He opened the sealed envelope and cleared his throat. Georgia watched the fire cast shadows over his body, his handsome face, and she felt like she could see the weight he was carrying. Like she knew this Chris, knew all of them, better than she imagined someone could after so short a time.
He began to read. “Hey guys, it’s me again. Year three. I remember our third Christmas in the cabin like it was yesterday. Chris was hardly home, working full time and going to college. He still managed to scrape enough money together between us to make it a wonderful Christmas. Even tried to cook a goose, since we’d finally gotten around to seeing A Christmas Carol. We all agreed we would stick with turkey or ham after the fire in the kitchen.”
Flynn laughed quietly at the memory. Even Chris smiled at that before continuing.
“Jimmy decided he wanted to be a police officer that year. No one was surprised. Flynn had decided he wanted to do whatever Jimmy was doing. Again, no one was surprised. And me? I think that was the year I realized we were really a family. We fought, but we stayed together. We struggled, but we worked through it.”
Chris’s whiskey voice was rough. “I wish I knew what happened with us. I know one of you said we all needed to grow up. That our family wasn’t meant to last forever. “
Georgia noticed Jimmy look down uncomfortably. Did he feel guilty?
“But that year? That year we were a family. That year Jimmy helped me work on my old mustang. The one that came without doors or brakes? That year Flynn taught me how to ski after he’d spent all morning teaching tourists; slowing down for me again and again, when I knew all he wanted to do was fly. And it was that year that Chris told me he was proud of me for getting the scholarship to DU. Proud. Of me. You’ll never know how much it meant to me to make you proud.
“Is Jimmy crying like a girl yet? Probably not. I’ll stop talking so he can have that shot…hopefully one of you has brought home a special girl to share it with. None of you should be alone. Always your brother, Nicholas.”
Georgia saw Flynn stand over the Christmas tree and reach into his pocket, pulling out a pocket watch on a gold chain. He hung it on one of the sturdiest branches, then took the glass Jimmy handed him and raised it before tipping back his head and swallowing the tequila.
Jimmy took out an old, dented tin sheriff’s star and placed it on the tree, cradled between several branches. He toasted the others and took his shot.
Georgia looked at Chris and found him staring, not at his brothers, but her. She didn’t hide her tears or wipe them off her cheeks. Nicholas deserved them. He sounded like a hero. One who believed in Christmas miracles as much as she used to.
Chris was the first to look away, placing a keychain that obviously belonged to an old mustang onto the lowest branch of the tree. He hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment before downing his shot as well.
She set down her wine glass and stood, hardly aware of what she was doing. She reached up, under her curls and unclasped the necklace she hadn’t taken off in over ten years. The heart-shaped locket that held an image of her and Grandpa Bale on her fifth birthday.
Maybe she should have asked them if it was okay, if it would be too intrusive, but none of them stopped her. The three men watched her place her locket on their tree. A silver locket that glittered like tinsel in the fire’s light.
It looked right there, somehow.
A large, warm hand took hers and placed the fourth shot glass in it, wrapping her fingers around it gently. She looked down at the tequila and thought about the man who had written that letter. The man who had the power, in death, to bring a family that had been broken back together again in his name. At least for Christmas.
To Nicholas.
She drank.
The tequila burned down her throat and she gasped, feeling the heat in her limbs almost instantly. She coughed and placed a hand on her chest. So that’s how straight tequila tasted. She was more of a frozen margarita girl. Still, it was powerful stuff.
She looked up to find Jimmy and Flynn grinning at her reaction. Jimmy lifted the bottle. “Nick was a lightweight too. But he said the second shot always went down easier.”
Was that a dare? Georgia lifted her chin, embracing the lighter mood he offered. She lifted the tiny glass. “I hope he was right.”
A few hours later, Georgia decided he had been. The second went down easier. The third was a breeze. Before she could have a fourth she remembered she’d brought a bottle of peppermint schnapps for Connie’s famous eggnog in her bag. Unfortunately, she told Flynn about it, so he decided to mix her up one of his special cocktails.
While he and Jimmy were in the kitchen arguing over ingredients, she walked around the living room. She knew she was weaving more than walking, but it felt nice. She wasn’t drunk. She was very, very tipsy, but she wasn’t drunk. She never drank to excess. In fact, one of her ex-boyfriends had broken up with her because he said she, “didn’t know how to party”. Lord, she knew how to pick ‘em.