December Frost

By Thomas Mulroe

This family affair is set against the backdrop of bruised blue sky and an ocean of varying shades of gray, Truro on Lower Cape Cod in the dead of winter. Catherine McCarthy and her brother-in-law, Ted, have come to know an unexpected love for one another. A love which casts Ted and Catherine against the wide open, brooding horizon-- the sea and sky aching the eyes to the point unknown where the unlikely lovers are sure, somehow, the two must be meeting.
Together Catherine and Ted find themselves in a roaring and raging storm swirling around them --a mass of white and gray as mighty as any Nor'easter, leaving them blind as everything else slips away.

A year after the holiday season which changed everything for her entire family, Maeve McCarthy gathers with her grown children on Christmas Eve.
While Catherine McCarthy's husband lay dying she was in another man's arms--his brother's. Just as the dust begins to settle, Maeve McCarthy and her family are in for a Christmas Surprise that will stir everything up again...

She can't run. She can't hide. Love for two brothers has found Catherine McCarthy...

Readers find 'December Frost' impressive and addicting leaving them completely hooked from beginning to end. "Then Came November" and "December Frost" pull you into a family affair, and leave you anticipating each character's next move, with twists and turns to keep you turning page, after page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Mulroe
• Release date: Nov 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301756490

Thomas Mulroe

Passion and Vulnerability are constant themes in T. Patrick's novels. Often these themes come in the form of a ruptured family,dangerous attractions, inconvenient pregnancy,misguided abduction,angry encounters resulting in murder or obsessive love. Recently T. Patrick Mulroe identified himself to a group he was speaking to as a storyteller. This is the reason he writes--to tell a story. The books T. Patrick Mulroe writes are filled with real humans who often make mistakes or allow their passions to lead them down the road less taken. Through his fiction T. Patrick Mulroe combines his love of people and stories. More than anything else T. Patrick tries to create CHARACTERS a reader will never forget...and a STORY that keeps them turning the page.

Book preview

December Frost

T. Patrick Mulroe, Jr.

Copyright © 2012 by T. Patrick Mulroe, Jr.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Smashwords Edition: October 2012

Contents

Title Page

Prologue

Part One: Christmas Morning

Part Two: New Year’s Day

Part Three: January Nor’easter

Part Four: Cupid’s Big Day

Part Five: A Spring Wedding

Epilogue

Preview: Christmas Eve With You

_____Prologue_____

I am back from the dead. That will take a moment of getting used to, I realize. Just a moment because one thing I know now I did not before is that we live on borrowed time. I’ve learned that. Standing on the porch of my mother’s house I feel lucky to have borrowed a bit more time to be with everyone on the other side of this door! Knowing we live on borrowed time because of the experience I have had this past year makes me love each and every one of the people I will face in a moment even more.

Through the years we all will be together. The words of the song hung in my head as I watched the doctor prepare to leave the room yesterday—Christmas Eve.

You’re a miracle worker, I told him, seated in a wheelchair by the bed.

You’re a star patient, Jack! he said. You were a perfect candidate for the experimental treatments. I know these past months have not been easy for you, having to be away from your wife and family the way you have been.

They’ve been hell! I said. But that’s all behind me now! I can’t wait to tell Catherine that the treatments she was so afraid of worked, that they stopped the danger of the cancer metastasizing to my brain.

Congratulations, Jack! Merry Christmas! the doctor said to me.

After he left I turned toward the window.

I can’t wait to see the surprise on Catherine’s face when she sees that I am alive and well, cured of the cancer, I said to the woman standing with her back to me at the window.

I can’t either, she said, nodding as she turned toward me.

Without another word my sister-in-law, Rachel, helped me get ready for our Christmas surprise.

We will live every moment and every hour together better than we ever have. Rachel and I are here! One thing I know is we have each other right now. Standing together in the cold and snow of the front porch this morning Rachel touches my hand for encouragement. I am on fire with anticipation of their faces when they see us. Rachel has brought me back to my family—to my wife and love of my life—Catherine!

My sister-in-law gives my hand a squeeze. She has been terrific all these months, waiting for this moment when we are able to return to the family I know has missed me. There will be anger on their parts because of the lie, making them think I was gone. But one thing I know is that we have each other for a bit more borrowed time. We’ll be just fine because no matter what they are feeling that will win out in the end. I am here with them--alive! I have come back to you the way the December frost does each year, Catherine!

Trembling now, my hand holding the knob to my mother’s home opens the door. Rachel and I step inside. The smells of Christmas mix with their voices. I see Rachel give me a quick smile. No matter what happens we walk bravely into the unknown together.

Part One: Christmas Morning

Maeve___________

Children are so brave. Every single day we ask them to try or do something different, always telling them that they are going to like it. Adults rarely do anything different or new, unless forced to. Looking around my parlor where we are gathered exchanging Christmas gifts in a lovely mess of torn paper and broken boxes I am reminded of just how brave children are. My grandson, Toby, asked Jill to marry him last night. Pamela—Toby’s mother, seems to have given up her fight against it. She is being forced to do something different. Catherine and Ted catch my eye. My daughter-in-law carries my son’s child, so soon after her husband passed away—just last spring. Her husband, my beloved son, Jack! How have I gotten up morning after morning since he’s been gone, put my shoes on to walk one foot in front of the other? We lost Rachel too, Ted’s wife, after she took her life at the bridge last summer. Their son died last winter. That started the terrible year we are ending. Margie, my angry daughter, sits with her arms folded. She does not approve of Ted and Catherine. No, Margie does not like change or trying something new. Clark, the man Margie has started seeing this year—who she insists upon calling her ‘friend’ to all of us—attempts to calm her now. I see them all as children, small little kids I encouraged to be brave and try new things all of their lives. Everything is a new thing! Everything is a first. This Christmas Morning is a first for all of us. I am following my children’s lead, attempting to be what I have always asked them to be in the face of such drastic change for our family—brave.

When a person does the thing they are most afraid to do there is power in it. Ego and fear get in the way. On the other side of those two things is pride. I am moving toward that pride now as I try to accept all of these new changes.

Ma bought out the CHRISTMAS TREE SHOP again! Pamela bellows.

The prices are so good… I say.

That’s why you don’t have any money! Margie tells me. CHRISTMAS TREE SHOP is the reason you will lose this house!

It is enough to silence us all. I have been thinking about selling my house. Over the years I have taken too many loans on the property to hold onto it much longer. Jack offered to buy it from me a year or so ago. I would not hear of it, not ready to think about selling it before then. By last Christmas I had given into talk about selling the house we had all grown up in. Margie enjoys telling me that I do not have money because I spent it all at CHRISTMAS TREE SHOPS, the same way she likes to tell me that I am fat, when I complain about my weight, because I always eat cheese and crackers.

The familiar is good. I listen to their voices, remembering the room ravaged by Christmas last year when everything was so different.

I love this sweater! Catherine stated then, holding up a snowman cardigan I thought would be so cute for her when I saw it.

Filene’s was having such a good sale last spring… I said. They were giving the things away! I had to get it for you!

I can just imagine Catherine wearing that to her art gallery on Beacon Hill, or to go shopping with the women from her club at Newberry Street! Margie said at the time.

Get me another beer, Rach! my son, Ted, yelled across the room to his wife.

Rachel rose to go toward the kitchen.

What the hell happened to your legs? Margie asked him, a scolding tone she often used with him.

Where the hell did you get your mouth? he asked her.

I don’t mind, Margie! Rachel said.

It all seemed to go wrong from that moment last year.

Now we are in the parlor again, tearing apart Christmas. For a few seconds each year on Christmas Morning, a bit of time Christmas Eve too, all our mouths which are always going in this family are quiet—while we open presents. Strong opinions and the mad desire to populate the air around us with our every thought are put aside as we become children pulling at tape and ribbons—festive bows. The magic of Christmas, I think this morning.

So, Pamela says. What are your plans—for the wedding?

I freeze in this moment, not sure if she is talking about her son, Toby, who asked his girlfriend, Jill, to marry him last night on Christmas Eve—or my daughter-in-law, Catherine and my son, Ted. Lord help us-- my son who has gotten his brother’s wife pregnant.

Nobody else seems to know who Pamela is talking about either in this moment. Either topic might be explosive with this group. Pamela has made it known all along she thinks Toby is too young to be married. She was not happy he was intending to ask Jill to marry him. As for Ted and Catherine’s situation, well none of this is easy. I am afraid in this moment I might not be able to face one moment more of this—the angst which is my family.

Toby? Pamela asks.

I let out a big breath of relief. Closing my eyes I remember my grandson’s proposal right here in the parlor. Toby’s proposal to Jill last night seems the lesser of two evils right now.

Anna turned her back as Catherine walked into the parlor last night. Pamela brought Catherine across the street from the church. They came in through the front door. Family never comes in the front door, always through the kitchen off of the deck. Catherine