Page 10 of The Forever Christmas Tree

I’d like to crown someone. “Have you lost your mind? I’m not putting one of those posters and a begging jar in the Christmas shop,” Ethan asserted.

“Wanna bet your grandmother will?” Doreen challenged, narrowing her eyes at him, again. “It’s just the kind of thing she would like for her shoppie.”

Ethan cringed at the word.

“I know who I’m gonna nominate first.” Baxter slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table and stared at Ethan.

Ethan one-upped him with a twenty and gave Baxter an equal glower back.

“See, it’s already working. Two people have been grinched, and we don’t even have the posters made up yet. I’m going to nominate my circulation manager, Zeke Abrams. He’s the grouchiest man alive,” Laura said.

And on it went.

It was the craziest, most asinine thing Ethan had ever heard of. They would be the laughingstock of the state, maybe the country. He wouldn’t be surprised to see one of the network TV crews land on their doorstep for a morning segment, titled something like, “The Crazy-Ass Things People Do for Christmas.” It would be right up there with those nutcases who decorate their houses and yards with a fifty-million-watt light show every year.

If that wasn’t bad enough, as Ethan was leaving the town hall, at nine-freakin’-thirty, Laura sidled up to him and said, “Guess who’s coming for Christmas, Mister Scrooge? And I don’t mean Santa Claus.” Then she added, “Ho, ho, ho!”

Later that night, after sending his grandmother and Cassie home and checking over the day’s receipts and inventory, Ethan walked to the far end of his local tree farm, to the perfectly shaped blue spruce tree, the one the council kept badgering him to donate, the one that had defied all odds in growing on an island where even the hardiest evergreen trees struggled to survive.

It was a reminder of things long dead. He should just chop the damn tree down and burn it for fireplace kindling. A final end to . . . everything.

He should.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

He . . . just . . . couldn’t.

Chapter 3

Old acquaintances are not forgotten . . .

To Mildred’s shock, Eliza Rutledge showed up on her doorstep, for the first time in twelve years, just before the Saturday Samba session. The dance club event was being held this afternoon, instead of its usual early evening hours, because it was going to be a farewell party, as well, for two of Mildred’s “renters,” who were leaving that night:

Gloria Solomon, who had been the town librarian for forty years, was moving into one of those assisted-living places, at her children’s insistence, none of whom lived nearby. Not that Mildred really opposed the move. Gloria was fine, most of the time, but she had become a bit senile on occasion, taking to nighttime strolls downtown in her underwear. Aside from the modesty issue, the cold temperatures posed a danger to her frail body with its susceptibility to pneumonia. Plus, she sometimes needed the assistance of a walker for support.

Harry Carder, a retired financial advisor, was going to Seattle to spend the holidays with his son’s family. Harry, before being confined to a wheelchair, had loved to dance, not so much samba, but swing, which had been a favorite for him and his late wife, Julia, a dentist. Harry would be coming back to Bell Cove, but whether to this house, or elsewhere, depended on the outcome of the visit by Mildred’s niece.

Wendy was arriving on Wednesday and staying for two whole weeks, which was both wonderful and ominous at the same time, considering her rare appearances over the years. Mildred suspected that Wendy would not like the idea of her having turned her family home into a B & B, or boardinghouse, of sorts, let alone a dance club. She might even be thinking about selling the property, a prospect too scary for Mildred to contemplate.

All these thoughts flashed quickly through Mildred’s mind as she gaped at the woman who had been her best friend since kindergarten, until that nasty business more than ten years ago when insulting words had been spoken from both sides, words that could not be taken back. This was the person who’d known her best, had shared her deepest secrets, had laughed and cried with her over big and small events in her life, and vice versa.

Mildred had been there when Eliza Metz fell in love with Samuel Rutledge. In fact, she’d been her maid of honor when they’d married and godmother to their one and only child, George. And she’d been the pillar to which a devastated Eliza had clung when Samuel had died suddenly at age fifty in a freak accident up on the mainland tree farm, then still later when her daughter-in-law ran off with her therapist, leaving George and his young son bewildered and unable to cope on their own.

Eliza had been there for Mildred, as well. When her fiancé, Barry Rogers, had been killed in the waning years of the Vietnam War. When she’d miscarried his baby a few months later. When she’d moved into this house to help her sister-in-law Anne Patterson during the latter stages of her cancer and then stayed to raise her daughter.

Ironically, both Mildred and Eliza had been called on to help raise young members of their families. For Mildred, it was her niece, Wendy. For Eliza, it was her grandson Ethan and then her great-granddaughter Cassie, who was born with a hip disease to a mother, Beth Anne, who was already in the beginning stages of MS, which turned out to be terminal a decade or so later. Because of their falling-out, Mildred had not been there for Eliza during those latter crises with Beth Anne and Cassie.

Of course they’d seen each other over the past twelve years, but only in passing. Pride and stubbornness were part of Mildred’s Scottish heritage; she had no idea what Eliza’s excuse was, if there was one, aside from anger. And hurt.

“Lize?” she said, her heart beating so fast she could scarcely breathe. “Is something wrong?” Maybe there had been some disaster at her farm. To her grandson. Or her great-granddaughter.

Eliza’s eyes, the pale blue that Mildred had always envied, misted over with tears. “Something’s been wrong for a long time, don’t you think, Mildy?”

That old pet name triggered something in Mildred, and she began to weep, too.

“I brought a gift,” Eliza said, pointing to the box on the doorstep at her feet containing a beautiful Della Robbia door wreath with evergreens and fruit and dried flowers.