An Evergreen Christmas (16 page)

Holly snuck into her “call room” for a quick stop in her bathroom, leaving Noel a modicum of privacy. She straightened out her ponytail that had gone askew somewhere between Clifford’s emergency surgery and her night dozing in Noel’s embrace.

They happened to exit “their” rooms at the same time.

“Ready?” Holly asked with an arch of her brows.

Noel nodded with a sheepish grin. “Absolutely.” Then he whispered, “To be continued at a later date.”

Holly smiled back. “Absolutely.”

Holly and Noel walked side-by-side, close but yet maintaining professional decorum, to the 6 West nurses’ station.

The nurses whipped their heads toward Holly and Noel, and the unit clerk spun in her chair to face them.

The clerk crossed her arms across her ample chest. She peered over the rim of her glasses and grinned. “Oh, well, well. Good morning there Doctors Green and Shepherd. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Someone had a not so silent night. Merry Christmas.”

Holly glanced down at her wrinkled scrubs and then at Noel’s equally rumpled ones. Heat spread clear to the tips of her ears.

She smiled and quickly nodded. “And Merry Christmas to everyone.” Holly eyed the fresh on call team. “Rounds?”

Candice Baxter popped her head around the corner. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re right on time, Ms. Baxter,” Holly said without any bite to her voice. She winked at Candice. “Merry Christmas.”

Candice widened her eyes. “And Merry Christmas to you, Dr. Green.”

Before parting for their respective holiday relief teams, Holly reached for Noel’s hand. Their fingertips discreetly touched.

“See you at 4 o’clock?”

Noel grinned clear to his cheeks. “I’ll be there at three.”

Chapter Thirteen

Holly hummed all the way to the parking garage while swinging her key ring on her finger, her breath floating in puffs that whisked over her head. Clifford had made a miraculous recovery, check out rounds cranked like clockwork, and she was going home! Holly grinned. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Noel’s face when he opened his present. Holly recalled hiding the key ring she had bought Noel in the hatbox. Now she’d dive right back into that box. Holly danced on balls of her feet, frigid, as she shoved the key into her car door. She shimmied inside it. Her shoulders shook. Holly rubbed her gloved hands together. She gave the steering wheel a happy tap and started the car. Soon Noel’s touch would warm her from her giddy head to her frosty feet.

It had stopped snowing and the roads had been plowed and salted, making the drive home smooth. As Holly pulled into the driveway, the car crackled over the salt crystals. She had just opened her car door when something buzzed past her ear. She jerked backwards, right onto an ice patch. Her heart pounding, Holly grabbed the car door handle halting her from sliding in her boots into a full split.

“Oh, my gosh! Dr. Green. I’m so sorry,” yelled Sam as he crossed the street cradling his remote control to the toy helicopter, now sticking tail up in a snow bank, not looking in either direction as he ran toward her.

The oncoming car stuttered on its brakes, fishtailing towards the boy.

“Sam!” Holly screamed. “Watch out!”

A horn blared as Sam skittered across the road. Holly pushed off her car and pumped her hands as she sprinted toward Sam. She clutched him to her chest. Together they tumbled onto Holly’s driveway. The boy’s rapid-fire heartbeat shot straight threw her coat, thumping wildly against her quivering beats. Holly stood and pulled Sam up with her. The woman driving the car flew out from her open car door. She ran towards Holly and Sam.

“Oh, my,” she said, half panting, her breath hanging erratic in the cold air. “Are you all right?”

Holly clutched Sam’s hand. “We’re okay. How are you?”

The woman’s finger’s trembled. “I’m, uh, stunned. I’m sorry. I didn’t see the little boy. Everything happened so fast.”

Holly rested her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said. She glanced down at Sam whose eyes were wide as saucers. “We’re all okay. Thank you for stopping to make sure. Have a Merry Christmas!”

The distraught woman quickly nodded. “You, too.” She patted Sam on his head. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Maybe better play in the back yard. Merry Christmas.”

Sam lowered his eyes contritely, “I will ma’am.”

The woman gave a nervous wave from her window as she drove off with barely her foot to the gas. Holly plunked the crashed helicopter from the snow. Shaking it clean, she handed the toy back to Sam.

Holly hugged him. “I don’t think it’s broken. She gazed at Sam with a partly pensive and a partly admonishing look. “Christmas present?”

Sam twisted his lips. “Yeah. Right out of the box.”

“Sam! You get in here this minute,” his mother called from the open door.

“I’ll be right there, mom.”

Holly raised her hand and waved to Sam’s mom. “I’ll walk him over, Mrs. Roberts.”

Holly strode next to Sam, restraining from holding his hand. Humiliation on any day would stink, but this was Christmas. She waited for Sam to trudge to the door stoop.

Mrs. Roberts waved back. “I’m sorry Sam nearly beaned you with that helicopter, Dr. Green. It was his father’s idea of a gift!”

Holly waved back. “It’s okay. It was an accident. All good now! Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas to you and your family, Dr. Green.”

She waited for the door to shut. Holly shook her head.
Poor Sam
. She’d send over some chocolate chip cookies to him later.

Holly hopped over the ice patches and skipped up her porch steps. She stuck her key in the door, but it was unlocked. Holly eased the door open. A swirl of hot turkey and nutmeg spiced apples teased her nose. Her lashes webbed with tears.
Mom’s apple pie!

“Hello? Mrs. Shale?”

She always went to Aunt Mae’s for Christmas Dinner. What was going on?

Aunt Mae popped her head around the corner of the kitchen. “Oh, Holly! You’re home. Her aunt strode towards her, wiping her wet hands on her poinsettia print apron, stopping a few feet before Holly. Aunt Mae’s chest rose up and down beneath her apron. She drew a deep breath, her eyes never wavering from Holly’s. Aunt Mae swiped her hands one more time. “I thought we’d have Christmas dinner here, in your house, since Mrs. Shale’s already over here, and, uh, I didn’t want to tire her out.” Aunt Mae waved her hands defensively. “I’ll do everything. You just rest. Long night, dear?”

Holly didn’t answer her. Instead she threw off her coat and hat and tossed them on the coat rack. She peeled off her boots, and then ran in her stocking feet right into Aunt Mae’s arms. Holly sobbed on her aunt’s shoulder, inhaling the holiday kitchen scent in the fibers of her apron.

“I love you, Aunt Mae.”

Aunt Mae stroked Holly’s hair. “Bad night, Sweetheart?”

Holly gulped back her tears. “Unbelievably bad and unbelievably good.” She snorted and pulled away from her aunt’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay,” Aunt Mae said softly.

Holly kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for doing all this.”

Aunt Mae raised a pensive brow. “Really? I can stop now and take all the food to my house.”

Holly squeezed her. “Don’t you dare!”

Aunt Mae tapped Holly on her shoulders. “Go take a nice hot shower and a nap. I’ll wake you up when dinner’s ready.”

Holly squinted. “Uh, Aunt Mae. I invited Noel.”

Aunt Mae raised her arms and then cupped Holly’s cheeks. “Oh, how wonderful, child! You belong together. I’ll set an extra plate.” Her aunt then narrowed her eyes at Holly, but her lips curled into a smile. “Something indeed happened at that hospital.”

“It did, Aunt Mae. It did.”

Holly turned around, and was about to head upstairs, when Noel’s bare evergreen tree stared right at her. She froze. The tree sat in the corner of her living room, aching for ornaments to dangle from its plump branches.

Aunt Mae rushed over to Holly and put her arm around Holly’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, dear. There’s no one to pick up the tree on Christmas Day. We had to leave it there, at least until tomorrow.”

Holly darted her eyes to the boxes of ornaments surrounding the tree, one with its lid ajar. It was the same box Holly had opened the other night, the one with her snowman.

“Oh...” Aunt Mae sighed. “I was so busy with preparing dinner that I forgot to put those boxes back into the attic.”

“That’s okay,” Holly said softly.

She eased from her aunt’s embrace and inched toward to the tree, kneeling in front of the forgotten evergreen she had unknowingly chosen. Holly gently lifted the stray lid off the ornament box housing her snowman. She reached inside it and pulled the aged, but still glittery bulb by its silver metal hook, dangling her favorite childhood ornament from between her fingers. The snowman danced before her eyes. Holly softly laughed, mesmerized by the jolly little guy as if this was the first time she was seeing him. And after all these years, tucked away in a box, it certainly seemed all so new to her. But it wasn’t. Ever since her father had bought her that snowman, it was the first one to grace her family’s Christmas tree and the last one to be put back into the box, stored safely away in the attic until the next Christmas. Next Christmas never came after the accident, her snowman sealed from her sight. Till now.

In the hush of her living room, Aunt Mae’s breaths dove in between Holly’s flaring puffs as she raised the frosted, snowman bulb high above her head. Her father had used to swing his big arms around her waist and lift her up, holding her tight as she hung her beloved ornament high in the tree. Now Holly could easily reach it, but she’d give anything to feel his arms once again. The tree branch responded with a slight bounce as Holly clipped her snowman into place. She gave a short sniff before turning around to face Aunt Mae.

“How does it look?” Holly asked.

Aunt Mae clapped. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. Your mom and dad, I know, are smiling right now. So proud of you, and the woman you’ve become.”

Holly ran to Aunt Mae and melted in her aunt’s embrace. It was not her father’s or her mother’s arms, but the arms that blanketed her were from the woman who loved her just as much. And hopefully Noel’s touch would be next.

“I’ll finish the rest of the tree before dinner, I promise,” Holly sniffed.

“It’s okay. Slow down, dear.” She winked at Holly. “Perhaps Noel will help you decorate the tree. The two of you did pick it out...in a way.”

Holly jerked back from Aunt Mae. “Noel!” She glanced at her watch. “Two o’clock! He’ll be here in an hour. I better getting ready.” Holly kissed Aunt Mae on the cheek and bolted up the staircase. She had to get to that hatbox stashed in the back of her closet.

***

Holly quickly showered and then rummaged in her closet in her bathrobe and bunny slippers, her wet hair wrapped in fluffy white towel turban spiraling up from her head. She gently shoved out Aunt Mae’s and Mrs. Shale’s wrapped presents; a quilted throw for Mrs. Shale and the single cup coffee maker that Aunt Mae had had her eye on all year, vowing she was going to get one of those one of these days. She drew a deep breath.
It has to be here somewhere.
Her heart raced as she swept her hand across the top shelf in her closet. There it was, the hatbox containing Noel’s gift, hidden behind a stack of scarves. She grabbed it off the shelf and ran to her bed. Holly tossed the hatbox onto the bed and flipped off the lid. The red-boxed leather keychain she had bought him lay at the bottom nestled in white tissue paper. The tissue crinkled as Holly flung it aside, pulling out Noel’s present like a pearl from an oyster. Her eyes widened. Wrapping paper! Shoot! I never wrapped it. Holly stamped her foot. She had placed what remained of decades old paper back into a plastic sealed container in the attic, amazed the paper still crisp and the print bright.

The attic stairs groaned as Holly unfolded them. Her toes curled in her bunny slippers with every grip of wooden stair. She climbed up into the frosty attic. Her shoulders quivered and her teeth chattered while she popped the lid on the container. Holly bowed her head. Yes! Just enough wrapping paper left over for Noel’s gift. She pulled out a square of deep blue paper with white snowflakes and closed the lid, promising herself she’d refill that container for next Christmas. Down the stairs she went, clutching her prized paper. Folding the stairs back into place, Holly dodged back into the bedroom. She wrapped Noel’s present with neat little corners, sealing the box with sparkly white ribbon. She glanced at it, tapping it with happy accomplishment as if she’d just performed the most intricate surgery. Now to work on presenting herself!

Holly blow-dried her hair, curling it into gentle waves, and applied her make-up with a light touch: a dab of foundation, a flick of blush, a whoosh of bronze eye shadow, and a stroke of mascara. She smiled at her reflection, this time not escaping from the mirror. Just enough make-up on without hiding behind it, she mused.

Pattering back into her bedroom, Holly slid into the black dress that had made it out of her closet for a record three times. She just finished shimmying into her stockings when the doorbell chimed, its announcement echoing up the stairwell. Noel! She glanced into the dresser mirror and patted her hair. Holly smiled, baring her teeth, making sure they harbored not a dab of food or dot of lipstick. She shifted her gaze to the framed picture of her parents and her, their last Christmas time photo, and the two ornaments hanging from the corners, her parents’ last one and the one Mrs. Shale’s had given her. She eased both off the frame and blew her parents a kiss. “Merry Christmas Mom and Dad,” she whispered to them.

With an ornament in each hand, Holly slipped into her bunny slippers without giving it a thought and slowly descended the stairs, a huge smile on her face, as if everyone had waited for her debut. And there was Noel, at the bottom of the stairwell, his hand on the polished banister, clean shaven, a chocolate brown dinner jacket with creased pants to match, a wave of his hair teasing his forehead, and a smile rivaling the one she couldn’t help etch across her face. Who knew that only a few hours ago they were in wrinkled scrubs with mussed hair and sleep in the corners of their eyes?