Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini Page B

apologized for the late notice, it took him a moment to understand that she could not go out for their customary post-concert dessert. She—she and Brandon—had to hurry off to her parents’ home to share some very good news with them.
    When she took a deep, shaky breath and clasped her hands together, interlacing her fingers, he knew what was coming before she spoke. The jewelry store—Brandon had not really been shopping for a bracelet for his mother but analyzing Sophia’s preferences in engagement rings. Earlier that day, Brandon had proposed, and Sophia had accepted.
    Lucas went numb. He could only stare at her, nodding automatically and frowning thoughtfully as if he were in a lecture hall listening to a professor expound on a particularly inscrutable architectural concept.
    â€œWe can still do our gift exchange,” Sophia was saying apologetically. “I just can’t go out tonight. Or maybe we could do it another time?”
    â€œYeah, why don’t we do that instead?” Lucas’s voice sounded as if he were strangling. “Actually I—I couldn’t believe it when I checked my bag just now but—well, I forgot to bring your gift.”
    â€œOh, okay.” Smiling, Sophia reached out and touched his arm. “You look so upset. It’s no big deal.”
    He forced a smile and agreed.
    They settled on December 27 and lunch at their favorite Indian buffet, and then it was time to warm up the choir for the concert. Lucas had never played more mechanically, but somehow he got through the hours, and afterward he remembered to congratulate Sophia. Her radiant smile when she thanked him struck him like a punch in the gut.
    If he had known then that the engagement would come to an abrupt and inglorious end ten months later, he wouldn’t have shown up at his parents’ house that night in a daze of misery, wouldn’t have had too much wine at dinner and more after dessert, wouldn’t have ranted drunkenly to his brothers or cried to his sisters, wouldn’t have woken up the next morning in the bottom bunk of his old bed in his old room with a throbbing head and a sour throat. His family treated him kindly, gently, when he staggered down the stairs, knowing most of the story and piecing together the rest. They knew him, and they knew how he felt, and no one tried to comfort him with falsely cheerful declarations about the millions of other women out there who would consider themselves lucky to have him. For that, he was thankful.
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    Two days after that bleak Christmas, he had unwrapped the jeweled combs, had found the receipt in his wallet, and had made it as far as the entrance to the store before deciding not to return them for a refund. Why he had not, and why he had kept them ever since, he could not say. The exchange period had long ago expired and he could not imagine giving them to anyone else. Nearly a year later, they were still in the box, still at the back of a drawer in his bedroom.
    He should give them to one of his sisters, if only to make more room for socks.
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    Lucas dragged out the warm-up as long as he could, but he finally ran out of ideas. “Well done, kids,” he said, rising from the piano bench. “As soon as Miss Sophia arrives—”
    â€œShe’s over there,” Alex interrupted, pointing. Startled, Lucas turned to look, evoking giggles from the sopranos.
    â€œWe’re all here now, so let’s continue,” Sophia replied as she joined Lucas at the piano, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, and the faint scent of cinnamon in the air about her. “Let’s begin with ‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.’” As the children opened their binders, Sophia inhaled deeply, sighed, and quietly added, for Lucas alone, “Some very lucky person nearby has coffee.”
    â€œYes, you.” He would have