Christmas Miracles Read online

  It’s not that I’m not genuine at work, but they don’t know the real me. The heart of that man is reserved for Holly alone, and the members of our family.

  Maybe it was fate that arranged for Holly and me to meet when we did, otherwise, if she’d known me before, she might never have given me the time of day—which only confirms my belief that everything happens when it’s meant to happen.

  Dr. and Mrs. James recently celebrated their fortieth anniversary and we all gathered together at their summer house on Cape Cod. Even Riley, Lois and the kids flew in for the party.

  Holly graduated from medical school last spring and is now doing exactly what she always dreamed of doing. She’s working forensics with the FBI. She still does karate three times a week and I’m her new sparring partner. I’ll be testing for my brown belt next year.

  As for Robert and his son, Riley… They’ve come a long way. Robert’s counseling has helped a lot, and Riley is no stranger to human weakness, given all that he’s seen and heard in the support groups he leads in Billings. He’s the most forgiving man I’ve ever met. Lois is that way, too, but life hasn’t been easy on either of them the past few years. They’ve had their ups and downs.

  But haven’t we all?

  The important thing is to keep getting up each day knowing that everything can turn on a dime. For better or for worse. Sometimes bad things happen, and people will always make mistakes, but isn’t that how we learn and grow stronger? That’s why we need to treasure each moment of every day, learn how to accept and forgive, and never fear what might be over the horizon, even if it looks dark and cloudy. Because it just might turn out to be the best day of your life.

  Questions for Discussion

  1. During Josh’s description of his childhood experiences from Chapters Eight through Twelve, what passages or images suggest an overlap between Josh’s memory of that time in his life, the reality of his near-death experience and Leah’s ghostly presence at his bedside?

  2. After Josh wakes up in the hospital, were you aware that Leah was a ghostly presence? What clues can you identify that suggest she was not an active resident doctor at the hospital and not a living person? What elements suggest that she was a living person? How would you explain these?

  3. The issue of the line drawn through the request for a psychiatric consultation in Josh’s medical chart is never resolved. Discuss what you believe happened with his chart and why there were no notes about his alleged interviews with Leah.

  4. Discuss the author’s use of color in the novel when describing the various settings, clothing and events.

  5. Discuss the following passage from the end of Chapter Forty-six: “A bluebird landed in a tree across from where we sat. For a long while I sat in Josh’s arms, admiring the bird’s vivid plumage until she lifted off the branch and flew away again.”

  6. Have you had a near-death experience, or know another person who has? What was it like for you or them? What do you believe about the phenomenon?

  7. Analyze the dreams that Josh has in Chapters Thirty-two, Fifty, and Fifty-four.

  8. Do you believe Holly’s mother was right to take her husband back so quickly after their separation? Do you believe their marriage has a bright future? Why or why not?

  9. Discuss Dr. James as a husband and father. Was there anything to admire about how he conducted himself? Do you believe there is hope that he can change?

  The Color of Heaven Novels are also available as audiobooks.

  The Color of a Christmas Miracle

  A Color of Heaven Novel

  by Julianne MacLean

  Prologue

  It’s Christmas Eve, nearly midnight, and I am on my knees in the snow, praying for a miracle.

  To be honest, I have been praying for this miracle every day for the past few years, but never quite like this. This is different. This time, I would really love for things to work out. Not just for my own sake, but for my husband’s, because he is the kindest, most generous and compassionate soul I’ve ever known. He deserves this gift, and I would love for him to receive it.

  So I could really use your help.

  Let me assure you, I am not asking for a handout. I am not the type of person to feel sorry for myself or expect good things to simply fall into my lap because I prayed for them. To the contrary, I am a realist, and I’ve learned how to pick myself up and dust myself off when I get knocked down—and I’ve been knocked down quite a bit in this life. But I’ve always had faith that everything will work out in the end, exactly as it’s meant to—as long as I am willing to do my share and never lose hope.

  So I will ask again….

  Say a prayer for me tonight. I am a good person, and so is everyone else involved in this. I may not always have felt that way. I might have been angry and judgmental about certain people who caused me pain recently, but the situation has changed.

  I have changed.

  Although I suppose it would help if you knew what, exactly, you were praying for. Or rather, what I am praying for.

  So let me rewind a bit and tell you where I am tonight, and how I came to be here.

  Merry Christmas, by the way. I hope all of your dreams come true, and that this is the best Christmas ever. For all of us.

  Chapter One

  It’s rather remarkable, don’t you think, that so many of us can enter adulthood believing that most roads ahead will be straightforward, and that we will step onto a straight path in pursuit of our dreams, and everything will go according to plan.

  I don’t know why in the world I embraced this idea, considering the fact that I’d been thrown some curveballs in my childhood—curveballs that resulted in heartbreak and loss. Maybe I believed that—because I’d already suffered so much disappointment in my younger years—the odds would be in my favor moving forward.

  Or maybe I was able to cling to this surprising sense of optimism because my childhood hadn’t always been difficult. The early formative years had, in fact, been rather wonderful. For the first twelve years of my life, my younger sister Bev and I were fortunate enough to have been blessed with a loving family—which included two responsible parents who adored us and taught us how to be good people, how to always be considerate of others and place value on family and community. They treated us like angels, and we were as close as any family could be. Our cozy little home in a small, friendly town in rural Nova Scotia was a happy one, full of laughter and love. Bev and I never wanted for anything.

  But then it all came crashing down one day when I was twelve and my father went outside to trim the hedge while Bev and I played in the sprinkler. He slipped and fell into the ditch and impaled himself on the clippers. My mother called an ambulance, but my father died before he reached the hospital. He was only thirty-six.

  We were all traumatized and devastated, especially my mother who had called him her ‘knight in shining armor.’ They had been together since the eighth grade and he was the only man she had ever loved.

  Suddenly, she was alone without the love of her life to help her raise her two grief-stricken daughters. That first year was full of pain, anger and tears, and over the next few years, we struggled financially. My mother—who had never worked a day in her life—took a waitressing job to support us. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to get by on and we eventually sold our cozy little home in a tree-lined neighborhood and moved to a less desirable part of town. Life was never quite the same after that.

  Though my mother strove to be strong for Bev and me, I knew how broken she was on the inside. My father’s death left a gaping hole in her heart, and she was dismayed by the loss of him.

  Sometimes she cried in her bedroom at night when she thought Bev and I were asleep. Whenever I heard her sorrow, I tiptoed to her room and crawled into bed with her, and held her close to comfort her. Bev would come in, too, and we would comfort each other.

  I had loved my father with all my heart and soul. He taught me how to ride a bicycle, how to swim, how to build a campfire, and all t
he other things fathers do for their daughters—which I didn’t appreciate nearly enough when he was alive. I was simply too young to contemplate the possibility that he might be taken from me, violently and without warning.

  Later, I looked back on happier times and visualized him as a magnificent shooting star, blazing across the sky before disappearing in a sudden flash.

  Sometimes, it was difficult not to be overcome by my anger for having been robbed of such a wonderful man. He would never walk me down the aisle, or be the proud, smiling face in the audience, cheering and clapping as I received my high school diploma.

  Whenever I wanted to lash out at God for such cruelty and unfairness, I shut my eyes and struggled to feel gratitude instead for the special years I’d had with my dad—and for the depth of his love for me. I held his love tightly inside my heart.

  I never truly got over the loss of him, and that loss has affected how I have lived my life—in good ways and in bad. You will see exactly how, in the pages that follow.

  * * *

  After high school, I was fortunate enough to attend university with the help of academic scholarships and student loans, and I forged ahead with optimism, forcing myself to believe that everything would go my way as long as I worked hard, got good grades, and clung to my integrity on a personal level—because those were the lessons my father had taught me. He was an honorable man with a strong moral compass, and I never stopped believing that he was watching over me, urging me to be the principled young woman he had raised me to be. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I made every effort to be the best person I could be.

  I enjoyed good relationships with my professors; I maintained close friendships with the girls in my dorm (they called me their mother hen, because I was usually the one to make sure everyone got home safely from parties).

  At the end of four years, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in mathematics. My mother was proud of me for being so “accomplished.”

  Perhaps I was, on many levels, but I had never fallen in love. I’d never experienced the kind of “head over heels” passion that makes a woman throw all caution to the wind, and that caused me to worry that I was somehow deficient or incapable of intimacy with a man. Perhaps, because of the loss of my father, I possessed a classic fear of abandonment that would haunt me for the rest of my days.

  At least, having excelled academically, I was able to achieve personal fulfillment through other means. I went on to earn a degree in education, graduated at the top of my class, and at the age of twenty-four, I was hired to teach math in a top-rated, private elementary school in Halifax with small class sizes. It was located in a renovated Victorian mansion in an upper-class neighborhood in the South End, not far from the entrance to the magnificent Point Pleasant Park, which boasted groomed walking trails and outdoor summer performances by Shakespeare by the Sea. Most of the children came from good families and wore smart uniforms with navy blazers and plaid kilts for the girls, grey trousers for the boys.

  It was a dream come true for me to land a full-time job like that straight out of university, doing exactly what I wanted to do: teach and connect with the children. Especially those who struggled in some way personally, as I had struggled after the loss of my father.

  During my first year of teaching, I was as happy as anyone could be, although there was still something missing, and I knew exactly what it was.

  I wanted love. A family of my own. I didn’t want to fear the rug getting pulled out from under me, unexpectedly. I wanted to believe that I had paid enough dues when it came to loss, and the odds for happiness and success would be in my favor going forward.

  I prayed that one day, I would be brave enough to open the door when love came knocking. It was almost comical that I didn’t hear the sound of the knuckles rapping when it actually happened.

  Chapter Two

  Let me go back a bit, to explain.

  On the first day of school at my new job, I had met a young man named Wes Radcliffe. He taught gym and had been working at the school for two years before I arrived. Like me, he was hired straight out of a local university.

  We quickly discovered that we lived in the same apartment building, which was not far from the school, so we started walking back and forth together every day.

  Our conversations were open and lively. Often we talked about our experiences and challenges as teachers. We shared funny stories and gave each other advice and support when needed.

  On top of that, we had all sorts of things in common outside of work, like favorite movies and music. Soon we began spending time together as friends on weekends. But at the end of the school year, when he told me that a woman from his gym had asked him out on a date, I finally realized that I was in love with him—the elusive head over heels kind of love that I’d never imagined I would ever allow myself to feel.

  Suddenly, the idea of my best friend going out on a date with another woman sent me into a jealous tizzy. As we rode the elevator in our building, going up, he turned to me and asked, point blank, if he should say yes to her.

  My stomach churned with anxiety and I couldn’t look at him. All I could do was shrug and say, “If that’s what you want to do.”

  The elevator doors opened, and before I realized what was happening, Wes reached for my hand, pulled me back in, and kissed me passionately on the mouth. The doors shut again and we rode the rest of the way up to his apartment while I lost my mind to happiness and desire, and melted in his arms.

  That was the moment I knew that I would be his forever. Body and soul.

  I’m not sure what exactly had caused me to throw caution to the wind so completely in the space of a single heartbeat. But looking back on it, it hadn’t actually happened in a heartbeat. The strength of our friendship had evolved slowly, building trust and affection one day at a time, walking back and forth from school, talking to each other about personal things without any pressure to date or kiss or flirt.

  I had confided in Wes about my father’s death early on, and explained how it affected me—how that was probably the reason I’d never been in love. I believe that’s why Wes handled me with kid gloves during the first year. He didn’t rush me into anything, until that day on the elevator, but by then, we had already built the trust.

  Wes, in turn, told me that he was blessed with two parents who were still together and in love after thirty years of marriage. He explained this to show me that happy endings were possible, and not every love story had to end in heartbreak. Not every parent is taken away from every child.

  When he finally kissed me, I realized he was right—that sometimes love could last forever.

  So I accepted the fact that I couldn’t live without him. How could I, when he’d become my best friend? (And he was wildly handsome as well; I couldn’t take my eyes off him whenever he walked into a room.)

  Our blossoming romance was tricky at first, professionally. We both felt a need to keep it secret at work for as long as possible, but eventually—when there was no question that we were serious—we announced it to our co-workers.

  Two years later, we tied the knot during the month of October in a cozy church wedding, just outside the city.

  Bev was my maid of honor, and as my mother walked me down the aisle, I had a hard time holding back tears because I wished my father could have been there, too. But soon, my tears became tears of joy when I saw Wes looking at me with love and adoration, as if I were the perfect woman he’d always dreamed of marrying.

  In his eyes, I saw anticipation for the future, and his expression caused a flood of emotion in me. He was the only man I had ever loved. The only man I trusted enough to keep my heart safe, and I couldn’t wait to begin our new life together.

  We honeymooned on the Mediterranean—a gift from Wes’s parents, who were very well-to-do.

  When we returned, we moved into his apartment, which was larger than mine and had better views of the water in the Northwest Arm. We enjoyed sitting out on our
balcony in the evenings, watching the sailboats come and go from the yacht clubs.

  Those early years as newlyweds were magical, and for the first time in my life, everything seemed to be falling into place, and the hole in my heart was beginning to heal. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was confident that I had made the right decision, taking a fearless leap of faith into marriage and complete, uninhibited love, come what may.

  Chapter Three

  “So what’s up?” my sister Bev asked as she got out of her car and found me sitting on one of the benches at the park entrance. It was mid-August, only two weeks before the first day of school, and she and I had agreed to meet and take her dog Leo for a walk. “You said you didn’t want to tell me over the phone.”

  I stood up and approached. “I have some exciting news.”

  Bev opened the back door of her SUV and leaned in to hook the leash on Leo’s collar, then she stood back while he jumped out. Eager to say hello, Leo—a five-year-old golden retriever that Bev had rescued from the SPCA—dragged my petite blond sister across the parking lot toward me.

  “Hey, Leo.” I rubbed him behind both ears. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  The three of us started off and entered the park where the tree-lined path was wide and shady, with plenty of other walkers, bikers and runners passing us in both directions.

  “So…” Bev said, “don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me.”