A Christmas Caroline by Camilla Isley

Three

Christmases Past

I become conscious again to the sound of a monitor beeping, a persistent throbbing in my head, and a girl I don’t recognize sitting at the foot of my bed—a hospital bed.

What the hell?

I stare to my right where a black monitor shows an electrocardiogram pulsating regularly. Cables jut from behind the screen and I follow one to a medical clip clasped to my index finger. On the other side of the bed, an empty IV stand is dangling above my head.

The room is tiny; it feels more like a cubicle. Between the bed and the left wall, there’s merely enough space to host a leather armchair, for visitors I suppose, which is now empty.

I refocus on the girl sitting on my feet.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“Oh.” She looks up at me through a curtain of white-blond hair so bright it’s almost luminescent. “You’re awake,” she says, her voice soft and gentle. “And just on time.” The girl lifts a finger as if waiting for something and, promptly, the chime of a bell resounds in the distance. Big and clear, like that of a church. “Right on the first stroke of midnight.”

“Who are you?” I repeat. “Why am I in the hospital?”

“The answer to the second question is pretty straightforward: you bashed your head on the concrete after you ran out of your sister’s house scared by a little diaper leak and landed yourself in a coma.”

“I’m not in a coma, I’m talking to you.”

“Technically, your spirit is talking to me. Your body is still out cold.” She pats my feet over the blanket. “Don’t worry, you’re not dead, but you haven’t gone back to the living yet, either. You’re in a middle plane.” She layers her hands one above the other. “Which brings us to the first question you asked. I’m Melodie, your assigned spirit guide.”

I take a better look at her. The girl must be seven or eight, she’s wearing a pristine white tunic trimmed with summer flowers and bound at the waist by a lustrous belt. In her hands, she’s holding a branch of holly. But my eyes keep being drawn to the belt, which sparkles and glitters. The light parts, becoming dark and vice versa so that the girl’s entire figure appears to fluctuate.

“Have you escaped from the pediatric wing?”

Or more the psych ward.

Melodie sighs. “A skeptic, I should’ve guessed from your file. You don’t believe I’m a Christmas Spirit.”

“Well, of course not.”

“What about now?” she asks as her head disappears.

I yelp.

“And now?” Her head reappears, but floats in mid-air over no body.

“All right, all right, stop that.” I touch the back of my head and find a huge bump just above my nape. The impact with my sister’s driveway must’ve been a TKO.

The girl reassembles in one piece, head, body, and belt, and eyes me suspiciously. “You still don’t believe me.”

“If I say no, you’ll make your head disappear again?”

“You know what, let’s agree to disagree for now. Are you ready to go?”

“Go where?”

“Caroline, I thought you were this big-shot career woman”—she snaps her fingers three times in quick succession—“keep up! It’s Christmas Eve, well, was Christmas Eve until a few minutes ago. Merry Christmas.” Crazy Melodie makes jazz hands. “And I’m your spirit guide. Now, I know you Scrooge types are used to the five-star treatment: get a ghost to warm you up, then three separate spirits each on a different night, the whole shebang. Sorry, it no longer works that way. With the Christmas Spirit at an all-time low, we had to streamline our resources. So now you get only one spirit, yours truly, and we try to cover everything in one night.”

“Cover what exactly?”

“Your Christmases: past, present, future. Come on, Caroline.” She snaps her fingers again. “You didn’t hit your head that hard.”

“Listen, I still don’t understand what business you have being in my room.”

“Your welfare.”

“I can assure you a night of uninterrupted sleep would be more beneficial.”

“Your salvation, then.”

“I don’t need to be saved.”

“Caroline, stop resisting me. You have a unique opportunity to take a hard look at your life and fix your mistakes—”

“What mistakes? I don’t have any mistakes to fix. I have a wonderful life, a successful company I built from the ground up, I’m perfectly happy, thank you very much.”

The spirit crosses her arms over her chest and eyes me like a professor would an unruly student, making me feel like the child between the pair of us. “What about regrets? Do you have any of those?”

Sam.The name pops into my head before I can do anything to prevent it.

“Just as I thought,” Melodie replies smugly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

She taps her temple. “When you’re with me, thinking is enough. Now, we should technically wait until one o’clock.” The girl stares at the clock mounted on the sidewall of the hospital chamber. “But what do you say we get a head-start and get going?” She jumps off the bed and pulls off my blankets too quickly for me to clasp them.

Next, she grabs my hand and, with surprising force for a child, drags me toward the window.

“But it’s freezing outside, and I’m wearing a hospital gown.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.”

“Can I at least put on some shoes?”

Melodie stops and eyes the far corner of the room, where a plastic bag with all my personal effects is resting on a chair.

“Haven’t those boots done enough damage? Here, use these.”

She hands me a sad pair of hospital slippers. While I put them on, she pushes the window open.

“Are you planning on flying?”

“Exciting, uh?”

“Not when you’re mortal like me. I’d rather not splatter on the concrete, thank you.”

“Don’t worry; hold my hand and you’ll be fine.”

Melodie drags me along, and we pass through the hospital wall as if it were unsubstantial and walk right onto my parents’ driveway. The city has entirely vanished. The darkness and the fog have vanished with it, and it’s now a clear winter day, with fresh snow laid gently on the ground. We proceed along the driveway and once we reach the front door, we seep to the other side as if we were made of mist.

Inside, a thousand smells float in the air, each one connected with lost hopes, and memories, and joys long forgotten.

Fan, still only a girl, rushes down the stairs, screaming, “Mom, Dad? Where are you? Do I really have to wait until we get to Granny’s house to open my presents?”

My sister runs clear past us, without sparing the ghost or me a second glance.

“They are but shadows of the things that have been,” Melodie says. “They’ve no consciousness of us.”

We follow Fan across the hall and into the living room, where nine or ten-year-old me is reading by the feeble fire.

“Caroline,” Fan shouts. “You let the fire die down again.”

Ten-year-old Caroline startles and looks up at Fan, then at the dying embers.

“Shoot!” She stands up and pokes the ashes with a fire poker while blowing air on the skeleton of the last log. Once the cinders turn a bright orange-red again, she asks Fan to pass her some kindling. The wood chipping burns quickly, producing enough flames for Kid Caroline to add another log in the fireplace.

“Phew,” Kid Caroline blows the hair away from her face and messes Fan’s bangs. “Good catch, Smalls, Dad would’ve skinned me alive.”

“Why weren’t you paying attention to the fire?”

“I was lost in my book,” Kid Caroline replies, picking up Fan and sitting back on the armchair with her sister on her lap.

Fan grabs the hardcover from the armrest and turns a few pages. “This book seems really boring, Caroline, there aren’t any pictures.”

“That’s because when you can read the words, you don’t need illustrations anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because your mind”—Kid Caroline taps Fan’s forehead—“can conjure all the images you want and a thousand more.”

Fan doesn’t look convinced and keeps turning the pages as if expecting a drawing to pop up, eventually.

“Where are Mom and Dad?” she asks when no magic drawings appear.

“They went to say hi to the Morales,” Kid Caroline says, referring to our neighbors of the time.

“Do I have to wait until they get back to open my presents?”

“Yep.”

Fan crosses her arms over her chest and pouts. Soon bored with sulking, she returns her attention to the novel. “What’s the book about, anyway?”

“It’s a story about sisters,” Kid Caroline says, squeezing Fan closer.

“Two sisters?”

“No, four actually.”

“And what’s so interesting about them?”

“The story follows them as they grow into women, it talks about the men they love, the struggles they face…”

“What do you want to do when you become a woman?”

“I want to open a bookshop,” Kid Caroline says with the certainty only a ten-year-old could have. “And fill it with the best books in the world and help all my customers find the perfect story for them.”

My heart leaps in my chest and my eyes glisten at hearing my childhood dream spoken out so clearly. As an adult, I’ve accomplished much more than that. I’ve founded a publishing house, I do more than merely sell books. I produce them, select what gets out of the slush pile and into the world. And yet, the words of my younger self land on a heavy heart. My earlier phone call with Yashika rings in my ears louder than an alarm siren. When did the publishing industry become all about profit for me? When did I lose the passion for the actual stories I was publishing?

“What’s the matter?” Melodie asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing. I was just thinking about a phone call I had earlier, but it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to do anything about it.”

Melodie raises a white-blond eyebrow. “Is it?”

Meanwhile, in the living room, Fan claps her hands excitedly, asking, “And are the boys in the book cute?”

“Super cute.” Kid Caroline grins and tickles Fan, who giggles along. “Laurie is the most handsome boy you’ll ever find in a novel. You want me to read to you about him?”

Watching this, I sigh. I’d forgotten how close Fan and I were as kids.

“Yes, yes, yes, please do, Caroline, please.”

“All right.” Kid Caroline searches the book for the right passage and then reads aloud. “Jo liked the ‘Laurence boy’ better than ever, and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls; for they had no brothers—”

“Just like us,” Fan interrupts.

Kid Caroline taps Fan’s nose. “Exactly like us, Smalls.”

“Keep reading, keep reading.”

“…They had no brothers, very few male cousins, and boys were almost unknown creatures to them. ‘Curly black hair; brown skin; big, black eyes; handsome nose; fine teeth; small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?’ It was on the tip of Jo’s tongue to ask; but she checked herself in time, and, with unusual tact, tried to find out in a round-about way.”

“Oh, Caroline, he does sound handsome. Will he and Jo get married?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not know?”

Kid Caroline laughs. “Because I haven’t finished the book yet.”

“Now I get why you forgot the fire.”

“The fire,” the sisters scream in unison and turn to the yet-again dwindling embers.

They scramble to revive them and when the flames crackle happily once again, Fan sits on her heels and with a solemn face asks, “Caroline, I know you already started the book, but would you read it for me? From the beginning?”

“Of course, Smalls.”

Fan barrels into her sister, wrapping her arms around young Caroline’s neck and covering her face with kisses. “You’re the best sister in the entire world.”

“Let’s check out another Christmas,” Melodie says, making me jump. I was so engrossed in the scene from my past, I’d forgotten a supposed spirit was beside me.

The room becomes darker, the wall panels shrink, the windows creak, and fragments of plaster fall out of the ceiling, showing the naked laths.

Uneasy, I say, “Let’s go.”

My parents’ house disappears, replaced by the busy streets of a city where gray, murky figures move back and forward and shadowy cars and cabs battle for the way in the usual strife and tumult that is New York City. The dressing of the shops in tinsel and frost makes it clear that, in this time, it is also Christmas. The evening is just coming over the city, the glow of streetlights starting to cast over the streets.

The ghost stops nearby a café and asks me if I recognize it.

“Recognize it?” I ask, baffled. “I camped in there most of my college years. Sam and I used to—” the words catch in my throat as a happy couple pushes out of the café, holding hands and laughing as the brass bell over the door jingles. A gust of brewed coffee and pine drifts out into the exhaust fumes behind them.

It’s us.

College Caroline drags Sam down the sidewalk. “Come on,” she says. “We’re going to be so late. Mom is going to kill me.”

“Kill us, you mean.”

“Oh, please.” She swats him playfully while still hurrying down the pavement. “As if Mom could ever find fault with you. Sometimes I think she loves you more than she does me.”

“Well, that’s because I’m extremely hard not to love,” Sam says with a cheeky grin.

From the sidelines, I stare at his handsome face and it feels like I’m being hit in the chest by a wrecking ball. Gosh, I’d forgotten how ridiculously attractive Sam was. Unruly black hair, tan skin; big, black eyes—a real-life version of Laurie. Except no fictional character could ever match up with the reality of him. Sam is flesh and bones, warm laughter, and youthful enthusiasm.

Sam and College Caroline keep running down the street, holding hands and shouting, “Merry Christmas,” to everyone they pass, breathless.

My eyes boggle. Was I really one of those insufferable persons who feel the need to overload cheers onto perfect strangers?

The ghost and I follow as College Caroline and Sam board a train to New Jersey.

I stop on the platform, undecided for a second. “Can we board a train?” I ask Melodie.

“Sure can.” A cheeky grin comes over her face as she jumps on the car before me.

I hurry after her, and we find two empty seats facing Sam and College Caroline.

I gape incredulously as they start to make out, uncaring to be sitting in a very public space. We were one of those obnoxious couples who can’t keep their hands off each other.

They pull apart only when the alarm on College Caroline’s phone—a relic with no camera and no color screen—goes off.

College Caroline takes it out of her bag, silencing the noise. Sam tries to grab her again, but she deflects the attack, giggling. “Stop, I need to take the pill.”

She blindly searches the bag for the tiny blister pack while Sam keeps distracting her by nibbling at her earlobe and kissing her neck. When she finally pulls the pack out, she’s about to push a pill out when Sam covers her hands with his.

“What if you stopped taking it?”

“The pill you mean? Are you out of your mind?”

“Why? Would it be so bad?”

“What did they put in your coffee, are you high?”

I grimace at College Caroline’s statement; I remember this conversation well.

Sam stares at her—me—unblinkingly.

The smile dies on College Caroline’s lips. “You can’t be serious! You want to have a baby, now?”

“Why not? We’re young, we’re in love, and I’ve always wanted to be a young father.”

“But we’re still kids ourselves, we haven’t even graduated college yet. We should find out where we fit in the world on our own before we bring someone new along for the ride.”

“No, you’re right,” Sam says. “I was just being impulsive.”

Caressing his cheek, College Caroline says, “I love you, and I want to have your babies one day. Just not today.”

Sam takes her hand and kisses the palm, “I love you, too.”

She gives him a quick kiss and pops the little blue pill into her mouth. The train lights flicker and the ghost and I are once again side-by-side in the open air.

“Quick,” Melodie urges. “Our time in the past grows short.”

The scene changes and we land in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. Sam and I are lying on my bed. The Caroline in this vision is still younger than I am now, but older and less carefree than the Caroline who was running to catch a train home with her boyfriend. There are new purple bags under her eyes, and her skin is a little ghastly. She looks exhausted, but still weirdly happy.

At once, I realize what day it is and subconsciously take a step back from the scene.

“Spirit, I don’t want to be here. Please don’t make me watch this.”

“Sorry, Caroline, this is the one Christmas we can’t skip.”

Resigned, I return my gaze to the bed and the couple lying there. About-to-have-her-heart-broken Caroline is massaging her belly, complaining about having eaten too much and wanting to sleep.

Sam ignores the protest and kisses her neck. And she might’ve been over-full and tired, but not so spent as to resist Sam.

“Mr. Crawley, are you attempting at my virtue while under my parents’ roof?”

With a devilish grin, he replies, “Miss Wilkins, I wouldn’t dare.”

A teasing smile comes over my lips. “Sure, you wouldn’t.”

She straddles him and tickles him. As a defense, he grabs her wrists and pulls her down in a kiss.

From the sidelines, I lose myself in that kiss once again, closing my eyes and trying to remember what it was like to kiss Sam, not knowing that would be our last kiss.

On the bedside table, Caroline’s phone comes alive, vibrating inside her bag right on schedule.

My eyes fly open as my younger self straightens up to silence the alarm and take the pill. I remember that by the time I’d turned twenty-five, I did my best never to take the pill in front of Sam. I’d switched the alarm to a time of the day when I was usually at work and swapped the piercing ringtone for a more unobtrusive vibration-only notification. On the weekends, I stood on alert in the afternoon and sneaked off to the bathroom before the alarm even went off so that Sam wouldn’t see me. Because every time he caught me taking the pill, his eyes turned sad, and I felt guilty. Either that, or we would outright fight about the right timing for us to have kids. Or even worse, he’d sulk in private and distance himself for hours. That small little pill had become the giant elephant in the room.

But that day, with all the excitement of Christmas, I’d forgotten all my precautions, and there we were on my bed, about to make love, with the nagging, insisting vibration of my phone as our soundtrack.

Caroline tries to climb off Sam and the bed, but he pulls her back, not letting go of her wrists.

“Don’t take it.”

“Sam,” she says, already on the defensive. “I don’t want a baby right now.”

“When, then? It’s been four years, Charlie Bear. You have a job now. We’ve been out in the world. I want a family.”

“We’re twenty-five, Sam. You make it sound like we’re old crones or something, it’s not like we’re thirty.” Being now two years past thirty, I scoff at how twenty-five-year-old me considered this to be old age. She, in the meantime, yanks her hands free and gets off Sam, sitting on the bed next to him. “And I don’t want to just have a job, I want a career. It’s easy for you to say when you don’t have to give up everything.”

“I can take paternity leave. We can put your career first if that’s so important to you, I don’t mind. It’s not the Middle Ages. I can be a modern dad.”

“Are you going to be pregnant and give birth, too? Breastfeed?”

I sound so harsh to my older ears.

Sam doesn’t reply, but his jaw tenses.

“And you make it seem so easy, but I want to see how happy you’ll be to deal with a screaming infant who keeps you up all night.”

“That’s why we should have kids now, while we’re young.”

“Sam, I’m not ready.”

“You’re not ready now, or you won’t ever be ready?”

“I don’t know, I can’t speak for myself in five years—”

“Five years? Is that how long you plan to wait?”

“You know Jackie and I plan to leave Bucknam and found our own publishing house. It’ll take at least that time to make it successful. We’ve worked on our five-year business plan nonstop for the last six months and there’s no space in it for maternity leave.”

Sam storms off the bed. “I don’t want to wait that long.”

“And I don’t want to be forced into such an important decision when I’ve already told you I’m not ready.”

Present and past me watch Sam’s face turn from angry to sad, defeated, and then resolute. Both our hearts break. Hers for the first time, mine for the second as I wait to hear Sam’s next words.

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be together if we don’t want the same things.”

“Wow, Sam, if you want to leave so bad, no one’s forcing you to stay.”

I can’t believe that’s all I said. I watch impotently as my younger self lets Sam storm out of her room. Too proud to fight for him. I want to scream at her to do something, say something. Instead, I turn to Melody. “Spirit, I want to go. I don’t want to see this. I can’t bear it.”

Melodie doesn’t object as I push past her out of the room, running down the stairs of my parents’ house.