“Aren't you forgetting something?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “This is Papa's house, and this is Papa's gift. His memory should stay.”
“He wanted you to have that book,” she said.
“Papa needs it more than I do, his soul will come back here and I don't want him to find an empty house. Just like we leave Santa cookies, we need to leave Papa something, and this . . . it's just what he would want.” I said all this with a wavering tone, and then I made my way down the stairs of the attic at the farmhouse in Linden Corners for the final time.
We left at noon on a sunny Christmas Eve, saying nothing to each other. Mama had only lived in this house for seven years, me for five. It was Papa's home, his family's, and while we had attempted to keep the Van Diver traditions alive, fate somehow felt that change was in the air. It wasn't the only thing in the air that day, because even though there was no snow on the ground or falling from the sky, the wind was strong and so the windmill's sails spun, almost as though they were waving to us, good-bye, my friend, maybe for forever.
Not forever, it turned out, but a lifetime, eighty years.
And in all that passing of time, I never again laid eyes on that rare edition of
The Night before Christmas
. Only for that one year had I heard my papa recount to me the story of the visit from Saint Nicholas. Indeed, visit, not visits.
Â
And so another Thanksgiving comes to an end, my dear, different in some respects, strange in others. The turkey was dry and there was not enough chestnut-flavored stuffing, and the green beans were drowned in a mushroom sauce, the fried onions soggy. I ate what I could and then they took the tray away. As unsatisfying as the meal was, the company is what has filled my belly, my heart. Sitting beside you, holding your hand and telling you stories of Linden Corners past and present, it makes me feel achieving my dream is possible.
My new friends have had their own holiday, different for them, too. Brian Duncan spent his first year not at his parents' home, and Janey spent her first Thanksgiving at home without the woman who gave birth to her. And Nora, she so fiercely independent, journeyed with her mother, Gertaâyou would like her, probably engage her in a pie-baking contestâand son, Travis, they went to visit other family, another sister who lives beyond Linden Corners. It can't have been an easy holiday for any of them, and yet the strains of the upcoming season have only just begun.
I watched the annual parade this morning, not far from where we are now, and of course it ended as it always does. A jolly Santa Claus waving to the masses gathered along the busy canyons of New York. He wore his red suit, he always does except in my memories. I have told you of that, and soon, I hope to show it to you, and you will hear the words as I heard them so long ago from my father. I have entrusted much to strangers, but that's what's so special about life within the world of Linden Corners, strangers somehow become friends faster than it takes that old windmill to turn a single revolution.
Yes, my dear, something special indeed is coming, a Christmas for us all to remember.
C
HAPTER
11
N
ORA
S
aying snowfall was in the day's forecast was an easy understatement. A nor'easter loomed over the darkening horizon and held the region in its anticipated grasp. Having already conquered the eastern provinces of Canada, strong winds and swirling flakes of snow were quickly sweeping all across Central New York State and making their way toward the low-lying Hudson River Valley. Panicked people were out in droves buying necessary provisions, food and water, batteries, and candles. The schools had been closed even before a single flake had fallen, officials fearing the storm could hit so fast the buses wouldn't be able to handle slick, icy roads. Such hearty storms were frequent enough here that everyone knew the drillâstay home, stay off the roads, hunker down, and respect nature's fury.
It was December first and the holiday season was getting its first real blast of winter.
For Nora Rainer, the storm couldn't be coming at a better time, as the work in the storage room was piling up daily. She decided today was the perfect day in which to attack all that she'd been putting off; she accepted the storm as a gift of time. Back when she was a child, whenever a passing thunderstorm would assault Linden Corners, she would hole up in her room with her coterie of dolls, indulging in fantasies that took her away from the howling winds, the pelting rain, and deadly streaks of lightning. Where her mind journeyed to, the sky was calm and the women were beautiful and the pink house in which they lived was on a beach, white sands warm beneath their plastic feet. In her world, nothing melted and no one froze either, no one was in harm's way. Now that she'd passed into adulthood, she had learned to respect the ferocity of such storms, knowing the damage they could inflict. Just two summers ago, an angry storm had nearly destroyed the windmill, and it had taken from the residents of Linden Corners one of their own, the beloved, gentle Annie Sullivan, only weeks after Nora's father had passed away. With dire predictions of more than sixteen inches of snow and wind gusts of up to fifty miles per hour, Nora wanted to keep her loved ones as close to her as possible.
Yet she also wanted to attend to business at A Doll's Attic. What better time than when the world shut down and nature released some pent-up pressure, and the fact she was once again playing in her dollhouse didn't go unnoticed by her; sometimes it was nice to have a place in which to hide. So that's where she found herself at ten o'clock that Wednesday morning, Travis at her side, both of them dressed in ratty jeans and old sweaters, perfect for getting dirty amidst all the boxes they needed to look through. Gerta had preferred to say home, Nora telling her they would head back at the first sight of snowfall. She wouldn't be left alone, not then.
“You ready to get to work?” Nora asked.
Travis tossed her a telling look that offered up only one answer: no. She volleyed her own look back that said, too bad, you don't have a choice. “I don't get it,” he said. “I get a snow day and what do you do? Put me to work in the store. What's fair about that?”
“Who said anything about life being fair, snow day or not?” she said, her tone playful but serious. “As opposed to spending some quality time with your tired old mum, what would you rather be doing? Playing your video games, that Wii thing?”
“Sure, why not? It's fun.”
“Life isn't always about having fun, Travis.”
“Not if you're a grown-up,” he said. “You're always worrying about something.”
“Yes, and right now my primary worry is the fact that you're going to be a teenager next year and it's only going to get worse.”
“Ha ha. Okay, I get it, you don't have to hit me over the head.”
Giving her son a taste of his own medicine, Nora stuck out her tongue, rolling her eyes like one of those aforementioned teenagers. “Tell you what, hang with me for a couple of hours and we'll see what the weather is doing outside.”
“Where else would the weather be?”
She ruffled his hair, laughing. “Such a wiseass. Come on, let me show you what I need. Maybe after an hour we'll take a break and get some hot chocolate over at the Five O'. Martha makes a mean cup.”
“Why would I want a mean cup?”
“It's just an expression. Like when you say something is bad, you mean good.”
“Mom, don't try and talk street, okay?”
“How about you stop stalling, there's a lot of work waiting for you.”
Indeed, much had changed in the month since Nora had taken over the place once known as Elsie's Antiques, not least of which was the sign outside, flapping now in the growing wind. Handcrafted from thick pine, the words A D
OLL'S
A
TTIC
were painted in simple, scripted red-colored letters, not unlike a lawyer's shingle hung out to attract passersby, and she supposed her subtle choice in signage was not only appropriate but deliberate. Her one concession to her lawyerly past, now just memories and mementos stored inside a briefcase. The store, too, had begun to undergo a cosmetic overhaul, beginning with the counter space that was now clean, open, and inviting, rather than encased by an array of objects for sale, those dusty old items now relegated to the rear of the showroom, some just tossed out. Sometimes you had to cut your losses on stuff that had been hanging around nearly as long as Elsie herself. A few new items had found their way to the store, first-time customers dropping in with an array of items that might just find an interested party. The curiosity factor for once fell in her favor.
With the transformation from antique shop to consignment store nearly complete, filled not just with furniture and lamps, chinaware and crystal, she now stocked vintage candy you could still actually order from wholesalers, games she remembered playing with her older sisters, like Operation and KerPlunk and even Battleship, which they hadn't played because “it was for boys.” Assorted action figures had come in, too, red flyer sleds and a plastic toboggan much like one from her youth, both of which would probably move fast after the storm passed. But that's what she wanted her store to be, not so much antiques from a time no one from her generation would remember, but rather a time capsule of the simpler life, their childhoods, hers included, when toys and innocence played together in harmony. Before you learned about things like love and death, marriage and separation.. . .
“Mom, where did all these boxes come from?” Travis said, settling onto the floor in the storeroom, the first of the dozen boxes opened.
“Oh, most of those came from a woman named Katherine WilkinsonâI told you about her, she's the nice lady who lives in a big house near the river? Her daughter liked to travel and she would always send home precious gifts. I guess Mrs. Wilkinson felt it was time to start clearing some things out of the house. She lost both her husband and daughter and maybe for her the memories are too strong.”
“That's sad, to not have family at Christmas,” Travis said. “I don't think I want to grow old . . . not so old that all your friends and family are gone; and besides, shouldn't you want to hold on to that stuff, you know, to remember them by?”
Crouching down, she tried to read into her son's eyes, wondering if this had anything to do with his father. He wasn't dead, but he was absent, and such separation could, in his young mind, be interpreted the same way. “Everyone's different, honey, to some people it's just stuff taking up unnecessary space. Some don't need objects to remember people by,” she said. “Look at meâI don't need many of my dad's things, I've got him right where I want him.”
“In your heart?”
“Yup, and in your eyes,” she said.
“My eyes?”
“You look just like him, Travis,” she said.
He smiled widely. “Wow, you never told me that before.”
“Maybe that's because I never realized it until now . . . or maybe it's being back in Linden Corners, living at home and working down the street from where he worked. You know, my dad spent his whole life in this town, met your grandma, settled and had a family.”
“You think Grandma misses him?”
“Every day,” she said. “But she has such a great group of friends.”
“Brian and Janey?”
“Among others, but they're the best ones,” she said. “Now come on, let's get to work.”
Just then the jangle of bells from over the door sounded. Was someone looking to buy an old game of dominoes or some similar distraction in which to pass the time during the storm? She wouldn't think such things took precedence over milk and bread and juice, but who was she to question the desires of her customersâshe had, they wanted, they bought, she stayed in business. Simple philosophy of surviving the retail grind. She excused herself, only to see it wasn't a customer, just her usual mailman, the dependable Emmett Anders. He had a pile of mail for her today, topped off by a flat cardboard package. Her eyes lit up at the sight of itâshe knew just what it was, she'd been expecting it.
“Afternoon, Nora,” he said with a tip of his hat, his New England accent reminding her of the bookseller down in Hudson.
“Hello, Mr. Anders, wasn't sure I'd see you today,” she said, accepting the mail wrapped in a rubber band.
“You know how it is with us mail folk, through rain or snow . . . that's the creed,” he said. “Though what they're saying about this one bearing down on us, I best get done fast and be home with the missus, she'll be wringing her hands with worrying. You have yourself a nice day, stay warm and inside. I suggest you close up, no one in their right mind is going to be out shopping for antiques, you know? They'll need shovels, and new ones at that, ones that can handle the heavy snow. Keep Ackroyd's busy, won't they?”
“I'm sure they will, good for Chuck. We'll close up soon, just got some inventory to deal with. My son is helping out today. Snow day, gotta take advantage.”
“Ah-yup, ain't that why we have 'em?”
With that, he tipped his hat again and headed back into the blustery wind, the bells above the door once again jangling. She kept telling herself she was going to take them down, but with Christmas less than a month away, it seemed not in the spirit of the season to do so. She would worry about that another day, for now she wanted to focus on her delivery. Dispensing with the rest of the mail, she opened up the package from Amazon.com, holding in her hand the antique reproduction edition of
The Night before Christmas
that Elliot the bookseller had told her about, and there staring back at her on the front cover was Santa Claus himself, dressed in a green-colored suit and hat. She drew in a sharp breath, because even as she knew this wasn't the exact edition that Thomas held as a childâit had only been published twenty years agoâher sense of accomplishment at finding any book with Santa in a green suit made her think she'd made the right choice in opening this store. She had the drive for success, a natural instinct to not give up until she'd satisfied her customer, and as a result, herself. She read the cover credit: “Text by Clement Clarke Moore, Illustrations by Alexander Casey.”
Once Nora had been given the information from Elliot, she'd gone back online and discovered the book, and while it was out of print, there were used copies for sale. Without even checking with Thomas, she clicked and added the book to her cart, paid with her credit card, and added shipping info. Since it was from an outside seller and not Amazon.com itself, they could only estimate the time of arrival, but here it was, and ahead of schedule. She couldn't wait to see the reaction on Thomas's face; who knew, maybe this book would strike a chord with him, perhaps this green-suited Santa would satisfy him.
On closer inspection, she marveled at how beautifully it had been printed, even in its used condition. The hardcover book was unjacketed, and instead the artwork was pressed into the paperâwhat printers called paper-over-boardsâthe spine a weave of red fabric. And inside, she flipped through thick-cut pages, familiar scenes playing out of Saint Nick flying through the air with the aid of his reindeer, landing on rooftops and slipping down chimneys, where stockings hung from hearths as he scattered gifts underneath trees. As she turned the last page, it, of course, ended with “And to all a good night,” and for a moment Nora could imagine a young Thomas sitting wide-eyed upon his father's lap as the story was read to him. Indeed, visions of sugar plums would have been dancing in his head; that is, until he'd drifted off to sleep and his father had carried him upstairs to bed. So many years may have passed since Thomas was an impressionable child, and while the world may have changed in ways both good and bad, this book showed how Christmas remained a mainstay, its time-honored traditions as vibrant today as they had been eighty years ago, more.
She was getting ready to pick up the phone to call Thomas when the door opened again, and this time it was a customer, a woman who held a baby carrier; the child was asleep inside, snuggly and warm. The woman was bundled up good, too, but even so Nora could see she had a friendly face, her blond hair cut short. A woman with an infant was not concerned about her appearance, or just didn't have the time to worry.