Looking Back and Forward

Image via UpstateNYer from Wikimedia Commons

Happy New Year everyone! Let’s send 2009 off with one final news post, shall we?

Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio breaks down the literary world’s new rules of engagement. As traditional book coverage shrank, alternative coverage like the National Post’s Canada Also Reads and Sean’s own Advent Books Blog emerged.

Book trailers are beasts that, so far, are better in theory than practice. The Huffington Post observed today that readers tend to make better book trailers than publishers and point to a video by the New Zealand National Book Council for Going West by Maurice Gee. Is it the best book video ever? Watch it and decide for yourself.

BookNet Canada rounded up a few great publishing minds to look back at publishing 2009 and forward to 2010 (and beyond!).

BookNet isn’t the only one getting in on industry recap action. Bob Miller of HarperCollins put together a great list of trends and counter-trends we saw start in 2009 and forecasts what’s to come.

Just Like the Ones He Used to Know: Holiday Edition

In honour of the Books editors’ need for a holiday re-charge, Books@Torontoist will be running a selection of our favourite features from our first season of articles, interviews, stories, posts and ephemera. We begin with Robert J. Wiersema’s original holiday tale of the ghostly and the miraculous, “Just Like the Ones He Used to Know,” which was serialized on the site from December 17 to the 24th in eight installments.

Enjoy.

James Grainger, Editor in Chief

Dustin rose up from the bed with a half-groan that he held deep in his chest. For a moment, the idea of packing, of checking out, of travelling, seemed too daunting. Almost impossible. It would be easier to just lay back down, nestle into his pillow and watch the world unfold through the television screen, flicking between the Christmas specials and the local news.

They were predicting snow, though. “The first white Christmas in over twenty years.” That would be worth seeing.

A white Christmas – he thought about it as he packed. It seemed to him that all of the Christmases he could remember from his childhood had been white – the snow had been part of the planning, as much as the turkey, or the decorating for the big dinner on Christmas night, or the tree.

He remembered the snow falling more than once as they had gone out to find a tree. He remembered driving the logging roads up in the hills around the lake, crammed into the cab of his father’s pick-up truck, straddling the gear-shift, pressed up against Graham, who was pressed up in turn against their mother, who made a point of locking the passenger door in case a combination of the over-packed cab and a sharp turn might burst to door open. It was always snowy in those memories, everyone sweating in snow-pants and heavy coats, the logging roads rutted and icy.

Even when they went to the Christmas tree farm in Chilliwack that one year it had been snowing, and the man had given them hot chocolate to drink while he cut the tree they had chosen and tied it to the top of the car.

With another sigh he threw his toothbrush and toothpaste into the front pocket of his backpack, crammed his clothes into the main compartment. There wasn’t much to pack – a few clothes, a few books, a handful of CDs. The portable stereo came with the room, so he’d be leaving that behind.

He tried to think of a Christmas from his childhood that hadn’t been white, but he couldn’t. Instead, he remembered more and more details: the crunching of snow under tires as people arrived for ‘the feast’, as his mother called it; the way they seemed to shake cold out of the folds of their coats as they came through the front door; sliding on the frozen pond in the back field on Christmas morning. There had always been snow.

And then, at a certain point, there was never snow. As if a switch had been thrown. From the time he was, what, eleven? Twelve? After that, there was never snow for Christmas, and he wondered if it was that way for everyone. Did the universe give everyone snowy Christmases as children, enough to make a lifetime of memories, only to withdraw them as you got older? Was everyone left with a yearning, a vague sense of loss every December 24th as they realized that, once again, it would be rainy, or cold and clear, or high overcast with a chance of flurries yet again this year?

It didn’t seem fair.

The last thing he packed was the folding leather photo frame that Stan had given him a couple of years before. It was about the size of a book, and it opened to show two photos, facing each other. The one on the left was a photo of he and Graham when they were teenagers, self-serious and faintly ridiculous after all this time. The other photo was of he and Stan, the night of his office Christmas party. Someone had snapped it when they weren’t paying attention: they were standing in the center of the room, talking, their heads leaning toward one another. It looked almost like they were about to kiss. Stan had been wearing his dark suit, a red scarf draped rakishly around his neck.

Dustin folded the frame closed and tucked it carefully along the inside of the backpack before zipping it up.

He hefted the bag onto his shoulder and glanced at the television. The pretty blonde anchor was muted, but there was a large snowflake graphic on a green background over her left shoulder that said enough.

A white Christmas this year.

And he was going home.

He stopped at the front desk in the lobby to let them know he was checking out. The young woman he spoke to seemed flustered, and she couldn’t seem to make her computer work the way she wanted it to.

“Are you sure?” she asked, glancing at the doors. “It’s late, and it’s Christmas eve…”

He nodded, his eyes trailing across the tree in the corner. It seemed dilapidated and out of place in the lobby. “I just talked to my mother. I’m going out to my parents’ place for Christmas. A bit of a last minute thing.”

She still seemed uncertain. “Can I call you a cab, or…”

“No,” he said. “Thank you, though.” He glanced at the doors as she had done and hitched his knapsack higher onto his shoulder. “And I should get going. It looks like it’s starting to snow.”

He waited until he was at the bus depot, until he was en route to call his brother.

He was surprised at how quiet it was. All day the news had been showing scenes from the airports and the ferry terminals, the border crossings. Everywhere it was lines of people and luggage, cars idling and spewing steam. People with microphones in their faces, looking exhausted and ragged but all smiling, telling the camera how happy they were to be going home, how excited they were about the holiday.

But the bus depot was practically deserted, and his footsteps seemed to echo in the ornate marble hall. There was a janitor mopping the floors, and two Japanese girls fast asleep on a bench, surrounded by their luggage, and him.

“It’s pretty quiet,” he said to the woman at the ticket window as she printed off his ticket.

“17.52,” she said.

He passed her a twenty dollar bill.

She sighed heavily, and took two pennies out of the “Take a penny, leave a penny” jar.

“I was expecting it to be busier,” he tried.

She didn’t even look at him. “Bay 6,” she said, pushing his ticket and his change across the counter to him. “It’ll be loading in about ten minutes.”

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, on the off-chance that she was listening, as he put his change into his pocket. All except for the couple of quarters.

He leaned in close to the payphone, dialling from the scrap of paper he kept tucked into his wallet.

“The wireless customer you are calling…”

He sighed. He had known Graham probably wouldn’t answer, but he was still disappointed.

“Graham, it’s Dustin. I haven’t seen you very much. I hope you’re okay. I’m…” He hesitated. “I’m at the bus depot. I’m catching a bus in a couple of minutes. I talked to Mom — I’m going out there for Christmas. She said…” Now the delicate part. “She said you might be coming out too.” He had no idea how to follow that, how to build on the idea. “Okay, I should go. I don’t want to miss the bus. You have a merry Christmas.”

He hung up the phone and drifted slowly toward the doors to the loading bays. He felt so empty, so alone.

As the doors swung automatically open, there was a rush of cold air, sharp and invigorating. In the bright blue-silver of the lights, the fine white of the snow seemed to dance.

The air smelled of magic, and exhaust.

At Bay Six, the driver held out his hand for Dustin’s ticket. “Where are you heading?” he asked.

“Henderson,” Dustin said, and he stepped onto the bus.

*            *          *

“It’s gonna be a rough night.”

The voice startled Dustin, and he glanced up toward the front of the bus. His forehead was damp from where he had been pressing it against the window, watching the snow.

It took him a moment to put it together: the bus driver. That must have been him talking. And he must have been talking to Dustin: he had been the only person on the bus since Abbotsford, more than an hour before.

“I’m sorry, what?” he said loudly. He was only a few rows back, but the roar of the engine seemed to swallow up all other sound.

The driver’s eyes flickered in the mirror. “Rough night, I said. With the snow. We’re already an hour off schedule.”

Dustin stood up and, bracing himself on the backs of the seats, negotiated his way up the aisle, settling in behind the driver.

“I just heard from dispatch. They’re closing the highway through the Sumas Flats overnight.”

“Because of the snow?” From the front seat he could look out the windshield. In the headlights, the snow looked like an attack.

“Yup. We made it through just in time. Good thing you didn’t wait for the last bus.”

Dustin nodded and watched out the front window, mesmerized by the rush of white fire they seemed to be facing.

After a long silence the driver asked, “So where are you headed?”

Dustin looked at him, suddenly understanding: the driver was scared. He was the sort of man who, most of the time, wouldn’t spare an unnecessary word for a passenger, the kind of man who would seem taciturn or close to snapping all the time. Exactly what you’d expect from a bus driver.

But tonight, with the snow and the silence, he wanted to talk. He was uneasy enough to want to talk.

Dustin could do that.

“Henderson,” Dustin said slowly, but then he realized that the driver already knew that: he had his ticket in his vest to prove it. “I’m going out to my mom and dad’s place. For Christmas,” he added, unnecessarily.

“You’re running a little late.” The driver smiled in the mirror.

“It was a last minute thing. We don’t usually do Christmas together, so….” His voice trailed off. “For my mom it’s all about the Christmas dinner anyway. She makes a really big deal about being a good host. She invites…well, everyone. Family and friends, people she doesn’t really know who might be in need of a little Xmas cheer. That’s what she calls it: ex-mas cheer.”

“Small-town life,” the bus driver said, and Dustin couldn’t quite tell if he meant it admiringly or scornfully. “My wife – her folks are Austrian. For her, Christmas is Christmas Eve. That’s when the tree gets unveiled, and the presents magically appear. It’s all about the kids and the magic with her.”

“You’re gonna be late,” Dustin said, trying for joviality.

The bus driver shook his head. “I haven’t been…invited…the last few years. I’ll spend tomorrow driving, then I’ve got Boxing Day with the kids.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dustin said.

The driver shrugged. “It’s probably for the best. People grow apart, you know? Are you married?”

Dustin thought of Stan, his green eyes, his hands. He couldn’t reconcile that image with what the driver had said about people growing apart. Maybe they just hadn’t had enough time. Maybe if they had been able to grow old together, that might have been a concern. But Dustin didn’t think so. And they’d never had a chance to find out.

“No,” he said simply, thinking of how frail Stan’s hand had felt in his, how light, almost weightless, at the end.

“That’s not a bad thing,” the driver said, and made a sound that might have been chuckling.

“How many kids do you have?”

“Two. A boy and a girl. I’ll give them a call when I get back into the city if it’s not too late. Wish them a merry merry.”

“You’re driving back tonight?”

“Well, that was the plan. My car’s at the garage, and I’ve got to get the bus back. But with this….” The snow was almost a wall of white. “I might be spending the night in Henderson.”

Dustin didn’t know what to say. He felt like he should make some kind of offer, tell the driver that there was plenty of room at his parents’ house and that he’d be more than welcome, but he couldn’t quite form the words. His mother was the good host: apparently it skipped a generation.

“And just like that,” the driver said, with a flair. “Henderson.”

Dustin had been so focused on talking with the driver, and the white heaving mass of snow through the windshield, that he hadn’t noticed the world around the bus.

The driver pulled to a stop under a streetlight, and Dustin recognized the outline of the building that used to be Doctor Simon’s office, though it now had a sign that read “Rainbow’s End Herbal”.

He was a little flustered, a little disconcerted. Somehow he hadn’t even noticed them crossing the river, the bridge, or the sign in the shape of an ear of corn that said “Welcome to Henderson.” He felt like he hadn’t had time to prepare himself, that he had been dropped into the situation without sufficient warning.

“Your stop,” the driver said, popping the seal on the door. “End of the line.”

Dustin smiled.

“Are you okay here?” The driver asked. “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone waiting for you.”

“It’s all right. It’s a short walk.”

Dustin stood up and, stepping back a couple of rows, retrieved his knapsack from the overhead rack.

“In this weather?”

There was concern in the driver’s voice. Every other time he had ridden the bus – and there had been a number of those times – he had come away with the distinct impression that the drivers couldn’t care less about anything other than keeping to their schedules.

“It’s not far.”

He stepped down onto the top step. “So are you going to try to motel, or…”

The driver shook his head. “I should be fine getting back,” he said. “I figure if I stick to the north side of the river, take it nice and slow, I’ll be back at the garage in time to catch some shut-eye.”

“Are you sure?” Dustin asked. “Because I’m sure my folks….”

The driver smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but no, I’ll head back. It’s too much of a headache if I have to weather over. Messes with too many schedules. But I do appreciate the thought.”

Dustin nodded. He wouldn’t have stayed either. “Okay then,” he said, stepping down another step. The wind cut in through the open door. “Drive carefully.

The driver looked at him as if he was going to start laughing. “That’s my motto,” he said. “You have a merry Christmas.”

“You too,” Dustin said as he stepped off the bus onto the hard-packed snow of the sidewalk.

The driver nodded sharply and the bus doors closed with a pneumatic thunk. With a roar and a blast of diesel and steam the bus pulled away.

Moments later, Dustin was standing alone in the silence under a streetlamp, snow filling the silver cone of light with diamonds and stars.

*          *          *

After the bus pulled away, Dustin stood for a long moment in front of Rainbow’s End Herbal as if unable to move. The cold air burned in his nose, the wind blowing snow into his face like tiny shards of glass.

Across the street, the park was a moonscape of unbroken snow, rising in humps and gentle knolls over picnic tables and benches. Every bare branch was rimed with white, and seemed to shine against the rich light.

Snow sky, bruised pink-grey and luminescent, and the strange electric silence of the storm, the squeak of the snow under his shoes as he started up the street.

Henderson.

It felt like a dream, or a memory, everything just out of focus or hyper-focused, everything the same as he remembered but changed somehow, just slightly unfamiliar. Tangibly the same, but different.

He pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he cut through the walkway by the bank, the narrow alley between it and the fabric store, enjoying a moment of being out of the wind. He wasn’t dressed for this. Maybe if he’d had more time to plan…. But then, his options for winter were pretty limited. He didn’t snowboard and he didn’t ski, so he didn’t have any actual cold-weather gear. And, like Stan always said, all you really needed to make it through a Vancouver winter if you weren’t outdoorsy was a good scarf.

Of course, Dustin didn’t even have that.

Stopping in the walkway, he re-tucked his shirt, stomped the snow off his shoes, and buttoned his jacket. It wouldn’t cut the wind entirely, but it was better –

A shadowy figure moved across the far end of the walkway.

Dustin’s heart twitched in his chest, and he felt every muscle in his body tighten.

He stood in the walkway, not breathing. Listening.

But there was no sound, nothing but the whisper of the falling snow.

He waited, every instinct telling him to go the other way.

Survival skills.

But this was Henderson, not Vancouver. No bashers here.

He took two steps toward the end of the walkway. “Hello?” he called out quietly, shocked by how sudden, how loud, his voice seemed.

Nothing.

Another few steps brought him to the end of the walkway, across the street from the high school parking lot.

The street was empty. Not just quiet: empty. But then, it would be – he checked his watch – this time of night. Christmas Eve.

It must have been a trick of the light. He looked down at the smooth, unbroken snow at his feet. No footprints. No trace.

A trick of the light.

He exhaled heavily and, setting his shoulders, walked into the storm.

As he walked, he started thinking about a story that he had read for English class in high school, a story about a snowstorm on the prairies, and somebody getting lost on the way from the barn back to the house and freezing to death, something about a smudge of paint on the door.

At the time, in Vancouver, where winters are measured in rainfall, he hadn’t been able to imagine how that would even be possible.

Walking through the storm, though, he began to have a sense.

The snow seemed to come at him from all sides. His face stung, slick and cold from where the flakes had melted, his pants wet, his feet burning cold in soaked shoes. The wind grabbed at his coat, twisted him, tried to wrestle him off his path.

But it wasn’t far.

He could have shaved off some time with shortcuts through fields and yards, but thinking of that story, he stuck to the sidewalks, the careful geometry, the sharp corners, the streetlights –

He stopped.

Someone was standing under the next streetlight.

“Hello?” Dustin called out.

The figure was grey and indistinct in the heavy snow, hard to see, but it seemed tall, thin.

“Hello,” he called out again, hurrying forward. For some reason, he felt none of the fear, none of the trepidation he had felt in the walkway by the bank. Whether it was how cold he was feeling, or to shake off how alone he was, he was actually happy to see someone else out in the night. He wanted to talk to someone.

Anyone, apparently.

“Hello?”

He moved as fast as he could, paying careful attention to his footing, not wanting to step off an unnoticed curb or slip on a patch of hidden ice.

But the figure was gone.

When he reached the streetlight, there was no trace of him. Dustin was sure he had seen him – sure, in fact, that it was a him – but there was nothing under the streetlight that even hinted that anyone had been there. The snow was unblemished, crisp and sparkling in the light.

“What?”

He felt oddly saddened. He had been, he realized, looking forward to meeting whoever it was, talking to them. It didn’t matter that it was a stranger: they were both out here in the storm, they both –

The figure was standing under the next streetlight, less than half a block away. Close enough that Dustin could almost see him, could almost make out his features. Dark clothes, dark hair, a flash of red at his throat.

“Hey!” he called out, hurrying forward again, not wanting to lose sight of him.

It felt like moving in a dream: the closer he got to the streetlight, the farther Dustin seemed to move away from the figure.

And he wasn’t surprised when he got to the light post to find himself alone, out of breath, warm from his haste.

He willed himself to stare at the ground, the unbroken, powdery snow. He knew better than to look up. He wouldn’t. It was all in his head.

There was no one there; he knew that. It was all in his imagination.

But he couldn’t help looking up, looking ahead to the next streetlight.

Where the figure was standing, facing him.

Although he couldn’t make out the man’s features, Dustin felt as if their eyes met over the distance between them.

The man turned a gloved hand quizzically, as if to ask Dustin what he was waiting for.

Dustin shook his head and started forward. He wouldn’t hurry, he wouldn’t run. This was all in his head.

Despite that inner voice, though, he couldn’t help the wrench of disappointment he felt when he got to the lamppost, only to find himself alone again. His chest was burning, and he leaned forward, trying to catch his breath.

When he straightened up he expected to see the man under the next streetlight, expected whatever game it was his head was playing to keep on.

But there was no one there, only a tight swirl of blowing flakes in the bright.

He blinked, hoping to prove himself wrong, but it didn’t help.

There was no one there. He was completely alone.

He nodded. That was fine. That was probably the best way to deal with delusions: not to miss them when they were gone.

Now he just had to –

He stopped.

It couldn’t be.

In following the mysterious figure, he had lost track of where he was. He knew he had been moving in generally the right direction, but he was stunned to find himself standing at the head of his parents’ driveway. Bordered by trees, a crisp, unbroken plain of snow led up to the house, which shone like a beacon in the stormy night.

Dustin turned for home.

*          *          *

Graham awoke in a strange room, in a strange bed, bathed in cold blue-white light. His head was throbbing, and he had no memory of how he had arrived there. Turning slightly on the pillow, which smelled of unfamiliar shampoo, he found himself looking at the back of a woman’s head. Red hair. Tussled.

Ah. Christmas.

It was as close as he came to a tradition these days.

Every Christmas Eve he went out by himself, found a bar to lost himself inside. There weren’t many places open, but there were always some: havens of hushed voices and no music and spilled beer.

He’d get there fairly early, but it didn’t take very long for those sorts of places to fill up. It seemed like Christmas hit a lot of people the same way, and it was better – marginally – to drink it away in public rather than alone at home.

Those determined to be alone usually stumbled off early, leaving the place to those determined not to be. The ones who were left started the dance: the glances, the smiles, the awkward openings, the shared stories.

Shelley. That was the redhead’s name. Two kids. Early thirties. Alternating holiday rights with “that asshole”. This was her off-year.

Which brought Graham to the last part of his Christmas Eve tradition: pretending, the next morning, that it hadn’t happened.

Shelley, however, wasn’t willing to play along.

“Are you just going to sneak away?” she asked as he stood up carefully from the bed and started to dress. Her voice was too level, too clear: she’d obviously been awake for a while.

She had turned over to face him and her expression was disarming – simultaneously resigned, yet still oddly hopeful.

“It’s Christmas morning,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Uh huh,” she breathed. “Got plans?” She said it almost teasingly, and her face fell when he nodded.

“I’m going to see my brother,” he explained. “It’s…tradition.”

“Oh,” she said curtly.

“Really,” he said. “We’ve got–”

“Whatever,” she said, cutting him off and turning over so her back was to him. “I’m not going to get up. Let yourself out.”

He looked at her for a moment, thought of how easy it would be to just crawl back under the covers. It wasn’t like Dustin was really expecting him. He could–

He pulled on his shirt, buttoning it as he reached for his shoes. Once he was dressed, he navigated his way through the apartment, trying not to notice the toys, the kids’ artwork on the walls, the small glasses on the coffee table, the miniature artificial tree with no presents under it. None of his business. Not his story.

Only when he closed the apartment door did he allow himself to relax.

That had gone better than some years. More than once he had spent the night holding someone as she cried, reassuring her through the darkest night of the year, only to bolt as early as he could the next morning. This, at least, had been polite.

Sort of.

Walking down the hallway, he fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and turned it back on. He had turned it off as he walked into the bar the afternoon before.

The third message was from Dustin. He stopped, and listened to it as he waited for the elevator, his eyes widening as it played.

“What the fuck?” he muttered as he pressed the button to replay the message, not believing what he had heard.

Halfway through the message the second time he bolted for the stairs, not wanting to waste any more time waiting for the elevator.

*          *          *

Dustin awoke to the feeling of weight shifting near his feet, someone sitting on the end of his bed. It was a sensation that he hadn’t felt since Stan….

He opened his eye, for a moment not sure where he was. His face broke into a smile when he saw his mother at the end of the bed. Beaming.

The bed? No – his bed. His bedroom. His parents’ house.

Home.

“Good morning,” he said groggily, rolling his head on the pillow, stretching his neck. The bed felt so good, so warm, that he wanted nothing more than to burrow deep under the covers, close his eyes and never wake up.

“Not anymore, sleepyhead,” his mother said, one hand coming to rest on his leg, squeezing it through the covers. “More like ‘good afternoon.’”

“Oh,” he groaned. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “Your dad and I thought we should let you sleep. You got in so late. And we figured that Santa wouldn’t mind if you stayed in bed.”

The previous night seemed like a dream to him now, snug and warm and home. Everything – the bus, the conversation with the bus driver, the walk to the house, the snow….

He sat up and his mother jumped back slightly in surprise. “Is it still snowing?” he asked excitedly, not able to help himself.

She laughed. There was nothing delicate about it: she laughed with her whole body, shaking, the sound rich and pure. He smiled – it had been too long since he had heard that.

She shook her head. “I swear, you’re just like a little kid.” She stood up and crossed the room, throwing open the curtains. The room flooded with bright white-blue light, the window itself featureless, a winter tabula rasa.

“It snowed all night,” she said, coming back to stand beside him. “It’s still coming down.”

He snuggled back down into the bed. Falling snow, a warm bed, home.

“How are the roads?” he asked, thinking of Graham, coming out from the city. If he came.

She shrugged. “We’ve been listening to the radio. They’ve been closing the Trans Canada on and off all day through the Sumas Flats.” He thought of the bus driver from the night before, realizing with a sudden shock that he didn’t know the man’s name.

Something in his face must have given him away. “Are you worried about Graham?”

He nodded.

“I don’t think a little snow will keep him away,” she said, and it was like her words, her voice, punctured his worries, deflating them.

“Okay,” he said.

She pulled the covers up snug around his chin and smiled down at him. He felt so small, so safe.

“We thought we might take a walk this morning before things got too busy, but we decided to let you sleep.”

“Maybe later,” he said. He could feel himself starting to slip away, his eyelids heavy, his eyes sandy.

She must have seen it. “I’m sure,” she said, touching her hand to his cheek. “We’ll talk about it when you wake up.”

“Mmm,” he sighed, letting go. “That sounds good.”

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead lightly. She smelled of powder and cinnamon, shampoo and tea. “I’m glad you’re home,” she whispered, as he drifted away.

*            *            *

Graham brushed past the front desk without saying a word and went straight to Dustin’s room.

He didn’t think for a moment that it could possibly be true: the phone call, the bus station. Dustin wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

But Graham had still come as quickly as he could. It had been slow going: the snow was still coming down, now in thick, wet flakes that seemed to stick to everything, and the streets were mostly unplowed. “Treacherous,” according to the radio. But it was Christmas morning, so there was virtually no one else out. Graham had crept along, leaning forward over the steering wheel as if that might improve his visibility, straight from Shelley’s apartment in the West End.

It was all going to be a waste, he knew that. There was no way that Dustin could just pick up and–

He stopped in the doorway of his brother’s room.

The TV was off, something that almost never happened. The bed was made, corners tight, covers flat.

Empty.

He almost ran back to the front desk.

“My brother,” he said, not wasting time on pleasantries. “Where is my brother?”

The woman behind the counter just stared at him, and in that moment Graham realized how he must have looked: unshaven, unwashed, wearing yesterday’s rumpled suit, probably reeking of booze, acting crazy.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’m looking for my brother. Dustin Burch? He’s not in his room.”

“He left,” the woman said flatly, without checking the computer or the file box.

“What? Dustin Burch? He didn’t just–”

She nodded. “Yesterday afternoon. He left.” She said it as if I should have known. She glanced at a younger woman behind the desk, who seemed to be trying to fade into the wallpaper.

The words didn’t make any sense. “So he just got up and….”

The woman nodded. “Yes.”

“And you just let him?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Sir, this is a hospice, not a prison.” She glanced again at the girl beside her. “Our staff aren’t–”

Graham leaned both hands on the counter, dropped his head between his shoulders, trying to catch his breath, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “But the last time I saw him he could barely make it to the bathroom. And he walked out of here?”

The woman seemed about to speak, but the girl interrupted her. “He said he was going for Christmas. To your parents’ place. I thought….” She stood up. “I guess I assumed that they were here, waiting for him. Out in the parking lot, maybe. I didn’t–” Her face was tight, and it seemed like she was close to breaking. Clearly she had been hearing about this, likely all morning.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the older nurse said. “We did try calling. We left you a message.”

There hadn’t been any message on his cell. “Did you call my home number?”

“Is there another number we should have tried? That was the only one in Dustin’s file.”

Graham shook his head. His own stupidity.

“I’m very sorry about all this,” the nurse said. “Our staff, especially our volunteers…well.” She paused, as if measuring her words. “To be perfectly honest, we don’t have a lot of patients checking themselves out. Typically.”

Graham’s body deflated, and he nodded. “Yeah, I know. This is more of a…one-way ticket place.”

“I’m very sorry,” the girl said. Looking at her calmly now, more fairly, Graham was stunned by how young she was. She couldn’t even be out of high school. So what was she doing here, volunteering at the hospice on Christmas Day? There was a certain nobility to it. Just enough to make him feel like a complete prick for how he had acted.

“Have you checked with your parents?” the nurse asked.

“No,” Graham said, shaking his head.

“Well, Dustin said he was going to spend Christmas with them,” the volunteer tried.

“He’s not,” Graham said, trying to figure out what to do next.

“But if you haven’t–” the volunteer started.

“He’s not with them,” Graham said, immediately regretting how snappy he sounded. “He can’t be. Our parents are dead. They died in a car accident, twenty-four years ago.”

*          *          *

The next time Dustin woke up, his bedroom wasn’t nearly as bright. He had the feeling that hours had passed while he slept, that the day was growing late.

He got out of bed slowly, drawing the covers up in a vague semblance of neatness before he put on the clothes he had dropped on the chair the night before. He caught sight of himself in the mirror over the desk: he looked good. Not as good as he felt, though. Clearly sleeping in his old bed again was exactly what he had needed. He felt better rested, just better, than he had in longer than he could remember.

He padded down the stairs with bare feet. The floor was cool and smooth, but the house was warm, lazy with the soporific ebbing of the wood stove, heavy with the smell of turkey.

His mother was in the kitchen. She didn’t hear him at first, so he watched her bustling, bringing trays of food out of the fridge, stirring things on the stove, her apron tight over a Christmas dress.

When she finally noticed him, she stopped and smiled. “Nice to see you, sleepyhead.”

“Sorry,” he muttered.

She waved it away. “Clearly you needed it.” She glanced up at the clock. “And now you need to get ready: everyone’s going to be here soon.” She stopped and looked at the clock again. “And your father. Could you please–”

He smiled. It was always the same, every year. “Sure.”

“He’s down in the basement.”

“I figured.”

He took the steps slowly, running his hand along the wall to keep his place in the dim light. His father was sitting on a rough cut round of cedar in front of the wood stove, feeding a chunk of wood into its roaring mouth. He looked up when he heard Dustin.

“We were starting to wonder if you were going to sleep all the way through,” he said.

“I guess I needed it.”

“That’s what your mother tells me.”

Dustin spent a moment looking around the dim room. The basement had always been his father’s domain. The stack of wood against the west wall, the piles of boxes, the work bench with its vice and tools, the shelves above it crammed with parts and gadgets, were as much a part of him as the flannel shirts he wore and the mud-caked, steel-toed work boots by the back door.

Dustin had loved the hours he spent in the basement, stacking wood or helping with the fire or working on a project. It was always warm, always cozy.

“So let me guess,” his father said, bringing Dustin back to the present. “She sent you down to tell me to stop playing with the fire and get ready?”

Dustin nodded. “She’s hit that point.”

His father nodded and closed the stove door with a heavy metallic thunk. As he stood up he smoothed his flannel shirt against his chest. “What about you?” he asked.

“I’ve got the same marching orders,” Dustin said, as they started toward the stairs, then he stopped. “But–”

His father shook his head and put his hand comfortingly on Dustin’s shoulder. “Your suit’s in the closet, cleaned and pressed.”

Dustin smiled.

“You didn’t think she’d leave anything to chance, did you?”

“That wouldn’t be like her at all,” Dustin deadpanned, and his father cracked up.

“What are you boys laughing at?” his mother asked them at the top of the stairs, wielding a wooden spoon as if she meant business.

Dustin and his father looked at each other conspiratorially, then burst out laughing again.

*          *          *

Graham tuned the car radio to the all-news station before he drove out of the parking lot behind the hospice.

The snow was still coming down, thick, heavy flakes that seemed to plunge through the air. The streets were a mess, little more than slushy, icy ruts that veered and followed earlier skids, lined with white humps of parked cars and the occasional walk-away: cars driven deep into snowbanks, or spun 180 degrees, or hopped up onto sidewalks, their owners nowhere in sight.

He hoped it would be better once he got to the freeway; he was counting on it.

“Damn it, Dustin,” he muttered.

He and the nurse had called the police the from hospice’s phone. Graham had ended up arguing with them for several minutes: with the snow and the holiday, a 35-year-old man catching a bus wasn’t much of a priority. It was only when Graham had stressed – again – just how sick Dustin was, and that he was prone to having delusions, that the police officer took him seriously.

Seriously enough to take notes, anyway.

“I’m gonna have to go out there,” he told the nurse as he hung up the phone.

“To Henderson?” she had asked, glancing at the front doors, the storm. “What about–”

He shook his head. It was just a little snow. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I don’t really have a choice.”

Not when it came to Dustin.

It had been just the two of them for so long. Dustin was eleven when their parents died, and even after their Aunt Natalie took them in, moving them from the house in Henderson to an apartment in Vancouver, Dustin looked to his big brother for everything. Which was okay. More than okay, in fact: looking after Dustin gave Graham something to focus on, had probably kept him from going off the deep end.

He had stayed in Vancouver for university to stay close to Dustin. He was the first to his feet when his brother’s graduating class was announced, the first person Dustin told when he came out (though it hadn’t come as much of a surprise), he held him as he cried or accompanied him on benders when relationships fell apart.

The freeway on-ramp was a mess of half-frozen slush and wind-driven snow. Graham clenched his teeth, only releasing his breath and relaxing his white knuckles on the wheel once he was merged onto the Trans Canada.

It wasn’t so bad: the plows had been out, and the asphalt was grey and crunchy, but drivable. That was something.

He had no real idea where he was going. Neither of them had spent much time in Henderson after the accident: too many memories, too much pain. Their lives were elsewhere. He had no idea why Dustin would want to go there, no idea where he would go.

Graham figured he would stop at the police station, make a formal report. There were a few old family friends they hadn’t seen in years: he’d check with them. He would swing by the old house, see if Dustin had come by there.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t that worried. He knew he should have been, but it was Henderson: someone would take Dustin in. He’d be okay.

Well, not okay.

Dustin hadn’t been okay for a long time. Not since before Stan had died.

Graham had driven Dustin to the funeral, had held him close as he sobbed, insensible.

It was a small, quiet ceremony. Intimate. That was only right.

Stan had been the love of Dustin’s life. They were perfect together, close and calm, wildly funny, perfectly matched.

When Stan got sick, Dustin gave up everything else to care for him. He spent months at his bedside,cared and fed and cleaned him, watched TV with him, and read to him when his vision started to fade. And at the end, he spent almost two days just sitting, holding his hand, though Stan probably couldn’t even feel it.

“I just wanted him to know I was there,” he said, after Stan was gone. “I wanted him to know, right up to the end, that he wasn’t alone.”

It was after the funeral that Dustin told Graham he was sick, that he had been hiding it while he cared for Stan. “But it’s not so bad,” he had comforted his older brother. “Not yet, anyway.”

Dustin was never anything but strong, Graham thought to himself as he turned up the road report on the radio. He’d weather this, too.

He tightened his fingers around the wheel and leaned forward. The snow was heavier again, the wind cutting across the freeway, shuddering the car.

The radio described the driving conditions as hazardous. Police were urging drivers to stay at home, “unless it’s an emergency.”

Graham tightened his grip, and he drove into the storm.

*          *          *

“Don’t you look smashing,” his mother said, swanning into his bedroom as Dustin was finishing tying his tie.

“I was a bit worried,” he said, rolling his shoulders to let the suit fall right. “I thought it might not fit.”

She ran her hand over his lapel, straightened his pocket square.

“I’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I wore it,” he continued. “But it still seems to fit.”

She stopped, and he could almost hear her holding her breath.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “I know.”

He hadn’t been surprised when he had opened the closet to find a charcoal suit on a wooden hanger, a crisp linen shirt, a charcoal tie and pocket square.

It was the suit he had worn for Stan’s funeral. He had known it would fit, even though he was fifty pounds lighter than he had been that day.

And he had known that she would come for him, as soon as he was ready.

She looked into his face, then stepped forward and he took her in his arms. They stood like that for a long moment, and Dustin tried to freeze the feeling in his memory.

When she stepped away, she was dabbing at her eyes, subtly, trying not to let him see.

“When…when did you….”

“When did I figure it out?” he asked.

She nodded.

“When you came to see me at the hospice, yesterday,” he said. Then he smiled. “I don’t have many good days, but even at my worst, I still know how much I’ve missed you. How long you’ve been gone.”

She nodded slowly, biting her lips to keep from crying. “We should….” She gestured at the door. “Everyone’s waiting.”

He turned away and went to the window. Outside, it was a world of white. The snow rolled unbroken as far as he could see, vanishing into the haze of the storm. There were no cars in the driveway, no driveway at all, in fact, just the house, floating in an eternity of white, an ember of warmth in a universe of cold. From downstairs, he could hear the sound of voices, laughter, and it reminded him of being a child again, falling asleep in the warmth of joy rising up from the stairwell.

He wiped at his own eyes.

“Okay,” he said, taking his mother’s hand.

The voices got louder as they went down the stairs, a glorious bubble buoyed by laughter. He could almost recognize some of the tones, and he squeezed his mother’s hand.

His father came from the kitchen, and smiled sadly when he saw Dustin. “So,” he said, taking him by the shoulder. “Are you ready?”

Dustin nodded. He was.

The air was heavy and rich. It smelled of spiced wine and roast turkey, of fresh pine and candles. And people. All those people. All those voices.

Dustin stopped.

Graham was waiting for them around the corner, just outside the living room.

When he saw Dustin, he shook his head and tried to look exasperated, but the expression didn’t take, and he broke into a wide smile.

As the brothers embraced, their parents looked at one another, smiling sadly and reaching out for one another’s hands.

Dustin wanted to apologize, wanted to thank Graham for coming for him, wanted to explain, but as he started to speak Graham said, “Shh. It’s all right.”

Which was what he always said.

And it always was.

As they embraced, the bubble of voices, the bursts of laughter, seemed to still, as if a whole room of people had been brought to attention, and were waiting, watching.

Dustin stepped back from Graham and turned toward the room, curious to see why everyone was so quiet all of a sudden.

“Hello, Dustin,” Stan said.

He was standing in the doorway, close enough to touch, ever dapper in his dark suit, the bright swath of his red scarf, the rakish smile going all the way to his eyes, which seemed to glisten, even in the brightness of the room.

It felt suddenly like Dustin had been holding his breath, like he had been holding it since Stan had died, and now, seeing him again, he could let the breath go. It broke from him like a sob, like a laugh, an undifferentiated sound of pure emotion that seemed to echo in the still room.

“You’re here,” Dustin said, in a voice of quiet wonder.

Stan shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re here.”

Dustin could feel tears burning behind his eyes, and a thrumming in his chest. “You came for me,” he said. “Last night, in the storm.”

Stan nodded, his lips tight, clearly holding back his own tears. “I wanted you to know I was there,” he said, his voice halting. “I wanted you to know that you weren’t alone.”

And then Dustin was in his lover’s arms, holding tight to his scarf as they kissed under the mistletoe, both of them laughing, and crying, as the voices rose up around them, and carried them away.