Christmas Lost & Found

November 8th

"He is... sometimes it's loud in the hallways when we talk on the payphone it's hard to hear. He must have gotten the time wrong I never get here this early."

"So you've visited before?"

"Yeah, we've been together since senior year. The distance can be hard, but..."

Rob just nodded and didn't comment. She remembered thinking he must have his own long distance girl because he was way too cute to be single.

Eventually, she sat on a couch in a gathering area close to the desk where Rob was working. She watched the students coming and going in the busy dorm. Also she watched Rob admiring just how good looking and nice he was.

At ten-thirty Chris came through the doors with a group of his friends.

"Chell, you're early!"

She entered his embrace and laughed. "I told you seven!" He had heard eleven and made it up to her, it that wasn't what she remembered most about that night.

She saw Rob on future visits and he always greeted her. At the Christmas formal senior year, his date was a beautiful blonde and Michelle remembered thinking she was the type of girl he deserved. She and Chris made it until February of senior year. When he started applying for engineering jobs across the country, she knew she had no interest in following him.

Single for the first time since she was a kid, she was living with a four girls in a small apartment in the Boston neighborhood of Brighton and working for an insurance company in town. After graduation, she discovered she would need a masters to make anything out of her psychology degree. She didn't have the finances or the ambition at twenty-two.

Her best friend and roommate, Amber asked her to go to her company Christmas party. They took extra care dressing up, because Amber promised a lot of single men from her financial firm would attend. The suits were everywhere and scanning the room Michelle's eyes locked on a familiar face. Instantly, her smile faded, as she noticed the skinny blonde at his side. She wasn't the same girl as the Christmas formal a year before, but she was the same type.

Michelle nodded and turned her attention to Amber, who had been talking to her. She met many men, but her eye kept seeking him. Eventually, he approached her.

"Hi Chellie." He surprised her by remembering her name. He smiled, and she thought her heart might stop when he confessed. "I remember everything about you."

Her mouth was so dry, she didn't know if she made a sound. "You do."

He smiled. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

"Do you have rounds?" She flirted. Before he stopped laughing, she grew serious. "Where's your date?"

He stared intently. "I don't have a date."

"The girl... your type I saw you with?"

He shook his head. "Co worker." He reached up and touched her dull straight brown hair. "Blond really isn't my type."

Michelle still felt a fluttery feeling when she remembered how much they were in love. It was why she loved romantic movies. She could relive the first kiss, falling in love feeling. Her marriage wasn't any worse than plenty of others after twenty-three years. It was just nothing like when they fell in love. Their marriage had become as comfortable as an old slipper, still loved, but often lost for a while under the bed. The problem was neither had the time or energy to dig it out, so they had lost it for too long. She felt dread her slipper might be stolen. It was silly of her, but Rob was away at a conference and her insecurities convinced herself a skinny blond would catch his eye. Even though he told her twenty-five years ago, those girls were not his type, she never believed him.

Dressed in comfortable old flannel pants and one of Rob's old t-shirts, she sat down, wishing she could relax. She looked over some case files for the next day. She had eventually earned her social work credentials while the kids were teenagers, and then she went to work for the Department of Social Services. She loved and hated her job every single day. She loved to be helping unfortunate children. She hated the atrocities she witnessed and the frustration she found with the system. Most nights she was too emotionally drained to even think about the slipper, never mind look for it.

Her phone interrupted her review of a case warranting a home visit. Seeing it was Rob, she picked it up and offered a hi.

"Hey, how's it going?"

She answered uncommitted, because the last thing he needed to hear about was the details of two children possibly being neglected by a mother addicted to heroin. Not that he didn't care, because he had a huge heart, but there was no need to bring him down with the grisly business she dealt with from day to day.

She suddenly remembered the purpose of his trip. "How was your speech or whatever it's called?"

He chuckled. "It was a seminar, and it went all right. At least, I think it was received well enough. I just switched my flight for tomorrow morning. I don't want to hang around here now my part is done. I have so much work to do in the office."

"Your busy season. I know."

The end of the year was a very busy time in the human resources department. Rob had moved from company to company over the years and each one was a step up the ladder. He was the Vice President of Human Resources for a large corporation. She was proud of him and his success provided for their family, but he worked constantly and wasn't looking for the slipper either.

"I'll get into Logan around noon, and I'll try to be home for dinner. Maybe we can meet at Lucinda's to grab a bite."

"Yeah okay, let me know. Otherwise I can whip something up. I've had a break the past two nights. I ate soup."

"You deserve a break even when I'm not out of town. Did you hear from either of them today?"

He was asking about their children who were no longer children. Robert Junior, Robbie, was twenty-two and a Vanderbilt graduate who stayed in Nashville. He wanted to become an accountant to the rich and famous. Accounting always made Rob and Chellie laugh because they were both better with people than numbers, although Rob wasn't awful like Chellie.

Lily was a junior at Saint Joseph's College in Maine. It had a great nursing school, but also because she wanted to be with her best friend Lilli. The girls had been inseparable every summer since they were four, especially when Chellie was a stay at home mom and spent most of the summer with the kids at her cottage on The Point. Rob joined them every weekend and for his vacation. Chellie smiled. Life was always better at the cottage.

"Lily texted. She got the nurse's assistant job at Bridgton Hospital. I'm glad she's getting experience, but she'll never be able to come home. I'm not even sure what she'll do over the summer. It's a bit far to commute from The Point. She'll have to tell Rick she won't be back."

"Summer's a long time off, but the holidays are coming."

"I know I worry about them too and with Robbie away."

"He may come home. Let's wait and see. It's late. I called to say goodnight."

"It is late. Goodnight."

"Love you." He always ended phone calls that way.

"Me too." She truly meant it.

A/N There was a brief mention in Designs of Love of the two Lilys behind the counter at The Landing.