Saints Among Us

by Anne Marie Rodgers

  Louise told them. “I felt as if I was about five years old again, being fussed at. I was intimidated by Aunt Ethel when I was little. She seemed so stern.”

  “Louise, I’m sorry,” Jane said, dropping a dishtowel on the table as she flopped into a seat. “This is my fault.”

  “Your fault? What do you mean?”

  “I’m the one who suggested you offer your pearls of wisdom to Aunt Ethel. I know how she is. I should have thought about how she would react.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” Alice said firmly. “Families have misunderstandings and disagreements. It’s part of the package. This, too, shall pass.”

  Louise knew her sister was right. But Ethel’s accusations still stung. She knew she would have to talk with her aunt again. But it would be a few days before she could imagine initiating another conversation.

  “Grace Chapel Inn, Alice speaking. May I help you?”

  “Hello, Alice, it’s June. Again.” It was Friday afternoon, and the two women had talked at least a dozen times over the past two days as donations had begun to roll in at a surprising rate.

  Alice laughed. “It’s a good thing the phone company doesn’t charge us by the call, or you and I would be in the poorhouse.”

  “I know,” agreed June. “But I forgot to ask you if you have a large cooler we could take.”

  “June,” said Alice patiently, “I live with a chef. Of course I have a cooler. If you’d like to come over, you can choose the size you want.”

  “I can’t come over right now. A neighbor called. She has six cases of canned dog food she wants to donate.”

  “Six cases?”

  “That’s what I said. Apparently she bought in bulk because it was cheaper, but her dog is allergic to beef and can’t eat it.”

  “How on earth are we going to fit all these donations into that SUV you borrowed? I know it’s big, but still…” June had finagled the loan of an enormous used Chevrolet SUV from Moe Burdock, a dealer in Potterston from whom she had bought a number of previous vehicles. She had driven trucks with horse trailers before, so the prospect of driving the SUV didn’t bother her. The auto’s size made Alice considerably more nervous, but she figured she could handle it on the highway as long as she didn’t have to try to parallel park.

  “I borrowed a turtle from my son. That should help.”

  “A turtle? Do you mean one of those luggage carriers that fit on the top of a vehicle?”

  “Right. It’s the largest size they make, and it will hold a lot.”

  “Whew! For a moment there I took you literally.”

  June laughed. “We’d be taking animals in the wrong direction, then, wouldn’t we? Also, Moe gave me a flatbed that fits into the trailer hitch on the truck. It’s like a big tray, and anything we stow there would have to be boxed and waterproof because it wouldn’t be protected from the elements, but it would provide some more space.”

  “By the time we’re done loading, we’re going to be getting five miles to the gallon.” Consumption of natural resources was something Alice tried hard to be conscious of. Her blue Toyota got more than twenty miles to the gallon around town.

  “Not quite that bad, but close.”

  “I’m glad you called,” Alice told her traveling companion. “I was about to call you. The mail was delivered a few minutes ago, and you will never believe what arrived.”

  “More money?”

  “Yes. Checks and cash totaling four hundred dollars.”

  “Gracious. People certainly have been generous. I admit that when we did the article, I wasn’t expecting these kinds of results.”

  “Add that to what we’ve already received, and we have more than a thousand dollars. It makes me feel very humble that people trust us to use their money well.”

  “I’ll have to write you a check for the money that I’ve been given. I deposited it into my checking account because all the checks were made out to me and it made me nervous having them in the house.”

  “I’ll deposit this too,” Alice said. “Then I can set aside some money for our expenses and write the director of the camp one large check when we arrive. I don’t even know who to make it out to yet.”

  “Moe’s sales manager gave me a donation to be used for gas for our trip,” June told her. “It’s an Exxon card good for one hundred dollars. That means more of Mrs. Daughtry’s donation can go straight to Camp Compassion.”

  “God certainly has moved people’s hearts to respond to this.”

  “I know. Now why don’t we go over what we need to take one more time?”

  June was the most organized trip planner Alice ever had met. The two women glanced over their notes yet another time. Alice pulled out a sheet of paper. “I also have a list of all the veterinary supplies that have been donated. They’re going to fill at least five boxes, I believe.”

  “This sounds impressive,” June said as Alice proceeded to read down the column.

  “I know. But I’m afraid it’s going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the needs that exist. I have been reading the daily Internet postings from some of the rescue groups that are getting reports out. There must be thousands of animals down there.”

  “I know.” June’s voice was gentle. “But we will have to focus on helping as many as we can.”

  Alice felt a renewed sense of purpose. “We leave in only two days. Oh, I can’t wait!”

  “I can’t either.” June’s voice was filled with the same excitement Alice felt. “This is going to be such an adventure!”

  After she and June said good-bye, Alice had one more telephone call to make. Britt Nilsen was the mother of one of Alice’s former ANGELs. She had helped with the girls’ projects in the past, and Alice was hoping she would agree to oversee the bracelet-making in Alice’s absence.

  Britt and her daughter Ingrid both were at home, and Britt said she would be happy to help with the bracelets. Ingrid overheard the conversation and Alice could hear her high voice chattering away in the background.

  “Ingrid wants me to tell you that she has a book with a number of different designs in it. She and her friends do this all the time, you know.”

  Alice smiled. “I know.” She had seen Ingrid wearing rope bracelets many times. It was one of the reasons she had volunteered to have her ANGELs help make the crafts.

  “I have a huge bag of embroidery floss that I picked up at a yard sale in September,” Britt said. “How about if I donate that to the crafts fair, and we’ll use it to make the bracelets?”

  Alice was touched by yet another example of generosity. She had a strong feeling that the Lord was moving people to support both her trip and Ethel’s crafts fair. “Thank you, Britt. That’s a wonderful idea.” And thank You, God, for helping us to make these ministries happen.

  Louise had invited Karin Lindars to come to the inn for their first Santa Lucia planning session on Saturday. The doorbell rang precisely at two. Louise took a moment to turn her pearls so that the clasp was behind her neck where it belonged. Then she walked to the front door and pulled it open.

  “Hello.” She smiled warmly at the willowy woman who stood on the welcome mat. She offered her hand. “I’m Louise Smith. Please come in.”

  “I’m Karin Lindars.” Tentatively, Karin shook Louise’s hand. She was a tall, blue-eyed blonde with porcelain skin. “I’ve seen you at church with your sisters. And I want to thank you so much for volunteering to plan this celebration.”

  Although she hadn’t exactly volunteered, Louise graciously said, “You’re welcome. It sounds quite interesting.”

  She took the younger woman’s coat and hung it on the antique beech coat tree that her father had purchased many years before. Then she led her guest into the dining room. “This is a bit informal, but I thought we might like to sit at the table to take notes. Please have a seat.”

  Karin pulled out a chair as she looked around at the lovely ivory-and-green room, moving a gentle hand over the gleaming mahogany table. “This is
a lovely room. And oh, Swedish mints!” She pointed at the dish of white, pink and green mints that Jane always kept on the dining table.

  Louise chuckled. “Believe it or not, I didn’t plan that. The care and feeding of our guests is my sister Jane’s bailiwick. She keeps those dishes filled on a regular basis.” She pulled out a chair and sat at the end of the table at a right angle to Karin, pulling toward her the notepad that she had laid out earlier. “So. Where shall we begin?”

  “I’m not really sure.” Karin looked distressed, and her pretty blue eyes showed concern. “Food? Music? Oh, it just overwhelms me.”

  “Now, now,” said Louise in a parody of her own no-nonsense teacher voice. “There will be no overwhelming here today. It simply isn’t allowed.”

  Karin smiled, as Louise had intended. “Do you have an idea where to start?” she asked hopefully.

  Louise hitched her chair forward. “First, why don’t we list the major elements of the event?” She wrote a Roman numeral one on her notepad. “Music. I always think of that first since I am a music teacher by profession. And food. We’ll have some kind of light refreshments after the service, I imagine. What else?”

  “The service itself?”

  Louise wrote it down. “And the children will need costumes, I presume.”

  “Yes. How many rehearsals shall we have?”

  Louise consulted a calendar lying nearby. “I thought three and a dress rehearsal the day before. Will that be enough? All we really need to do is teach the music and select children for any readings.”

  “That’s exactly how we did it in Minnesota.” Karin pronounced the name of the state like a true native: Min-ne-SO-da, although it was lightly overlaid with the Swedish accent that flavored her speech. Louise thought it was charming.

  “Did your parents emigrate from Sweden?” she asked.

  “No,” said Karin, surprising her. “My husband and I did. We grew up in Sweden in the same little town. But after he went to university, he was offered a job overseas…so here we are.”

  “You speak English so well,” Louise said. “Did you take lessons when you were growing up?”

  “My mother is American. She went to Sweden with a friend on a summer visit and met my father. They traveled back and forth a few times to meet each other’s families and were married the following spring.”

  “What a wonderful story!”

  Karin laughed. “I always thought it was terribly romantic when I was growing up. My daughters, who have lived here all their lives, think she was crazy to give up her whole life to be with him.”

  “Just wait until they fall in love. Someday they’ll meet a man for whom they would leave their families and travel far away.”

  “So I keep telling them. But I hope they won’t find love too soon. Annika, our eldest daughter, has just begun her junior year of college and Kerstin, the second eldest, is a freshman this year.”

  “How old are your other three? I’ve seen your youngest daughter and two boys with you at church.”

  “Marit is fourteen. Our first son, Niklas, is eleven and our youngest, Mattias, is nine.”

  “That must be a quiet house you have.”

  Both women laughed.

  “I suppose we better get back to business,” Louise said. “Now that we know the elements we need to plan, we can get more specific.”

  “Let’s do food first. That one, I know something about.”

  Louise turned a page and began a list as Karin continued. “Most important are the Lussekatter, or Lucia buns. Translated literally, it means, ‘Lucia cats,’ because they can be shaped like curled-up cats with raisins for eyes. They’re glazed saffron buns with raisins, baked in any of several traditional shapes.”

  “Sounds delicious. I wonder if my sister Jane can come up with a recipe.”

  “Oh, I have one I’m happy to share. Will she be helping with baking?”

  Louise grinned. “Yes, although she doesn’t know it yet.”

  “We might also want to serve ginger cookies or gingerbread, apples or some type of apple food, and coffee. We could add hot chocolate for the children since American children usually are not fond of coffee.”

  Louise was scribbling quickly. “Excellent. How about costumes? And what, exactly, does St. Lucia do?”

  “She will accompany the children to the front of the church and lead them in singing. In our old church, she also carried a candle and a lit candelabra when she got to the front.”

  “Real fire?” That notion worried Louise.

  “Only the one candle carried by the Lussibrud—Lucy bride,” Karin explained as she saw Louise’s eyebrows rise in question. “The five lights in her crown and all the lights carried by the handmaidens can be electric candles.

  That relieved Louise significantly. She made more notes. “And you said something about white gowns?”

  “Yes. All the girls wear simple white gowns, and the boys can wear either white gowns or long white shirts. The Lucia wears the crown of greens and lights and a red sash. The other girls become the handmaidens and can have belts and crowns of tinsel. The boys are “star boys.” They carry wands with stars on the ends.”

  “Okay. That sounds manageable. We have a few mothers in the congregation who might be willing to help with costuming if their own children are involved. Let’s move on to the service. Is there anything in particular you can think of that is done?”

  “Gospel readings about the Light of the World. Shall I e-mail my former pastor and ask him for a list?”

  “That would be very helpful.”

  “I’ll also ask about the traditional songs and any other special readings he might recommend. We might also want to add some Christmas carols.”

  “How long do you envision this service will be?”

  Karin looked uncertain. “I’m not sure. It seems as if it was fairly short. Perhaps forty minutes?”

  “That sounds workable.” Louise consulted her list. “I’ll wait to select music until you hear from your pastor. We certainly have enough to get started with.”

  “How should we inform the congregation? We need children to participate,” Karin pointed out.

  “I’ll ask Rev. Thompson to make an announcement at church tomorrow, and I’ll write a short note to go in next week’s bulletin. If we have a poor turnout at the first rehearsal, then we’ll start beating the bushes.”

  Alice had thought Sunday would never arrive, but finally it did. She and June sat together during the service, and Rev. Thompson gave them an opportunity to address the congregation in order to share details of their upcoming mission and to ask for prayer.

  After the service, Alice was approached by many of her fellow parishioners, who promised to support her with daily prayer. She knew how vital that underpinning was, and she profusely thanked them all.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Alice noticed Louise standing with one of her piano students’ mothers, making small talk. Her back was to the sanctuary, but she was angled just enough to see their aunt. A short distance away, Ethel stood surrounded by a circle of women from the Seniors Social Circle. She looked like a general issuing orders as the ladies nodded repeatedly in response to whatever she was saying.

  It saddened Alice that Louise and their aunt were not on speaking terms. As she watched, Ethel swept out of the sanctuary without a backward glance, and Alice saw Louise register the slight. Her shoulders slumped just for a moment before she regained her customary proper posture, but Alice knew she was hurt. Ethel regularly stopped and spoke with each of her nieces after church. She already had hugged Jane and bid Alice good-bye. To fail to greet Louise today made Ethel’s pique as plain as if she had painted a sign saying that she still was angry with Louise.

  “Alice?” She heard June call her name and looked toward her traveling companion. “Are you ready to go?”

  Excitement swelled within her, sidetracking all other thought. “Just let me say good-bye to my sisters and then we’ll be off.”

  C
hapter Seven

  W e’re here! We’re finally here!”

  “I’m so excited.” Alice looked around as June pulled the huge SUV into a lane where a sign welcomed them to Camp Compassion Monday afternoon. They had left Acorn Hill right after church Sunday and taken turns at the wheel every three hours, driving straight through the night.

  Alice was stiff and creaky and tired of being in the car, but those feelings vanished as she looked forward to finally getting started.

  There was a chain-link fence with a closed gate blocking their path. An enormous man in a T-shirt that bore the phrase, “I love my Chihuahua,” with a heart symbol substituted for the second word, ambled toward them.

  June rolled down her window. “Hello.”

  “Can I help you?” he asked in a Southern accent so heavy Alice wasn’t sure she’d understood him at first.

  “We’re here to volunteer,” said June, ruffling her short silver blonde hair and massaging her neck. Alice leaned across the console dividing the front seats and added. “Dr. Mark Graves is expecting us.”

  “Hey, come on in. We can always use more hands. I’m Kyle.” The man’s wide smile flashed in his dark face, revealing a gold front tooth.

  “I’m June and this is Alice. We’re happy to be here.”

  Kyle unlocked the gate and stood back to motion them through.

  As they drove forward, June looked around. “Which way should I go, do you think?”

  Alice pointed to the right, where a muddy track showed tire marks. “It looks like vehicles went this way.” She rolled down her passenger window and smiled as a woman passed them and waved. “Could you please tell us where to park?”

  The woman pointed with her free hand; the other had a firm grip on a leash against which a fat black Lab was straining. “If you’re staying, we pitch our tents back there. If you have supplies, drive over to the little white house and ask for Joe.”

  June turned toward the house. “We need to drop off all these supplies first, because we can’t even get to our tent until we do.”

  As the SUV rolled to a stop, Alice opened her door and stepped out. Going around to the rear of the vehicle, she opened the gate and surveyed the floor-to-ceiling stacks of boxes. “I hope you ate your Wheaties this morning.”