Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

The Return: An Interlude in 3 Parts: A Christmas Story 1995

"There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth."-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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Winter in Manhattan was a mixed bag at times but cold and snow were most certainly going to be a near constant. That night was no different. After getting the budget report, minus a few small details, completed, Shawn found himself staring out the window of the family room on the main level. It started snowing at some point while he and Jon were working and was now accumulating surprisingly high. He wondered how much snow it would take to cancel school for Julia. It took many inches and very bitter temperatures for Mr. Feeny to cancel school when he was principal. In fact, Shawn found it hard to remember if they ever had snow days in high school.

Humph, he thought, I'll have to ask Cory. Pretty sure we didn't get any.

While snow may not have held any school-canceled days in his memories, it did very much remind him of Christmas. He had heard that for many who grew up in the City, Christmas was a time of wonderment and enchantment. Cory said this was especially true after Riley was born. But Shawn never actually spent a Christmas in New York until this past year. The closest he came before that was during their first year in the City. Although all of his friends planned on getting together and spending their first adult holiday on their own together, he chose, at the last minute, to strike out by himself and meet up with a distant cousin in Pittsburgh. Without Angela, without Jon, without Audrey, Christmas no longer held much meaning for him. Since that time he would spend either the 23rd or the 26th with Cory and Topanga and later Riley, but never Christmas Eve or Christmas day. It was only a short time before he wasn't spending Christmas with anyone. It wasn't long before Christmas was just another day of the year.

Shawn let his mind drifted back to days long gone as he thought about the Christmases he spent with Jon and Audrey. There were several, he thought, lazily letting the memories drift by. He frowned. No, there were several with Jon, not both of them. No, that wasn't right either. Shawn focused his attention more as he continued to stare at the falling snow. He was with Jon at the end of his freshman year, they spent the summer traveling, then Audrey joined them in the fall. She was gone before his sophomore year ended and he and Jon parted ways before the end of that school year, too. So it was just one. Just one Christmas with Jon and with Audrey. How could that be? It seemed liked so many more. Now as he recalled the timeline he was with Jon he realized that those memories of one Christmas and been fractured into several pieces resulting in him believing that they were different memories. For the longest time, he was absolutely certain there were multiple Christmases. Now it seemed that those broken memories had resulted in a sort of Mandela effect.

Well, that's depressing.

Even more depressing was the realization that he had missed the season once again as it was now mid-February and he would have to wait another ten months to experience that special time of year with his family again. Before he could sink any further into dark thoughts, Shawn heard the soft padding of bare feet against the wood floor. He turned slightly to see Julia wrapped up in one of Jon's hoodies approaching him. She look tired and troubled.

"Can't sleep?" he asked in a hushed voice even though they were downstairs and everyone else was upstairs.

She shook her head, messy curls flying everywhere.

"Me, neither."

Julia walked up alongside him and rested her cheek against his shoulder. She stared absently at the falling snow. "I keep dreaming about Miss Tompkins taking Daddy away and Daddy just not coming home one day."