A Christmas Wish For Us

Chapter 18: The Letter from Chicago

Three Months Later

The silence of the winter had broken, not with a song, but with a groan. The season didn't leave gracefully; it retreated like a wounded army, leaving behind the ugly, wet sounds of the thaw.

Liam sat at the small wooden table, listening to the world rot. The pristine white snow that had buried the cabin for months was receding, pulling back to reveal a scarred landscape of brown mud, gray slush, and decomposing leaves. The lake was cracking, the ice moaning and popping like the joints of a dying giant as the dark water beneath fought to breathe.

He stared at a can of tomato soup sitting in front of him. It was cold. He hadn't bothered to heat it. The propane tank for the stove was dangerously low, and he was rationing the remaining fuel for emergencies—though he wasn't sure what constituted an emergency anymore if this life didn't count.

He held the spoon with his right hand. His left arm rested uselessly in his lap, a heavy, dead thing curled like a sleeping pet. Even his good hand was betraying him now. A fine, persistent tremor traveled from his wrist to his fingertips, making the red liquid ripple in the spoon like a seismograph of his failing nervous system.

He took a sip. It tasted like metal and salt.

He was thirty-five years old, but the reflection he caught in the window glass belonged to a man of fifty. His beard had grown into a thick, unkempt thicket of black and gray, a wild curtain designed to hide the sharp, famine-struck angles of his jaw. His hair hung to his shoulders, matted and dull. He wore three layers of thermal clothes because his body had forgotten how to regulate its own heat; he was always cold, a deep, marrow-level chill that no blanket could touch.

He was a ruin. A monument to a war of attrition where the enemy was his own biology.

Slurp.

He forced another spoonful down, swallowing against the constriction in his throat.

Then, he heard it.

A sound that didn't belong in the symphony of the thaw. It wasn't the groan of the ice or the dripping of meltwater. It was mechanical. Rhythmic. The low, steady purr of an engine.

Liam froze, the spoon hovering halfway to his mouth.

He listened, his heart kicking against his ribs. Gravel crunching under heavy tires. The squeal of brakes. The engine cutting out.

Panic, sharp and electric, surged through his veins. It wasn't the delivery truck. The delivery truck came on Tuesdays. Today was Friday.

Liam dropped the spoon. It clattered into the bowl, splashing cold red soup onto the table. He grabbed his cane—the rough branch worn smooth by his palm—and forced himself up. His knees popped, stiff and painful, protesting the movement.

He shuffled to the window, pressing his body flat against the wall so he could peer out through the c***k in the dirty muslin curtain.

A black SUV was parked in the mud at the end of the driveway. It was covered in road salt and grime, a visitor from the world of pavement and speed.

The driver’s door opened. A man stepped out.

It was Ben.

But it wasn't the Ben Liam remembered sending down the aisle three months ago. It wasn't the polished, sweater-wearing architect who had stood at the altar. This Ben was wearing a wrinkled flannel shirt and jeans that looked slept-in. He hadn't shaved in days; dark stubble shadowed his jaw.

He looked angry. He looked defeated.

Ben slammed the car door shut with a violence that shook the birds from the trees. He didn't look around at the scenery. He marched straight for the cabin, his boots sinking into the slush, ignoring the mud that splattered his jeans.

He didn't knock. He hammered on the wood with his fist, a sound that echoed like thunder in the small room.

"Liam! I know you're in there!"

Liam didn't move. He leaned against the wall, his breath hitching. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it made his vision pulse at the edges.

"Go away, Ben," Liam whispered to the empty room, his voice a rusty scrape.

"Open the damn door, Liam!" Ben shouted. "Or I'll kick it in! I swear to God, I will break it down!"

There was a desperation in his voice that terrified Liam. This wasn't a social call. This wasn't a check-up. This was an emergency.

Liam sighed, a ragged sound of surrender. He hobbled to the door. His fingers fumbled with the deadbolt, slipping twice on the cold metal before it finally clicked back.

He opened the door.

Ben stood on the porch, his hand raised to pound again. He froze when he saw Liam.

He took in the beard. The filth. The skeletal frame hidden under layers of wool. The tremor shaking Liam’s right hand. Ben’s anger seemed to falter for a second, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated horror.

"Jesus Christ," Ben breathed, stepping back as if the sickness were contagious. "Liam... look at you."

"I'm alive," Liam said, his voice rusty. He turned his back and limped toward his chair, needing to sit down before his legs gave out. "Unfortunately. What are you doing here, Ben? We had a deal. No visits. No calls."

"The deal is off," Ben said.

He stepped inside, kicking the mud off his boots—a violent, wet sound—and slammed the door shut behind him. The sound echoed in the small space, trapping them together.

"Why?" Liam asked, collapsing into the chair and pulling the blanket up to his chin, trying to hide his trembling body. "Did you tell her? Did you ruin it?"

"I didn't tell her anything!" Ben yelled. The volume was shocking in the quiet cabin, bouncing off the log walls.

Ben began to pace the small room, running his hands through his hair, his movements jerky and frantic.

"I kept your secret! I played your role! I bought her the peonies! I held her when she had nightmares! I walked on her left side! I did every single thing in that damn notebook!"

Ben stopped pacing. He turned to Liam, his eyes blazing with a mixture of rage and grief that looked almost like madness.

"And you know what happened?"

Liam gripped the armrests of the chair, his knuckles turning white. "She's happy. You told me she was happy."

"She's miserable!" Ben screamed.

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The fire in the stove hissed as a piece of damp wood settled.

Liam stared at him, his mouth dry. "What?"

"She's miserable," Ben repeated, his voice breaking. He slumped against the table, looking like the weight of the world was finally crushing his spine. "She's hollow, Liam. She goes through the motions. She smiles when she's supposed to smile. She says 'I love you' when I say it. But it's fake. It's all fake."

"You're doing it wrong," Liam snapped, panic rising in his chest like bile. "You're not following the manual. Did you check the list? The allergies? The movies? Did you buy her the synthetic pillows?"

"Screw the manual!"

Ben reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the spiral-bound notebook—the same one Liam had written three years ago in the desperate hours of the night. It was battered now, the cover torn, the pages dog-eared from constant, frantic use.

Ben threw it.

It hit Liam in the chest with a dull thud and fell to the floor, sliding open to a page covered in Liam’s shaky handwriting.

"It's a script!" Ben shouted, tears standing in his eyes. "It's a script for a play, and she knows the actor is wrong! She doesn't know why, but she knows! She feels like she's living with a stranger because I'm trying so hard to be you that I'm not being me, and I'm not being you either! I'm just a cheap copy!"

Liam stared at the notebook on the floor. It lay open to Page 12: Skating.

"She asks about you," Ben whispered.

Liam went still. The air left his lungs. "What?"

"She asks about the neighbor," Ben said, his voice dropping to a haunted whisper. "She brings you up constantly. It started small. 'I wonder how Liam is doing in Seattle.' Then it got worse. 'Liam would have liked this movie.' 'Do you think Liam ever got married?'"

Ben walked over and knelt in front of Liam’s chair, forcing Liam to look at him.

"She’s not remembering you, Liam. Not the way you think. She doesn't have her memories back. But she’s missing you. She’s missing the piece of her soul that you took with you. And I can't fill it. I tried. God, I tried. But I can't be the love of her life when the love of her life is haunting the house."

Liam looked at his friend. He saw the exhaustion etched into Ben’s face—the deep lines of a man who had spent three years trying to be someone else. He saw the ruin of a good man who had tried to do the impossible.

"So what are you saying?" Liam asked, his voice trembling.

"I'm saying we're separated," Ben said.

Liam felt the room spin. The Hum in his head spiked. "No. No, you can't be."

"I moved out last week," Ben said. "I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't wake up next to a woman who is in love with a ghost. It was killing me, Liam. And it was killing her."

"You have to go back," Liam pleaded, grabbing Ben’s collar with his weak, shaking hand. "You have to fix it. Tell her... tell her I'm dead. Tell her I died in Seattle. If she thinks I'm dead, she'll grieve, and then she'll move on. She needs closure!"

"I'm not lying to her anymore!" Ben shoved Liam’s hand away. He stood up, backing away as if Liam were contagious.

"I'm done lying! I came here to tell you that I'm out. The play is over. I can't be your understudy anymore."

Ben walked to the door. He put his hand on the latch.

"And there's one more thing."

Liam looked up, terrified. "What?"

"She found the receipt," Ben said.

Liam stopped breathing. "What receipt?"

"For the woodstove," Ben said. "The one you bought with my credit card three years ago. I left the receipt in a drawer by accident. She found it when I was packing my things."

"What did she say?" Liam whispered.

"She asked why I was buying a woodstove for a cabin in Minnesota when we live in a townhouse in Chicago," Ben said. "She saw the delivery address. Lake Vermilion."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her it was a hunting cabin," Ben said. "I told her I rented it for a friend."

"Did she believe you?"

Ben looked at Liam with sad, pitying eyes.

"She asked if the friend was you," Ben said. "She asked if 'the neighbor' lived there."

Liam closed his eyes. The walls of his sanctuary were crumbling. The fortress he had built out of silence and snow was breaching.

"I didn't answer her," Ben continued. "I just walked out. But you know Sarah. Once she has a thread, she pulls it until the whole sweater unravels."

Ben opened the door. The cold air rushed in, smelling of mud and freedom.

"Goodbye, Liam," Ben said softly. "I hope you find some peace out here. Because you sure as hell destroyed ours."

Ben walked out.

Liam sat frozen in his chair. He listened to the heavy boots squelch through the mud. He listened to the SUV door slam. He listened to the engine roar to life and fade into the distance.

He was alone again.

But the silence was different now. It wasn't the silence of safety. It was the silence of a held breath.

Liam looked down at the notebook on the floor. He leaned over, groaning with the effort, and picked it up. He smoothed the crumpled page.

Page 12.

He ripped the page out. Then the next. Then the next.

He crumpled them into a ball and threw them into the cold stove. He grabbed a match. His hand shook so bad it took three tries to strike it against the rough strip.

He dropped the burning match onto the paper.

He watched the manual burn. He watched the script turn to ash, the ink curling and disappearing into smoke.

"It doesn't matter," Liam whispered to the flames. "She won't come. She hates the neighbor who left without saying goodbye. She won't come."

But deep down, beneath the tumor and the fear, he knew Ben was right. Sarah never left a puzzle unsolved.

And he was the biggest puzzle of her life.