Memory Tree Read Free Page A

I’ll be heading out now. I’ll see you tomorrow night, Brian,” said Chet Hardesty, an out-of-work welder who’d been coming to the tavern more and more of late. He rose from his bar stool with a crack of his knees.
    â€œClosed tomorrow, Chet. It’s Thanksgiving.”
    â€œOh, right, the holidays. They kind of sneak up on you, don’t they?”
    That would normally be the case if not for the defrosting twenty-five-pound turkey hogging precious space inside the refrigerator back at the farmhouse he shared with his young ward, ten-year-old Janey Sullivan. Still, he supposed weathered old Chet raised a good point. It was hard to believe that special time of year had arrived again, when not just turkey, but trimmings, tinsel, and trees would dominate the local conversation. Whether here or across the county road at the Five O’Clock Diner over a cup of coffee or down the street at Marla and Darla’s Trading Post, at the counter inside A Doll’s Attic, really anywhere in Linden Corners that the locals liked to gather, Christmas had a way of consuming their lives.
    â€œTake care of yourself, Chet. Get home safely, you hear?”
    â€œI made it to sixty-four with few problems, knees notwithstanding,” he said. “Don’t see why tonight would be any different.”
    Chet responded to his time-honored wisdom with a hearty laugh, but to Brian it sounded hollow. He briefly wondered if Chet had any family to go home to tonight, a place in which to spend the holiday, and he nearly extended one more invitation to the festivities scheduled to take place within the gentle warmth of the farmhouse. Perhaps his wife was out of town visiting relatives and he had stayed behind. But then Chet was gone into the night, the zoom of the truck’s engine disrupting the night’s silence. Brian might be a bartender, but that didn’t mean he was cut out to solve everyone’s problems. Didn’t he have his share of them? As much joy as he’d experienced here in town, certain things in his life remained unsettled.
    Linden Corners was usually discovered only by unsuspecting visitors who had made an inadvertent turn off the Taconic Parkway. Existing on a stretch of highway that sliced through the rolling green hills of the Hudson River Valley of New York State, it was a place that liked to roll up its sidewalks as dusk arrived, George’s Tavern one of the few exceptions. By midnight, it was only his lights that allowed unsuspecting travelers to know they were passing through civilization. Brian had made decent money with such a business mode, as some folks just didn’t like staying home alone, and so the bar offered up a regular place to kick back and relax, watch a ballgame on the wide-screen television on the wall while knocking back a few beers, a chance to make new friends. Otherwise, on weeknights like this, the downtown area was as dark as night preferred, lights doused, a sleepy village living up to its reputation.
    Brian made his way across the creaky wood floor, wondering if maybe the converted old home needed some repairs before winter, turned the lock on the front door to avoid any possible last-minute customer. Back behind the bar, he set about cleaning the remaining glasses quickly so he could get back home to Janey, even though he expected she’d already be fast asleep. Sara Ravens was watching her tonight, no doubt catching a few needed winks on the sofa. Sara, one of the waitresses over at the Five-O and Brian’s tenant who lived upstairs from the tavern with her husband, Mark, had recently volunteered to look after Janey a couple of nights a week, practice, she said, for when she and Mark had a kid of their own.
    Which would come soon enough. Sara Ravens was eight months pregnant.
    Brian flipped on the faucet, letting warm water wash over his hands. It wasn’t cold out, the usual winter chill not having swooped down on them, surprising given