Tap. Taptaptap.
Sam shifted position and squeezed his eyes more tightly shut against the sound.
Tap. Taptaptap.
A glass-banging woodpecker.
Tap. Taptaptaptaptaptap.
"Sam."
A talking glass-banging woodpecker? Now it was getting weird.
Sam yawned, opened his eyes, then sat up straight. What the hell?
His wife was peering at him through the icy window of his Chevy.
"Wake up, Sam!" She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her nose against the glass. "Are you okay? You're scaring me."
He was scaring himself. The last thing he remembered was dropping Riley off for choir practice.
He popped the car door lock and Sharon raced around to the passenger side and jumped in.
She grabbed his hand. “What on earth is going on?”
“Other than the fact that I feel like a jerk?”
Some of the tension left her face. “We’ll save that for later.”
“I guess I fell asleep.”
“In a freezing car in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“Looks like.” He frowned. “You didn’t walk here, did you?”
“I hitched a ride with the Harrisons and don’t change the subject.”
She knew him too well.
“Maybe we’d better take you to the hospital,” she said.
“I’m embarrassed as hell, but I’m fine.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Thank God the engine wasn’t on. You might have been asphyxiated.”
How did he tell her he had been spending time with his dead sister?
“You’ve been working too much overtime,” she said as he parked the car in the lot behind the church. “That stops now.”
They exited the Chevy and he eagerly gulped in the cold, fresh night air in an attempt to snap himself back into the moment.
“It’s not the overtime.”
She made an impatient gesture. “What else could it be? You go in at the crack of dawn. You haven’t taken a day off since we moved back here.”
“I saw Erin.”
Who knew someone’s jaw could actually drop?
“Okay,” Sharon said, her voice shaky. “Now I know we’re going to the hospital.”
“I don’t know how it happened, but she was here.”
His wife’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, honey, you’re just tired. That’s all. It’s a bad time of year. It stirred up old memories.”
She was right. Christmas was a bittersweet time of year for him, stirring up old memories and fresh guilt.
It wasn’t your fault, Sam. I wasn’t waiting around for you. I was on my way to get married.
Had Erin been there or was he nuts? He wanted to believe his sister had been in contact with him but Sam was a realist to his bones. The only logical conclusion, the only acceptable one, was that he had dreamed the whole encounter.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said to Sharon as they climbed the just-shoveled steps to the church. “I was probably dreaming.”
“Of course you were,” she said, squeezing his arm. “It was just one of those dreams that seem more real than real life. We all have them now and then.”
He pulled open the heavy wooden door and stopped in his tracks. He sniffed the cold, snowy air.
“Do you smell Ambush?”
Sharon shot him a look. “I haven’t smelled Ambush since I was fifteen years old and getting ready for my boyfriend’s junior prom. I’m not even sure they make it any more.”
“You really don’t smell it?”
Okay, so he’d gone a step too far. Sharon, a registered nurse, was giving him her “you need a CT scan stat” look.
But that didn’t change the fact that the scent of Ambush was in the air.
The choir’s Christmas concert was a smash. Riley’s voice soared to the rafters and brought tears to more than a few eyes.
“She’s a treasure,” one of their neighbors gushed as Sam and Sharon beamed with pride. “That girl is going to go far.”
Sharon beamed with pride. Sam did, too, but as much as he loved his only child, he’d had a tough time keeping his mind on the concert. He kept looking over his shoulder, half-expecting to see his dead sister smiling at him from the next row.
But that was crazy, right? He kept telling himself that it was only a dream, that once you were gone, you were gone, and all the wishing and hoping in the world couldn’t bring your dead loved ones back. Not even for a moment.
He didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t believe in celestial visits. He didn’t believe his sister had taken him on a family joy ride in his Chevy.
But he knew that something strange and wonderful had happened earlier that night and, unless he missed his guess, it was only the beginning.
Riley excused herself and raced upstairs to her room not long after they got home from the concert. She was glad her parents decided they wouldn’t stay for midnight mass. During the last rehearsal she had had the strangest feeling that she was being watched, which was really kind of stupid since she was the solo singer in a holiday concert and very much wanted an audience for the performance.
Mostly she wanted to put the finishing touches to the collage she was making for her grandfather. She hadn’t started it with him in mind but as she worked on it, it became more and more clear that the piece should belong to him. Maybe the Barnes family couldn’t work out their differences in real life, but there on the heavy sheet of poster board, she could bring them together.
She had copied Grandpa Harry’s address off the internet and entered it into her smartphone along with a few numbers for taxi services. Her debit card was tucked away in her wallet. All she had left to do was finish the gift and she’d be ready for what came next.
In the morning she would ask her father one more time if he would drive her over to Rocky Hill but she didn’t expect he would suddenly have a change of heart. He said Grandpa Harry was stubborn, but it was pretty clear to Riley that stubbornness was a family trait they all had in common.
She tried to imagine what it would be like to meet Grandpa Harry but her usually vivid imagination went dark. She saw herself marching up to the front door clutching the collage to her chest. Heart pounding, she would ring the bell, then listen for the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, the click-click of locks being unlocked.
And then the door would swing open and she would be face to face with her grandfather for the very first time.
He would be tall and handsome, the way he looked in the photos, maybe a little older. Okay, maybe a lot older. But he would still be tall and strong and he would know who she was before she had a chance to tell him. He would have tears in his eyes as he gave her a bear hug and just like that, the Barnes family would be reunited.
Or maybe not.
Maybe he wouldn’t answer the door. Maybe he’d take one look at her and slam the door in her face. Maybe he wouldn’t be home at all and the whole thing would be for nothing. By this time tomorrow, she would know.
She gave a little shiver as she climbed under the covers and turned out the light.
It took the smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying the next morning to rouse Sam from bed and lure him downstairs.
“About time,” Sharon said, offering him a mug of Kona. “I must say you look more rested than you have in months.”
“I feel more rested,” he acknowledged. “I haven’t slept that well in years.”
“No more dreams?” She couldn’t quite keep the note of worry from her voice.
“No more dreams,” he said. Whatever it was that had conjured up his sister from deep inside his memory had vanished and that was okay. For a moment he had almost believed the encounter had been real, but he was back again on solid ground.
“Riley’s still asleep?” he asked, adding sugar to his coffee.
“I heard the shower,” Sharon said, pouring herself another cup. “She’ll be down soon.”
“Remember the days when she’d wake us at dawn to see what Santa brought?”
“Now we’re down here at dawn waiting for her.”
They were halfway through their breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon when Riley appeared in the doorway.
“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” Sharon said. “Sit down and have some breakfast.”
“I’m going to see my grandfather,” she blurted out, “and you can’t stop me.”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” Sam said with a shake of his head.
“Merry Christmas,” she repeated, a little less fierce this time. “I’m going to see Grandpa Harry.”
“No breakfast?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Have some breakfast,” Sharon urged. “We’ll talk.”
“I don’t want to talk,” Riley said. “I’ve made up my mind.”
The girl was a Barnes through and through. Strong, stubborn, decisive. Admirable traits out there in the world, but sometimes hard to handle in the confines of family dynamics.
“It’s too far to walk,” Sam pointed out. “How do you plan to get there?”
“If you won’t drive me, I’ll call a cab.”
“Do you have money for a cab?”
“In my savings account. I’ll use my debit card.”
Sharon was watching him carefully, waiting for him to take the lead.
If this was life with a twelve-year-old, he didn’t want to contemplate what the teen years had in store for them.
“Why don’t you think about it for a few days? Give everyone a chance to shovel out.”
“The roads are passable. I checked online.” She gave him a sharp look. “Besides, he only lives a few miles away.”
“And you can’t wait.”
“I don’t want to wait. It’s Christmas. It won’t be Christmas tomorrow.”
He couldn’t argue with the logic.
Or the sentiment behind it.
Something in Sam’s heart shifted, like tectonic plates far below the surface of the earth.
“Okay,” he said. “Get your coat. I’ll drive you.”
Riley’s eyes widened comically. “Is this a joke?”
“No joke. It’s time you met your grandfather.”
Riley looked skeptical. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” he said. “No strings. You were right. I hope I was wrong. We’ll know soon enough.” It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but it was the best he could do. The thought of his daughter’s tender heart being bruised by her grandfather’s indifference worried him, but maybe it was part of growing up. It was time they found out.
Sharon looked like she was about to cry with happiness. “Give me five minutes to change,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”
Riley was giddy with excitement. “Let’s take him one of our cinnamon coffee cakes.”
“Maybe some Christmas cookies and eggnog, too.” Sharon seemed almost as happy as their daughter.
He wished he shared their optimism but there was a better than even chance this wouldn’t end well.
“Wish us luck, Erin,” he murmured, just in case he hadn’t been dreaming last night after all, while his wife and daughter talked about cake and cookies.
It looked like this would be a Christmas to remember.