‘Twas the Love Before Christmas

4. Noah

Chapter four

Noah

I got up early to clear off the driveway and sidewalk in front of our house, then Wally and I went for a walk. The snow had slowed us up some, but Wally had the most fun I’d seen him have in a while. As people were just starting to get out to clear out their sidewalks, some were cleared, and some were not. It didn’t seem to make much difference to Wally. In fact, he preferred running through the snow even if we had a perfectly clean sidewalk.

We walked into town, through the downtown streets, past the movie theater, the bakery, the two cafes in town, and other shops—all with windows decorated for the season—and then back home.

I took the leash off once we arrived home and then gave Wally some pets on the top of his head.

That earned me a good round of dog kisses, but I simply laughed them off and took him inside to warm up. As soon as we were inside, he hurried towards the fireplace, then turned and looked at me. It was as though he expected me to start a fire. “Good idea, boy,” I said to Wally. I set up the fireplace and lit the kindling. Soon enough, a warm glowing fire took hold, and I placed the screen in front of it. It took Wally only a moment, but he found a place to lie in front of the fireplace and wagged his tail.

I smiled a little as I watched him get comfortable. I decided it was time to make some breakfast. My parents had decided to go out for breakfast and said they’d be leaving right after Wally and I left for our walk. Wally would be happy beside the fireplace for the time being until he let me know he wanted out.

As I entered the kitchen, I found cinnamon rolls on the counter piled in glass food containers. Where had they come from? Mom hadn’t yet made the cinnamon rolls for the year, and I was sure that there was something more to be said.

However, my parents were both gone. I found a note on the counter from Mom. I picked it up, only to find that the cinnamon rolls were from Sara St. James, and Catherine had brought them over. I had fond memories throughout my younger years of eating these fresh out of the oven with fresh cream cheese frosting. They had been my favorite food from Sara St. James.

I decided to eat one for breakfast. “Mmm – so good,” I mumbled as I ate. “Just like I remember them.”

After breakfast, I checked on Wally, who was chasing something in his sleep, so I put my snow boots and coat back on and headed to the treehouse. I fondly remember playing in the treehouse with the neighborhood kids, especially Catherine. Those memories went from our childhood all through high school. As I headed out, I quietly shut the door.

As I climbed the ladder into the treehouse, I was glad my parents had at least taken care of it. Now, my nieces would have a place to play when it got warmer. They were becoming old enough to enjoy hours of fun in the treehouse with a few toys from the house and maybe some snacks that would survive the summer heat – like fruits and water bottles. Catherine and I had always had fruit snacks, gummy worms, and chocolate cream sandwich cookies. Oh, the sugar. Maybe my nieces would have healthier food for their play days at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Once in the treehouse, I found that it was pretty much the same as years ago, although Dad had replaced some of the boards. There were still plenty of scribbles from my time with Catherine up here – and one that I was not excited about having to tell my nieces the story behind. In purple marker, the night of senior prom, Catherine had marked a heart on one of the small boards in the floor and put our initials in the heart.

We had tried to make it through college. The summer after high school had been a lot of fun, but our first year of college exposed cracks in our relationship. It didn’t help that we were thousands of miles apart at different schools. A long-distance relationship after we were both so used to being able to see each other every day was hard. That first Christmas, we sat down and discussed what we wanted from the relationship. I was finding it difficult to stay in touch because I had baseball on top of my classes. She had found it difficult because of the time difference and keeping up with her studies.

We’d decided to re-evaluate at the end of the school year. It didn’t get any easier, even after scheduling a daily FaceTime. The stressors of college and the strain of long distance weren’t working in our favor. When it ended, we hoped we could get back together someday because our discussions that Christmas and the following summer had reinforced it —that we loved each other. But she loved her work as well, and I loved mine. The timing was just wrong.

All wrong. And neither of us was willing to compromise. I had too many practice hours to commit to. Catherine had too much to read, to write, and to study. That first semester had been full of heavy reading and writing courses because she had been so smart in school. If I remembered correctly, she had started in mostly sophomore-level classes in college because she’d taken college credits in high school that transferred. Neither of us was willing to move universities.

I would have needed to try out for a team in California. None of her credits would have transferred, and she would have lost an entire semester of work. Both were out of our control, but if we had planned better… could we have overcome those hurdles back then?

I shook my head and sat down on the floor of the treehouse.

Cold wood sent a shock through my system, but I had been expecting it. This treehouse had rarely been our retreat during the winter. Once in a while, Catherine and I would come up here to watch the stars out a couple of the treehouse windows. But usually, we just played in the snow and then retreated to one of the two houses. Since we didn’t have a fence between our parents’ yards, it was easy to get to either house.

I looked out the window and noticed Catherine looking out from her favorite window. I waved. She waved back, holding back a slight giggle. It was probably such a sight to see me in the treehouse again. I motioned for her to come join me.

She stared at me momentarily, and I motioned more emphatically for her to join me. She held up her index finger and then spun out of the room.

A few moments later, Catherine had made her way up into the treehouse.

“Oh my gosh, look at this place. It hasn’t changed hardly at all! Your parents have maintained this treehouse well. And it can still hold up under our weight now that we’re more than a decade out of high school,” she said as she shuffled around to get comfortable. And look at that – the heart I drew so many years ago. It’s still here,” she said with her head tilted and a smile on her face.

“Yeah, Dad replaced some of the boards but, according to Mom, that board he didn’t want to touch,” I explained. “Maybe it brought back good memories of all us kids up here playing for so many years.”

“How sweet of him. But, I will say, the height could be a little better,” she responded. “But I suppose since it was first made for kids… there’s really nothing we can do about it.”

“My nieces use it now,” I said as I motioned to some of the new toys that had been put in a bucket to be held for the winter. “Mom and Dad fixed it up so they would be able to play here just as my sister, your brother, you, and I were all able to do.”

“Oh yeah… how’s your sister, Mary, been, anyway?” Catherine asked. “I haven’t seen her since arriving in town. I think she was at the Christmas Tree lighting …”

“Her kids went to bed right before, so she was home with them,” I said. “So was her husband. But they’ll be at the parade tonight. My nieces are now on winter break as of this morning.” I laughed a little. “Remember those times? Man. It feels like forever since our only issues were when we’d get out of school for Christmas break and how long that break would last.”

“And whether our teachers would be nice and not assign any homework over the break,” Catherine chuckled. “Though, I suspect your nieces aren’t old enough for that worry yet?”

“No. They’re six and eight,” I replied. “The biggest issue they have every Christmas is which house will be more decorated for the holidays – my parents’ house or my sister’s. And this year, Mary decided she would have Christmas at her house, so there are only a few Christmas decorations here at home. Kinda sad.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t put some more decorations up if you wanted to,” Catherine said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time with all that your parents do around the holidays. My parents already have everything all setup, and I feel a little left out because I couldn’t fly out sooner to help them with the decorations.”

“Well, you made it safely, and you’re home for the holidays,” I said. “That’s more than some can even hope for right now. That storm we got last night is supposed to be just the first of many snowfalls this Christmas season, and some places got hit hard. It’s going to delay a lot of planes.”

“Yeah, I consider myself lucky that I could fly in at all. There’s been a rash of canceled flights all month,” Catherine said. “Any plans for the rest of the week?”

“I have a bit to do, and I’m thinking about putting my parents’ Christmas tree up on my own. Perhaps you’d like to come over to help me do that sometime?” I asked.

“I’d love that, but I should be getting back home for now. My parents have a lot they want to get done before the parade tonight. I’ll see you there – at the parade?”

“Yup. Sounds good,” I replied.

After she left the treehouse, my heart continued to race. Just as we had said long ago, some feelings remained unfulfilled. She hadn’t said anything about them. Perhaps she had forgotten how we had ended things, wishing we could someday find our way back to each other. I could never forget how her voice cracked or how she had been unable to meet my eyes when she shared that she loved me, but it was just too hard to do it right now.

Just too hard… the words echoed in my head as if she had just said them as she left. My hand went to my arm, a reflexive move now that I could feel some leftover pangs of pain when I wasn’t careful. As much as I was trying to keep myself happy for everyone else, it was hard to realize that my career had ended after only a decade.

I was only thirty-one, after all. I needed something to do with my life. I had planned on playing baseball until I was thirty-five or thirty-six. Everyone had warned me that my career would peter out in my thirties, but not like this. Not by an injury, but because I simply couldn’t keep up with the game any longer as I got older, though there were the odd forty-somethings in the league these days.

And as much as I loved my job, this injury simply wouldn’t allow me to play any longer at the level I wanted to. Maybe I could do something with the youth in high school and college for the winter fitness camps. They always needed people for those, but that probably wouldn’t be possible until February at the earliest.

I shook my head and headed back inside. There was plenty to do around the house —lights to hang, decorations to dig out, presents to wrap —and not enough time to do it all before the parade tonight.

***

When the time for the parade finally came around, I had done my best to shove all thoughts about my career to the back of my mind. Christmas season with family was not the right time to think about all of that, especially when my nieces were asking a flurry of questions about what they would see at the parade as we lined up to see what was going on.

“Will we see large floats this year?”

“Probably,” I said as I helped Jess fasten her coat, having come undone after we got out of the car. “You know, Jess, I’m sure you’ll see the same things we’ve seen in the past. You’ll see floats and trucks decorated with lights, there’ll be Christmas music and Santa’s elves walking down the street throwing candy to all you little munchkins, and you’ll even see Santa Claus ! And with all the snow cleared by now, I’m confident the parade will go off without a hitch.”

Jess giggled. She was only six, but there was a lot of bubble in her personality. The eight-year-old Vanessa was slightly more reserved, but I could tell it was because she was exhausted. My sister and brother-in-law had taken them to see Santa at the mall today before the parade, and things like that overwhelmed Vanessa sometimes. Despite being home the rest of the day to let her recover, I could tell she wouldn’t last long at the parade.

“Here you are, Vanessa,” my sister said as she held out a pair of noise-canceling headphones. “That should help in case you get any more overwhelmed. Do you remember what to do if you need to go to the car?”

Vanessa nodded and then tugged twice on her mother’s coat arm. My sister smiled.

“Good. Now, enjoy the parade as long as you feel you can, all right? If you need to leave early, there’s no shame in that,” she said. Then, she turned to me. “Would you be willing to take Vanessa to the car if she needs the quiet?”

“Of course, Mary,” I said. “Vanessa, do you want me to move your chair over here, and I can stand behind you?”

Vanessa’s eyes widened with a sparkle while I moved her chair. I smiled back and kneeled down to make sure she was comfortable.

“Well, this is a surprise.”

I looked up as someone bumped into me since I was only half-crouched on the ground now. Catherine smiled down at me.

“Hello, Catherine. Oh, Catherine, this is my niece, Vanessa. Vanessa, this is my friend, Catherine.”

Vanessa waved with a soft smile.

“Hi, Vanessa. A pleasure to meet you,” Catherine said before turning back to me. “Do you mind if I stand here next to you?”

“That’s fine by me,” I said.

Catherine held a large camera in her hand as if she were going to take photos and write an article about it. No matter where she was, she couldn’t escape the writing. I laughed a little as she stomped her feet to keep herself warm as she stood beside me, just as she used to do when we were in high school, and she was taking pictures at the outdoor winter events for journalism.

“What?”

“Nothing, Catherine,” I replied. “But you’re the same woman I remember from journalism class sometimes, with that camera.”