Andrew shrugged and grinned even wider. “Why not?”
At the counter, Andrew ordered a Happy Meal, two Big Mac meals for himself and his father, and a 10-pack of chicken nuggets for Beth.
When he returned to the table, they received him like he’d been gone for decades. Will jumped with excitement as he tore into the plastic wrapping around his Spiderman toy and began to tap the little figure all over the table, showing off what skills Spiderman had.
When Trevor took the first bite of his burger, he groaned with pleasure and closed his eyes. “I don’t think Kerry’s allowed me to have a Big Mac in over twenty years.”
Beth giggled. “I really shouldn’t allow any of this to happen either. I’m your nurse, for goodness, sakes! But in the spirit of Christmas.”
“That’s right. And in the spirit of reunion,” Trevor said as he turned slowly toward Andrew. “I used to take you here when you were a little boy—this very one. Do you remember? You must have been five or six. I swear you went just as crazy as Will is now over those toys.”
“Every time we went to McDonald’s, I thought I was going to lose my mind,” Andrew said.
Trevor chewed thoughtfully. “Me too, you know. It was crazy to me. I’d raised all these other kids. Steve was about ready to take off for the open world. And you. You were this creative, exciting kid. You wanted to dream up stories of your future. I wasn’t sure we had anything at all in common, but you made me laugh. Jeez, you made me laugh. And I loved you. More than you’ll ever know. ”
When they finished up and drove home, Andrew and his father sat in Kerry’s car in the driveway of the Montgomery household as the snowfall doubled-down around them. Inches of fluffy snowflakes bustled up on either side of the windshield; already, nearly an inch had added itself to the top of the rearview mirrors. Andrew had only just clicked off the radio, and the eerie silence filled their ears. It was essential that one of them say something. But what?
“There she is,” Trevor said as Kerry pulled open the screen door and waved a hand. She called something that neither of them could hear. “I bet she’s just getting her coat on to help us out. Pretty annoying, huh? All this limping around.”
Andrew dropped his chin slightly. Obviously, his father had noticed his injury. “It’s been quite a year.”
“You can say that again.”
Kerry disappeared for a moment into the dark belly of the house. This left the men with limited time together, just the two of them.
“Maybe I’ll regret saying this,” Trevor offered finally. “It’s certainly not something I would have told you a few years ago. I don’t even think I would have had the vocabulary for it seventeen years ago. In any case, every time that phone rang in that big old house, I really did think, ‘Hey. Maybe that’s Andy this time. Maybe he just wants to say hi.’ And you know what? It never was. Not once. But I still hoped and prayed that someday you would call.”
Andrew’s throat swelled with sadness. He swallowed the lump that threatened to choke him.
All Andrew could muster to say in response was, “I’ve been through hell and back, Dad.”
Suddenly, Trevor placed his hand over Andrew’s, there on the ignition. He gripped his hand hard as he closed his eyes. Whatever existed between them, it was the truest thing they could find.
“As a father, all I ever wanted was to keep you safe, Andrew. I failed you. I hope you can find a way to forgive me—to love me again. It’s the only thing I want in the world.”
Andrew turned to his father just then and whispered. “I love you too, Dad.”
Kerry hustled out in her winter clothes. She looked frantic yet overly excited, and she yanked open the passenger side door with more strength than her seventy-one years should have allowed. She beamed down at them as she said, “There they are. Two of my three favorite men in the world.”
It was surprisingly simple to get his father back in the house. Andrew placed the wheelchair tenderly beside the backseat; then, Trevor gripped the handles of the wheelchair as Andrew lifted him into it. It took nearly all his strength for just the slightest moment. Then, his father was settled and his mother’s hands latched over the back of the chair as she pushed him through the snow.
“It’s really coming down, isn’t it?” she said. “All things go okay up at the hospital? You’re a bit later than I thought you would be.”
“We had to make a pit stop,” Trevor said. He turned slightly to wink up at Andrew. “With Beth Leopold and her son, Will.”
His mother arched her eyebrow toward him, clearly surprised. “Oh! How funny is it that she’s your father’s nurse, after all these years.”
“And a great one, I might add,” Trevor said as they slipped inside.
Upon entering, Trevor Montgomery gasped. Somehow, in the hours since Andrew’s departure, his mother and his sisters had elevated the Christmas decorations and spirit in the house: more tinsel, more holly, more Christmas cookies, more exciting flavors and beautiful music playing softly in the background.
“It’s like a Christmas wonderland,” Trevor said with a laugh. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Gail and Abby appeared in the hallway with a platter of Christmas cookies. “Grandpa!” they said in unison as they stepped forward and knelt down to show him the selection.
“Girls, you made my favorite!” he said. “What a wonderful surprise. I guess I’ll take a reindeer for now, if you save me a Christmas tree cookie for later.”
“There’s enough to go around for ages,” Kerry said as she slipped out of her winter coat.
“You say that now. It’s still seven days till Christmas. Still plenty of time to eat up all our Christmas cookie reserves and make room in our bellies for more,” Trevor said.
“I guess you’re right. I should never underestimate a hungry Montgomery,” Kerry said.
Andrew wheeled his father into the family room, where Steve, Kelli, Claire, Charlotte, and Rachel awaited. They all stood quickly and greeted their father with warm hugs and kisses. The conversation was chaotic. Everyone had his or her own question about the next steps of the treatment, whether or not they’d fed him well up there, and how it felt to be almost completely immortal.
“Nothing can get you down, Daddy,” Kelli told him as she placed a loving kiss on his cheek.
Everyone settled back in the family room. It was the first time the entire family, all five children and their parents had been in the same room at the same time in seventeen years. A peace came over all of them as they settled deeper into their chairs. Gail got up to change the DVD to something Grandma Kerry had said she’d wanted to watch: A Christmas Carol.
After years of trouble sleeping, Andrew found his eyelids drooping. He was completely calm. That night, after his father and mother had put themselves to bed in the make-shift bedroom downstairs, Andrew collapsed in a heap on his childhood bed and he didn’t dream— not even the nightmares that normally plagued him.
Chapter Sixteen
Beth sat with her legs crossed beneath her and a thick romance novel stretched across her thigh. She hadn’t managed much focus that night, not after the quick foray to McDonald’s with Andrew, Will, and Trevor Montgomery. She had hardly touched her chicken nuggets; the nerves had gotten to her. She’d felt the tension between father and son, and she had further felt the angst between herself and Andrew. There was so much unsaid, so much that couldn’t be said and all the while, Will had rattled out facts about Spiderman, enough facts to make them all laugh and have a really good time.
That was the thing about Will. He always brought people together.
Will stood from his dinosaur toys and stretched his mouth into a yawn. He blinked those beautiful eyes toward Beth as he said, “I will brush my teeth, now.”
That was another thing about Will. He was always very conscious of his needs. Beth, on the other hand, had neglected her needs for years. Single? Lonely? Maybe needing to eat something with some actual nutrients? She hadn’t bothered
with anything at all, beyond taking care of Will and her other patients.
After she tucked Will in for the night, Beth enjoyed the silence of herself, her book hollow of any emotion and her eyes glassy.
Trevor Montgomery had already made good progress in her few days of working with him. He had mentioned Andrew a handful of times throughout their sessions. Mostly things like, “I never understood him, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t or don’t love him,” or, “I remember when Andrew liked you so much. He never said a word about it, but he brought you up so much in conversation that I really thought the two of you would wind up married. Time always has a different course for us, though, doesn’t it?”
“Shut up,” Beth moaned to herself. She stood and emptied out the rest of her wine glass. The last thing she needed on earth was a hangover as she worked with patients the following day. Plus, she had a real goal to get Will off to school in the morning. It was the final day of the semester, the last day before Christmas break. She knew that made it a kind of fluff day. The teachers usually made cookies. The children were kinder, more genuine and more eager. She prayed that Will would lean into the day and maybe make something of it. Sometimes, once in a blue moon, he returned home from school with an extra pep to his step.
Beth washed her face with a gentle exfoliate, added her night lotion, then slipped beneath the sheets. Outside, the snow had kept up its pattern; it flattened itself against the windowpane and then immediately melted, as the house around her was warmer than anything the outside could give her. As she drifted off into a deep sleep, her mind thought only of Andrew and Kurt, all those years ago, preparing for a Christmas in Afghanistan.
THE NEXT MORNING, BETH watched, triumphant, as Will slipped away from the car, stomped through the snow, and entered his elementary school without a second thought. She clapped her hands together and then noticed the long drop-off line behind her. It was time to get lost.
When she reached the hospital, she found Ellen in the breakroom.
“I heard Trevor Montgomery made it out of here,” Ellen said with a smile as she adjusted the hair atop her head.
“He should be coming back in for a rehabilitation session this afternoon,” Beth told her.
“And how’s it been with him?”
Beth gave Ellen a secretive smile, one that Ellen almost immediately saw through. “What?” she demanded.
“What do you mean?” Beth asked.
“You look like you just thought of something but don’t want to tell me,” Ellen said.
“No. You know that I don’t have any secrets. Just living my plain-old, boring life and waiting for my patient to arrive.”
Andrew appeared outside the window of the rehabilitation center around one-thirty in the afternoon. Trevor Montgomery grinned down below him, seated in his chair, and then lifted his hand to give her a vibrant wave. She smiled and waved back.
“I see that McDonald’s didn’t kill you,” she said as she pressed the automatic door button.
“In fact, I think I feel stronger than ever,” Trevor told her.
“And you, Andy?”
“I ran twenty-six miles this morning,” Andrew told her.
Beth chuckled a bit too loudly. “In the snow?”
“I prefer running marathons in the snow,” he joked. “It builds character.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Trevor said. “He’s putting us on.”
“Don’t give the game away, Old Man,” Andrew said, chuckling.
“Whatever,” Trevor said. “We’ll be done in an hour and a half or so, right, Doctor?”
“I’m no doctor, Mr. Montgomery. But I will help you get out of this chair,” Beth said.
“Then let’s get cracking,” Trevor said.
Once the session was over, Andrew appeared back outside the window. He waited till Beth gave the all-clear before he entered. The moment the door opened, he gave them this ridiculous, cutting smile, one that made Beth weak at the knees.
“What kind of trouble did you get yourself in?” Beth asked him. She forced herself not to look into his eyes. It was too intense.
“Oh, you know. This and that,” Andrew said with a wink.
“Whatever that means,” Trevor affirmed. He tilted his head, then added, “You know, it’s December 19, isn’t it? It seems to me you kids should be out celebrating.”
“Kids? Celebrating?” Beth laughed. “I don’t think we’re kids anymore, Mr. Montgomery. As much as I wish I was. The good old days are long gone.”
“I don’t know. It seems to me there’s a lot here to celebrate.” Trevor’s eyes turned from Beth to Andrew and back again. He seemed to be trying to cook up some kind of scheme between the two of them. “Tell me you’ll head out tonight together for me. Experience the nightlife. I don’t think I’ll catch sight of it for quite some time.”
When Beth met Andrew’s eyes again, her heart thudded like a wild drumbeat.
“I never did get to experience any Oak Bluffs bars,” Andrew said suddenly. “I left when I was eighteen.”
“They’re all pretty different than they were then,” Beth said.
Andrew shrugged. “Then show me. Show me what I’ve missed over the years.”
Beth chewed at her lip. A problem arose like a cloud: she had to figure out something to do with Will.
That moment, Ellen marched past the window. She waved a hand en route, which led to Beth bursting out of the room to ask her if she could babysit Will that evening. “Remember how I told you I’ve been living my plain-old, boring life?”
Ellen blinked wide eyes at her. “Yep...”
“Maybe I don’t want to anymore,” Beth whispered. “And I was wondering if you could help me dig my way out.”
BETH PILED INTO THE passenger seat of Kerry Montgomery’s car. From the back, Trevor hollered that he was hungry as heck; he hoped Kerry had gone ahead and cooked up more clam chowder. “Now that I’ve come back from the dead, all I want to do is eat that chowder,” he told them. “I don’t see much point for anything else.”
Once back at the Montgomery residence, she helped prop Trevor up in his wheelchair, then hung out near the car while Andrew took him the rest of the way. From where she stood, she heard light banter between them; things like, “She looks at you like you’re something special, Andy. She always has and I guess she always will.”
To this, Andrew just grumbled. Still, the whole experience was so funny to Beth that a giggle bubbled up in her stomach.
“What are you laughing about?” The voice rang out from the other side of the car. Beth whipped around to find Claire and Charlotte and another handsome, dark-haired man that Beth had never seen before. They all gave her curious but well-meaning smiles.
“Hey! Hello,” Beth tried. Again, she felt like a foreigner in someone else’s life. “They’re just a couple of characters, is the reason why,” Beth continued. “They made me laugh all the way home from the rehabilitation clinic.”
Claire and Charlotte exchanged glances. The dark-haired man stepped forward just a bit and said, “I don’t think we’ve met yet. My name is Everett.”
“This is the guy Charlotte met when she put on that insanely expensive wedding last month. Around Thanksgiving,” Claire informed her.
Beth thought she’d read something about that in the papers; there had also been two alcohol poisonings from mid-tier celebrities at the hospital that weekend. One of them had been reported as saying that she “absolutely hated Ursula” and that she’d planned to go to the wedding just to tear it apart. She hadn’t succeeded, obviously, since she had spent the night in detox at the hospital.
“Everett’s just arrived from California,” Claire informed Beth.
“That’s a temperature change if I’ve ever heard of one,” Beth said.
Everett shoved his hands in his pockets and shivered. He stepped closer to Charlotte and delivered a handsome smile. “What can I say? Something about Martha’s Vineyard really caught my eye. I can’t say if it was the
trees or the water or the architecture...”
Charlotte swatted him playfully as a blush flickered across her cheeks. “You’re impossible you know that?”
Andrew returned to the driveway. Once there, he splayed his hand across Beth’s back tenderly, as though they really were that couple she’d once wanted them to be.
“Hey there,” he said curiously to Everett.
“Oh, gosh, Everett. I told you all about my brother, Andrew,” Charlotte said.
Everett hustled to the front of the car so that he could shake Andrew’s hand properly. Andrew beamed at him as he said, “Wow, all that way from California. So glad you could make it. I hope Charlotte won’t put you to work too badly. We’ve hustled around this place, making it all spick and span for Christmas.”
“Seems like I knew exactly when to come. Right after all, the work is finished. It’s good to meet you,” Everett said.
“Where you guys off to?” Claire asked.
Andrew and Beth made eye contact again. Beth half-expected Andrew to bail, especially now that his siblings had arrived, the family was all cozied in together.
“We’re headed to town to get some food and maybe a drink,” Andrew told them. “We’ll be back tonight.”
“Okay. Just not too late,” Claire said. “As Dad demonstrated, these streets can get pretty icy.”
Once inside the car, Beth removed her hat and rustled her hair with a frantic hand. Andrew placed his foot tenderly on the brake as they eased backward out of the driveway. When they were pointed in the final direction, ready for whatever the night would hold for them, Andrew breathed, “I still can’t believe all the changes around here. I was gone so long. I see the excitement in Charlotte’s eyes, for sure. And this new guy seems spectacular. But the fact that Jason’s gone? That my family is aging? That I’ve missed so many graduations and births and...”
Beth stretched her hand over Andy’s wrist. Her thumb found his skin, the warmth of it, the softness of it. He turned his head quickly to catch her eye and the romance sizzled between them.
A Vineyard White Christmas Page 11
