Page 6 of The Christmas Box

I shrug. “He was a little surly. Mildly contrite at best. Didn’t even seem to care that his father is dying. All in all, not my kinda guy.”

Her shoulders slump slightly as we both turn to peer back across the street at the man operating the big saw. “Then not mine, either. But on a brighter note…” She casts me a sideways glance. “It’s time to get this party started.”

Indeed, cars are beginning to line the curb as Main Street comes to life. This morning wasn’t what I expected, bringing doubts and unpleasant memories—but it’s officially time to look forward. I flip the sign in the window that lets the world know the Christmas Box is open for business.

Travis

After a few hours of work in the soon-to-be soap shop, Main Street has gotten a little busy for my taste—people squinting to stare in as they walk past are making me feel like an animal in the zoo. I forgot how nosy small towns can be. So I take off my tool belt, wash some sawdust off at the bathroom sink, and head up the street to the new burger joint. Of course, I don’t knowhownew it is, only that it’s new to me. The old man asked me to bring him a big, greasy burger the next time I came—I guess when you’re dying, they let you eat whatever you want.

The burger place is packed—in fact,allof Main Street is hopping in a way I never thought I’d see when I lit out of here at eighteen. The tables are filled, and servers are moving fast and carrying trays high as I step up to the counter. “Help ya?” asks an older lady with blonde hair piled on top of her head.

After I place my takeout order, I gravitate back to the wide front windows, mainly to get out of people’s way while I wait.

Glancing out at the park across the street and a few doors down, I remember that the only business still open on Main when I left was The Winterberry Diner. It was bigger than most, taking up the space normally filled by two or three skinnier, pre-war buildings, as I remember my grandpa calling them. Seems ironic that the one staple of the place where I spent my whole life is gone now, but the rest of the town has been revitalized. In addition to the burger restaurant, there’s a pizza place, an antique mall, a clothing boutique, and more. Not bad, Winterberry.

An awful shame about the diner—damn, it threw me when Lexi Hargrove so calmly told me her mom and grandma died there—but the park looks nice. I see some small trees and shrubbery, a manicured lawn with paved paths curving through, a few park benches, and to one side sits a white gazebo a lot like the one I built in my boss’s backyard a few years ago. A big Christmas tree—currently unlit and probably twenty feet tall—stands in the center of the park.

That’s when I take my first real look at the Christmas Box and begin to understand the shop’s name. While most of the old brick facades are still in their original state, the two-story building just beyond the small park has been painted white, other than a strip of red that runs horizontally across the front and side. On the side, a vertical swath of red crosses it, with a big red bow painted where they intersect. Near the bow is a gift tag that readsThe Christmas Box. She’s turned the whole building into a Christmas gift. And granted, I’m not a Christmas guy, and I’m not sure how anybody’s gonna feel about this place come June or July, but I can’t deny it creates a pretty cool effect in this little old town.

Lexi Hargrove is the last person I expected to run into. I just would have thought she’d be somewhere else by now. Kind of sucks if she stayed just because of what her mom once dreamed of. I give my head a short shake thinking about people and their sentimentality when it comes to Christmas. It’s just another day, after all—another day when people spend a lot of money on things they don’t need.

She’s prettier than I remembered—her wavy brown hair longer than when I knew her, and I never noticed how blue her eyes are.

Or maybe she was pretty then, too, but I just couldn’t comprehend it. I was in a dark place, just getting through the days however I could. And now that I’m thinking back to high school, which I was happy to leave behind—I remember more about that dance.

I forgot to order the special head thing. And I didn’t really have the money for it anyway. Every time it came to mind as the event got closer, I’d just shove it aside—it was something I just didn’t want to do. It wasn’t about her—I wasn’t a kid comfortable parading around in front of the school in a suit I was gonna have to drum up someplace. I wasn’t a jock, I wasn’t a brain; I wasn’t much of anything but angry. I should have turned the nomination down from the start, but it caught me off guard. The basketball player in our homeroom who usually got tapped for such events was absent that particular day and somehow my number came up.

And then I just didn’t go. It would have been easy to tell somebody, make a phone call, at least claim I was sick or something. But I didn’t even bother—instead I hung out with my small crowd of rebels at the Waffle House in Holly Ridge. I reallywasa punk back then.

“Order for Hutchins!”

I stride back to the counter, ready to scoop up my bag and go, but the lady holding it out—the same who took my order—asks, “You Tom’s boy?”

I just nod. “Yep.”

Her brow knits. “We’re all real sorry about your daddy, son. Good you’ve come home to be with him. Tell him Gail Conrad and her family are all keepin’ him in our prayers, and you, too—okay?”

Again, I only nod. “Thank you.” Then I grab my bag and leave, my thoughts spinning in ten directions at once. Small town people are nosy, but they’re also kind. Kind enough that she thinksI’mhere out of kindness, or even love. And Helen, the nurse at Bluegrass Manor—and hell, all the people there, seem to think my dad’s a great guy. I guess they have a short memory.

But I don’t.

Walking into the nursing home feels like quietly immersing myself in a dark chaos. Every. Single. Time. I’ve been home less than a week, only come here on a handful of days, but it’s a hard place to be. The people at Bluegrass Manor didn’t have the money for a choice facility when the time came that they couldn’t care for themselves anymore. So they ended up here, where the staff does their best, but it’s not a setting where anyone would wish to spend their last days.

The first time I came, I felt tense, not having seen my old man in a dozen years. I wasn’t sure if he’d treat it like a grand homecoming or spit on me. Turns out neither happened—instead, he just acted…completely casual. “Like he saw me yesterday,” I told Helen later, confused.

Helen explained that, “In Tom’s mind, maybe he did. Tom comes and goes in the past and present sometimes lately. Just roll with it and it’ll all be okay.” She patted my hand, and I tried to believe her, but as I walk through the sliding doors that lock behind me to keep the patients inside, I still feel like a stranger in a strange land.

The hallway is dotted by frail-looking people in wheelchairs. I see a thin-haired old woman I noticed yesterday—her short white hair points in all directions and she’s cradling a bald, naked, plastic babydoll in her arms. The sight crushes my soul.

“Hey, can you help me? Please help me.”

I swing my head around to look through the doorway the male voice came from.

“Can you help me?” he asks again, sounding desperate.

My impulse is to keep walking, but I’ve already made eye contact. So I step a little closer to the open door. “What do you need?”

He’s old, feeble-looking, lying in a hospital bed in a stark, messy room. All the rooms are stark. He points. “Can you hand me the remote?”

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