A Christmas Hope Read online

  He realized his departure was abrupt, but if the once-named Brian Duncan Just Passing Through had learned anything about this life in Linden Corners, you made it what you wanted. You either took to its wondrous eccentricities, playing along with whatever the villagers were whispering about, or you lived life looking from the inside out. It was one of the reasons Brian continued to accept offers like planning and hosting events such as the Halloween party. Linden Corners might only have been his home for the past two years, but the way he’d ingratiated himself into the fabric of the community you’d think he’d been born here.

  A woman named Annie Sullivan had done that, instilled in him that appreciation for this tiny town. She was still instructing him, even in spirit, and through the boundless joy of her daughter, Janey. It was Janey who had fulfilled the promise made by her mother.

  And the majestic windmill, it kept them all spinning toward tomorrow.

  Gazing lovingly at Janey as she laughed and danced with crazy abandon, her arms sliced through the air, and he imagined her taking to the wind, soaring to new heights. Her birthday month would come to an end in a matter of hours, and soon it would be time to unwrap the fresh traditions they had established last year while celebrating their first holiday together. Hopefully this year their Christmas could be free of the drama that had plagued them. But as he snuck a look over at Gerta, he realized such a wish might not be possible, she would have her own things to deal with. Her daughter Nora was a handful, a woman who seemed to have lost her way in life and who needed an infusion of hope. Brian wanted to help, if not the woman herself, then Gerta, who, usually so much a part of the Linden Corners community, was quickly reduced to a monarch with only one subject.

  Gerta, the Queen, ended up winning best costume.

  Janey came in a close second.

  Which meant the windmill had taken a backseat to another story, and Brian Duncan was curious to see how it would all play out.

  Ten o’clock that same night found Brian returning to George’s Tavern to check on his business. Janey was staying overnight with Cynthia and Bradley, which really meant she was staying with the tyke Jake, who had quickly become the center of her small world. All summer long she had helped Cynthia with the new baby, heating up formula, learning to change diapers, anything else Cyn could entice her to do if only to catch a moment’s rest. Janey loved to watch the baby sleep or to just hold him, and now that school had started again she had less time with them and often remarked that she was missing the best days of Jake’s life. “Dad, it’s like he grew an inch while I was in math class,” she had said after the first day of the new school year. An exaggeration for sure, but Brian understood the separation anxiety.

  So after the Halloween Spooktacular, Brian was fine with having his little girl spend time with their best friends’ little boy; they needed their bonding time as much as Brian needed to see about his work. Business had been slow since the start of the fall, and Brian often wondered how much more he could make ends meet with such an existence.

  It was Mark Ravens’s night to tend bar—he the handsome relief bartender who drove up receipts—and the cedar-scented room was hopping with the younger adult crowd, those who would have found the Spooktacular a total bore. Seeing all the cars in the parking lot, hearing the raucous activity coming from inside the tavern and the sounds of the jukebox wafting out into the night sky, Brian had to admit that his relief bartender definitely brought out a different mix, some of them from town, some from as far away as Hudson, where Mark also worked as a waiter at a resort hotel. Brian had been skeptical about paying someone else to help run the bar, but with his responsibilities to Janey, he’d had no choice, and Mark had proved to be the ideal hire.

  Brian walked inside, immediately making his way to the long, oak bar.

  “Hey, boss,” Mark said with an easy grin, pulling on the tap to refill some goblin’s beer. “How was the kiddie party?”

  “The kids enjoyed it,” Brian said.

  “That’s why they call it a kiddie party,” he said.

  “Funny.”

  “You, my friend, need a drink.”

  “Seltzer.”

  “One of these days, man, I’m gonna get you to loosen up,” Mark said.

  Brian didn’t drink alcohol, not since a bout with hepatitis that had inadvertently sent him off on a personal journey that eventually landed him in Linden Corners. In an ironic twist, he’d become owner of this bar near about the time he’d been given the guardianship of young Janey Sullivan, and he’d made a vow that a clear head was needed to keep both running successfully. Health-wise, he was fine, it was just easier this way.

  “Speaking of, you’re certainly, uh, loose,” Brian said, taking in Mark’s almost-costume.

  “Oh yeah, Sara’s idea. You should see what she’s wearing.”

  Sara was his fiancée, a waitress from the Five O’ Diner across the street who had started spending a lot of her spare time at the local tavern, happy to be in the company of a certain bartender. They started dating and before long got engaged last Christmas, moved upstairs into the spare apartment, and had been blissfully happy ever since, even if they hadn’t actually settled on a wedding date. You had to earn a living first, save some cash for such an expensive event, that was Mark’s oft-repeated rationale. Thinking his costume was one approach toward earning the big bucks, Brian gave Mark a closer inspection. He was dressed in a loincloth and really, little else. Not many guys could pull off such an edgy look, but Mark wore his self-consciousness well. He clearly had a good body, muscular where it should be, lacking any flab. His chest and arms were coated with a blanket of dark hair.

  “So, Mark, will a fifteen-minute phone call really save me fifteen percent or more on my car insurance?” Brian asked him.

  “Funny, Brian,” he said, “but no, I’m not a caveman. I’m Tarzan.”

  “And where is your Jane?”

  He indicated the chatty crowd situated near the blaring jukebox, pointing out Sara in the middle of it. She was dressed in a tight-fitting outfit of leopard print, one of her shoulders the only bit of skin she revealed. Brian turned back to look at the near-naked Mark Ravens, words about to spill from his lips.

  “Shut up,” Mark said.

  Brian laughed, then announced he was going to take charge of the bar. “Take a break, put some clothes on, have a drink if you need one.” Mark happily accepted the chance to slip away from the busy action at the bar, but not before telling Brian the tips had been amazing that night, he might want to consider a costume other than the farmer look.

  “My shirt stays on,” Brian remarked.

  Alone behind his bar, he felt oddly comfortable in a way he knew Nora didn’t feel inside the borders of Linden Corners, though why he was thinking of her, he wasn’t sure. Brian headed to the far end of the bar, wrapping an apron around his waist. Ready to settle in for a long night of serving drinks to thirsty patrons, he turned back at the presence of a new customer and found himself faced with none other than the aforethought Nora Rainer. Well, speak of the devil, he thought but didn’t say.

  “You promised me a drink,” she said, hands tapping against the bar.

  “So I did,” he said. “White wine? Red?”

  “Make it a shot, whiskey,” she said. “After the day I’ve had, I think I need it.”

  Brian grabbed a bottle of Maker’s Mark from the top shelf, poured her a double. “It’s on me. Least I can do, you know . . . your car.”

  “Can we not talk about that?”

  “Sure. We cannot talk about anything you want,” Brian said, taking a sip of his seltzer. “You know, if I’m going to avoid pissing you off, I might need a cheat sheet of safe topics. Can you write that up for me? I’ve got a cocktail napkin if you’ve got a pen.”

  “Keep away from family and my life and you’ll be golden.”

  “Nice talking to you,” Brian said.

  She knocked back her shot and Brian refilled it.

  “Oh, is that ho
w it’s going to be? You getting me drunk, Brian Duncan?”

  “Hardly my style,” he said. “Okay, no nosy, intrusive questions about family, that’s your personal business. But I do want to know, Nora Connors Rainer, about this new business venture of yours. Since we’re going to be neighbors and all, I could send some business your way. You say you’re taking over Elsie’s antique shop, but something tells me you’ve got something else up your sleeve.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said.

  “Care to share?”

  “Hey, I’m supporting your business, you’ll have to stop by my store and support me.”

  “Uh, your drinks are on the house,” Brian reminded her.

  She laughed, and to Brian it actually sounded genuine.

  “Don’t expect the same treatment at A Doll’s Attic.”

  CHAPTER 3

  T HOMAS

  A Doll’s Attic.

  An intriguing name for a store for certain, and one he was curious to learn more about. If his hunch was correct—and he’d lived his life on his hunches, that’s how he ended up back in Linden Corners—the owner of the re-jiggered antique business might just be able to provide the service he’d come looking for. So on this first morning of November, the snow having stopped and the roads freshly plowed, he felt brave enough to venture from his room, Elsie kind enough to drive him downtown after breakfast. So he dressed in his natty best, ironed slacks and a clean shirt, his blazer emblazoned with patches on the elbows that gave him that professorial look he’d worn his entire adult life, and just to put a finer touch on his outfit, he donned a bow tie of solid navy blue. He stole a look at himself in the mirror in his small bathroom, tried to pat down one of his stray, willowy gray hairs and failed. He shrugged. At eighty-four years old, he had to be content with what he could achieve.

  He’d been a resident at the Edgestone Retirement Home for just over three months now, keeping mostly to himself as he adjusted to his new life in his old village. Certainly much had changed, the shops and the people, none of whom he knew, yet when he mentioned his surname a look of surprise lit up the faces of those long-timers. Thomas Van Diver, he would say with a polite nod, the reaction from the older folks immediate: “Of the Linden Corners Van Divers of long ago?”; it was both surprising to him and not. His ancestors had toiled on this fertile land for generations, and even if not for the last couple, memories stretched back far. History was the natural friend of the elderly. “One and the same,” he would respond with a bit of pride when folks recognized the Van Diver name, not sure where that even came from. He wasn’t a prideful man by nature, he was who he was, a man who had lived his life as best he could, quietly, thoughtfully, intellectually. Like that stray hair on his head, it wasn’t the result but the effort.

  He lived on the first floor of The Edge—as the locals called the old folks’ home—which was a good thing. No stairs or creaky elevator, he could just step out from his one-bedroom apartment and into the corridor, sure to run into one of his neighbors on their way to the dining hall. It was nine o’clock on this cool autumn morning and late for Thomas to be eating, probably too late for most of the residents. This was an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of place, so he was taking his chances with whatever remnants of breakfast might be had.

  “Morning,” he said with a polite nod to an elderly couple who lived down the hall from him. Edna and Jack Something Or Other, darned if he could recall their last name right now. They were walking in the opposite direction, obviously having dined already.

  “They’re taking the dishes back to the kitchen,” Edna said, her voice almost accusatory.

  Thomas wasn’t sure whom she was accusing, the staff for taking it or him for not waking for the worm.

  He continued his slow shuffle down the long corridor, turning from the main lobby still decorated for Halloween, and toward the dining room that doubled as their recreation room when meals weren’t on the menu. Only five of the residents remained, none of them eating, content to sit quietly with their second cup of coffee of the day. One of them caught sight of him the moment he walked through the door, almost as though she were scouting him out. And she was. Elsie Masters, his new friend, was also new to life at Edgestone, though not to Linden Corners. She’d made a life change, just as he had, and he supposed they had bonded a bit over that while sharing a piece of pound cake. As the previous owner of Elsie’s Antiques down on Route 20, she had retired, sold the business, taken up quick residence, immediately ingratiating herself into the social network here.

  “Thomas, over here!”

  “Yes, yes, Elsie, I see you, my eyesight hasn’t left me yet.”

  These were the kind of predictable jokes you heard at Edgestone, it was all about aging when it wasn’t about dying.

  “We saved you some eggs and bacon, a heaping pile of greasy home fries, you need your strength,” she said as he settled down beside her. “You know Myra, Judy, Fred, yes?”

  “Good morning all,” Thomas said.

  “Now that you’re here, let me warm this plate up for you.”

  “Not necessary, Elsie. I’m not hungry.”

  “Nonsense,” she announced to the group, “such a typical male, so stubborn in his ways.”

  “I am eighty-four, hard to change me now.”

  “You don’t know Elsie,” remarked Judy, to the amusement of the others.

  Elsie dismissed her combative comment with a wave of her liver-spotted hand, then grabbed the plate and marched headlong into the kitchen. She returned moments later, the plate warm, a cup of hot coffee in her other hand. She set the former in front of Thomas, staring at him with expectation. Her mix of moxie and mothering gave Thomas pause; it had been awhile since a woman had looked after him with such . . . vigor. For a moment he thought of his beloved Missy.

  “Well, eat.”

  “She went to that effort, you don’t eat your name is mud,” Fred said like he knew.

  Thomas readily agreed, thankful to have another male peer setting him straight amidst the complicated language issued from the ladies of the manor. He lifted his fork, scooping up a bit of the scrambled eggs. Slowly, with effort, the fork made its way to his open mouth, his hand shaking ever so slightly. He repeated the routine several times before finally setting the fork down, reaching more easily for a piece of crispy bacon. He happily chomped away, realizing the four of them were watching him intently.

  Elsie, her eyes wide behind thick glasses, her gray hair tucked in a tight bun, gave him a curious look.

  “Are you okay, Thomas?”

  “Never better,” he said. “Why would you ask?”

  “Your hand, it quivered . . . you know, as you ate.”

  “Elsie, I’m eighty-four and not a day younger than I was yesterday. Eventually your parts start to break down and you just deal with it. Though truth be told, perhaps after that Halloween party last night I had one more Manhattan than my body is accustomed to. So perhaps that explains my waking so late,” he said.

  “I should have joined you,” Fred said. “Sounds tasty.”

  “You shouldn’t drink,” Elsie advised.

  Now it was Thomas’s turn to wave away her comment, his hand steady now, assured. “Now, now, enough worrying over me. I’ll have my Manhattans and enjoy them to the end. For now, though, you promised to take me over to your former store to meet the new owner. Tell me again her name, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” Names were evading him of late, just another part of living so long. Your brain could only retain so much.

  “Nora Connors,” Elsie said.

  “Rainer,” Myra said. “She’s married, that’s what Gerta told me.”

  “Hmm, moves back to town, son in tow, but no husband,” Elsie said. “I say Connors.”

  “I say none of that is any of our business,” Fred said.

  So that’s how the battle of sexes came down, the women wanting to know more, the men content to sip their coffee and let the world work out its own issues. Regardless of this lady Nora’s
situation, she was now the owner of the antique shop downtown and for Thomas Van Diver that meant she might be useful to him. He hadn’t come home to Linden Corners to sit and listen to idle gossip about who had what last name and why all day long. He was a man on a mission, and at eighty-four, he knew he had to act fast.

  “So, Elsie,” he said, finishing his coffee. “Shall we check out A Doll’s Attic?”

  “You know, I just don’t like that name, it sounds a bit pretentious if you ask me,” Elsie said. “I just don’t know what was wrong with the previous name, served me well all these years, and look, we’re both still standing, me and the building.”

  Judy, Fred, and Myra all exchanged knowing looks, words unnecessary. With Elsie a part of their lives now, that second cup of coffee in the morning wasn’t going to be so quiet anymore.

  Thomas, still new to how they did things at The Edge, rose to the bait. “Well, for starters, Elsie is not her name, so why would she wish to keep such a business name?” he asked logically. “She’s got a perfectly fine name in Nora, and as far as I’m concerned, she could name the store whatever she wants, long as she gets me what I want.”

  Elsie tossed him a hard look through those thick glasses. “I thought you weren’t so good with remembering names.”

  “At my age, selective hearing gets me through the day.”

  That shut her up, if only for now.

  There was no new sign posted on the building to indicate a change of ownership, no hung shingle to sway in the wind, though the weather-beaten ELSIE’S ANTIQUES placard had already been removed. So the store wore a barren, empty feeling, at least from the outside, and Thomas had to wonder if perhaps he was jumping the gun a bit, poor woman had just arrived to town yesterday, or so Elsie had informed him on the drive over. Maybe she wasn’t even open for business.