“Stacking newspapers for Mrs. Jones in 2D.”
“Again?” He slid to the edge of the sofa. “Didn’t she do that last week?”
“Hmmm.” Tish lowered her chin. “I’d say someone’s been a little preoccupied.”
Brian’s mind went blank. “What do you mean?”
Dustin slid down and ran upstairs to play. When he was gone, Tish sat on one of Brian’s knees and wove her arms around his neck. “I mean Gideon’s been working for the neighbors ever since that first night at the mission.”
“What? How come I didn’t know about this?” Why is Gideon working for the neighbors?
“I think she wants it to be a surprise.” Tish nuzzled her face against his. “She makes a quarter every time she brings the mail up for Mrs. Jones and fifty cents for stacking newspapers or dusting.”
Brian’s frustration doubled. “She’s only eight years old, for heaven’s sake, Tish. We can’t have her out working like that. What’s she trying to do?”
“She must need money for something.” Tish gave the end of his nose a light tap. “Don’t worry about her, Brian. She wants to do this. Whatever she’s up to, I figure let’s let her do it. She probably wants to buy a present for someone. If it matters to Gideon, it should matter to us.”
The following Monday, Gideon brought a tattered paper bag of change to Brian and made an announcement.
“I need to go to the store.”
Brian kept his expression neutral. “What for, honey?”
“I wanna buy a Christmas present for Earl.”
A strange mix of awe and frustration shot through Brian. “Old Earl, the man at the mission?”
“Yes.” Resolve was written across Gideon’s earnest face. Her excitement was palpable. “For the Christmas dinner at the mission tomorrow. I asked God to make Earl believe again and I decided maybe he needs a present. Maybe no one’s ever given him something for Christmas.”
“Okay.” Brian hesitated. The old man didn’t deserve a gift from Gideon, but how could he tell that to his daughter? “How much money do you have?”
Gideon’s eyes sparkled. “Five dollars and fifteen cents.”
Five dollars and fifteen cents. The amount was barely enough for a greeting card. Still, Tish was right. If this gift mattered to Gideon that much—no matter what he thought—he could hardly stand in her way. He pulled Gideon into a hug and whispered in her ear, “Alright, sweetie. I think I know just the place.”
Two hours later they were walking out of the secondhand store arm in arm. Swinging from Gideon’s elbow was a gift that had cost every last dime she’d saved. Everything she’d worked for those past two weeks.
When they got home, Gideon asked Tish to help her.
“I wanna sew something inside the gift.”
Tish’s smile was tender and understanding. Brian watched, frustrated. Better her than me. Too much time and money on the old man. Gideon’s love was far too precious.
Gideon spent another half hour coloring a picture for Earl. She slipped the gift into a brown paper bag, dropped the picture inside, and tied it shut with a piece of string. Then she decorated the outside with Christmas trees and angels. Smack in the middle she wrote the old man’s name.
Brian and Tish admired it when she was done. “It’s perfect, honey.”
“Think he’ll like it?” Her hopeful eyes searched theirs.
“Like it?” Tish hugged Gideon to her side. “He’ll love it.”
The next night at the mission, after they finished serving dinner, Brian and Tish anchored themselves at a table not far from Earl’s and waited. Since the night included a Christmas concert and figured to last longer than the others, Dustin had stayed with a neighbor. The concert had come first, then dinner. Now, with everyone eating, Gideon found the place where she’d hidden her gift, raised it so Brian and Tish could see it, and flashed them a thumbs-up.
Carrying the decorated brown paper sack in front of her, she approached Earl’s table and sat down. “Merry Christmas, Earl.”
Brian could hear their conversation perfectly. Make him smile. Please.
Earl’s fork froze halfway to his mouth and he lifted his eyes to Gideon. “Get lost.”
Gideon shot Brian and Tish a weak look. Tish motioned to her, encouraging her to go ahead. Gideon stood a little straighter, nodded, and turned back to Earl. Then she lifted the decorated brown bag and set it in front of his plate. “I brought you a Christmas present.”
Earl stared at it. For a long moment Brian actually thought the gift had worked. Then the old man set his fork down. “I hate Christmas. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Yes.” Gideon’s eyes were fixed on his. “You told me you didn’t believe. But believing is the best gift of all and I thought maybe if I gave you a—”
“You thought wrong.” Earl’s voice boomed across the table.
Brian made a move toward the man, but Tish grabbed his arm. “Don’t, Brian.” She shifted her gaze to Gideon. “This is her thing.”
“But she spent all her money on that stupid gift.” His teeth were clenched, his anger so strong it choked him.
“She wanted to do this.”
Brian sighed. “You’re right.” He felt the fight simmering within him. They watched Gideon and Earl. Their daughter hadn’t said anything since Earl’s rude interruption.
Now she leaned forward and clasped her hands on the table. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
Earl dropped his gaze. “I’ll probably throw it away.”
Again Brian’s muscles tensed. How dare he. Even from their spot a few tables away they could see tears building in Gideon’s eyes.
“You can’t throw it away. It’s a Christmas gift. I… I bought it for you.”
Something in their daughter’s voice must have caused the old man to look up. When he saw her sad face he huffed hard. “Fine.” He jerked the bag from the table and stuffed it into his coat pocket. “Happy?”
It took every ounce of Brian’s resolve not to go after the old man and knock him to the floor.
Gideon blinked back the tears. She was trying so hard to be brave. “I-I want you to open it, Earl.”
This time he snarled at her. “I’m not opening it, okay? Now, leave me alone.” The old man’s eyes looked dead as he lowered his voice. “I hate Christmas, kid. And I hate people like you.”
The shock on Gideon’s face must have startled Earl, as though even he couldn’t believe what he’d just said. He tossed his fork down, pushed back and stood. Then without saying a word, he took five angry strides toward the door and disappeared into the night.
Gideon watched him, her mouth open. When he was gone, she cast a desperate look at Brian and Tish. The pain in her eyes hurt Brian more than anything ever had. They went to her and together wrapped her in a hug.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Tish kissed her cheek and wiped one of her tears.
Brian held Gideon tightly, unable to speak. God? How could you let this happen? After all her hard work? He closed his eyes and rested his head on her smaller one.
“He didn’t even open it.” Gideon’s tears were under control. No hysteria or loud sobbing. Just the quiet pain of a little girl whose heart had been broken. It was only then that Brian was struck by something he hadn’t wanted to see before. The dark circles under Gideon’s eyes were back. She looked tired and weak and when he felt her head, his breath caught in his throat.
She was burning up.
Oh, God, no! Don’t let her be sick now. Brian worked to focus. “It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart.” He ran his hand along the back of her head. “You did everything you could.”
“But, Daddy, I asked God for a miracle. I thought if I gave Earl a Christmas gift he’d believe again.” She pulled back and searched his eyes, then Tish’s. “How come it didn’t work?”
It was a question that hung in the air all that night and threatened to darken everything about the coming Christmas. But Earl’s rudeness paled in comparison with the news they got two d
ays later.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor had asked Gideon to wait in the examination room while he talked to Brian and Tish in his office. Gideon had been so sick that morning, Tish had taken the day off. “Her cancer’s back. Worse than before, more aggressive. I’m going to have to admit her.”
Admit her? Brian could barely breathe. No! It wasn’t fair. Not Gideon! His hands and feet felt numb, and the room tilted. Beside him, Tish began to cry.
The doctor looked at an open chart on his desk. “Her younger brother is a perfect match for a bone-marrow transplant.” The doctor’s voice dropped. “At the rate the disease is moving, I think it’s time to do the procedure.”
Brian huffed. “Sure.” He stood and paced to the office window. “How are we supposed to pay for it?” He turned and met the doctor’s eyes. “We don’t have insurance; you know that.”
“Yes.” The doctor crossed his arms. “I’ve gotten the okay from the hospital. We can do it for twenty-five thousand. That’s below cost, Mr. Mercer.” He hesitated. “We could get started with half that much.”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars?” A sound that was more sob than laugh came from his throat. “Sir, I don’t have twenty-five dollars.”
“Is there any other way?” Tish folded her arms tight around her waist. “Anything we can do to raise the money?”
“Yes.” The doctor reached for a brochure and handed it to her. “You can hold a fund-raiser. Many families do that as a way of paying for the transplant.”
“And if we don’t get enough?” Brian’s body trembled, battling an onslaught of fear and anger, confusion and heartache.
“We’ll start chemotherapy immediately, just like before.” The doctor grimaced. “If we’re lucky she might slip back into remission.”
“If that happens, Doctor, luck won’t have anything to do with it.” Tish clutched the fund-raising information tightly to her chest. There was a determination in her eyes Brian had never seen before. She stood and moved toward the door. “I need to be with Gideon.”
When Tish was gone, Brian locked eyes with the doctor. “Be straight with me, Doc. How bad is it?”
“She needs a transplant, Mr. Mercer.” The man blinked and Brian could see he was considering how much to say. Finally he sighed and shook his head. “She doesn’t have much time.”
Gideon was quiet while they set her up in a room. A stream of nurses came to draw blood, hook up monitors, and start an IV line. Thirty minutes later a drip bag was hooked to her other arm. This one contained the chemicals that would ravage her small body and maybe—if God smiled down on them—leave her cancer free one more time. But God had let the cancer come back. And he hadn’t done much to help Gideon’s surprise with Earl.
Why ask him for help now?
When the nurses were gone, Brian and Tish moved to Gideon’s side. Tish leaned over the bed and kissed her on the forehead. “How’re you feeling, honey?”
Gideon’s eyes were flat. “I don’t wanna be here.” She looked at the monitors stationed around her. “Can’t they do this stuff at home like last time?”
Brian wanted to rip out the needles and tell her it’d all been a mistake. That she had a cold, nothing more. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to smile. “You won’t be in long, Gideon. A few days maybe.” He took her delicate fingers in his. “One of us will be here until you come home, okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice was slow and tired. “But there’s one thing I wish I knew.”
“What’s that, honey?” Brian could only imagine the questions that had to be running through her head. Why her? Why now? Why, when it had looked like everything was going to work out? Of course even those would be nothing to the one burning question that had shouted at him every moment since their meeting with the doctor: How were they going to find the money?
Tish brushed her fingers lightly over Gideon’s hair. “What, sweetheart? Tell us.”
“I wish I knew…” Gideon stared out the window. “… if Earl opened my gift.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Earl must have passed a hundred trash cans since the Christmas dinner.
Each time he told himself to take the kid’s bag and throw it out—toss it in with the rotting food and wet pieces of paper and empty beer bottles. Forget about it the same way he’d forgotten everything else.
But each time he couldn’t do it.
Stupid kid. Why’d she have to give him a present, anyway? He was past that, past the need for caring or being cared for. He was supposed to be planning his death, not worrying about what to do with some Christmas gift.
He wandered down the alley. It was Sunday, three days before Christmas. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied he might already have been dead by now. Instead—against every bit of his will—the gift had come to mean something to him. Maybe it was the child’s drawings, the crooked way she’d colored a Christmas tree on the bag or the wobbly letters of his name scrawled across the middle.
Somehow it reminded him of the life he used to lead. And that was the most frustrating part of all. Earl didn’t want to remember the past. Without the red gloves, it was over. Dead. There was no hope, no history, no family to conjure up in the cold of the night.
There was nothing.
Until he took the girl’s gift.
He felt in his jacket. It was still there, the scrunched-up package tucked into a deep pocket of his parka. He hadn’t opened it—didn’t plan to. Especially not three days before Christmas.
He leaned against a damp brick wall and stared at a slew of trash cans across the alleyway. The rain had let up, but it was colder than before. Icy, even. Back when he’d had the red gloves he would have been asleep by now, savoring the hours until daybreak. But without them, time ran together. One meaningless hour after another.
A breeze whistled between the buildings and made the cans rattle. Earl barely heard it, barely felt the cold against his grizzled face.
December 22.
No matter how distant he became, how changed he was from the man he’d once been, he would never forget this date. It was hard to believe five years had gone by.
He narrowed his eyelids and there in the shadows of the alleyway he could see them. The people he’d once loved. His mother and father, his sister and brother and their children. But most of all his girls: Anne and Molly. The women who had been everything to him.
Memories played out before him, the way they had constantly played out since he’d received the child’s present. A dozen Christmas Eves during which Anne had wanted only one thing: for Earl to join them at the annual church service.
“Come on, honey. Please?” She’d smile that guileless smile of hers and weave her fingers between his. “Your family won’t go with us. Please?”
But Earl wouldn’t hear of it. “I won’t be a hypocrite, Anne. You know how I feel about church. I wasn’t raised that way.”
“Think about Molly.” She’d wait, holding her breath, probably praying he’d change his mind. “She’s going to grow up without a single memory of her daddy sitting beside her in church.”
“That’s better than having her grow up knowing I’m a hypocrite.”
Anne would sigh. “Okay, Earl.” She’d plant a kiss on his cheek. “But one of these days, God’s going to blow the roof off your safe little box and you won’t have any choice but to believe.”
The memory faded.
Yes, Anne had known how he felt about church. His whole family knew, because they felt the same way. If a person didn’t believe in God, they shouldn’t go. And Earl’s people didn’t believe. It was that simple. He bit his lip and pulled his jacket tight around his neck.
If only he’d gone with her. Just once. What had he been thinking, denying her that simple pleasure? His belief system wasn’t the most important thing.
Anne was. Anne and Molly and the rest of his family.
Earl stared at his boots. Memories like that one came all the time these days. Morning, noon, night. It didn’t matter. Ever s
ince he’d shoved the kid’s gift in his jacket there’d been one memory after another.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the brown bag. It was flatter than before, more wrinkled. Earl studied it—the trees, the angels, his name. He gave the contents a few gentle squeezes. What would a little girl buy for a mean old man like himself? Probably something homemade, like cookies or a tree ornament. Something childish like that. Whatever was inside certainly couldn’t make a difference in his life, couldn’t change him.
So why was he hanging onto it?
Open it, Earl. Open it.
The voice sliced through Earl’s consciousness. It sounded like Anne. But that was impossible. Who else could…
He spun around, staring first one direction, then the other. The damp alleyway glistened beneath the city streetlights, but it was completely empty. Where had the voice come from? And why now? It had been years since Earl had heard Anne’s voice that clearly. Certainly he’d never heard it over the cold winter breeze of a deserted back alley.
The words played again in his mind. Open it, Earl.
This was ridiculous. He was obviously delusional. Maybe the cold was getting to him. Or his constant thoughts of death. Maybe he was fighting a virus. Whatever it was, he had no intention of standing there waiting for more voices. If the child’s gift was causing him that much grief, then fine. He would open the bag, and get it over with. Then he could toss it in the nearest bin and get on with dying.
He started to pierce the brown paper with his fingers, but the girl’s drawings stopped him. A burst of air escaped his pursed lips. Dratted child. Why’d she have to give him the gift in the first place? He fumbled with the string around the mouth of the bag and finally worked out the knot.
Leaning against the brick wall once more, he angled the bag toward the streetlight and peered inside. The darkness made it difficult to see, but it looked like a scarf, maybe. Or a wooly hat. He reached inside and felt a piece of paper. Earl’s hands were big and awkward, and the paper wrinkled as he pulled it out.
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