Our First Christmas (41 page)

“Mom?” he asked, sending his ex-uncle a sidelong look as she quickly crossed the distance between them and threw her arms around her son. “What's going on?”

She'd cautioned both her children against coming, against risking the weather and traffic, but now she was grateful to hold him close. He smelled of cigarettes and something more, but she didn't analyze it, was just thankful to hug him. “Thank God you're here.”

“Is Dad—?”

“Doing as well as can be expected, I think,” she said, blinking quickly and clearing her throat, her thoughts turning to Chris, lying unmoving on the hospital bed still in critical condition, as she released her son.

“Can I see him?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Family is allowed, but only for a few minutes every hour and . . . brace yourself. He's still unconscious and has so many injuries and—”

”And I can handle it,” Brody cut in, and held her gaze for a moment, his back stiffening; beneath the scruffy beard and long hair she glimpsed the army medic who had witnessed more death and injuries than anyone should.

“Oh, right. Sure.” She managed a thin smile she hoped was encouraging.

At that moment, Adam stepped up, his hand extended. “Hi, Brody,” he said, flashing a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. He looked tired. Worried. Megan realized how much Chris's accident had taken its toll on Adam. “I'm glad you're here.”

“Me too.” Brody's voice didn't hold a lot of enthusiasm, but he shook his ex-uncle's hand, and if Adam noticed a coolness from the younger man, he didn't comment, just said to Megan, “I'll be back.”

“Good.”

As Adam made his way down the hall to the elevator, Brody's narrowed eyes followed him. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Your dad is Adam's cousin.”

“I know, but . . .” Brody said, disbelieving, “he works with you, now. Right?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, not wanting to go “there” with her son. “And he's off to the airport to meet Natalie.”

“Aunt Natalie? Like, his ex? Haven't they been divorced for like ever?”

“Like, yeah.”

“You were hugging him.” It wasn't a question, and he was stone-cold serious, his tone almost militant as a soft chime indicated an elevator car had arrived.

“We're supporting each other.” And that's all, she silently added, because it was the truth. No matter what she'd thought less than twenty-four hours earlier, she realized now how much she loved Chris and hoped with all of her heart that she would be able to tell him, to prove herself, to take another stab at their marriage.

Somewhere behind her the toddler laughed.

Since only one person was allowed to see Chris at a time and she'd recently been in the room with her husband, Megan walked Brody to the double doors of the intensive care unit and pressed a button. Seconds later the door swung open and, after a quick explanation to the nurse, Brody was escorted inside by one of the nurses.

Megan tried to catch a glimpse of Chris in the scant moments the door was open, but the drapes surrounding his bed blocked her view, of course. Not that she would see anything different than she had. If there was any change in his condition, the staff had promised to let her know. So all she could do was wait.

While Brody was with his father, Megan stretched her legs, walking to a vending area. Once there she saw the less-than-appetizing array of candy and crackers, then settled for a cup of coffee that she carried back to the area of couches, chairs, and tables that would probably become her home away from home for a while.

If Chris survived.

In the few moments she'd been gone, the waiting area had cleared out. Now only one other person was there; the woman with her softly clicking knitting needles remained working tirelessly as she sat in a chair near a palm tree with skinny fronds.

Brody had to still be beyond the double doors.

Good.

Carrying her cup to the window Megan, as Adam had earlier, stared out at the night. The sky was black, the parking lot now only scattered with a few vehicles. Snow continuing to fall.

As she took her first sip of the awful brew she heard the elevator doors ding and footsteps moving rapidly from the hallway to the waiting area. “Mom?” Her daughter's voice announced Lindy's arrival. The knitting needles quit their quiet clacking as the woman looked up. “Mom!”

Megan turned, sloshing the coffee at the urgent tone of her daughter's voice.

Lindy's hair was caught in a stocking cap, her ski jacket zipped over a turtleneck and jeans, her face puffy as if from crying, anger and pain radiating from her.

“Lindy!” Megan's heart cracked. She stepped toward her daughter before she spied the fistful of papers clenched in her daughter's gloved hand.

“What the hell, Mom?” Lindy demanded, dropping her backpack to glare furiously at the woman who had borne her. Her lips barely moved as she said, “Are you really divorcing Dad? I mean, really?”

“What?” Megan said, horrified, as her daughter wagged the crumpled papers in her face. “No!”

“Then what are these, huh?”

Megan's heart sank. She remembered rushing from the house, dropping the papers under the tree when she got the news of Chris's accident.

“I just go home to leave my bags, even have the cab wait for me, and when I go inside, the Christmas tree is all lit up and . . . and these damned pages are scattered under it.” Lindy was crying now, tears running down her face.

“Oh, God, Lindy, I'm sorry.” Never had Megan said those words with such meaning. She set her cup on the corner of a nearby table and straightened, staring her daughter in the eye. “I'm sorry for a lot of things. You weren't supposed to see those, and, in fact, I was going to burn them.”

“Bull!”

“No, no, I was. But not earlier. Okay, I admit it,” she said, feeling the weight of the knitter's gaze boring into her back. The needles were clicking again, but much more slowly. “I was considering it, but—”

“By ‘it' you mean divorce.”

“Yes,” Megan admitted, sick inside. “But I've had a lot of time to think things over.”

“Because Dad nearly died! That's it.” Lindy was practically hysterical. “Not because you love him. You're unbelievable, Mom!” She was sobbing now, and though Megan tried to console her, to hold her, Lindy stepped away from her mother, her face contorting with an emotion akin to hatred. “Just leave me alone,” she said, dashing her tears away with her free hand. “I just . . . I just want to see Dad.”

“You can't right now.”

“Why?” Lindy's eyes rounded in fear, and Megan mentally kicked herself.

“No, no, it's not that. He's okay, or as okay as he's been since he got here. But they only allow one visitor at a time in the ICU. Your brother's with him now.”

“Brody's here?” Lindy's voice lifted a bit. She sniffed loudly. The needles clicked, and a disembodied voice asked a doctor to call.

“Yes. He got here a few minutes ago.”

“Does he know about this?” Again the papers were shoved under Megan's nose, and this time she snatched them back, ripped them from her daughter's hand.

“No, but it doesn't matter,” Megan said, refusing to become a victim or to be browbeaten any longer. She'd done enough of that herself; she didn't need Lindy to rub it in. “Look, as I said, I admit it; your father and I, you know, we've been having problems.”

“You left him!”

Megan said, “It was mutual, and you know it. He moved out. It was a trial separation, and I thought, I really thought that divorce might be the only answer. But I was wrong. Okay. I think it's worth another chance, and, yes, of course, tonight had a lot to do with it. Almost losing your dad opened my eyes. I love him.” She said it with all the passion that burned through her. “And I don't want to split up. No matter what. The doctor says his recovery, if he gets the chance to recover, will be long. Hard. On him. On me. On all of us. But we're going to see him through it. He's moving home as soon as he's able. When he's released.”

Lindy was still suspicious, but there was a tiny gleam of hope in her eyes. “Does he know this?”

“Not yet.”

“He may not be into it.”

Megan nodded. That much was true. “Then we'll just have to find a way to convince him, won't we?”

“We?”

“Okay, me. I'll find a way,” she said, and she meant every word. She only prayed that she'd get the chance. “I thought you might want to help, too.”

Her daughter, still clearing her throat and blinking against tears, glared at her. Unwilling to trust. Unwilling to hope. When Brody came through the doors, she backed away from her mother as if Megan were a pariah and ran to her brother to embrace him the way Megan had longed to be held by her daughter. Clinging to her brother, Lindy sobbed brokenly, and Megan knew that Lindy's pain was partially her fault.

She'd never backed down from a challenge, and certainly wasn't going to start now.

“Come on,” she said to her daughter. “Let's see if they'll bend the rules a bit and let you in.” With Lindy in tow, she headed to the locked doors again, and the nurse who answered took one look at Chris's daughter and said in a hushed voice, “Okay, but only for a few minutes. Just this once.”

“Thank you,” Megan said, and watched the door swing shut. To Brody, she asked, “How was he?”

“The same.” Her son glanced down at her hands. “What's that?” he asked, pointing to the divorce documents.

“A mistake,” she said softly, and then slowly, page by page, bit by bit, tore the document to shreds and dropped the fluttering pieces into a nearby trash receptacle. “A monumental mistake.”

If Brody guessed the content of those pages, he didn't say, and when Lindy returned she, too, didn't mention the papers. As if by tacit agreement, the subject of divorce was dropped.

Megan hoped it was forever.

 

Megan and the rest of the family spent the next three days in and out of the hospital, alternately eating in the cafeteria or bringing in pizza, running back to the house for showers and to change their clothes, and camping out in the waiting area, sometimes napping on the uncomfortable couches, other times playing cards or games or texting on their phones.

For her part, Megan stayed close to the hospital. Adam and her assistant dealt with the issues at the office, clearing her schedule so that she could keep her vigil. It wasn't that big of a deal, she told herself, as she'd already slowed down a bit with her appointments for the holidays.

Natalie had arrived early the morning after the accident. Of course, she was as beautiful and regal-looking as ever. “Paris seems to agree with you,” Megan had said, marveling that her sister, now in her forties, after a red-eye across the Atlantic was still as radiant as ever when she'd walked into the hospital as dawn was just about to break.

What was more astounding was that Natalie and Adam had seemed to reconnect.

“It's nothing,” Natalie confided on the third day, though the light in her eyes betrayed her true emotions. “Adam and I are over. Have been forever.” She rolled her eyes. “Mom and Dad said we married too young, and they were right.”

The same could have been said for Megan and Chris, but Megan held her tongue as her sister prattled on. “But you know, it's nice that we don't have to be so bitter.” She looked longingly at her niece and nephew. “Maybe if we'd had kids things would have turned out differently.”

“Maybe,” Megan said.

Now, she was bone tired, far beyond weary. Chris's parents had arrived from Florida, and they, too, kept their vigil, splitting their time between the hospital and a nearby hotel. Megan's father and Lara had shown up, and they were camping out at the house, which was kind of weird, but not as weird as Natalie's staying with Adam, so all in all, Megan decided her nontraditional, splintered family was a family nonetheless.

So long as Chris survived,

 

On the fourth night Megan was in the hospital alone. It was Christmas Eve. Earlier the family had gathered for a grand Parisian dinner that Natalie had prepared. Megan had bowed out of the meal and the festivities, though the house, when she'd gone home to change, had smelled divine.

“It's all in the spices, you know,” Natalie had confided as she bustled through the house, and Megan was reminded of Christmases past, when their mother had been manning the old stove that no longer resided in the kitchen and the kids hadn't yet been born. She thought again of her first Christmas with Chris and the sleigh ride that had been their first real date after Natalie's wedding. That entire Christmas season had been magical and emotional and the start of her adult life.

Her heart tore a little at the memories, and as she drove to the hospital, listening to the same Christmas carols her radio station had been playing for weeks, she felt more than a little nostalgic, a trace of melancholy weaving into her heart.

At County General, she locked her car and wondered if Chris would ever wake up. The doctors were being cautiously optimistic, but she still had doubts.

And she missed him.

Oh, how she missed him.

When they'd been separated she'd felt that disconnect, the emptiness, but had told herself it was all in her mind. Now she was convinced she'd been wrong. The hospital parking lot was nearly empty and, as she walked through the snow that had been falling off and on for a week, she told herself to buck up, that no matter how long the wait, he was worth it.

She took the elevator up to the ICU and pressed the buttons to be let in. An unfamiliar nurse let her into the unit, and Megan noted that fewer of the beds were occupied than on the night when Chris had been life flighted to the hospital. Some of the patients had already been released to private rooms, but still he was here, connected to an array of medical equipment.

As she had every night, she walked to his bedside, sent up a silent prayer for his recovery, and took his fingers in hers. “Hey,” she said softly, a lump in her throat. The heart monitor beeped steadily. “It's me, or I, if you want to be formal.” No response. Of course. “So . . . how're you doing? You missed a helluva meal. A lot better than what you're ingesting,” she added, eyeing the IV drip. “Who would have ever guessed that Natalie was cut out to be a French chef, huh?” She squeezed his fingers and tried not to cry. She was used to this, seeing him here in clean white dressings, a hospital gown, and strapped to all kinds of machines. This was their new way of life. “Natalie is still as slim as ever, and if I didn't love her so much, I could hate her.” That was a lie, a pathetic joke; she hadn't been envious of Natalie for two decades. “So, how're ya doing, huh?” Her thoughts returned to Natalie's wedding and the night she'd first met Chris Johnson, the bold boy who had kissed her under the mistletoe.

Oh, how she wished and prayed that she could recapture some of what they'd once had. If only he would waken. She'd try. Oh, God, she'd try. If only he would stir. If only—

She felt a slight pressure on her hand.

Looking down, she stared at him. “Chris?” she whispered, hope in her voice.

Nothing.

Had she imagined it? That was it. Her damned mind, always creating fantasies, overreacting. Still . . .

“Chris. It's me. Megan.” She squeezed his fingers again. “I love you, honey.” Her throat thickened to the point where she could barely speak. “Merry Christmas.”

The silence was deafening, only the sound of medical equipment giving off the rhythmic beeps and—

Again the pressure. This time stronger. Her gaze flew to her husband's face. “Chris?” she whispered. Oh. Dear. God. Was it possible? Was he waking? “Chris?”

To her astonishment, his eyes blinked open for a second, focusing on her. His dry lips twisted a little in his unshaven face.

“Oh, God,” she cried, tears raining from her eyes as in her peripheral vision she saw a nurse hurrying toward them.

Megan clung to Chris's hand, wouldn't let go. “I love you,” she squeaked out. “I love you so much.”

His eyes slowly closed. “I know,” he rasped with difficulty, his voice so low as to be nearly inaudible. “I was . . . wondering . . . when you'd ever figure it out.”

“You son of a gun,” she said happily. “You damned son of a . . .”

“Mrs. Johnson, if you'll just step away,” the nurse said.

Never,
Megan thought, clinging to his fingers.
I'm never letting go. For as long as I live and breathe, I'm holding on to this man as if my life depends upon it.

Because, she decided right then and there, it did.

 

The next morning, hours later, while Chris was sleeping, she went home to shower and change, then sneaked through the rooms quietly, hearing her father snoring in the guest room, seeing the bluish light from the television flickering beneath the doorway of Brody's room. Her hair still wet, her jeans and sweater clean, she donned her coat again and, as she did, she felt something in the pocket.

The ornament.

Retrieving it, she glanced down at the small picture frame once again and then, with infinite care, she kissed the old photograph and tied the fraying ribbon around one of the upper branches of the tree. Then she spied the sprig of mistletoe, hung over the door as it had been for each and every holiday season of her life. The tradition was that it went up the first of December and came down on New Year's Day.

“Not this year,” she said, and, using one of the dining room chairs, she stood and pulled the sprig from its hook. Then, after returning the chair, she cinched the belt of her coat tight around her and made her way to her CR-V.

In half an hour she'd be back at the hospital, and she would wait until her husband wakened. He'd regained consciousness and by the end of the week, she'd been told, would be transferring to a private room. From there, he'd go to rehab and then return home. They'd already discussed it, and Brody, who had shaved and cut his hair, claimed he would move back and help his father. Lindy had insisted she was going to move home as well, come spring break, but Megan hoped she would stay in school and visit often.