Rain had begun to fall while they were inside. As they walked to the car David felt as if his slow gait was holding her up and making her get more wet than need be. But she walked alongside him patiently. At least it was downhill this time.
They tossed their shopping bags in the trunk and got inside the car. Neither of them spoke much as they headed back to Cape Light. “I hope this rain doesn’t turn to snow,” Christine said finally.
David glanced out his window. “It’s a mess any way you look at it.”
The raindrops had turned to icy pellets that made the road slick and treacherous. Christine was driving slowly, and David could tell she was nervous.
“I’m going to pull over a minute and see if this gets any better, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. “Up ahead, that’s a good spot.”
Christine pulled the car over and David sat, staring out his window. He felt frustrated and helpless. He wanted to take the wheel and keep driving. That would be the manly thing to do. Not pull over and wait. The rain wasn’t so bad.
Her boyfriend, Alex, would have taken the wheel. David was sure of it. She had to be thinking he was weak and inept. Unable to take care of her when it counted. A real loser.
They sat in silence, other cars and trucks whizzing by on the icy road. It didn’t seem as if the rain was getting any better. To David, it seemed to be getting worse.
“What do you think?” He turned to her. “Should we get going again? I don’t think it’s going to change any.”
He could see she felt anxious about driving. “Let’s give it another minute or two. No rush, right?”
“Right, no rush,” he agreed.
But as he sat there, listening to the icy rain beating on the car roof, he felt his heartbeat accelerate, faster and faster. He suddenly felt as if he were choking and couldn’t get a breath.
The icy rain had turned to small hailstones, and the sound of them striking the metal roof transformed in his mind to the sound of gunfire.
David lost all sense of where he was and what he was doing. He was back in Baghdad, riding in the Humvee. They were under fire, and he heard the missile whining in the air above, coming closer, ready to strike them and explode.
He hunkered down in the car seat, giving in to the wave of terror that had taken over his mind and body. He held his arms over his head and when he felt Christine’s touch, he shouted at her, violently pushing her away. “Take cover! It’s coming. . . . Get down, damn it. . . . Cover your head! . . . God, please, don’t let it hit again, please don’t. . . .”
“David, what is it? What’s going on? Talk to me, say something!” She sounded afraid, almost hysterical.
Outside the car, a truck horn sounded twice, breaking through his waking nightmare. David lifted his head and finally saw Christine, staring at him, her eyes wide and her expression shocked.
He sat up slowly and took deep breaths, the way they had taught him in the hospital. He felt so embarrassed, he wished he could have died, right there.
“Gee . . . I’m sorry . . . I really lost it . . .” He swallowed a few times, catching his breath. “The hail, it sounded like we were back in Baghdad being fired on.”
Her frightened expression melted into sympathy. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay now?”
He nodded quickly and wiped his hand over his face, feeling like a complete fool. Christine reached out and rubbed his arm with her hand, trying to soothe him. David stared straight ahead.
“Did it remind you of the night you were injured?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “Like I was right back there. Time traveling or something. I have nightmares about it sometimes. This was different. It wasn’t like a dream. I was right there, all over again.”
“How awful,” she said. “How did you get injured, David? You never told me.”
He looked over at her, unsure of what to say. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“I want to know.” When he didn’t respond, she added. “I’m not saying it just to be nice, David. It’s important to me.”
When he met her glance he knew she was telling the truth. It was important to her, though he wasn’t sure why it would be. Maybe so she could figure out why he wasn’t the same anymore, why she couldn’t fall in love with him again?
What did it matter? She wanted to know the whole story? He’d tell it to her. Maybe it would help him, too, to get some of this off his chest. He hadn’t really talked to anyone outside of his buddies in the squad about it. Not even his father.
David took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, going back again to the base in south Baghdad. “When you’re in the army, everyone has a job to do. I was in the motor pool, trained as a mechanic.”
“Really?” Christine looked surprised by this admission. “Is that what you want to do now? I mean, once your leg is better.”
“No, not really. I didn’t like it much. I learned enough to figure out it wasn’t for me.” Even if he had liked pulling apart engines and machinery, David knew that sort of work would always bring back difficult memories.
“Our base was in south Baghdad. There was a lot of fighting, a lot of insurgents. You were always anxious when you went off base. Always on alert, hyped up, watching everything that moved on the road. The wind lifting a scrap of paper. I wasn’t assigned to patrol or guard officers, or anything like that. But when we went off base, anything could happen. You had to be sharp, prepared. If you passed a car on the road, and it got too close to the Humvee, that could be the one that would drive up next to you and explode. You just didn’t know. I still get the jitters sometimes, driving along, looking at the traffic on the highway. Watching some guy behind my dad’s truck who’s tailgating . . .”
David paused. His mouth felt dry. He knew he was rambling and tried to get back on track again. “When you were fired on, you fired back. You didn’t think about God or country or even 9/11. You were just trying to protect the guys on either side of you. Your pals. Your brothers. You didn’t have time to think. It’s kill or be killed. Just that simple. We all worked every day just to keep each other alive.”
Christine sat listening to him with an awestruck expression.
Had he shocked her, confessing that he had been in battle and taken lives? Did she think of him differently now?
“Your legs, how did that happen? What were you doing?” she asked.
“A truck carrying supplies to the base had broken down a few miles down the main road. We had orders to go out and take a look. It was daytime. We had no cover. But sometimes traveling at night is even worse. You can never tell. My team went out in a Humvee. It was me, a pal of mine named Buzz, and Sergeant Nolan. Nolan was career army, on his third tour of duty.” David stopped. He wasn’t sure how much more he could get out. He didn’t want to lose it again in front of her.
She sat silently, barely breathing, willing him with her eyes to continue.
“We didn’t see anything or hear anything. The road looked perfectly silent. Then the Humvee was fired on. A grenade launcher. We were hit, and the truck turned over. That’s when my legs were crushed. I sort of blacked out, I guess. Next thing I knew, Sergeant Nolan was pulling me out, away from the vehicle. Somehow Buzz had jumped clear. But Nolan didn’t know that. There was so much smoke. He ran back, calling for Buzz.” David took a ragged breath. “Then the truck was hit again and the engine exploded.”
“Dear God. That poor man.”
David nodded, a sick feeling in his gut. “He was the greatest guy, too. Everybody loved Nolan. He had a wife and two kids. Their pictures were all over the place.” David paused and felt a shudder rip through him. “I think a lot about that day, about him. How it should have been me instead. I was the one who was stuck. He was up, he was mobile. He didn’t have to save me. He didn’t have to go back for Buzz.”
“David, you would have done the same thing if the situation had been reversed.”
“Would I? I’d like to think so. I guess I’ll never know now.” D
avid took a deep, shaky breath. “I sometimes wish we could have traded places,” he confessed. “Nolan and me. I mean, the guy had a real family, people depending on him. He left a big hole in the world. I wouldn’t have left much of one. No one would have missed me, really. My father, I guess.”
“I would have missed you,” Christine said.
He stared at her, shocked by her admission. Then he brushed the spark of hope aside. She was engaged to be married, in love with some guy named Alex. She only meant it as a friend. Not the way he wanted her to mean it.
“Thanks, but . . . well, I know it’s just chance or fate or something, but I feel as if I screwed up and let those guys down.”
Christine sighed. He could tell she didn’t know what to say.
“This is what I mean about not being the same, Christine,” he said finally. “I might always be like this. Dragging around all this heavy baggage. Jumping out of my skin at the sound of rain on the roof of a car. You don’t need this,” he said bluntly. “You’re lucky we didn’t stay together. You’re better off with Alex. Way better.”
Christine sat back and turned away from him, facing forward again. After a few moments she said, “Looks like the rain stopped. We can go back.”
She steered the car off the shoulder of the road and turned back into the flow of traffic. They would be back to the tree farm soon; they weren’t far. David couldn’t wait.
This afternoon had started out so well. So promising. Dressed in his new clothes, finally walking with the cane. How had it ended up this way? So bleak and hopeless.
“LOOKS LIKE THE RAIN FINALLY STOPPED, GRACIE. WHAT DO YOU think?” Digger stood by the parlor window. He held the lace curtain back and gazed down at Main Street, the street lamps and car lights reflecting in the wet pavement.
“I’d rather not take the chance of it starting again. That was hail coming down a little while ago, Dad. I would hate to be caught driving in it.” Grace gently drew him away from the window and steered him back into the parlor. “We don’t have to go to the store tonight, Dad. We can go tomorrow. Let’s sit down and figure things out a little, shall we?”
“Okay, Grace. What do you want to figure?” He took a pipe from a handmade wooden box on the mantel and then sat in his favorite wingback chair.
Digger had given up smoking some years back but still liked to hold the pipe in his mouth. Especially on a cold, nasty night, like this one. He still liked the feel of the hard mouthpiece and the rich, comforting scent of the tobacco.
“Well, here’s our list. I think we’ve done pretty well so far.” Grace sat across from him on the sofa with a yellow legal pad in her lap.
“We’ve done very well,” Digger agreed. “Just seeing the look on those folks’ faces when they get up in church and tell their stories . . .” He shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “Does my heart good, Grace. You know what Charles Dickens said about doing a good deed?”
Grace didn’t know what Dickens had said about good deeds, but she had a feeling she was about to find out.
“What was that, Dad?”
“ ‘No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.’ ” Digger clamped his teeth on the pipe end and nodded. “That’s the truth. You feel like you’ve done one good thing in the world, just helping out one single person, and that’s something money can’t buy, you know?”
“I know, Dad. It is a good feeling.”
“So, where are we at on that list?” he asked with interest.
Grace was surprised at his question. She had not seen him this clear and focused in years. She felt quietly happy inside.
“This week we paid the three months’ owing on Elsie Farber’s mortgage and three months into the new year. That ought to give her a good cushion. She told everyone at the Christmas fair committee that she’s renting out the second floor of her house, starting the first of next month, so she can cover the payments easier.”
“That was good thinking on her part. ‘God helps them that help themselves,’ ” he said, adding his favorite quote from Ben Franklin.
“People just need a little hand up sometimes. They don’t expect much more.” Grace looked over the long sheet of notes, the list of names and dire situations she had compiled over the last few weeks. The challenge had not been finding folks in need; it had been choosing the most pressing situations.
“I wish we could help everyone,” she went on. “But we have to pick and choose. We don’t have a million dollars down in that freezer, not unless the bills have multiplied.”
“You never know,” Digger said. “We could find ourselves with a real miracle going on. Like the loaves and fishes.”
“Mostly fishes,” Grace added tartly. She peered at him, but he had not understood her joke.
Grace scanned the list again. “Oh, here’s a good one. I just overheard this today, in the Clam Box,” she explained. “You know that waitress in there—Trudy? The one with the red hair?”
Digger nodded. “I remember her. She looks a lot like Lucy Bates,” he remarked.
“Yes, she does,” Grace agreed. “I never thought of that before. Maybe that’s why Charlie hired her. Well . . . I was having a cup of tea at the counter, and I heard her talking to Tucker Tulley about her car. It’s very old, past a hundred thousand miles. The car didn’t pass inspection, it has so many things wrong with it. She can’t afford to fix it either. She was telling Tucker that she didn’t know what to do, asking if he knew a good mechanic who would let her pay on time. She’s a single mother and needs a car to get to work and take care of her children. I know it’s ambitious, but I think she’s a perfect candidate.”
Digger chewed on the tip of his pipe, considering the suggestion. “A car, huh? That is a big ticket, Gracie.”
“Yes, it is. I was actually thinking we might findagentlyusedcar,sayone or two years old? You can find one with a good warranty and not so many miles on it. I don’t want to stick the woman with the same problems.”
“Of course not. It wouldn’t be any help to her to give her a newer car that breaks down like the old one.”
“I think we can find something used but good quality. A compact model would be fine. One with good gas mileage, of course,” she added.
“Yes, gas mileage. That’s important.” Digger took the pipe from his mouth and peered into the empty bowl. “Sounds like you’ve thought this all out, Gracie. You have any color in mind?”
The question almost made her laugh. She had thought a lot about it. She was hoping to find a blue car for Trudy and had even figured out how they would manage to give it to her. She explained that to her father, too.
“The easiest way I think is to leave it for her on Main Street, parked outside the diner. After we buy it, I can park it there late at night, when nobody is out, and walk right home. We’ll get all the papers in her name and leave them in the glove compartment.”
“That’s the way to do it,” Digger agreed. “Oh, I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see that woman’s face when she finds that new car. Wouldn’t that be something?”
Grace wished he could be a fly on the wall, too. She had not seen her father so happy and animated in a long time. This secret gift-giving project had rejuvenated his mind and his spirit. It did her heart good, not only to give these gifts, but to give her father this pleasure. He might not be around for very much longer, she knew, but she would always have these memories to look back on, the Christmas they fooled the entire town in such a wonderful way.
“Well, let’s see. That might be pretty simple,” she told him. “Maybe we can get a front-row seat this time. I mean, if we just happen to be having lunch at the diner when she gets our note and goes outside . . . then we’d see it firsthand, right?”
“Yes, we would. And nobody sitting there would know it was us that gave the car, either. We could act surprised just like the rest of them.”
“We would absolutely have to act surprised,” Grace said, reminding him of their promise to remain anon
ymous. “It might be tempting to tell in all the excitement. Is that going to be a problem for you?” she asked gently. “You’re not going to forget yourself, are you?”
“No, Gracie, I swear.” He lifted his hand with a solemn expression. “I won’t give us away. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
She held his gaze a moment, then sighed and sat back against the couch cushions. “All right. Then that’s the way we’ll do it.”
She knew her father fully intended to keep his promise and fully believed that he could, but when the moment arrived it would be another matter altogether.
It would be risky to let him sit right there and watch Trudy find the new car. But it did mean so much to him. And he had given so much. Didn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt?
Grace decided it was a chance she would have to take.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I’M GLAD YOU CAME OVER TO HELP ME, EZRA. IF I LEFT IT TO MY daughters, or these inept companions they keep sending over, I wouldn’t have a Christmas tree up until the Fourth of July.”
It was Saturday night, less than a week until Christmas. Lillian had decided that if she didn’t get her tree up this weekend, she might as well send the boxes back up to the attic unopened this year.
But luckily, when she called Ezra that morning, he was free and happy to come over and help her. He also brought another lovely roast chicken, compliments of his housekeeper, Mrs. Fallon. Altogether, it had been a very enjoyable night. After dinner, Lillian served tea and dessert in the living room, along with some classical music on the stereo, and they had gotten started on her Christmas tree.
Lillian held the small, tabletop-size pine tree while Ezra secured the screws in the stand. He had to crouch down to do the work and seemed a bit winded when he stood up, but the tree was perfectly straight, Lillian noted. “That looks fine,” she said, surveying it from all sides. “There’s a gap in the branches back here. I guess it had better go on the table facing the other way.”
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