Again, her voice cracked. Andrew’s eyes closed with the heaviness of it all. Suddenly, time had sped up and he wasn’t Claire’s kid-brother anymore. Suddenly, she was in her late thirties, and their father was, well—whatever he was. Maybe he was dead.

  “He crashed his car into a tree, Andy,” Claire said. She full-on sobbed into the phone, now. “I don’t know why he went out like that. The roads weren’t clear and Mom said she needed milk and... Well, you know how Dad is. He’s so damn stubborn.”

  Andrew splayed his hand across his forehead as his shoulders dropped. As he sat there, a smell clouded around him: proof that he hadn’t bothered to shower that day. Maybe he’d forgotten the day before, too. He couldn’t remember.

  “Is he still alive?” Andrew asked. He was fully aware of how cold his words sounded, even in his fear.

  “He’s hanging on by a thread,” Claire whispered. “The doctors are doing everything they can. I left the hospital about an hour ago to take care of my girls and try to get ahold of you.”

  Her girls. She has girls. I don’t know a thing about her girls, my nieces. Not their names or their ages or what they even look like.

  “Thank you for calling me,” Andrew said somberly.

  “Andy, come on. He’s your dad. I had to let you know.”

  They held the silence again. Andrew’s head felt like a drum. Memories rushed through his mind: beautiful Claire, teasing him from the front of his mother’s car while he played with toys in the backseat. Funny Claire, dotting a kiss on his nose when he was still crawling. Claire, who had now reached out to him after seventeen years.

  “Just keep me in the loop, I guess,” Andrew said somberly. He felt like a used-up Kleenex.

  “Andy, I’m calling you because... Well. I think it’s time you came home. The army said you’ve been back in Boston for over eleven months and have no plans of heading back to the Middle East. I don’t know what your life is now. I don’t know if you have a girlfriend? A wife? Kids of your own?”

  The words were like punches to the gut.

  “Regardless of what you’ve done or what’s happened to you, the entire Montgomery family wants to see you. Even Dad, if he ever—”

  If he ever wakes up again.

  If he lives through this.

  Claire couldn’t finish what she’d started. Andrew fidgeted. He told himself to hang up the phone; he told himself that this was nothing but a head-first dive into devastation. He had promised himself a long, long time ago that he wouldn’t go back there. He wasn’t a Montgomery any longer. His father had made it crystal clear that he didn’t belong.

  “Please, Andy,” Claire whispered. She was fully weeping now, the kind of tears nobody—not even a limping veteran with a heart of black could ignore. “Since you left, it’s not like we’ve forgotten about you. Charlotte and I talk about you all the time. We hate that our girls don’t know their Uncle Andy. We hate that we don’t know a single thing about your life. Whatever it was that Dad said, I’m sure he regrets it now. He’s much softer than he used to be. His career nearly destroyed him; we all know that.”

  Andrew sighed again. The old man doesn’t deserve my forgiveness. I pledged that I would never see his face again.

  “Andy, the Sheridan sisters came back,” Claire said finally. “They forgave Wes. They’ve begun to heal. When I look at them, I ask myself, why not us? Why can’t the Montgomery family find a way back to the old days? Why can’t we have that? We need you here, Andy. On the Vineyard. We’ve never needed you more than we do right now. We miss and love you so much.”

  Chapter Six

  December in Boston was unforgiving in its frigidity. Glittering Christmas lights lined the streets; tinsel advertised various computers and Playstations and brand-new smartphones in the window of the nearby tech store: only $799.99! Andrew hovered outside his old car, the one he had bought second-hand when he had finally gotten the hang of walking again. He jangled his keys as soft snow speckled across his nose and cheeks. Was he really going to do this?

  Martha’s Vineyard. It awaited him. It felt like a haunted house, its ghosts gazing out at him through the windows, calling for him to return.

  As he drove from Boston to Falmouth, his eyes scanned the barren landscape on either side of the highway. He remembered the older guy who had picked him and Kurt up when they’d snuck off the island at age eighteen and so alive with ideas of what they wanted their lives to be. Had the guy really been that old? Maybe Andrew himself looked a lot like him, now. Maybe, if he picked up a hitchhiker now, that kid would look at him the same way Andrew had looked at his driver back then. Of course, nobody was out hunting for a ride, not in that freezing air. With the rise of the internet, people didn’t tend to hitchhike any longer, anyway. There were too many articles written about the danger of it all.

  Andrew knew where to park his car for free near the ferry dock in Falmouth. He was surprised that he drove the car there so easily, his hands guiding the steering wheel without any kind of demand on his mind. After all the continents he had marched across, he still remembered.

  He bought a ferry ticket and stomped his snowy boots down to the lower deck, where he grabbed a burnt cup of coffee and a muffin from the little café stand. He nibbled at the top of the muffin and let the hot liquid billow out across his tongue. He hadn’t tasted anything as good as his mother’s cooking in a very long time.

  Only a few other people joined him on the ferry. Martha’s Vineyard generally closed-up shop in December; people took to their fireplaces, spent time with family, and turned away from the frantic tourist season. He stared straight ahead as he continued to nibble at his muffin. The ferry motor cranked up beneath them as the boat tore away from the dock.

  A woman sat toward the far end of the ferry. Her brunette locks swept down her shoulders; her skin was sun-kissed and her brows were lowered in concentration as she read a large book. Occasionally, she lifted her fingers and nibbled nervously at her nails. Something about her screamed out to Andrew. Something told him she was—

  “Charlotte?”

  The word tumbled out of his lips. Maybe, if he hadn’t been so shocked, he would have found a better tactic to announce himself. That said, she instantly lifted her chin, turned her gorgeous eyes into his, and dropped her book on the ground in utter shock.

  There was nothing like this reunion. Andrew abandoned his muffin and coffee and backpack and tore down the aisle, only limping the slightest bit. Charlotte rose to throw her arms around him. As they held one another, Andrew shook with sorrow and fear. Somehow, he wanted to say he was sorry, but he didn’t know how to begin.

  They stood like that for a few minutes, not letting each go and then their hug finally broke as Charlotte gripped Andrew’s shoulders. They studied one another’s faces. If Andrew’s calculation was correct, Charlotte was forty-one years old and still every bit the beauty she had once been, but her eyes were tired, with big hollow circles beneath them. It was clear she had been crying.

  “Oh, Andy. You must think I’ve gotten so old,” Charlotte said suddenly. She splayed her hand across her cheek and exhaled with laughter.

  Andrew joined her with a chuckle of his own. “I was just thinking the same thing about me.”

  “You’re thirty-five, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re forty-one.”

  “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”

  “It really is,” Andrew affirmed.

  “Come on, sit me with,” Charlotte said as she hurriedly shoved her suitcase to the side. “Claire mentioned she finally got ahold of you, but I had my doubts you’d actually...” She stuttered, seemed to think better of her words, then gripped his hand as she added, “I’m so glad you came. I
haven’t slept a wink since I found out what happened to Dad, so it’s possible that you’re some kind of waking dream. If you are, you’re the best dream I’ve had in a very long time.”

  “I’m no dream,” Andrew said as he sat beside her. “More of a walking nightmare.”

  Charlotte’s eyes were glassy with tears. Andrew was grateful that none of them fell. The air around them was so taut, like a bubble on the verge of popping. He gestured toward the suitcase and said, “Where are you coming from, anyway? I thought you still lived on the Vineyard.”

  “I do. None of us left except you and the Sheridan sisters,” Charlotte said.

  “Claire said they returned.”

  “Just this past summer,” Charlotte affirmed. “They’re better than ever. Susan had a pretty bad health scare, but she’s through the woods now. They just helped me through the craziest wedding ever. Actually, it’s kind of a boring story now.”

  Andrew had read every inch of the article about it in that silly wedding magazine, but he didn’t want to give himself away. “I guess you’re a wedding planner?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Charlotte said, holding her hands up in a joking manner.

  “You were always the romantic one, I guess,” Andrew said.

  “To a fault, some would say,” Charlotte affirmed. She shook her head delicately as she added, “I guess I haven’t seen you since, what? A week after your graduation? Two weeks? You didn’t waste any time.”

  “Kurt and I got out of here as quickly as we could,” Andrew said softly. “And then, not long after that, everything changed.”

  Charlotte nodded delicately. “I went to his funeral. It was horrible, knowing you were still over there.” She closed her eyes as she added, “I guess I should say, I was pretty sure you still were over there. You never joined social media or anything, so I never really knew.”

  Andrew tapped his right leg and said, “Eleven months back with a bum leg. They wouldn’t let me tour again even if I wanted to.”

  All the color drained from Charlotte’s face. She gripped his hand and said, “I’m just so glad you’re okay.”

  Andrew was overwhelmed with emotion again. Between the hug and the hand-holding, this was much more physical contact than he’d had in a while. Finally, he forced himself to say, “Seems to me, you’re avoiding the question. Where are you coming from?” He tried a smile.

  Charlotte lifted her eyebrows. “Right! Right. Um. I’m actually coming back from California right now. Los Angeles.”

  “Wow. I noticed you looked tanned and refreshed,” Andrew said. “What’s out there? Was it something for another wedding?”

  “Kind of,” Charlotte said doubtfully.

  “I can’t believe you went out to California without Jason,” Andrew said. “He must be crazy jealous. But I guess all those fish can’t catch themselves.”

  Charlotte pressed her top teeth into her bottom lip. Again, her eyes filled with tears and threatened to spill over onto her cheeks. Andrew’s already fake smile fell off his face. He knew he had said something wrong; he just couldn’t figure out what.

  “You’ve been gone so, so long,” Charlotte whispered. “You missed so much.”

  Charlotte turned her eyes toward the ground. The boat rocked slightly with the waves from the Vineyard Sound. Andrew felt as though he could have melted into the chair.

  The ferry arrived at the dock in Oak Bluffs before either of them had a chance to clamber back into a proper conversation. Andrew got the hint: Jason wasn’t around anymore. But he couldn’t fully envision what had happened. Had he left Charlotte? Had they gotten a divorce? What? It felt too strange to ask his sister such an intimate question, especially when he should have been around to already know.

  “Claire’s here to pick us up,” Charlotte announced. She tried a smile that grew bigger as they collected their things. “We’ll catch up. We’ll find the time now that you’re back. I’m sure this is all a lot to deal with right now, but just know we have your back every step of the way.” Charlotte reached up and touched his cheek. “We’ve missed you so much, Andrew.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Baby, look at your fingers! They’re so sticky!” Beth Leopold knelt at the kitchen table before her eight-year-old son, Will, and dabbed at his fingers with a wet cloth. Will stuck out his bottom lip and said, “I’m not done with my Pop-Tart yet.”

  Beth glanced at the blueberry Pop-Tart he’d torn apart; it was scattered across his plate and over his lap. The guts of it had made his fingers a godforsaken mess, and he hadn’t bothered to touch his oatmeal.

  “Eat four bites of oatmeal, and then you can finish your Pop-Tart,” she said.

  Will’s eyes looked empty and tired. The previous days had been difficult for him. He hadn’t managed to make it to school. Beth had had to take time off to calm him down, sit with him and stroke his hair and tell him everything would be all right very soon.

  Every time the school called Beth with another report of “Will can’t seem to handle the other kids today,” or “Will can’t stop crying,” her heart took on yet another bruise. As a mother of an autistic child, she sometimes felt on the verge of collapse. His fears and anxieties were like shadows that chased after both of them. Just when they settled into some kind of routine, the shadows darkened with newfound fears.

  Will was an adorable kid. He had shaggy black hair, which she’d had cut into a bowl, and his eyes were round and the color of the Vineyard Sound itself. His lips were bowtie-shaped and light pink, and as he chewed his oatmeal, he was careful to chew softly and with his mouth closed, as she’d taught him. Her heart surged with love.

  “Will, can I ask you something?”

  Will swallowed his oatmeal and said, “Yes, Mommy. You can.”

  “Do you think you can handle school today?”

  Will contemplated this for a long time. He’d never lied in his life, something that made him one of the better creatures on this earth. That said, it sometimes took him some time to deduce precisely how he felt.

  “I think I can,” Will said. “I really do.”

  After breakfast, Beth tucked Will into the backseat of her car. He was all bundled up with a soft yellow hat and bright blue mittens and a winter coat she had gotten as a hand-me-down from the neighbors. He sang softly to himself as she buckled him in. Only when she sat down herself in the front seat did she realize the full brevity of her fatigue. She had hardly slept a wink the previous nights, as she’d been so worried about Will’s tumultuous emotions.

  Beth had never been the type of woman to blame others for the mixed-up nature of her life. Will’s autism was a fact of life and often a blessing. She firmly believed that all blessings had their own shades of darkness. He was the lasting product of a summertime fling nine years before when she had been twenty-five years old and still reeling from the death of her brother, Kurt. If she was honest about that, she was still reeling from the death of her brother. Since then, of course, she’d also had to add on the deaths of both of her parents. She was now an orphan and the only one left in her family, besides Will, of course.

  Will was excited about Christmas in a way that seemed to minimize any other child’s excitement about the holiday. As she drove to his elementary school, he gabbed about Santa as though the two were old pals. By the time they reached the drop-off area, Will had made up his mind to write yet another letter to the old man in the North Pole, just in case the other letters hadn’t made it through. Beth made a mental note to fake a letter back from Santa; Will needed some affirmation.

  But wasn’t that a lie? Was it wrong to lie to a little boy who couldn’t fully comprehend the concept of a lie?

  Beth kissed her son and wished him good luck. As he walked into the elementary school alongside the other boys and girls, she prayed he would have a better day—no freak-outs. No crying. No thinking that everyone was after him.

  Beth drove the rest of the way to the hospital, parked, and darted into the crisp white hallways. Afte
r graduation, she had gone off to university to become a registered nurse. Over the years, she had worked in many different departments in several nursing capacities. These days, she mostly focused on rehabilitation, although she occasionally took rounds in the ER when things were slow.

  Beth’s best friend stood in the break room with a clipboard in-hand. She wore light pink scrubs and little Christmas tree earrings, a gift from her daughter.

  “Ellen!” Beth said as she entered the room and yanked off her winter coat.

  “There you are. I was worried you wouldn’t make it in today,” Ellen said with a genuine smile.

  “Will seemed ready today,” Beth said. “More focused and a part of the world. I hope it holds.”

  “The kid’s strong,” Ellen affirmed. “It’s the other kids that throw him off.”

  “I know you’re right,” Beth said. “How’s it going in the ER this week? I haven’t paid much attention.”

  “Actually, we had a pretty bad accident yesterday afternoon,” Ellen said as she tapped the clipboard back in place atop the metal cabinet beside her. “Trevor Montgomery.”

  Beth’s heart sank. She’d known the old real estate mogul for decades; his son had run off to war with Kurt and never returned.

  “Oh, no. How’s he doing?” Please don’t say he’s dead. Please don’t say he’s dead.

  “Haven’t had time to check up on him today, but the other nurses said it’s been touch and go since he arrived,” Ellen explained. “He ran into a tree.”

  “The snow,” Beth breathed. “It can make some of these roads so dangerous at times.” Her heart sank into her stomach and thudded softly. “You’ll let me know how it goes?”

  “Of course,” Ellen affirmed. Her eyes were hollow as she added, “I guess they don’t have high expectations. He’s up there in age these days.”

  “The body can’t take a beating like that very well. I know,” Beth said sadly.