"I'm okay, really," Jeff Henderson insisted. His mother lifted the ice pack off the bump on his head. "See, no blood," he told his kids. He felt a little guilty that the worried look on Will's face pleased him.
He remembered falling backward before coming to on the cellar floor.
Jeff picked up the Life magazine he'd brought upstairs and stood up. "I'm calling it a night."
"No biscuits, Dad?" Will said.
"I'll have mine in the morning. You two finish up and go to bed. If it stops snowing, we're leaving Tennyson. Early."
He kissed Katie and his mother. Will surprised him with a hug. Upstairs in his childhood bed, he flipped open the magazine. In a mattress ad a woman slept alone in a double bed, her husband and son in the background. Where was Rachel, his wife, sleeping tonight?
He turned the page. Fidel Castro's bearded face floated on the waves off a Havana beach. The picture was out of focus. Was it the camera or his vision?
Before Jeff could decide, he was out.
* * *
Inside Radio City Music Hall, a boy strolls through the Rockettes' dressing room. A leggy Rockette, dressed in a skimpy Santa costume trimmed with white fur, beckons.
"The show's about to begin," she whispers. "It can't start without you."
Jeff Henderson is dreaming, journeying back in time, his troubled soul searching for answers that could be found only in his past.
* * *
"Come on, Jeff. Jeffrey, wake up!" Allie Henderson, his mother, stood at the foot of his bed. "You promised to help Pop with rounds before school. Don't keep him waiting."
Jeff Henderson was only 10, but his life on this November day in 1962 was full. Too full. And at the moment it was full of trouble.
He saw the worry on his mom's face - about the business, bills, and mostly, Pop's heart.
By now, a week before Thanksgiving, Pop's holly wreath business should be in full swing, holiday decorations flowing from his country warehouse to city department stores and nurseries. It wasn't.
By now, a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis put America on high alert, the fallout shelter in the root cellar - Jeff's secret plan to save his mother and grandfather from the bomb - should have been chock-full of supplies. It wasn't.
A comforting morning smell - coffee, bacon and biscuits - wafted up the stairs.
"Coming," Jeff said, rubbing his eyes.
* * *
Pop parked in front of a ramshackle farmhouse. Rusting machinery littered the front yard. The only bright note: holly wreaths stacked on two broomstick handles nailed to wooden bases.
A little girl peeked out the door. "Mommy, it's the Holly Wreath Man."
A tired-looking woman emerged, a toddler in her arms.
"I was hoping to have four sticks today, Pop, but Bobby's got croup again," she apologized. The baby barked a raspy cough.
Pop motioned to Jeff to start loading. "This is just fine," Pop said. "To tell the truth, Tammy, I'll be lucky to sell these two today."
"Come on, Pop," Tammy said. "You're kidding, right?"
"Fact is, demand's just not as strong this year."
"But Pop," Jeff said, "everybody needs a Christmas wreath, don't they?"
"Sure, son, but plastic seems to be the thing people want now."
"Who'd want plastic over a real one?" Tammy said.
"I've been asking myself the same question," Pop said.
"We're counting on our wreath money this year, what with the poor harvest and all," Tammy said anxiously. "I was planning on getting another four sticks done by Friday."
Tammy's husband pushed open the door, bleary-eyed, unshaven. "Think you could make any more noise out here?" he growled. "I'm trying to sleep."
Tammy reddened with embarrassment. "Sorry, hon. I was just telling Pop how we really need to sell a lot of wreaths this year."
"I'm tired of stepping on those stinking berries." He slammed the door.
Pop patted Tammy's shoulder. "Don't you worry. Make as many as you can. I'll take these up to Wilford today. People love Christmas from the forest, right, Jeff?"
Jeff grabbed the second stick of wreaths and headed for the truck. "You bet, Pop."
The truck loaded, Pop drove Jeff to school. At the warehouse, he hauled Tammy's wreaths up to the loading dock, stopping to catch his breath. He unlocked a side door, walked inside and switched on the lights. Holly wreaths, in varying stages of decay, jammed the space. With a sigh, Pop added Tammy's wreaths to the pile, and locked up.
