Free Chistmas Ever After by Elyse Douglas

than the slacks she was wearing, she’d packed her burgundy dress and a green silk scarf. The dress was comfortable and it accented her figure; it had some sense of elegance she would undoubtedly need, if she was going to be staying at The Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. Her garnet earrings, a gift from Lance, had fire in them, suggesting confidence. She’d need all the help she could get. She found some medium heels that matched the dress, but pinched her toes, especially her left ones, but she’d have to endure that discomfort for the sake of appearance. The boots she was wearing to travel in were warm and comfortable at least.
    Just before she’d grabbed her suitcase and started for the door, she felt her hair falling all about her face, so she combed it straight back from her forehead and tied it in back with a blue elastic band. It made her crazy to have hair tickling her face when she was nervous. Maybe she’d lost her mind! Thrown away all logic and abandoned reason. She felt odd and disoriented, and she only hoped no one would ever find out what she was doing.
    The seat next to her was empty, for which she was grateful. She was too restless to control her persistent squirming. She crossed her legs, and when her left knee began bouncing, she reached for a magazine in the seat pocket and thumbed through it absently.
    Once airborne, she watched stringy clouds flee past the window like remnants of old dreams and memories. It seemed like time itself was racing by in a never-ending stream of forms, events and possibilities. As the plane rose higher, she stared into the endless blue sky, wishing she were as undefined and free. But too many questions intruded. “What would happen to her shop? Should she apply for another loan? Should she just leave Willowbury and move somewhere else? Why was she going to New York? What would happen?”
    She took a deep breath, settled back into the seat and closed her eyes. Images flashed by. Her eyelids twitched, she grew heavy and was suddenly, utterly exhausted. She fell into a deep sleep.
    When Jennifer awoke in startled surprise, the plane was gliding over Manhattan in a light snowfall. The view nearly took her breath: an endless vision of towers, glass canyons, bridges and water slid gently beneath her, like an exquisite apparition. She saw the veins of streets and highways; the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, shiny and glorious. It was all a dream. A magnificent, special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster film. And she was in it! She felt the impulse to reach for the City, as it, somehow, seemed to be reaching out to her.
    Lance had described New York to her many times during the weeks before they were to be married. He was anxiously anticipating playing tour guide on their honeymoon.
    “New York’s like a wonderland of the crazy, the playful and the hopeful,” he’d said. “Whenever I walk the streets and look around, I believe that absolutely anything is possible—anything can happen… and many times it does.”
    Lance had been to New York three times: once on a high school band trip, once to a friend’s wedding and, finally, to a medical conference when he was in medical school.
    Jennifer’s elation was suddenly smothered by the memory of a poem she’d found and read, repeatedly, soon after Lance’s death.
I weep, weep 
for again the departure, 
Your hand on the banister 
Your glove on the stair.
     
    That’s how she last saw him, on the stairs, his hand gripping the banister, looking down at her, lovingly. He’d simply said, “I’ll see you tonight, honey.”
    That was it. “Honey” was his last word to her.
    As she buckled her seatbelt in preparation for landing, she again felt a pain that she could not touch; a loss, unspeakable; a torment that deafened; a new and alarming realization that the taste of his warm lips was fading from her memory a little more every day. That brought a nagging guilt. How could she forget! How dare she! Lance