Page 5 of Christmas Promises

“So, do you mind if I use the tickets and go without you?” Josh asked, in a tone somewhere between a wheeze and a whine.

“Tickets? Plural?” What was wrong with this man? He was going to take Dahlia to Paris? To their honeymoon. “You want to take her to Paris?”

“Yeah, I mean, it would be a shame for them to go to waste.”

Laney slid her foot out of the sparkly sandal hidden by the hem of her dress and raised it over her head, planning to smash it over the top of his overly large noggin. However, he might be a cheater, but he was also fast, ducking out of the way at the last moment. He ran to the door.

She hurled that sandal as hard as she could. It smacked against the back of his head. He yelped but didn’t stop, slipping out the door and out of her life.

2

NOLAN

Nolan Hayes dreaded this day, but it came anyway. Every day for five years. The anniversary of Dylan’s murder. His best friend since they were little kids had not reached his twenty-fifth birthday.

The graveyard parking lot was empty that morning. He parked and grabbed the six-pack of artisan root beer that he’d brought to lay on Dylan’s resting place.

It was hard to believe five years had passed since the night Dylan had been murdered outside a bar in Boston. They’d been out to celebrate Nolan’s graduation with a PhD in American literature. Dylan had come to the city for his graduation. After the ceremony, they’d gone out for a nice dinner and then to a bar. It had been the perfect day and evening. Nothing to indicate that the celebration would end up with one of them dead.

They’d come out of the bar, laughing, as they walked to the corner to hail a cab. Out of nowhere, a car had sped up, and a man in a hoodie and face mask had fired a semiautomatic rifle out the window. Dylan had jumped in front of Nolan, taking the bullet before crumpling onto the hard cement. The car had sped off, leaving Nolan holding his best friend as the life drained out of him. Nolan begged him to hold on—help was coming. But it was no use. Dylan died before the ambulance arrived.

Later, the authorities deemed it a gang-related death. An initiation, most likely, according to the police. Nothing personal. Merely bad luck. Bad timing. That had been the only explanation they could give him. At the end of the day, it almost didn’t matter to Nolan why it happened, only that it had.

Now, Nolan knelt over his tombstone and placed the root beer down. “I brought you a cold one.”

Every year, on the first of December, when Nolan came to visit Dylan’s grave, he always brought a six-pack of a local root beer that his friend had loved.

He sat on the cold grass and glanced upward at the sky. Snow would fall early this year, as it had last December. Nolan could smell it in the air. He’d lived in Vermont his whole life. He knew the signs.

“I brought your favorite root beer. It’s gone up in price, by the way. You’d probably be too cheap to buy it.” Nolan popped the top off one of the root beer bottles and took a swig before continuing. “I guess you want to know all my news, huh? My brother Luke got married to this great woman. I don’t know if you’d remember Ramona—she was older than us—but she lived across the field from us. She had these two little kids and last year, she suddenly and unexpectedly died. Abby, that’s her name, was Ramona’s only living relative, so she came here to take care of the kids. She and Luke fell in love, and now they’re a family of five. It’s pretty great to see them all together. You’d hardly recognize Luke, he’s so happy.

“I ran into Jill the other day. She’s married and pregnant. I hadn’t seen her since she broke off our engagement, so it was awkward. She ended up with the guy she cheated on me with. I think I told you that already. Don’t worry, I handled myself fine. I was very dignified. Still, it was weird to see her. To think we were engaged at this time three years ago and now she’s married to someone else. And having a baby. It hurt a little to see her. I can’t lie to you about that. Did I ever tell you what she said to me when she broke it off? Not only was she in love with someone else, but she said I was depressing to be around. She said I hadn’t moved on from your death and I was stuck in the past as if you were something to move on from. I know. You’re glad I didn’t end up with her. I can totally hear what you’d say if you were here. Darn, I wish you were. I miss you.” Nolan tapped the tip of his bottle on the tombstone. “But I’m fine. It all worked out for the best. Well, for her and him. I’m still alone. And no, I haven’t met anyone interesting. I’m such a sap—I was actually tempted to ask Edna about Laney. I’m curious about her, which is ridiculous since I haven’t seen her since I was fourteen. I know it’s probably all my romantic nature and stuff, but I think about her still. She was special. That summer was special. Stupid. Idoget that. Even if I did see her again, we’re probably completely different people by now.”

A lone snowflake fell onto the grass next to him. Then another.

“You sending another early snowfall our way?” Dylan had always loved snow.

Nolan didn’t have much else to say, so he sat in silence, finishing his root beer as the snow began to fall in earnest, thinking about his friend. What would he be doing if he were still alive? Dylan had been bartending at the Moose since they’d graduated high school. He loved Sugarville Grove and had never had any ambition to leave. Ironically, he never had.

Nolan had always been the intellectual one of the two of them. He and Dylan had been a strange pair, but they’d always admired the other’s strengths. No one had been more supportive of Nolan and his lofty educational pursuits than Dylan.

Now, Nolan worked at what he considered his dream job, teaching at the university about thirty minutes from Sugarville Grove. He’d bought a house in Sugarville Grove rather than the town where he worked so he could be close to his family. All his brothers lived here now, since Max had come home and bought the country store. That had been a surprise. His wild, carefree brother whose dream had been to travel the world had finally returned.

And so had he.

“Well, bud, I should probably go. I hope you have a good Christmas up there celebrating with Jesus.”

His root beer done, he got to his feet and brushed the accumulating snow from the top of the gravestone before heading back to the parking lot, his heart heavy.

The next dayNolan woke to a world blanketed in white. He was a man of routine, starting with exercise, a mug of coffee and toast with one soft-boiled egg, and then a shower. His first class started at 9:00 a.m. so he didn’t dawdle as he sometimes did, reading over his notes or indulging in a chapter or two of whatever book he was reading at the time. His expertise was in nineteenth-century literature, but he enjoyed all sorts of books, including modern novels. Not that he would share this with his students, but he loved a cozy mystery as much as his mother did. His belief was that people should read books they enjoyed, not just the classics or what one would describe as great literature. He didn’t share this viewpoint with his students, however. They could decide that for themselves if they so chose.

By half past eight, he’d arrived at his office on the third floor of one of the oldest buildings on campus. The space was small and cramped, with scents of old books and dust. Besides his desk, there were two visitor chairs for students and a bookshelf housing his collection of nineteenth-century American literature. A small potted fern added a touch of green to the otherwise minimalist space. This time of year, the faint hum of the radiator in the corner kept him company. In warm weather, he always had the small window open to let in fresh air.

With his personality, he’d realized early in life that he liked things orderly. Perhaps it was being the youngest of four rowdy brothers that had evoked his love of tranquility. Growing up, he’d always been the odd man out, preferring studying and reading to sports or farmwork. Not that he could have gotten out of helping out at the family’s maple syrup farm. All the Hayes brothers were expected to work around the farm and the house. Nor would he have wanted to shirk his responsibilities. However, the family business was not his passion. That had been given to Luke.

He shrugged out of his heavy jacket and hung it on a hook on the inside of the door. Next, he tugged his laptop from his leather bag and plugged it into the monitor on his desk but didn’t sit. Instead, he went to the small window that looked out to a courtyard where students often gathered. Not today. Snow had kept them away.

What beauty lay before him. A pristine blanket of white covered the green lawns, brick paths, and red brick facades of the university’s historic buildings. The first snowfall softened the world, slowed things down so a person could think clearly.

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