For A Father's Love

by JoAnn A. Grote

  We’re a good team. The thought added pleasure to Mandy’s already-happy day. She felt blessed, doing work she loved with someone she loved.

  Mandy scooped Styrofoam beads up with an old plastic measuring cup from the large plastic bag stored behind the counter and filled the remaining space in the cardboard box.

  “Did you notice how he watched you yesterday?” Ellen studied the Christmas design on one of the plates, but her attention was obviously elsewhere.

  “Who watched me?” Mandy’s brows met in puzzlement. “What are you talking about?”

  “J. P. He watched you while you told that story.”

  “Everyone in the room watched me. I was the only person talking.”

  Ellen set the plate down on the counter. “I mean he really watched you, the way a man watches a woman he really likes.”

  Mandy’s heart rate picked up speed at Ellen’s words, but she shook her head. “You saw what you wanted to see. Jason isn’t interested in me that way. Not anymore.” Not that I’d mind if he were.

  “You’re not going to try to convince me there’s still been no kisses between you?”

  Mandy reached for the wide roll of postal tape. “Definitely no kisses.”

  “Right.” Ellen’s dry tone clearly announced that she didn’t believe such nonsense.

  The two customers approached the counter with their Snow Village purchases, preventing further discussion even if Ellen had been inclined to force the issue. While Mandy rang up the orders and Ellen bagged the purchases, the customers chatted happily about their Snow Village collections.

  Beth, Bonnie, and Tom Berry came out from the local crafters’ room as the customers left. The girls were only half-way between the back room and the front counter when Jason entered carrying a stack of plastic food containers.

  “Hi, J. P.” Beth and Bonnie raced toward him, each flinging their arms around him when they reached him. “I got here first,” Bonnie announced.

  Beth lifted her chin. “Who cares?” Her haughty tone made it clear she cared.

  Jason grinned. “Whoa. A professional football team could use you two.”

  Watching the girls giggling at his teasing, Mandy felt her heart soften. Jason seemed so at ease with the girls. He and Tom were good for Beth and Bonnie. Perhaps the girls didn’t find the men threatening since neither of them were in the position of a father figure.

  Chuckling, Jason freed himself from the girls and set the plastic cartons down on the counter between Mandy and Ellen. “I come bearing gifts. Gram is afraid you two are working too hard and not eating properly, so she sent dinner. Grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.” He nodded at Tom. “Hi.”

  “Mmm.” Mandy opened the chicken container, leaned down to smell, and closed her eyes. “Wonderful.”

  Ellen grabbed the container. “Hey, share it. I’m starved.”

  Tom grinned and closed the cover. “Plates and silverware might be a good idea.”

  Ellen waved her hand. “What, you’ve never heard of picnics and finger foods?”

  “Fingers might work for the chicken, but for steamed veggies?” Tom shook his head. “You’d end up with mushed vegetables.”

  His description set the girls on another giggling spree.

  Ellen heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, if you insist, we’ll use plates and silverware. Beth, would you run upstairs and get some dishes for us?”

  “Okay.” She skipped between glittering trees to the loft staircase.

  Ellen picked up one of the pottery plates she’d priced earlier. “This dinnerware you made is almost too beautiful to eat off, Tom.”

  “I suppose that’s a compliment, but I hope your customers don’t feel it’s too pretty to use. I’ll sell a lot more if they buy it to put on their tables than if they buy an odd piece to display.”

  Bonnie climbed up onto a stool. Beside her, Jason leaned against the counter. “I had the trees you wanted for beside the front door brought down about an hour ago, Mandy.”

  Mandy straightened. “Thanks. Now I can decorate them in time for the Thanksgiving weekend shopping rush. Will you help me decorate them, Bonnie?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve decided to use a real tree inside too,” Mandy told Jason. “I think it will be perfect for the Mitten Tree.”

  Jason’s brow furrowed. “Mitten Tree?”

  “Pastor talked about it in church Sunday. Don’t you remember?” Bonnie reproached.

  “ ’Fraid not. Suppose you tell me about it.”

  “Well.” Bonnie took a deep breath. “People bring mittens and hang them on the mitten tree, and Mandy gives them a free Christmas tree ornament.”

  Jason nodded. “I see. And why does Mandy want a tree full of mittens?”

  “They aren’t for her.” Bonnie cast her gaze at the ceiling. “They’re Christmas presents for kids whose parents can’t afford to buy them mittens.”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”

  Mandy thanked him with a smile.

  “If you pick out a tree, I’ll see it’s brought down here and set up,” he told her. “Consider it the Garth donation to the mitten cause.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Planning to take time off from the Christmas tree business to celebrate Thanksgiving, J. P.?” Tom asked.

  “Part of the day. After Gramps’s heart attack, I’d hate to completely miss spending the holiday with them. We’re trying to get all our retail lots set up before the Thanksgiving weekend rush begins, and that usually means our people work Thanksgiving. Hate to take the whole day off when our people can’t do the same.”

  Tom nodded. “I see your point, but if you can spare half an hour or so, I’d like your help. I have a large nativity to set up. An outdoor one. The pieces are pretty heavy.”

  “I’ll work it in. Speaking of work, I’d better get back to it.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat with us?” Bonnie asked.

  “I ate with Gram and Gramps.”

  From beside the cash register, Mandy picked up an envelope from the pile of mail that had arrived that day. It was the first chance she’d had to open it. “Thanks for bringing us the leftovers, Jason. And the trees.”

  Jason waved and started toward the door.

  As Mandy slit the envelope with a silver letter opener, the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it.” Bonnie grabbed for the phone. “Always Christmas Shop. This is Bonnie. How can I help you?”

  Mandy listened to Bonnie’s prim phone voice with half her attention, the other half on her mail. She and Ellen preferred the girls not answer the store phone, but knowing it was inevitable the girls would sometimes do so, they had taught them to answer in a professional manner.

  “Daddy!”

  Bonnie’s squeal of delight caused Mandy’s stomach to turn over in a nauseous sense of foreboding. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jason stop and turn around just inside the door.

  Her glance darted to Ellen. Her eyes filled with apprehension, Ellen watched her happy daughter.

  Tom’s gaze also rested on Ellen, his lips pressed tightly together.

  Bonnie continued her conversation, blissfully unaware of the tension with which her father’s call had flooded the usually cheery store. “I miss you, Daddy. Where are you? What are you doing?” The child’s eyes were large with excitement.

  None of the adults spoke.

  Beth’s quick footsteps sounded as she descended the stairs and came across the room, carrying a stack of plates, forks, and knives. Tom took them from her and set them on the counter.

  Bonnie held out the phone to Beth. “Here.”

  Beth reached for the receiver. “Who is it?”

  “Daddy.”

  Surprise and joy filled Beth’s eyes. Then red color surged across her face. Her eyes shuttered. She handed the receiver back. “I don’t want to talk to him.” She turned and ran back across the room toward the stairs.

  Eleven

  For a moment the only sound in the ro
om was Beth’s retreating footsteps thudding against the wooden floor and stairs. Mandy, her heart crimped in pain for the girl, stared after her.

  “Give me that.” Ellen grabbed the phone, breaking the illusion of a frozen setting. She turned her back to Bonnie in what Mandy guessed was an attempt to hide her anger. But Mandy saw the fury flash in her sister’s eyes, and Ellen’s voice held little restraint when she spoke. “Why are you calling, Zach?”

  Jason moved quickly to Bonnie and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t you come outside with me and check out the trees I brought for your aunt Mandy? See if you think they’re all right or if we need to select some other ones.”

  “Okay.” Bonnie slid off the stool, her gaze still on her mother.

  Mandy mouthed a silent “thank you” to Jason, warmth filling her chest at his desire to spare Bonnie from witnessing anger between her parents. Especially when the gesture took him away from his work.

  Mandy started around the counter. She wanted to get out of earshot of Ellen and Zach’s conversation too. Should she go with Jason and Bonnie or go after Beth? She wavered a moment. Would Beth want someone to talk with right away, or did she need some time alone? Rather than barging in, maybe it would be wiser to let Ellen talk with Beth.

  Mandy’s decision made, she addressed Bonnie brightly. “Is it all right if I come too? I haven’t seen the trees yet either.”

  “Sure, the more the merrier.” Jason’s voice was more jovial than the simple event normally justified. “What do you say, Bonnie?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Mandy doubted Bonnie realized what she was agreeing to. Though she followed Jason, she looked over her shoulder, her troubled gaze on Ellen.

  Tom followed them out the door. “Think someone should check on Beth?” he whispered in Mandy’s ear.

  His concern for Beth increased Mandy’s admiration of him. “Let’s give Beth a few minutes alone. If she doesn’t come downstairs soon, I’m sure Ellen will check on her.”

  Brass carriage lamps on either side of the door lit the entrance area, in addition to the lighted icicles which decorated the roof. Together they supplied enough light to see the Fraser firs in their burlap bags.

  Jason engaged Bonnie in a serious consideration of the trees. Did she like the kind he’d chosen? The height? The shape? Did she think they matched each other well?

  Bonnie took time to think through each question before answering, walking around the trees, standing back to view them. In the end, she complimented Jason. “These are perfect.”

  Mandy stood near the heavy wooden red door, rubbing her sweatered arms and shivering, wishing she’d grabbed a coat. “Will you help me decorate the trees, Bonnie? I thought I’d use red ribbons and wooden birds.”

  “The little painted birds?” Bonnie’s face brightened. “The cardinals and blue jays?”

  “Those are the ones.”

  “Oh, they’ll be just right. Let’s get them now.”

  Mandy hesitated, not ready to go back within hearing distance of Ellen and Zach’s conversation.

  Bells jangled as the door opened. Sweet strains of “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” with its message of peace floated onto the night air as Ellen stepped outside.

  Everyone looked at her, but no one asked the question in all their minds.

  Ellen crossed her arms over her chest, warming her hands beneath her arms. She looked at Mandy. “Zach’s coming here for Thanksgiving.”

  “Daddy’s coming home! Yeah!” Bonnie jumped up and down, clapping, her face wreathed with joy.

  Doubt darkened Mandy’s anticipation of the holiday. Would it end up the wonderful experience Bonnie expected?

  ❧

  Tension filled the Christmas barn the next two days. Zach’s news tarnished the joy with which Mandy had looked forward to her only day off until Christmas.

  Beth declared firmly she wouldn’t see her father. She continued that assertion all the way through to Thanksgiving, but Mandy felt certain she saw a sense of excitement and hope in the girl’s eyes that wasn’t due to anticipation of a turkey dinner.

  Grandma Tillie invited Mandy, Ellen, and the girls to join her, Grandpa Seth, and Jason for Thanksgiving. Ellen tried to decline, explaining Zach’s uninvited presence. “We’ll go to a restaurant,” Ellen said, wrinkling her nose. “Less chance for him to make a scene and less excuse for him to hang around too long. I haven’t said anything negative about his visit to the girls, but from past experience I don’t expect him to get through an entire day in a pleasant mood.”

  Grandma Tillie brushed aside Ellen’s excuses. “He won’t dare act up in front of Seth and Jason. Seth and I want you to spend the day with us. We won’t take no for an answer.”

  In the end, Ellen agreed. “Actually, it’s a relief knowing we won’t be alone with him,” she admitted to Mandy after Grandma Tillie left. “It’s not that I’m afraid of him. He’s not a violent man. But he does have a talent for knowing just the right thing to say to cut a person’s heart. He seems to enjoy hurting people with words.”

  As a writer, Zach should understand the power of words, Mandy thought. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he realized words could maim and kill as effectively as guns or knives. How had life wounded him that he felt the need to use words against the woman he’d once loved and against his own children? She doubted Ellen had any desire to extend the man sympathy at the moment, so she only said, “How sad that he chooses to use words to harm instead of to heal and encourage.”

  ❧

  “Mommy.”

  The bed shook.

  “Mommy.”

  Mandy fought to stay in her dream, to stay in the warm though unreal shelter of Jason’s arms, the wonderful world of his kiss.

  The bed shook again. Mandy groaned and forced her eyelids open. Bonnie, wearing her Barbie nightgown, stood beside the bed Mandy and Ellen shared. A frown furrowed the girl’s usually smooth forehead as she stared at her mother. “Wake up, Mommy.” Bonnie pushed both hands against the mattress, trying to make it bounce.

  Ellen rolled onto her back, her eyes still closed. “What’s the matter? Are you or your sister sick?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then go back to bed.”

  Mandy agreed wholeheartedly though silently.

  “It’s Thanksgiving, Mommy.”

  “I know.” Ellen’s murmur grew fainter. “That’s why we can sleep in.”

  “But Daddy’s coming. We need to get dressed.”

  “He won’t be here for hours and hours, Pumpkin.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Ellen opened her eyes to narrow slits and glanced at Mandy. “He hates morning. He thinks dawn is synonymous with noon.”

  “Maybe Daddy will get up early this morning ’cause he’s excited to see us.”

  Ellen groaned and pulled her pillow over her face.

  Mandy chuckled. “I think your daughter inherited her persistent streak from our mother. Remember how she woke us up when we were kids?”

  Ellen groaned again. “Don’t remind me.”

  “How? Tell me how,” Bonnie demanded, leaning against the bed.

  Mandy stretched her arms toward the ceiling. “She’d sing to us. A good-morning song. Something about dancing all night.”

  Bonnie climbed onto the bed, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. Pushing herself to her feet, she started jumping. Her hair, mussed from a night’s sleep, bounced in brown curls on her flannel-covered shoulders. “Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.”

  No melody tied her song together, but it obtained the desired effect. Ellen pushed her pillow off her face and grabbed Bonnie’s legs. The girl dropped giggling to the mattress between Ellen and Mandy.

  Ellen gave Bonnie a hug. “I give up. Go pour us some orange juice. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Okay.” Bonnie climbed over Ellen and slid off the bed. The girl started toward the door, then rushed back and planted a kiss on Ellen’s cheek. “I love you
, Mommy.”

  “I love you too, Pumpkin.”

  Bonnie skipped away with a wide grin.

  Mandy pushed back her covers and got up, still reluctant to leave the warmth and comfort of bed behind for the day. Ellen climbed out of bed too. They straightened the top sheet of lavender-colored flannel, then pulled up the violet-spattered eyelet comforter.

  As they plumped the pillows, Ellen said, “This is one Thanksgiving Day I’m not looking forward to.”

  “I know.” The thought of Zach’s expected appearance made Mandy’s stomach queasy. It must be worse for Ellen. “But a day can’t be all bad that starts with a wonderful little girl like Bonnie saying she loves you.”

  Ellen’s smile chased away the tension in her face, softening her features. “I guess it can’t at that. I’m pretty blessed, aren’t I?”

  Mandy nodded. She felt blessed herself with Ellen and the girls such an integral part of her life.

  As Mandy showered, she hummed her mother’s good-morning song and turned her thoughts to the day ahead. In spite of Zach, she looked forward to the day. After all, she was spending it surrounded by people she loved: Ellen, the girls, Grandpa Seth, and Grandma Tillie.

  And Jason. She and Jason hadn’t celebrated a holiday together in more than eight years.

  “Okay, so Jason and I aren’t actually celebrating Thanksgiving together,” she admitted, lathering the shampoo in her hair. “Not like a couple. But we’ll be in the same place with people we both care about.”

  Definitely something to be thankful for. Her heart expanded in sweet anticipation.

  Twelve

  Grandpa Seth and Grandma Tillie’s home had stood watch on the mountainside for 130 years. It wasn’t the old-fashioned architecture or comfortable furniture passed down through the generations which struck Mandy most each time she entered the house. Rather, it was the warmth and love that filled the large, square rooms and settled about her spirit like a soft, well-loved shawl.