A Knights Bridge Christmas

“You’ve met him,” Maggie said knowingly. “What do you think?”

Clare considered a moment. “I think he’s the sort of man who knows how to get what he wants.”

“Daisy knows how to get what she wants, too. Trust me, if she hadn’t wanted to make this move, she’d still be living around the corner. But I think her fall scared even her, and she hates to be a bother.” Maggie peeled off her apron and tossed it onto the back of a chair. “If you need any help with decorating, you know where to find me.”

Clare thanked her and left with Owen. She turned her attention to his day, but as they drove out to their small apartment in a converted nineteenth-century sawmill, she thought of the faded photograph of Daisy Farrell’s house decorated for Christmas so long ago. For whatever reason, she’d latched onto the candle in the window. That, for sure, Clare thought, she and Logan could manage.

Two (#ulink_7289d2e0-2a82-5431-969c-09bca2c5090a)

“Bah,” said Scrooge, “Humbug.”

—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

LOGAN ARRIVED AT his apartment in a high-rise in Boston’s Copley Square in time to get ready to meet friends for dinner. He pulled off his overcoat and headed into his bedroom. A quick change of clothes, and he’d be off to a hip, expensive restaurant. It wouldn’t be a late night. He had to be at the hospital early. But as he pulled off his clothes, he felt dusty and tired, not from hauling boxes—from the emotions of the day.

Not like him, he thought.

He’d run the Boston Marathon. He’d survived the long hours and hard work to become a physician specializing in emergency medicine. Physical and mental fatigue he knew how to manage. Emotional fatigue...

He shook off the thought of it and forced himself not to give in to the mess of emotions that had been swirling around in his head since he’d arrived in Knights Bridge last night. He put on fresh clothes and headed out, walking over to Newbury Street and the trendy restaurant where his friends already had a table.

“How is sleepy Knights Bridge?” Paul, another ER doctor, asked when Logan joined him and his wife, Josie, a pediatrician.

Logan couldn’t help but think of his grandmother spending her first night in her new apartment. Was she lonely? Disoriented? Immersing herself in memories of her home on the town common?

“Logan?” Paul shook his head. “That sleepy, huh? You’re zoned out.”

“Sorry. Long day.”

“How’s your grandmother?” Josie asked.

“Settling in. She’s putting on a brave face, but it can’t be easy moving into a new place after all this time.”

“But she’s thought about it,” Paul said. “She’s known this day could come.”

“Not one for denial, you Farrells,” Josie added with a smile.

“That’s true. Gran’s one of those people you think will always be around. She’s in her eighties, and I know better—I know there are more days behind her than ahead...” Logan didn’t allow himself to go far down that road. “I like to think she’s genuinely excited about her move into assisted living.”

“It needed to be done,” Paul said.

Josie rolled her eyes. “Mr. Sensitivity.”

“What? It’s true, isn’t it, Logan?”

“We could have arranged for her to stay at home. She needs assistance. She knows that. She says moving into assisted living allows her to be independent and still get the help she needs at this season in her life.”

“You sound like a brochure for the place,” Paul said. “Martini?”

Logan smiled, pushing past his melancholy. “That sounds perfect.”

But his mind drifted to Clare Morgan, the new Knights Bridge librarian, with her pale blond hair, blue eyes, freckles and shapely body beneath her winter layers. He’d observed a distinct back-and-forth in her between a spine of steel and a heart of gold. She’d pegged him straight off as an SOB. Not that he hadn’t contributed to her opinion, but he suspected there was more to it than his impatient exchange with the receptionist—for which he’d apologized, again, before leaving his grandmother. The receptionist had taken his impatience in stride. He suspected she’d seen a lot in her work, but that didn’t excuse his rudeness.

He tuned back in to the conversation with his friends. He ended up enjoying the evening—the martini, Paul’s irreverence and Josie’s sense of humor helped—but when he walked home, he noticed the festive lights and decorations celebrating the season and realized he hadn’t paid attention until now. He’d yet to put up a tree in his apartment. He doubted he would bother. What was the point? He didn’t entertain there, and he had no woman in his life. He remembered going out to the old Farrell farm on the outskirts of Knights Bridge as a boy with his grandfather. They’d go out into the fields and cut a Christmas tree. His own life had been in suburban Boston, not in Knights Bridge. He’d loved his grandfather, but when he’d died two years ago, Logan had realized how little he knew about Tom Farrell’s life. His father had left Knights Bridge for college and life as a lawyer in the Boston suburbs. No one had been more surprised than Logan when his parents had decided to retire to the Farrell farm—just not right away. They were presently on a Christmas Market cruise in Europe.

Logan stood in his living room and looked out at the city lights. When his phone rang, he was surprised to see it was his father. “Is it snowing?” he asked when Logan picked up.

“Not at the moment.”

“We have just enough snow here to keep things festive.”

“It’s six hours later there. What are you doing up?”

“I’m somewhere between East Coast and Austrian time. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help your grandmother move. I called at eight. She said she was about to tuck herself into bed. She seems content.”

“I think so.” They chatted for a few minutes about the move. Logan remembered the photograph his grandmother had pinpointed in the album. “Do you know if the Christmas of 1945 has any particular meaning for Gran?”

“It was the end of the war. Her father survived. He served in the Atlantic in the navy. He died when I was twelve, but he never talked about his war years—I’m not sure he would have with me, since I was just a kid. He and my grandmother lived with us. She died a couple of years after he did. The war...”

“A long time ago,” Logan said.

“For us. For Mom, it must feel like the blink of an eye.”

Logan stepped back from the window and its familiar view. “The local librarian is going to help me decorate the house.”

“Good, because one thing we Farrell men have in common—Pop, you and me—is not having an eye for decorating. You’ll need the help.”

“Do you ever wish you’d become a firefighter?”

“Many times. Pop was proud when I decided to go into the law—Mom, too. They said they understood I needed to be in Boston, but I’m sure they secretly wished I’d opened up a practice in Knights Bridge.” He chuckled. “Well, in Mom’s case, not so secretly, but she got over it.”

“No regrets?”

His father was silent a moment. “Not when I see you and your sister, no. You’ve taken on a demanding career. The burnout rate for emergency physicians is pretty high. Take time to have a life, son. The work is good, but it will always be there. My pop used to tell me that. I wish I’d done a better job of listening.”

Logan shifted the subject to his parents’ cruise, but it was obvious his father was fading. After they disconnected, Logan took a shower, which he wouldn’t have time for in the morning, his head swimming with memories. His grandfather’s funeral, the church overflowing with well-wishers, Gran stoic but ever so sad. She was doing fine health wise, but given her advanced age, anything could happen anytime. She knew it, too. But she would tell him every day mattered, regardless of one’s age.

By the time he collapsed into bed, he was happy that he had three twelve-hour shifts before his return to Knights Bridge.

* * *

Friday arrived faster than Logan had anticipated. He’d left clothes and toiletries at his grandmother’s house and only stopped at his apartment long enough to grab a pair of winter boots. He didn’t know why he’d need boots to visit his grandmother and decorate her house, but it seemed like a good idea to have them for a December weekend in Knights Bridge. He hadn’t checked the forecast. For all he knew, they could be in for a blizzard.

The drive west was uneventful, with reasonable traffic and no snow or the dreaded “wintry mix.” By the time he wound his way into Knights Bridge, the stars were out. Every house and business on the common was lit up for the holidays—except his grandmother’s house. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed before that it wasn’t decorated. He’d been preoccupied with the practicalities of her move, he supposed.

A few people—both adults and children—were skating on the rink on the south end of the common, their graceful and not-so-graceful moves silhouetted under portable lights. He’d gone skating with his grandfather a few times, never his parents or his grandmother. He couldn’t remember the last time he and his old grandpa had hit the ice together, but Tom Farrell had skated until his last two years of life. Bundled up, Daisy would sit on a bench on the rink and watch him, her own skating days having ended in her early seventies.

“Eighty and out skating, Grandpa,” Logan said aloud as he pulled into the driveway next to the house. “Not bad.”