Chapter 6
6
Holly
December 19
Hudson Valley, New York
Holly is dreaming that a woodpecker is tapping on her frozen heart, attempting to crack it open. Tap, tap, tap. Her heart is a block of ice. Tappity, tap, tap. “It’s no use,” she says to the woodpecker. “Just give up. It’s too frozen.” Still, the tapping continues until eventually Holly realizes it’s not a dream—the knocking noise is real. What’s also real is the freezing cold. She’s under a pile of duvets, and she still can’t feel her toes.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Holly! Are you in there? Everything okay?”
Oh, crap . Holly hops out of bed and sees from her vantage point in the sleeping loft that Aiden is standing on the snow-covered front deck, in the morning sunlight filtering through the evergreens. She checks her watch: 9:15. She overslept, and now Aiden is here with the new rental contract.
“Sorry!” she calls out, hopping on one foot, then the other, as she pulls on her socks. “Be right there!” She finds a scrunchie and pulls her hair into what she hopes is an artfully messy bun, but has a feeling is just chaotic-looking, then climbs down the ladder.
It’s only when she’s nearly at the door that she remembers which pajamas she pulled on in the darkness the night before: A gift from Ivy for Holly’s most recent birthday, they’re printed with photos of a young Holly in various poses with her childhood cat. There’s eight-year-old Holly and Mr. Snuggles dressed as twin pumpkins for Halloween. Holly grinning with braces, holding Mr. Snuggles over her head like he’s Simba from The Lion King . Holly and Mr. Snuggles during their “adventure cat” phase, taking backpacked walks along the Brooklyn Bridge or at Coney Island.
“Good morning!” she says brightly, hoping to draw attention away from the pajamas. Luckily, the temperature inside does that instead.
“It’s just as cold in here as it is outside,” Aiden says as he steps through the door. “What happened with the woodstove?”
“Oh…I guess I slept so late it went out.”
“You might want to use the main fireplace and then add the pellets after for long-term burning when the weather is like this. I should have mentioned that last night.”
“I’ve got it. Just a sec.” Holly clumsily works at relighting the fire, determined to prove she is still the capable, high-achieving girl he met in high school.
“A little kindling and some crumpled newspapers will probably help,” he finally ventures.
“Kindling. Right.” There’s a box beside the stove filled with twigs. She reaches for a handful of it and throws them into the woodstove’s maw. There’s another little box filled with newspapers, so she starts crumpling up sheets and stuffing them in.
“That should be enough,” Aiden says eventually. She holds the lighter to the pile until some of the newspaper catches, then the kindling. Moments later, the woodstove is ablaze, and she lets out a little cheer.
“Second time I’ve ever done that,” she says—and sees him frown. “Aiden, I have to admit something to you. I have never stayed in an off-grid cabin or lit a fire in my life.”
He smiles now, still looking bemused. “So I was gathering. I love seeing someone so happy to get a fire going, though.”
“A true accomplishment for me. If we were still in high school, I probably would have tried to turn hybrid stove lighting into some kind of competition. You were very kind yesterday, but I was a little…intense as a teenager.”
He’s looking at her closely. “I didn’t see you that way,” he finally says. “However,” he continues, “the Holly Beech I knew in high school didn’t really seem like the roughing-it type.”
“And she still isn’t. But I won’t be a burden to you while I’m here. I promise. Now that I’ve figured out how to light a fire, I’m pretty much set. I don’t really plan to do much for the next couple of weeks except…” Wallow. Attempt to cry. “Not much.”
Now he tilts his head, quizzical. “But it’s the holidays.”
“I know it seems unorthodox to be spending the holidays alone, but I…” I was supposed to get married a few days ago, and be spending my honeymoon in Hawaii right now. Except the night before our wedding, my fiancé dumped me for another woman named Abby, and if I can stop myself from googling her today, I’m going to reward myself with a pint of Ben each one played the sound of Holly’s voice naming a different emotion, need, or desire when Mr. Snuggles pressed it. After months of training, she was quite confident she had successfully tapped into her cat’s deepest thoughts and emotions. In front of the entire school, in the auditorium, Mr. Snuggles had hit the buttons for “I’m bored” and “I’m hungry” before sounding the “I’m getting angry” button ten times in a row, then hissing at the principal. Still, despite the drama, she’d won the gold medal for what the science fair judges called “potentially pioneering research into the inner lives of animals.”
“Sadly, he died a few years ago—but Mr. Snuggles lives on in these pajamas, which were a gift.”
As Aiden’s eyes roam up and down her pajamas, Holly feels her cheeks flush deeper and her heart rate accelerates. Is she ever going to get used to the fact that Aiden Coleman had a serious glow-up? To cover her nervousness, she keeps talking. “When Mr. Snuggles died—he was eighteen—Ivy and I took a road trip to spread his ashes on Cape Cod because I thought he would be happiest living out his eternal life with access to so much fresh fish. That’s my best friend—the one who originally rented this place from you.”
He looks up. “Right. Speaking of which, let me just have you sign this new contract and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You’re not in my hair!” Self-consciously, she raises a hand to her messy bun. “I mean, something might be in there, a bird’s nest, maybe. But you can come by anytime.” She fans her hot face as subtly as possible while he fishes a pen out of the pocket of a soft-looking flannel under his jacket, then hands her the contract.
Holly walks over to the breakfast bar and places it down to read it quickly—the lawyer in her won’t let her sign anything without reading it first, even those incredibly long privacy updates for cell phones and social media accounts. Eventually, she signs on the dotted line. “There we go,” she says, handing the contract back to him. “All sorted. Again, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you it was going to be me here and not Ivy.”
“It’s no trouble, really. It’s been nice to see you again after all these years.”
“It has been.” As he starts toward the door, she calls out. “Wait—you said last night there’s a grocery store in Krimbo, right? Is it open on Sunday?”
He frowns. “There’s a grocery store in town, but it snowed all night and is still snowing now.”
She gazes out the window. “You’re right. It’s so pretty out there.”
He shakes his head. “I noticed you don’t have winter tires on your car. I don’t think driving in this weather is the best idea.”
“I really need groceries,” Holly says. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”
“There’s a bridge heading into town that gets icy when the weather’s like this. I can’t let you go out there in that car in this weather. I’ll take you in my truck, okay?” He glances at his watch. “I have an errand to run out here first. It won’t take too long.”
He shrugs on his jacket and stands waiting, and she realizes he thinks they’re going to leave right then.
“I’m not quite sure I’m ready to debut my sleepwear to an entire town, even a small one,” she ventures.
“Oh, right.” He laughs. “You need to change. I’ll wait in the truck.”
Upstairs in the loft, Holly ducks down as she changes quickly into yoga pants and a gray-and-white Fair Isle sweater, feeling a small flare of irritation. Surely it’s not that bad out. Couldn’t she drive herself? She steps over to the mirror and attempts to tame her morning hair, finds mint gum in her purse to deal with her morning breath, and tells herself that will have to do. The pulled-together, ultracompetitive, brainy girl he met in high school doesn’t seem to exist anymore anyway—and no amount of lying about her current circumstances is going to change that. Holly draws a shaky breath and shoves another piece of mint gum in her mouth for good measure. Then she pulls on her snow boots and parka and heads out across the satisfyingly crunchy snow to Aiden’s truck—but just as she approaches, he opens his window.
“There are reusable shopping bags in a basket by the door,” he calls out. “So you don’t have to get plastic at the store.”
Holly retrieves the reusable bags from the cabin and takes out her phone, quickly texting Ivy, her fingers flying across the screen. Not that it was on the table anyway, but there will be no fling with Eco Superman , she types. Because: 1. This morning he saw me in my Mr. Snuggles pajamas, and not because he slept over. 2. He is the Tracy Flick of environmentalism, not to mention road safety. A bit annoying.
She puts her phone away and gets in the truck. For a while, the only sounds as he drives are his wheels on the snowy road and the shush of his windshield wipers doing their job against the falling flakes. “This truck is so quiet,” she finally ventures into the silence.
He glances at her. “That’s because it’s electric.”
After another few minutes, she tries to make conversation again. “Wow, it really is coming down out there.”
Aiden glances over, and it’s almost as if he’s forgotten she’s there. “This is just a regular day around here, which is why it’s good to have a truck.”
It happens so suddenly it surprises even her. “Look, I didn’t plan this out!” she explodes, all the pent-up emotion she brought here from the city bubbling forth like the mountain spring Aiden showed her the night before. “I don’t have a car with snow tires! I didn’t bring any food! I always forget my reusable shopping bags when I go grocery shopping, and I didn’t know what a hybrid woodstove even was until yesterday. I would love a case of bottled water because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get water from a stream without falling in. I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m not the smart girl you used to know in high school! But people change, okay?”
He doesn’t say anything in response to her outburst, which makes the fact that it happened at all feel ten times more mortifying. Holly runs her hands over her face and swallows hard, blinking away the tears that have sprung to her eyes. She feels awful. But she’s also aware that something amazing just happened. For the first time since Matt told her the wedding was off and she realized that the happy ending she’d been marching toward for the past ten years of her life was nothing but a mirage, Holly experienced something other than a dull, aching chasm of nothing. She felt .
“I’m sorry, Aiden,” she says. “I’m going through a hard time right now. That wasn’t fair.”
He’s silent for another long moment, and she worries he’s going to pull over and tell her to get out of his truck. “Actually, it was fair,” he finally says. “You already told me you were going through some stuff and needed a quiet getaway. You’re on your own during the holidays, and that can’t be all that easy, but I pressed you on it when it was none of my business. I can be a little…blunt, sometimes.” Now there’s something in his tone that makes Holly wonder what his stuff is. She has her head so firmly buried in her own problems—but Aiden has a life, too. And no one’s life is perfect. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about anything. I guess I’ve spent a lot of time on my own, doing things my way.”
They’re pulling down a residential driveway now. It winds and meanders through dense rows of evergreens, which shed feather-like flakes of snow in the gentle wind that rustles through their branches. Aiden stops talking and negotiates a particularly sharp turn in the driveway while Holly takes in this startlingly magical new setting. Moments before, they were on a rural road, but now it feels like she’s entered another world—a world out of one of the fairy tales she read as a child. The truck is approaching an old Victorian house that looks like it has been decorated with thick icing rather than snow. It’s tucked into a backdrop of snowy hillsides and more towering pines that look like they’re wearing cozy white fleece jackets. The brick of the home is a soft yellow-gray shade, the gingerbread trim and wraparound porch a vibrant red. It all looks straight out of a Trisha Romance painting. Holly reads a faded and peeling yellow-and-green-painted sign just beyond the house: “Plaskett’s Christmas Tree Farm.”
“But all the trees here are huge,” Holly says, the intense moment with Aiden all but forgotten now. “Is this a Christmas tree farm for giants?”
“It’s not exactly operational anymore. Carole Plaskett died a decade ago, and George kept it all going as best he could, but he’s pushing ninety now—though you’d hardly know it, he’s doing great. The town uses his trees for all the events we can manage where larger ones can work, in the town square, for example, but mostly this place is just a forest now.”
“A Christmas tree forest,” Holly breathes. “How magical .”
Aiden is smiling. “Everyone in town agrees with you on that, which is why we all do what we can to help George stay out here, where he’s happy. We’ve had a few town meetings about it, and everyone is unanimous that he should stay in the house as long as he can—in part because care homes don’t let in cats, and his cat, Mrs. Claws, is the other love of his life, since Mrs. Plaskett died. So we’ve basically divided up his care. He has a trusted live-in personal support worker—Drew Winchester, from town—and then we also make sure he gets at least one visitor per day. We’ve got a rotation going. Which makes it sound like work, and it isn’t. We all love George.”
“You have town meetings about how to take care of someone? That’s really sweet, Aiden.”
“It’s just what the town is like.”
He shuts off the engine and turns to her. “Holly, before we go in, I want to finish the conversation we were just having. We’re adults now, not kids, and life has happened to both of us. In many ways we aren’t the same people—but for the record, I still feel sure you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met. I’m sorry if I did or said anything yesterday or today to make you feel otherwise.”
His words catch her off guard. But he doesn’t appear to need or want her to respond, even if she could think of something to say. With that off his chest, he reaches into the back seat and pulls out a small doctor’s bag while she feels a sensation that is growing familiar: that of her heart being slowly but steadily warmed by his presence. “Okay, let’s go. George will be happy to meet you. He always loves guests.”
“Why the doctor’s bag?”
“Recently, Mrs. Claws developed a kidney issue. Every three days, she needs what I can only describe as a form of cat dialysis. I’m not sure how that job fell to me.” He shrugs. “So…that’s what I’m here to do.”
“You’re here to give an elderly man’s cat dialysis?”
“Yes.”
“And the entire town has meetings about how best to care for this man and keep him in his home?”
“Yes.”
“And you use an actual little mini doctor’s bag for this task?”
Now he looks embarassed. “I know it seems silly, but George gave me the bag, so I use it.”
They walk up to the house, and Aiden rings the bell, waits a moment, then opens the door. It gives a soft creak. Inside, the place is bright and homey. It smells like cinnamon and cloves, cedar and pine. Woodsmoke. There’s a Christmas tree in every room, and each is decorated with old-fashioned ornaments, tin soldiers, dancing Nutcracker ballerinas, hand-sewn snowmen, strings of cranberries and popcorn, dried orange slices, little clementines studded with cloves tucked onto the branches.
“It smells so good in here,” Holly says. “Just like Christmas is supposed to smell.”
Aiden smiles as he leans down to take off his boots. “Yeah. This place really is Christmas, to all of us in town. I guess that’s why we work so hard to make it a good place for George to keep living in. We do it for him—but we do it for us, too.” He pauses, thinks. “We all know he can’t live here forever, but it means something, to the entire town, to try to keep him here.”
“Aiden, my boy, is that you?”
There’s a creaking on the stairs and a man comes into view. His hair is pure white, his eyes a bright, twinkling gray-blue, his face an inviting map of storytelling wrinkles, his body slightly stooped from the years he has carried. His movements are slow and careful, but when he makes it to the bottom of the stairs, he moves toward them with a youthful vigor. “And who have you brought with you?” he asks, extending his hand.
“This is my friend Holly,” Aiden says. “We went to high school together. She’s staying at the cabin up on the North Service Road, and we’re running our errands together today.”
George’s eyes light up even more. “An old high school chum, how lovely! Simply a delight to meet you, Holly. And what a festive name you have.”
She’s startled by a warm, fuzzy rub against her leg and looks down to see an extremely fluffy white cat with a red collar and eyes just as bright blue as George’s looking up at her. “This must be the famous Mrs. Claws.” Holly reaches down to pat the cat’s pillowy fur. The cat flops down onto the rug and closes her eyes. A purr starts up, strong as a lawn mower’s motor. Mrs. Claws stretches out her body, luxuriating in the pats Holly is giving her.
“Ah, well, I wouldn’t go as far as famous ,” George says, but Holly can tell he’s pleased at the idea. “She was only in the one commercial, back when she was a kitten—and that was my Carole’s doing. She was as bad as one of those pageant parents, now wasn’t she, Aiden?”
“Mrs. Plaskett loved this cat more than you did, which is an impressive amount,” Aiden agrees.
“But at least I don’t go as far as dressing her up like Carole did,” George says with a chuckle. “That woman. Always made our lives fun.” He lets out a small sigh, and Holly can feel how much he misses his wife. “Anyway, come in, come in. Usually Mrs. Claws runs away when you get here, Aiden, but she seems to like your friend.”
They head into the living room, which has cream-and-red-striped wallpaper, a soft cream-colored rug, and a fireplace ablaze in one corner, warming the room. An ottoman near the fire is draped with a fuzzy green blanket. “Got your operating table all ready for you, as always. Thanks to Drew. Come on, missy, up you go.” To Holly’s surprise, the cat leaps onto the ottoman and lies down, almost doglike in her obedience. “Now, perhaps since you’re here, Holly, you can save me bending down and just hold her there gently?”
Holly kneels by the ottoman and places her hands on the cat, who starts purring again.
“You seem to be a cat-lover yourself.”
“I had a cat growing up—a big tabby named Mr. Snuggles.” She catches Aiden’s eye, and he winks at her. She strokes Mrs. Claws’s forehead for a moment. “Mrs. Claws seems to be of the same ilk.”
Aiden has the needle ready. Holly keeps stroking the cat and chatting with George.
“There, all done,” Aiden says.
“That was fast, even for you, Dr. Coleman.”
“I’m becoming an expert at this. Perhaps I should think about training to be a vet.”
“You’ve got the brains for it. You could do anything.”
“Agreed,” Holly says, smiling up at Aiden. “He was the smartest person in our entire high school.”
“Tied for first,” Aiden says, waving her compliment away with a bashful look.
Mrs. Claws rolls over for a belly rub and Holly focuses on patting her, just for a moment, until George says, “How about a cup of tea, you two? I know the town has me on a visitation schedule like I’m some sort of feeble old person who needs to be watched over”—he winks at Holly—“but surely I can handle two visitors in one day? ’Tis the festive season, after all.”
Aiden glances at Holly. “Holly does need to get into town to run some errands.”
“I’m in no rush, and I’d love a cup of tea, George.” The truth is, Holly doesn’t want to leave. George’s home is so warm, inviting and Christmassy in a way Holly has never experienced. She wants to soak it all in, just a little more.
“Let me fix the tea,” says Aiden, and heads for the kitchen. Soon he emerges bearing a tray, and George thanks him, then turns back to Holly.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything fun to offer you in the way of snacks to go with the tea. Unless you want to eat sugar-free biscuits, which, let’s face it, no one does,” George says.
“Hot tea is perfect,” Holly says, pouring in a little milk. As she stirs it, she gazes out the window at the Christmas tree forest. “Your home and your property are so beautiful, George. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
George’s tone is proud as he says, “Plaskett Farms is a special place indeed. Three generations it’s been in my family, and it’s always been a Christmas tree farm.” The merry twinkle in his eyes dims a few watts. “Sometimes, I worry about what might happen to it, when I can’t live here anymore. There are always developers sniffing around. I can’t imagine these trees ever being gone.”
“Let’s not worry about that today,” Aiden says, but Holly can tell from his expression that he is worried, probably worries about it all the time. She feels a wave of admiration for the studious boy she used to know in high school, who has clearly grown into a compassionate man. Meanwhile, Mrs. Claws hops onto George’s lap, and Holly can hear purring from across the coffee table. As they continue chatting, George’s eyes start to droop a little. He stifles a yawn. “How rude of me.”
“Not at all,” Aiden says. “We should get going. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Thank you, my boy. And lovely to meet you, Holly. I hope you forgive me for not seeing you out, but…”
“A sleeping lap cat must never be disturbed. Especially one as sweet as Mrs. Claws.”
“I hope I see you again before you go back to the city?”
“I hope so, too,” Holly says, genuinely meaning that.
As Aiden’s truck meanders back down the driveway, through the fairy-tale forest and out onto the main road, Holly feels a pang to be back out in the real world. She hopes she does get to return and visit with George again, and wants to say that—but Aiden seems lost in his thoughts, silent as he drives toward Krimbo. She watches his side profile, getting the sense that he doesn’t ever feel the need to fill silences with needless words. It’s okay to be quiet, companionable. It’s nice, actually.
She sighs happily and leans back, watching the wintry scenery fly by out the window as they head toward Krimbo so she can do her shopping. Soon enough, the trees grow sparser and the village of Krimbo comes into view. They drive slowly down Main Street, passing a smattering of diners, cafés, and restaurants, a clothing store called Viola’s Dress Barn, a hardware store, and a bookstore. Every establishment has Christmas lights in its windows, which add a warm and welcoming twinkle to the dull light of the winter midmorning. Aiden heads off to run his own errands, then meets her back at the grocery store parking lot.
“Thanks for today, Aiden,” she says when they’re back at the cabin and he’s helping her unload her groceries. He puts the last bag down on the deck.
“You call me if you need anything at all,” he says, and she can tell he means it.
She stays outside, waving goodbye as he taps his horn and drives away. When she unlocks the cabin door and goes inside—the interior is still warm from the successfully lit wood pellets—she doesn’t feel lonely. She has Krimbo, with all its humanity and charm. The magical giant Christmas tree farm. George and Mrs. Claws. And Aiden, an old friend, somewhere out there in the gentle snowfall.