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An Endless Christmas: A Novella

By Cynthia Ruchti

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AN ENDLESS CHRISTMAS


By Cynthia Ruchti
 


For tonight darkness fell
into the dawn of Love’s light.*



*from the song “All Is Well,” Michael W. Smith/Wayne Kirkpatrick, Published by
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

CHAPTER ONE

“What did she say?”
A carol played in the background. Carols perpetually played in the background at the Binder’s cottage at Christmas, Katie Vale had quickly learned. The music almost covered the whispered “What did she say?” that made the rounds of the room built for two that now held twenty.
“She said no.” Dodie Binder—matriarch and tone-setter—leaned closer to her husband Wilson whose smile collapsed, stroke-like, when she repeated the answer in his good ear.
“She said no?” He wasn’t the only one asking for clarification.
Katie fingered the heirloom ring. In her hand, not on it. A square-cut diamond surrounded by tiny sapphires. A narrow, glitter-edged ribbon looped through its circle. Moments earlier it had hung on the Binder’s tinseled Christmas tree. “I said…”—she apologized to Micah Binder with her eyes and with all she couldn’t express—“no. I can’t accept this. I can’t—”
Was it her imagination, or did the room tilt when all the Binder women shifted to where she stood, wrapping their sweatered and fleeced arms around her, even the youngest. The eight-year-old. What was her name again?
If she’d had more than ten minutes to meet the family before Micah drew her to the Christmas tree and the one ornament out of character with the others, she might have remembered. Twilight. That was her name. The girl who hugged her around the middle as if grabbing onto a teddy bear after falling off her bike.
All Katie wanted to do was apologize properly to Micah, to explain why she had to say no. But the chaos of comfort kept them apart. She caught a glimpse of Micah’s face—iconic for the word crestfallen—in a sea of three uncles and his dad.
She closed her hand around the ring to keep it from slipping to the floor in the melee of “It’ll be okay” and “Don’t you worry, now” and “All is well.”
All is Well. Really? That’s the Christmas song that decided now was a good time to make its presence known?
A voice with the timbre of an eighty-year-old woman—must be Grandma Dodie—said something that sounded a lot like, “Good for you, honey.”
Should she worry or feel blessed that the Binder women gathered around her like professional mourners? Mourners with sweet smiles, no tears. Curious. She dug in and inched closer to Micah, who sat on the arm of the couch where he’d landed after she refused his proposal. The crowd of huggers moved with her like a swarm of shiny fish that swim in circles through the sea.
Micah. He didn’t deserve what he was probably going through right now. “Can we talk?” she mouthed, peeking between two of Micah’s aunts. If his heart ached like hers did …
Before he could answer, an ear-splitting sound pierced through the supposed-to-be-soothing Christmas music. A smoke detector.
“To the kitchen!” Grandma Dodie shouted. “You little ones stay back.” She gave Katie one final squeeze. “It’s tradition to char at least one pan of cookies every year. Let’s assume that’s all this is.” She limped behind the uncles who raced past her. They called out the “Not to worry. We’ve got it under control” before she made it through the kitchen door.
One of the college-aged grandkids—Bella? Elisa?—rounded up the younger ones and steered them to the overflowing pegs of coats and boots lined up near the front door. “Outside, kiddles. Let’s go get the mail, okay?”
It took seven people to get the mail? None of the children objected. Within minutes they were out the door as if on an epic adventure. Micah and Katie were the only two left in the family room. It adjoined the kitchen in Dodie and Wilson’s small cottage in the woods, but the other adults had formed a hedge of noise between the two rooms, leaving the couple virtually alone.
“Micah, I—”
He raised his hand to stop her. “No explanation necessary.”
“You’re okay with this?” Maybe she’d overestimated his affection for her. Good to know.
“Not okay.” He tapped his heart with a closed fist. “But you don’t have to say anything. No is an answer.”
“But it isn’t the whole story.”
He stood then and stepped close enough to plant his hands on her shoulders. “Katie?” The tremor in his voice and the look in his eyes told the truth. He wasn’t brushing off her rejection as if it didn’t matter. Those pale blue eyes that had at first startled her, then captivated her, blinked back man-tears. “I…”
“What is it?” Would she have the resolve to refuse if he asked again? It was for his own good. If only he knew that. God, a little help here?
Micah’s forehead became as rutted as the snow-packed lane that had brought them to the cottage. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A deep breath. “I’ll show you where you can put your things. You get the window seat in the kitchen. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Pretty roomy, actually, and more than long enough for…the petite.” He headed toward the luggage they’d left near the front door in Micah’s haste to move straight from, “Hi, everyone. This is Katie Vale,” to “Katie, will you marry me?”
“I can’t stay,” she said. He couldn’t think she would stay there at the cottage with the family whose favorite—and only—male grandchild she’d just jilted, could he?
He turned to face her, eyes wide. “Do you want me out of your life?”
“No!”
Micah smiled. “That ‘no’ stung a lot less than the first one.”
The man was not right in the head. Better to find out now.
He opened the front closet and slid her luggage into the only horizontal shelf space not already occupied. “You’ll have to tuck your carry-on into the storage cubby under the window seat. Just lift off the cushion and you’ll find a hinged lid. Your blankets and pillow are in there, too, Grandma Dodie said.”
She was staying? No. Talk about awkward family gatherings. She thought she’d seen them all.
“Did I hear my name used in vain?” Grandma Dodie poked her head around the corner between the family room and kitchen.
Micah waved her into the room. “I was explaining the intricacies of finding sleeping accommodations for a crowd this large.”
“We’re all set for you, Katie. Your towels are the pink ones in the bathroom to the right.”
“Why is no one booting me out the door?” She kept her voice as light as possible, under the circumstances.
“Oh, honey,” Dodie said, “You don’t want to miss the Binder Family Christmas. Does she, Micah?”
“I wouldn’t, if I were her.” He walked past Katie and whispered, “It’ll be okay. Promise.”
How, how, how could it be okay? And how had they gone from wheels down in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport to this new episode in the chronicles of Katie’s failed relationships?
###
TWO HOURS EARLIER
Katie slid her phone into her purse, the flesh of her heart still smoking from the way the texted words burned.
“Anything important?” Micah asked, glancing only briefly from his position behind the steering wheel of the economy rental car.
Important? A death knell. “It can wait.”
“You really are trying to unplug from work this week, aren’t you? Proud of you,” he said. “If I hadn’t forgotten my charger the challenge would be harder for me. Battery will last maybe through the rest of the day. Then I’m turning Amish. Unless somebody at the cottage has a charger to match. Won’t last long, though, with Grandma’s house rules.”
What did that mean?
He pointed to the dash display. “Hey, look. The temp has dropped another two degrees. We’re now officially sixty degrees colder than we would be at home right now.”
Katie rubbed her jean-covered knees and wiggled her toes in her new-enough-to-be-stiff fleece lined boots as if the rental car’s heater weren’t adequate to ward off the chill threatening outside the vehicle. December in the Northwoods. Stunning in pictures. Frostbite waiting to happen, up close and personal. Her southern roots were showing. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”
Micah reached for the heater control.
She stopped him with a gloved hand over his. “It’s not the weather.” Katie leaned her head against the passenger side window. Cold as an ice pack but without its pain-reducing effects. Even if she could discount the hollowing text message, who wouldn’t feel at least mild apprehension at the thought of meeting “the parents” for the first time?
Meeting Micah’s parents at Christmas meant meeting the whole Binder family—his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… Everybody except Micah’s sister Courtney and her husband Brogan—the two closest to their own age—who had an excused absence. They waited in a South Korean hotel for the final processing of their international adoption.
Family tradition—the can’t miss Christmas week extravaganza at the grandparents’ cottage north of Stillwater.
She should have turned him down, should have told Micah she’d use a vacation week for the meet-the-parents challenge some other time, when she’d only have two names to remember and a smaller tangle of relationships to navigate. Christmas week with all the family appendages present? This could only end badly. Especially now.
If Binder family traditions followed the Vale reputation, somehow the fingers would point to Katie when it all fell apart.
Case in point. She was free to follow Micah to Minnesota because her parents bailed on her. As if their passive-aggressive divorce weren’t enough of a barrier to a Currier and Ives Christmas, they’d both called at the last minute to cancel their individual plans with her. No awkward dinner out with her dad and his smartphone. No post-Christmas, unnecessary shopping excursion with her let’s-make-up-for-everything-by-buying-us-both-a-new-purse mother.
“Katie?”
She tugged her thoughts back to the question at hand. “The flight tired me out more than I thought, I guess.”
“We could still be stuck in Fort Myers or Atlanta if they hadn’t gotten the remnants of this last snow cleared fast. Minnesota sure knows how to move snow.”
He meant that as a comfort, right? It sounded as if he considered snow removal an Olympic event. Stuck in sunny Fort Myers sounded pretty good at the moment, empty Christmas or not.
The road from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport to Stillwater had narrowed from six lanes to four to two as their destination neared. Micah insisted the scenic St. Croix Trail—Highway 95—would be worth the extra time. She didn’t mind dragging out the inevitable.
On the map app, the St. Croix River sported a seam down its middle, a dotted line drawn by cartographers with loyalties to Minnesota’s rights to the waterway on the west and Wisconsin’s on the east. Katie rubbed at an invisible dotted line on her forehead. Cartographers? Her territory-war parents. The line bit deeper the closer she and Micah neared Stillwater.
“You’re not worried about meeting my family, are you?” Micah had the pecan-pie-rich voice of a radio announcer without the affectation. Soothing whether he meant it that way or not.
Katie sensed her heart rate slow in response to his words. Or his tone. Or the fact that he cared. “Meeting them isn’t the problem. Meeting them at Christmas seems…serious.”
Trees flashed past the car window like warp speed timekeepers. This is it. The moment he realizes you’re not worth fighting for. They all do. Her parents included. Worth fighting over. Not worth fighting for.
How many hash marks would tick by before he said something?
Serious. She’d told him it sounded serious. Bad call, Katie. It no longer surprised her when relationships collapsed. But this one? The threat of losing Micah? She couldn’t dodge the text’s revelation about her genealogy. It would come into the open sooner or later. The sting sliced through her like a laser torch through steel. That will leave a permanent scar.
Micah pulled onto the apron of a plowed driveway, easing the car farther off the road than the snow-packed shoulders would have allowed. He killed the engine and faced her. “Katie, if you’re that uncomfortable, we’ll turn around and head back to the city. I can get you a hotel room near the airport while we figure out an earlier flight home.”
How did he do that? Make his voice as mellow as peach blossom honey even on a subject like this one? He was willing to sacrifice the week he hadn’t stopped talking about since before Thanksgiving?
She looked past him, to the right of his disarmingly tender smile. Snowing again. The flakes floating more than falling. If only she could master that technique. “I don’t want to be responsible for your missing Christmas with your grandparents.”
He shook his head as if that hadn’t even been a consideration. “I’ll drive up alone after we work out your flight change. I can’t miss this Christmas. It might be their last.” His face had lost its normal guileless confidence.
He stroked the side of her face with the back of his fingers, then leaned in to kiss the same spot. “Meeting my family is not for the faint of heart. Or for a woman who isn’t sure she wants to be there. With me.”
How could he think this was about him? She was the high-risk half of their relationship. Wasn’t it obvious? She was the one genetically predisposed to messing up anything remotely promising. Wait. He’d said, “It might be their last.” Why hadn’t he mentioned that earlier? “Their last Christmas?”
“Maybe.” He leaned back against the driver’s seat, hands now on the steering wheel, eyes forward.
On another guy, the expression might have seemed contrived. A guilt-producer designed to change her mind. Micah didn’t operate that way. He could teach seminars on integrity. And he was clearly hurting.
She had to be there. Whether she was ready or not. Katie could bear a week of emotional discomfort. She’d mastered the art in twenty-nine years as the daughter of parents who ate conflict for breakfast. Stillwater was as good a place as any to hide from the inevitable. She had to be there. Not just with him but for him. He needed someone to lean on. She wanted it to be her.
###
Before pulling back onto the highway, Micah checked his phone. “Oh.”
“What?”
“We have to kill some time in Stillwater.”
She shifted in her seat. “Why?”
“We’re waiting for Twilight.”
“Won’t it be harder to find the place after it gets dark?”
“Twilight, my cousin. Eight-years-old. Her final performance in the Nutcracker Suite was this afternoon. They’re high-tailing it from White Bear Lake but haven’t arrived yet.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t—”
Micah replaced his phone. He rubbed the steering wheel as if the genie inside would grant him the right words. “I wanted everybody to be there when you walk in.”
With the engine off, the air temp in the car had dropped dramatically. But his words and tenderness spread warmth through her like a Bradenton beach sun.
“You’re a remarkable man, Micah.” She reached to run her finger—feather-soft—across the back of his neck. His love language.
He caught her hand in his. “You made me this way. I was a complete louse until you came into my life.” He started the engine. “And if you believe that,” he said, flicking ashes from an imaginary Groucho Marx cigar…
He’d done it again—gotten her to shrug the concern from her shoulders and laugh in spite of herself.
“So how will we kill time in Backwater, Minnesota?” She flicked her own imaginary cigar.
“Stillwater, my dear. We could get a cup of coffee or tea. Or I could show you around town.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“You know what Einstein always said.”
Katie tried ignoring the signs of civilization reappearing along the roadsides and focused on Micah’s camera-friendly profile. “Despite memorizing most of what Einstein wrote, I’m not sure about the quote to which you refer.”
Micah cleared his throat. “‘The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.’ And Stillwater’s is exceptional, by the way. Rooftop terrace, stained glass windows, wrought iron shelving. A 1901 Carnegie project. A work of art. Or, architecture, which is art.”
Laughter came easily and often when she was with him. “Coffee first, okay?”
“Done.”
Within minutes, they’d conquered Bayport, a small, industrial looking town with a window/patio door factory and a correctional facility, which seemed to embrace polar opposite visions. Bayport’s marina housed hundreds of shrink-wrapped boats, many larger than Katie’s condo even if you included the lanai.
Bayport’s city limits hadn’t faded from view when they were greeted by a “Welcome to Stillwater” sign. “Birthplace of Minnesota,” it said.
“Really?” she said. “Birthplace of Minnesota?” They were spending Christmas in the Bethlehem of the Northwoods.
“Also voted one of the prettiest small towns in America by Forbes.”
They rounded a bend at the spot where a sheer rock face and shallow caves edged the western side of the street and a half dozen 1880s-era paddlewheel boats snugged the shoreline of the St. Croix on their right. When had the traffic grown so thick? Katie blessed the traffic congestion for slowing their pace so she could take in what she was seeing.
“This came out of nowhere,” she said, gesturing at the main street as it opened before them.
“Always seems that way to me too. Pretty stunning, especially at this time of year with the Christmas lights and decorations.”
“No wonder you’re partial to this place, Micah.” She scanned the architecture of the buildings lining the street.
“The whole commercial district is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.”
“For a guy who stops at every historic landmark…”
Micah glanced her way, “You said you found that charming.”
“I do. Quirky, but charming.”
They approached a stoplight. Micah took the opportunity to direct her attention to the way the streets to the left of the main street—conveniently named Main Street—climbed at a steep incline away from the downtown area. “Can you imagine navigating those inclines when they’re iced over?”
A block later, Micah turned onto a side street that approached the river and whooped over the joy of finding an empty parking space. “You’d think this would be the off season, but Christmas week is crazy-busy in Stillwater. Lots happening.”
Katie imagined how the lights would look against the dark of night. Even at this hour, they made the town glisten. Small Christmas trees sat in barrel-sized clay pots with bunches of red berries tucked among their branches. The dancing snow added to the picturesque scene.
Micah slid around the car to open her door for her. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get into LoLo’s.”
“LoLo’s is…?”
“Locally Owned. Locally Operated. Locally sourced, too, I think. When possible. You’ll love the smoked salmon.”
She raced to keep up with his energy. “We’re only having coffee, aren’t we? Your grandmother would give you ‘what for’ if we spoiled our supper.”
“So, you’ve met her?”
“Assumed.”
“It’s a smoked salmon tasting plate. The size of a cucumber slice. I don’t think there’s much danger we’ll ruin our appetites for supper.”
She slipped her arm through the crook of Micah’s elbow. “Can we slow down a notch?”
“Sorry. Sure.”
“I haven’t seen you this animated in the nine months we’ve been dating. Ten.” Valentine’s Day. Normally the worst day for a first date. Turned out to be her best decision ever.
Micah stopped walking and faced her. “My favorite season. My favorite place.” He brushed a snowflake or two from her hair. “My…favorite.” He let the word hang in the sparkling air.
They’d become a sidewalk hazard.
“We’d better—” She nodded in the direction they’d been heading.
“Right. LoLo’s.” He tucked her hand into his elbow again and led her through the crowd to a glass-front building where Olive Street teed into Main and the crosswalk led right to the front door. “After you.”
They took the last free table—a high top tucked into the window nook. Every false expectation about “backwater” dissolved into the ambiance of the tin ceiling, Edison light fixtures, and the menu that read like an episode from the Food Network. Chicken curry soup. Korean barbecue skirt steak wraps. Bacon jam crostini.
They ordered coffee and the smoked salmon tasting plates, then turned their attention to the activity on the sidewalks.
“With the Twin Cities so close,” Micah said, “this is a prime destination for weekend getaways or events like the jazz fest, the art festival, balloon fest…”
“Why haven’t you talked about Stillwater more? I mean, other than despising your job, you seem content in Florida. But this is obviously close to your heart.”
He played teeter-totter with his fork. “I don’t despise my job.”
She tilted her head and waited.
“No more than you do yours.”
She smoothed the linen napkin in her lap. The position she held had its rewarding moments. Her restlessness wasn’t tied to job dissatisfaction as strongly as Micah’s. “Thought I was hiding that better. So, Stillwater?”
“When my grandpa retired from working at the power plant, everyone expected them to move to Arizona or Texas.” Micah drew imaginary lines on the black table top, from where they were to southwest of the salt grinder.
“Or Florida,” she added.
“Right. Instead, they bought the cottage they have now so they could stay centrally located to their kids and grandkids.”
“Except you.”
Micah’s expression showed he was trying to keep a male version of wistfulness at bay. “We have to go where the job takes us sometimes. And, to its credit, it led me to you.” He reached across the table for her hand. “Fresh squeezed orange juice, year-round farmer’s markets, and you.”
When her Vale genetics showed their relationship ineptitude, when he realized the ten months they’d had together were about to come to an end, he’d be left with fresh OJ and Plant City strawberries. Even with innumerable beaches within driving distance, would that be enough to hold him in Florida? When had a southern clime created the kind of excitement she read in his eyes as he peered through the restaurant window at the activity on Stillwater’s Main Street?
Micah, what do you really want? Where would you live if you could? You’re winning commendations in medical supply sales, but that isn’t your true heart. Your workplace isn’t to blame. It’s the whole career choice.
He pointed with childlike excitement to a small, horse-drawn wagon making its way down the crowded, snow-dusted street. Now wasn’t the right time to talk about life goals.
###
Bolstered with coffee and Katie’s growing curiosity about their destination, and armed with an “All clear” from Micah’s uncle, they left the restaurant and navigated the rest of Stillwater’s Main Street until their northern trajectory took them out of town and into an eclectic countryside of high class subdivisions tucked in the spaces between sandstone cliffs, simple farms, brief glimpses of the St. Croix, and cedar- and birch-lined pastureland.
Five or six miles from the edge of town, Micah signaled. Katie saw no side road. It wasn’t snowing that hard. Visibility was good enough to see the forest for the trees. Should she mention that he’d bumped his turn signal? They’d said little to each other since pulling back onto 95. She’d made temporary peace with herself about spending Christmas week with his family. He seemed to have picked up the nerves she’d dropped on his behalf. Micah sighed as he slowed and followed his signal onto a narrow path between pines and hardwoods.
“Hold on,” he said. “The last road to be plowed after a snowfall.”
“Is this even a road?” Katie gripped the handhold above the passenger window. Two tire-wide indentations in the four inches of snow looked more like a ski trail.
Micah told her its name, his voice distorted by his laughter.
“Lover’s Lane? You’re taking me down Lover’s Lane on the way to your grandparents’ cottage? Micah!”
He focused on keeping the car’s tires in the tracks and between the trees, not among them. “Lubber’s. Lubber’s Lane. No one knows if it was named for a guy named Lubber or a commentary on the fact that it angles away from the St. Croix rather than closer to it. Land lubbers. Maybe it was an 1800s version of a typo. Lumber/lubber.”
“There’s the other option.”
“What’s that?”
Katie braced herself on the console with her other hand as they bounced over something more solid than snow. “The county road commissioner fought a nasty head cold the day he named it. ‘I nobinate this stretch ob road Lubber’s—’”
“You have to tell that to my Uncle Paul, Katie. That’s his kind of humor.”
Uncles and aunts and cousins and Micah’s mom and dad and his grandparents and nieces and… She stole back some of the anxiety she’d relinquished earlier. She had dibs.
Be anxious for nothing. Not the typical Christmas season reading. Philippians? For Christmas week? She’d packed the narrow devotional book into her checked luggage. No way to reach it now and remind herself why God thought for nothing applied to her.
“If you’re wondering if they’ll like you”—Micah seemed to read her thoughts—“you have nothing to fear. I told them”—major steering wheel correction—“that you could charm the scales off a bluegill and make it fry itself up just to be helpful.”
“You got that phrase from your Uncle Paul, didn’t you?”
Micah risked a glance at her before focusing again on Lubber’s Lane. “I may have picked up a nugget or two of wisdom from him.”
She admired Micah’s ability to rebound from the earlier pall of sadness about how little time his grandparents had left on earth. Possibly their last Christmas together. What would it be like to live with that threat coloring their celebration? Even her own tabled problems were trumped by that.
The houses sat farther apart in this stretch. The road, snow-packed as it was, signaled civilization. Little else did. Then a split-rail fence with an evergreen wreath at every junction framed a scene that captured Katie’s attention. Micah slowed as if knowing how much she would want to soak it in before they continued their journey. A cranberry red cottage sat far off the road with a long stretch of unbroken white between it and the fence. Candles in each window. A wreath on the wide front door.
“Micah, stop!”
“Now? Here?” He braked and slipped the transmission into Park. “If that’s what you want.” His voice sounded a tad bit patronizing. She ignored the inflection.
“I want to get a picture of this. Do you mind?” She pulled her phone from her coat pocket and powered down the window. After several clicks, she slid the phone back into her pocket and let the window return to its job of blocking some of the biting cold. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem. Can we go now?”
She took one last look at the dream scene, her nose pressed against the glass, fogging it more with each exhale. “Yes.”
Micah accelerated slowly but the car still skidded as it fought to regain momentum. A handful of seconds later, he pulled the car into the driveway at the end of the line of wreathed fence.
“Don’t! This is private property. I got the pictures I wanted. We’ll get in trouble if we drive in any farther. Micah!” She tugged on the sleeve of his Columbia fleece while watching the cottage for signs of life. Or a shotgun. Or a security system floodlight. Not yet dusk, but a floodlight would scare off most intruders, wouldn’t it?
Micah kept navigating the well-plowed driveway. “Wave to the nice lady, Katie.”
“What?”
He pointed to the round, haloed face peeking through the nearest window. “That’s my Grandma Dodie.”

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