Free A Christmas Wish by Joseph Pittman Page B

yourself.”
    â€œI kept the bar open until two a.m., got home after three.”
    â€œOh, Brian. Avoidance never solved anything.”
    We had finished with the dishes and Janey was absorbed in the movie, so Gerta escorted me upstairs to the attic so I could find the decorations I’d originally come for. My second attic visit of the day, this trip went quicker because I was left to my own devices and easily found the cardboard box marked CORNER X-MAS . There was no history lesson behind its discovery. I carried the box downstairs and loaded it into my trunk, returning to the kitchen to find coffee and slices of strawberry pie set out on plates. Janey ate hers in front of the television—the movie headed into its final half hour. So I sat opposite Gerta at the kitchen table. I took that first bite, allowing the sweet berry flavor to burst inside my mouth, the luscious juice taking me back to the tastes of summer. Pictures flashed of the Memorial Day picnic that had signaled an upward change in my burgeoning relationship with Annie. Gerta noticed the smile on my face and said, “You’re welcome.” I had a second slice.
    â€œYou know, Gerta, I could use some help at the tavern tomorrow—during the daytime. Martha Martinson’s been giving me such a hard time about the bar’s lack of decorations, and I’ve got to get them up as soon as possible. Maybe you can show me the way George used to hang the lights. I want the bar to be decorated on the outside just like he did.”
    â€œIf you like,” she said, a surprisingly noncommittal response for her. When I called her on it, she confessed that too much of our lives were already mired in the past. That’s why they call it tomorrow, she said. “So decorate the bar the way you want, Brian, it’s yours.”
    â€œNo, Gerta,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m merely the barkeep. Hired help.”
    â€œYou’re not merely anything, Brian Duncan Just Passing Through.”
    I laughed at the mention of the old nickname I’d been given this summer. An ironic name for sure. “Hey, that name’s been retired.”
    â€œNothing’s ever retired, Brian,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “Things, events, they just lie dormant, waiting for the right time to come back. Like spring, it’ll be back.”
    â€œAfter a long winter.”
    â€œYes. Winter’s Just Passing Through.”
    â€œLike traditions,” I said, my mind suddenly flashing back to my own family. My parents and their desire to spend Christmas away from their fancy new home. My sister, Rebecca, who seemed equally adrift during the holidays, running from relationship to relationship, the years passing but the men somehow growing younger. And what of myself—was I ready to leave behind all the traditions I had known, those that had helped shape me? I thought of the ornament that was mysteriously missing, and that unlocked in my memory bank pictures of my brother, Philip. He’d been the oldest of the three Duncan children, twelve years senior to me, an older brother to look up to. A championship athlete, he had had the world at his feet.
    Gerta was right, as always, nothing goes away forever. Not things we think we lost, that we forgot. Certainly not memories, they rise back to the surface when you least expect them.
    â€œYou still with us, Brian?”
    I looked up and found Gerta staring at me. “Yes, sorry. I was daydreaming.”
    Janey had just entered the kitchen with her dirty plate when she heard what I said. “It’s nighttime, Brian, you can’t daydream at night.”
    Gerta just chuckled. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she said.
    We did the last of the dishes and thanked Gerta for her warm hospitality and wonderful food, and then bade her good night. As we left her driveway, I paused, took a look at the quiet house. Gerta lived alone, a widow, and I hoped she