The heat lamp warmed the back of my coat, and as I looked out from under the canopy, the afternoon sun turned the snow to gold. There was something so peaceful about all the greenery and the soft Christmas lights. Christmas carols played in the background and that was peaceful too. It was a nice place. A special place. The type of place a young soldier might be so homesick for he'd talk of it incessantly.
A growing urge pressed upon me, and it was becoming hard to ignore.
Don't do it. It's not your place.
But why not? I could help out Greg Cabot—didn't I owe him that much? And do it while spending a few weeks in the midst of a thousand Christmas trees. Why wouldn't I jump at the chance? For the first time since I'd enlisted, I didn't have to be anywhere.
Troob would bust a gut at all this Good Samaritan shit. Hell, he probably already is.
I cleared my throat. "You have a hard time finding help?"
Greg looked up from scraping his bowl with a spoon. "Hell of a hard time. It's seasonal work. At Christmas. People serious about employment already have a full-time gig, and young folks wanna have Christmas off. As you can see, this is a small town."
I nodded. "So if I wanted to apply, I s'pose there's a form I fill out in the store?"
Greg put down his spoon and wiped his beard with a napkin. He looked incredulous. "Son, don't you have someplace to be? I thought you were goin' home. To, what, Concord?"
"Home's up near Bangor, Maine. And I'm not on a deadline."
Greg bit his lip, looking conflicted. "I'm sure your folks'd love to have you back."
"My mom passed when I was young, and my dad last year. I have an aunt and uncle up there. Cousins." I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling awkward. "I need to settle up my dad's place after the new year, clean out his things and all. I'm not in a hurry to get to that chore."
"No, I…. No." Greg's sadness was back again. "Well. If you wanna stay and work, I'm not gonna stop you."
I barked a laugh. Greg looked at me quizzically.
"That was one hell of an invitation, sir."
Greg cracked a smile, and his cold-reddened cheeks grew a little redder. "Jaysus, I'm sorry. As you can tell, my manners are a bit rusty. What I mean to say is, you busted tail today. I'd count my lucky stars to have a good worker like you stay on, for however long you're able."
Damn straight. But now that he'd said it, I felt uneasy at the praise. "You should know—I was wounded. Was burned along my left side and had a head wound. I have some memory issues. Like, I'll go to do something I used to do, and I don't remember how."
Greg studied me with interest. "Didn't seem like you had any trouble today."
"No sir, I—it's more mental stuff. Like how to do something in Excel that used to be second nature. Or finding the right word. Or I have to read something three or four times before it sinks in. I'm shit at names. Like, what is your name? Grindle?" I couldn't help but throw that last in, fighting to keep a straight face.
Greg's eyes narrowed at me for a moment before he smirked. "I prefer Ghost Rider."
"Ghost Rider Cabot. I like it."
Greg shook his head, still smiling. "Well, I need a whole lot of exactly what you did today—tree wrangling. So that's no problem. Besides, that memory shit happens to me all the time, and I'm just old."
"You're not old," I said firmly. Wasn't this the second time Greg had called himself that? For some reason, I found it insulting.
Greg shrugged. "I'm forty-three. That may not be ancient, but believe me, I feel old some days. So… I can pay you twenty an hour and—" Greg hesitated a moment. "—and you'll need a place to stay, I guess. I'll throw in the room too. Just through Christmas."
There was a lot there to unpack. Greg's nervousness. His desperation for help. His hesitancy over offering a place in his home, chased by underscoring the time limit on the deal. But fuck it, I'd never been the greatest mind reader, and now? I had no prayer of figuring psychological shit out. So I'd simply take the man at his word.
"I can stay ’til Christmas. And twenty an hour and the room works for me. Throw in more of this chili every day, and you'll have one happy employee."
Greg raised his coffee cup. "Well then. Welcome to Cabot's."
At the edge of the canopy a reindeer wind chime rang out melodious notes from a gust of wind.
It sounded a lot like Troob's laughter.
Chapter three
Greg
I thought having Sergeant Robbie Sparks around would be awkward—a reminder of Sam and all that should be and never would be again. To my surprise, it wasn't. On the second day, he came downstairs in civvies—jeans and a flannel shirt. It helped, even if he still wore his green fatigue coat. And the more I was around him—he worked cheerfully and efficiently all day, every day, so I was around him a lot—the more he became real to me, as a person, and not just a soldier. Truth was, he wasn't much like Sam at all. Of course not—not all soldiers were the same, anymore than any other two men would be the same.
Sam'd had a slopping kind of walk that became a half-skip when he was hustling or excited. Robbie's gait was stiff and he limped, probably the result of the injury that had gotten him a discharge. Sam was always whistling or humming a tune. Robbie was stoic when he wasn't being polite or, on rare occasions that I was coming to enjoy, a smartass. Robbie had almost ten years on Sam, and a maturity far beyond that. Sam had been a happy kid, a happy teenager. Robbie? Robbie put up a good front, but when he thought no one was looking, he'd duck his head and rub his hand over his wool cap, sort of curling up into himself. At those moments, he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. I respected his privacy and didn't ask.
Besides, Robbie was such a strong worker, I couldn't regret my decision to let him stay at the house. He hauled trees from the time we opened at 10 a.m. to closing at 7 p.m. without a word of complaint. He wasn't always taking breaks or messing with his cell phone, like a lot of the temporary help I'd hired in recent years. And he was great with the customers.
Let me get that for you, sir.
Now that's a beautiful tree. You have a great eye.
Someone's gonna have a very Merry Christmas with a beauty like this.
He listened to women tell him about their gold and silver ornaments or childhood memories of Cabot's with genuine interest. It was as if he really cared about Christmas trees.
He was a damn godsend. I'd hoped to make this last season a good one. I owed our lifelong customers that. But it was hard to generate the energy or enthusiasm needed to sell Christmas with a broken heart. Robbie's steady, polite presence propped the place up so at least most people wouldn't notice that the magic of Cabot's was tarnished this year, or that I was barely holding on by a thread.
One afternoon, a man came up to the baler with a 5' Douglas fir. I recognized the face, and the name came to me. I'd always had a good head for names, like my father before me, "Hello, Mr. Danvers. How are you and yours faring?"
Mr. Danvers was in his sixties and from upstate New York, I recalled. He gave me a smile. "Excellent, Mr. Cabot. Can't complain. Though, I admit, I was hoping to hear your son sing this year. Will Sam be around at all?"