Abby's Christmas

Noah took one step in the same direction.

“And don’t think you’re bringing that dog into my house,” she said, without looking back. “I won’t have any filthy animal in my home.” The screen slapped shut, then the front door.

The dog squirmed in his arms, but Noah stood still. His first impulse was to run as far and as fast as the full tank on the bike would take him. His second impulse was to slam inside the house and tell the bitch exactly what he thought of her, then take off for the farthest corner of the country.

“Noah?” He’d forgotten Abby entirely. “Noah, I’ll take the dog.”

He looked over at her, not understanding. “What?”

“I’ll take the dog home with me. We’ve got a fenced yard and an enclosed porch where he can sleep.”

“I can just—” He didn’t really have another option. “I guess that’ll work for tonight.”

“What’s his name?” she asked, reaching around the dog so that she was practically in Noah’s arms. He got a whiff of the sweet flower scent in her hair. When she drew away, with the animal cuddled against her own chest, he missed her warmth.

“I don’t know.”

Her eyes widened. “You didn’t name him?”

“No. I didn’t—” This might not be the best time to confess that he hadn’t planned to keep the mutt. “I didn’t have time to think up a name.”

“I guess not.” Her smile was a flash of brightness in the darkening afternoon. “We’ll work on that tomorrow. See you then.”

“Sure.” She made tomorrow sound like something to look forward to. Noah watched her leave the yard and cross the street to her car, an old red Volvo, where she settled the dog on the passenger seat before getting in herself. The sound of the engine, when it finally started, called for a major tune-up, but Abby gave him a cheerful wave and another smile before she pulled away from the curb.

As she left, Noah realized his first impulses had weakened, letting a certain degree of reason take hold of his brain. He wasn’t going to run out on his mother again. Not before they’d had a chance to…settle things. Not before he made sure she would be taken care of for as long as she needed. He owed her that much.

So he opened the screen and pushed back the door into the house. A wave of heat hit him—the thermostat must be set at eighty degrees—along with the scent of onions and hot grease. His stomach churned, but he forced himself to walk to the kitchen.

His mother glanced at him. “I was beginning to think you’d just run off again.” With a tilt of her head, she directed him to the table by the window. “I was cooking when you showed up. Sit down. Go on, sit. This’ll be done in a minute.”

Noah eased out of his jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. Even his sweatshirt was too hot. Since he wasn’t sure he was staying, though, he wouldn’t take it off.

“There.” A plate thumped onto the table. She still used the same dishes he remembered from fifteen years ago, made of unbreakable white glass, with blue flowers around the edges. Two hamburgers anchored the meal, framed by a pile of potato chips and a couple of pickles.

“Here’s some rolls.” A bowl of hamburger buns plopped onto the table. “I’ve got mustard and mayo. No ketchup.”

“This is good, Ma. Thanks.” He only hoped he could eat without choking.

She set a soda can by his plate, and then brought her own dinner plus a cola to the table and joined him. Her eyes closed. “Thank you, Lord, for this day and the blessings it has brought. Amen.”

Noah barely got his own eyes shut before she finished, and was a little slow in opening them. The first thing he saw was his mother’s fork, carrying a piece of dull gray hamburger, pointing into his face.

“So why don’t you tell me,” she suggested, “just where you’ve been for the last fifteen years?”

He took a deep breath.

“And why the hell,” Marian Blake continued, “you bothered to come home now?”

CHAPTER TWO

The Diary of Miss Abigail Ann Brannon

September 2, 1981

Dear Diary,

The first day of fifth grade was just like the last day of fourth grade. We got our books and they all look boring. Why do we have to study North Carolina history? We live here, so what’s to learn? I want to know about England and Africa and Japan. No such luck.

They mixed up the kids in different classes, like they do every year. Dixon and Rob and Jacquie are with me in Mrs. Davis’s room, but Adam and Pete have Miss Lovett for a teacher. We get to see one another at recess and lunch, though.

Mrs. Davis made us sit in alphabetical order. How stupid is that? The boy in the desk next to mine is Noah Blake. He’s shorter than me and really skinny. I heard he went to Porter Elementary but got transferred to New Skye Elementary because he caused so much trouble. I didn’t see him do anything wrong today. His T-shirt was too big and his jeans were too short and his arms were covered with purple bruises. He didn’t say anything all day, and sat by himself at lunch and recess. I think he’s scary.

And I think Dixon has a crush on Kate Bowdrey. I’m glad it’s not me—boys are too much trouble.

April 1, 1982

Dear Diary,

Mrs. Davis assigned partners for our end-of-the-year project today. April Fool’s for me—I have to work with Noah Blake. He hasn’t said a word to me all year long, now we’re supposed to work together on the biggest project all year. We have to pick a historic building, make a model and write about it. A North Carolina building, of course, not something neat like the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower. We got fifteen minutes at the end of the day to talk about what building we want. Noah just shrugged when I asked him what he wanted to do. But when I named some buildings—the state capitol, the courthouse here in New Skye, the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras—he rolled his eyes or sneered. He doesn’t like my ideas, but he doesn’t have any of his own. Stupid boy. I don’t think he has lunch money—I hardly ever see him eat.

June 4, 1982

Dear Diary,

This was the last day of fifth grade and the worst day of my life. I stayed up until almost midnight writing the paper for my history project with Noah. He built the model of Fort Fisher at his house and was bringing it in this morning for our presentation. When I got to school, the model was on my desk—smashed to pieces, like somebody punched their fist into the fort about ten times. Noah didn’t show up for school. I read the paper to the class, and Mrs. Davis said she wouldn’t take marks off on the model—you could tell it had been beautiful, made out of little sticks like the boards at the real fort, with bunkers covered by green felt for grass and a flag and cannons. I don’t know what happened to it. I’m wondering if Noah’s okay.

August 13, 1982

Dear Diary,

I saw Noah at the county fair tonight. I was behind this guy in line, and something about his shoulders, about the way he stood, made me sure it was him. But he was with a girl—she looked like she was about sixteen. I didn’t say anything to make him turn around. I decided I didn’t want a funnel cake after all and went for a pretzel instead.

He looked really cute.

September 4, 1982

Dear Diary,

The first day of middle school was weird. Changing classes freaks me out—I’m sure I’m going to be late every time. I have at least one class with just about everybody I know, but I only have lunch with Pete and Adam and Rob. Dixon still stares at Kate like he could eat her up, and she doesn’t even realize it.

Even weirder than the classes was when Noah came up behind me at the water fountain after lunch. I turned around and—boom!—he was there. I had water dripping off my chin, of course. He grew about six inches over the summer, because he’s taller than me now. His jeans weren’t too short. He had a black eye, and his hair was longer.

He said he was sorry about the history project last June—he’d tripped when he was carrying it in and smashed it all up. I said it was okay, because I got an A on the paper. He said Mrs. Davis made him write a paper on his own and he’d managed to pass. I asked him about the black eye, and he said he got hit by a baseball he meant to catch. Why do I feel like that’s not how it happened?

I thought about him a lot this summer, and I can’t stop thinking about him now that I’ve seen him again. But we don’t have classes together and Dad wants me to start working afternoons at the diner to give Mom a break, so unless Noah comes over after school, I probably won’t see him at all this year.

He won’t miss me. And I shouldn’t miss him. But sometimes when Mrs. Davis would say something really silly, I’d see Noah trying not to laugh. I’m going to miss sharing the laughs.

I’m going to miss Noah, period.

STOPPED AT THE RED LIGHT two blocks from home, Abby glanced down at the dog on the passenger seat. “What am I going to do with you? You’re too dirty to let into the house, and I’m pretty sure you have fleas, because my arm itches. Where can I get you a bath?” He hunched his skinny shoulders but wagged his tail at the same time. “That’s not an answer.”

In the end, she left Noah’s dog with Carly Danvers, a friend from high school who’d built a nice little business grooming and boarding dogs. Carly promised to bathe and dip the little guy and then leave him on the porch at the Brannon house when he was dry, with food and water and a soft dog pillow to lie on. All he needed now was a name.

That would be Noah’s contribution, Abby hoped.

She returned to the diner well before the dinner rush started, to find her dad stressing out over her absence.

“You just lock the place up and disappear?” Charlie Brannon stood in the kitchen with his hands on his hips, a squarely built man with the posture and haircut of a marine drill sergeant. “You don’t call or leave a note? I was looking in the broom closet, expecting to see your body headfirst in the mop bucket.”

Abby winced and went to fold her arms around his bulky shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be gone long enough for you to notice.” To be strictly honest, though, she hadn’t given him a thought since Noah had walked through the diner door.

“Yeah, well.” His voice softened with the hug. “Where’d you go?”

To gain some time, she shrugged out of her coat and went to hang it up in that same broom closet. “Um…I went to see Mrs. Blake.”

“Weren’t you there just yesterday? She call you and complain, as usual?”

“No, no.” Abby took a deep breath. “Actually, Noah stopped by this afternoon.”

“Noah?” Her dad’s heavy dark brows drew together. “You mean Noah Blake?”

“That’s right. He’s come back.”

“What’s that troublemaker want here? I thought he was gone for good.”

“He’s not a troublemaker, Dad.” The accusation made her furious.

“I don’t know what he’s like now. But when you kids were in school, he raised more hell than this town could handle. Including burning down the school two weeks before graduation.”

“He did not burn down the school.” She stomped into the cold room, brought back the pot of stew she’d made for tonight and slammed it onto the burner. “Nobody burned down the school—there was a fire in the principal’s office, that’s all. And Noah didn’t set it.”

“Of course he did. I saw his motorcycle over there not ten minutes before the fire truck showed up. So why is he back now?”

“He didn’t say.”

“And why did you go to his mother’s house? Did he forget the address?”

Abby bit her tongue. “He thought he would…surprise her. But I thought Mrs. Blake might need a little support, since she’s been sick so much. So I went along to…smooth the way.”

“Did you?”

Trust Charlie to ask the really hard question. “I…don’t know.” Bitter and sick, Mrs. Blake was never easy to get along with. But her reaction to Noah’s arrival hadn’t been anything like Abby expected. “Noah brought a dog with him, a stray he rescued on his way here.”

Charlie snorted in disbelief.

“And the dog got loose in the flower beds—”

“And Marian Blake started squealing.”

Abby sighed. “Something like that.” With belated guilt, she realized she should probably warn Charlie about the dog.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” her dad said, starting on the salads for dinner. “Bad enough the boy didn’t let her know he was coming. Showing up with some mutt has to be the stupidest thing he’s done in a while. I was there the day in third grade when Marian got chased across the playground by a dog. German shepherd, it was.”

He shook his head. “Dog just wanted to play and when Marian ran away screaming, it thought she’d invented a new game. By the time the rest of us kids got there, the shepherd had her flat on her back under the pine trees and was licking her face off. She didn’t come back to school for a week, she was so hysterical.”

“That’s horrible.” Abby stirred the stew and then went to the pantry for cans of green beans. Noah couldn’t know his mother’s story, or he wouldn’t have brought the dog home with him. But there was obviously no hope of convincing his mother to take the poor animal into her house. Which meant…

“So you chased the dog off, and then what?”

“We didn’t exactly chase him away.”

“Well, Marian didn’t change her mind after all this time.”

“N-no.”

Charlie glared at her. “Don’t tell me that.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me you kept the stupid dog.”

“You don’t know it’s a stupid dog. You’ve never even seen it.”

“I don’t have to see a stray to know I don’t want it.”

“He’s sweet, and scared to death.”

“If he’s in my house, he’s got a good reason to be scared.”

Hands on her hips, Abby glared at her dad. “I live there, too. And I’ll put my dog on the sunporch with a blanket and a bowl of water and some food.”

“It’s not your dog, it’s Noah Blake’s dog.”

“I’m keeping it.” She’d had no intention of doing any such thing when she took the dog home, of course.

Charlie pinned her with his drill-sergeant glare. “Abigail Ann Brannon, I will not—”

Out front, the bell on the door jingled once, and again, and yet again. The dinner rush was starting.

“We’ll discuss this later,” he promised, and left the kitchen. Abby heard his brusque voice out in the dining room, greeting familiar customers. She stood still for a few seconds longer, recovering from the argument with her dad. When was the last time she and Charlie had seriously disagreed?

Never, was the first answer that came to mind. Sure, they argued a lot. And he could be hard to get along with sometimes. But she hadn’t seriously defied her dad since she was fifteen and wanted to attend a summer camp in Wyoming. Her parents had said no—they needed her to work in the diner. She’d given them the silent treatment and sulked through the entire summer until she went back to school and saw Noah again. They hadn’t talked much, except when she passed him a few sheets of paper if he needed them, or a pen when he didn’t have one. Just seeing him had always made a major improvement in her day.

And she hadn’t seen him in fifteen years.

“Fried chicken, stew and meat loaf,” Charlie announced as he came into the kitchen. “Hamburger, cheeseburger, tuna sub, grilled cheese and soup. Two more stews.”

Abby shook herself from head to toe. Time to get to work. “Right. I’ve got the grill. Two burgers and a grilled cheese, coming up.”

NOAH FOUND IT AMAZING that his mother still watched the same roulette-wheel spelling show and supply-the-question quiz program after dinner as she had when he’d been in high school. The sitcoms that came afterward had changed actors, if not story lines, but after half an hour of watching, he felt sick to his stomach. Or maybe that was the hamburger.

“I’m gonna go see a couple of people,” he told his mother during a commercial break. “I still have my key, unless you changed the locks.”

She stared up at him for a long minute. “No, I didn’t change the locks.” As he crossed to the front door, she said, “Do you want breakfast?”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Sure.” He hadn’t been given the choice for years. “That’d be good.”

“You better show up in the kitchen at eight, then.”

“I’ll be there. ’Night.” If she responded, he didn’t hear her.

Standing outside the chain-link fence, he stopped to take a deep breath of cold, dry air. He hadn’t remembered the house being so small, so…so tight. On the other hand, he must have had some reason for running away, right? Besides knowing that if he stayed, his life would be over before it began.

With the Harley rumbling underneath him, Noah admitted to himself that he didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Most of the guys he’d hung with in high school were probably in jail. Even if they weren’t in the joint right now, they surely had been, and seeing them could constitute a violation of his parole. Not a smart move for his first week of freedom.

The nightly rituals in the neighborhoods south of Boundary Street hadn’t changed in fifteen years, either. And they differed not at all from the usual agenda on the “bad” side of most towns he’d ever been in. The bars did a booming business. Working girls lingered on street corners and beside alleys. He fielded a couple of waves as he waited at a stoplight, remembered how long it had been since the last time, and gave the possibility a second’s consideration—until Abby’s sweet face appeared in his mind’s eye.

Suddenly, a hooker in black leather and chains didn’t seem to be what he needed. With a shake of his head and a lift of his hand, Noah rolled on down the hill, to another light and through an intersection, then into the gravel parking lot of the Carolina Diner.

The lights were still on and half a dozen cars sat in the parking lot. He’d be safe enough going in for a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of pie. He remembered liking Charlie Brannon’s chocolate pie.

As the door shut behind him, he realized he’d made a mistake. Every table in the room was empty except for a few square ones pushed together in the center, where people sat with papers spread out in front of them, working.

Working, that is, until they all stopped and turned to stare at him. Noah felt his cheeks heat up at the same time as he started to recognize the faces. The names popped into his head a second or two later.

Abby got out of her chair and came toward him, one hand extended. “Noah! It’s good to see you again.” Before he could back out, she caught his wrist in her cool fingertips. “I’m sure you’ll remember almost everybody here.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt….”

“You’re not.” The tall, brown-haired guy at the end of the table got to his feet, offering a handshake and a grin. “Welcome back, Noah.”

“Dixon.” Noah gripped Dixon Bell’s hand. “Thanks.”

Dixon turned to the woman in the chair next to him, who was standing as well. “You remember Kate Bowdrey? She’s now Kate Bell.”

“I remember she was the smartest person in the class.” He smiled at the slender and beautiful Mrs. Bell. “How are you?”

“Glad to see you again.” To his surprise, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been gone too long.”

All of a sudden, he was surrounded by people he’d gone to high school with, returning handshakes and hugs, trying to catch up with a lot of changes very fast. Kate’s sister Mary Rose, as blond as her sister was dark, had married Pete Mitchell. Adam DeVries, who didn’t seem to stutter anymore, was the mayor of New Skye and married to a woman named Phoebe. Jacquie Lennon was now Jacquie Lewellyn and shoeing horses for a living, which meant she must still be horse crazy.

And Abby was still Abby. “What can I get you to drink?” With her hands on his shoulders, she leaned forward as he sat in the chair she’d just left. “More hot chocolate? Iced tea? Coffee?”

“I came for coffee. And—” He glanced around the table to see that most of the others had enjoyed some kind of dessert. “And some chocolate pie?”

“You got it.” Her hands tightened for a second before she let go. Noah noted a sudden hollow in his chest where his breath used to be. He turned to Adam, on his right. “Looks like there’s some serious planning going on tonight.”

“We’re the committee for the big Christmas Dance. Or maybe it’s called the Reunion Dance.”

“Holiday Reunion Dance,” Jacquie put in from across the table. “Our fifteen-year high school class reunion is gonna be a holiday bash.”

“Fifteen years?” Noah said. “Hard to believe it’s been so long.”

“Or that we’re so old.” Abby set a mug down by his left hand. “I still feel eighteen.”

“I usually feel like I’m eighteen when I get up in the morning,” Pete said with a grin. “But by the time I get home, it’s a lot closer to thirty-three.”

After more than two years in prison, Noah felt as if he was closer to fifty. “Uh…sounds like a good time. Do you expect a big crowd?”

The question did what he’d hoped, which was to get all of them talking, explaining the plans for the dance, the guest list, the decorations and music. All he had to do was nod and listen and try to make sense of this unfamiliar world he’d stumbled into.

Abby brought him his pie and then sat in an empty chair across the table. Between bites—the pie was every bit as good as he remembered—Noah took the opportunity to watch her with her friends. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, so he could see the long column of her throat and her delicate pink ears, dusted with the same freckles that sprinkled her face. Her hazel eyes glowed as she talked, and a smile always hovered around her sweet, full lips. She was the most alive woman he’d ever seen. And the most desirable.

Not in this life. He gave himself a mental punch and refocused his attention on the discussion.

“What we need to decide is how to decorate the gym,” Jacquie said. “People will feel like they’re supposed to play basketball if we don’t do something.”

“We can hang mistletoe from the hoops.” Dixon winked at his wife, who blushed.

“It’s drafty in there, too.” Mary Rose pretended to shiver. “My dress has short sleeves and a low back.”

Pete put an arm around his wife and gave her a squeeze. “That’s why we’re going to do lots of dancing. Slow dancing.” Noah noticed for the first time that Pete’s left arm was in a sling, under which he wore a cast from shoulder to fingertips.

Abby rolled her eyes. “After two years, you two still act like newlyweds. Consider the rest of us who aren’t so besotted, why don’t you? Noah, what do you think?”

He put his hands up in defense. “I don’t have a clue about stuff like this.”

She frowned at him. “You’re not helping.”

That was supposed to bother him? He started to shrug, then realized he didn’t like disappointing Abby. “Well, you could make a smaller space within the gym, if you used dividers of some kind.”

“Dividers? Like screens?”

Noah nodded. “Yeah, or curtains. I think there are curtains on stands you can rent for that kind of thing.”

“Or we could build something easily enough,” Adam said. “Plywood sheets and two-by-fours would do the job. Paint them whatever color you want and make a room within a room. Good idea, Noah.”

“Red and green for the season?” Pete suggested.

“We could do holiday designs.” Mary Rose sat forward to look at her sister down the table. “Or use wallpaper.”

“Or wrapping paper. Or…” Kate thought for a second. “Or we could paint a whole scene on the boards. A party scene, with Christmas decorations and trees and people—”

“A snowy landscape,” Jacquie said, “with horses and sleighs and lighted houses.”

“We could do a street scene—downtown New Skye all decorated for a white Christmas.” Abby’s face shone with pleasure. “We haven’t had snow at Christmas here since I was six. But we could paint one, and maybe even scatter snowflakes on the floor and hang them from the ceiling. Coach Layman is making us put mats over the floor as it is, so piles of fake snow shouldn’t be a problem. And we could dance in the snow without getting cold!”