Last Chance Christmas

by Hope Ramsay

  “No, you don’t. You made changes. You certainly got your Daddy out of his rut. Now your daddy needs to learn how to laugh again,” the angel said.

  Haley stared at the shimmering angel. “You really think my changes were good?”

  The angel nodded.

  “How am I supposed to make Daddy laugh? Daddy never laughs,” Haley whispered.

  “Tell him jokes.” The angel stood up and drifted through the wall that separated Haley’s room from Daddy’s.

  Boy, Daddy was too mad about the changes she’d made in the living room furniture to laugh at any of the jokes that Haley already knew.

  She was going to have to get some much better jokes.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Sharon’s grave was near a towering magnolia that perfumed the Christ Church cemetery in the summertime. But today the place smelled of winter. Someone had put a Christmas wreath by her headstone.

  Stone squatted down, studying the yellowing evergreen decorated with pipe cleaner ornaments and fading glitter. He swallowed hard.

  Clearly Haley’s handiwork, probably with the help of Stone’s sister-in-law Jane. A folded piece of fading construction paper with a crayon picture of a Christmas tree was tucked into the wreath. He opened it to find a single piece of double-lined paper with Haley’s carefully printed words:

  Dear Mother,

  How are things in Heaven? I am OK. Can you ask Jesus to help the angel get back to Heaven? I think she is homesick. That is all I want for Christmas.

  Love,

  Haley

  Stone choked on his emotions, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut and pinch the bridge of his nose to keep from breaking down.

  “You want to talk about it?���

  Stone turned and stood in one motion, chagrined that someone had snuck up on him. Aunt Arlene was standing there with a gotcha look on her face.

  “Uh, hi, Aunt Arlene. I, uh, I gotta go.” Stone pocketed Haley’s note, then strode down the path toward the church parking lot.

  “Stone, wait,” Arlene called after him. “Come sit with me for a minute. I think you need to talk about Haley’s note.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Okay, then, why don’t we talk about Roy Burdett’s new bass boat. I saw it yesterday. It’s pretty cool. It’s all composite, has a package of fishing electronics to die for, and it’s a pretty shade of blue. Laura-Beth picked the color.”

  Stone turned around and stared at his aunt. Before Uncle Pete died, Arlene and Pete used to spend half the summer fishing up at Lake Marion. The walls of Arlene’s den were covered with fishing trophies, mounted fish, and photos taken over the years. “Don’t you let Roy Burdett turn your head with that boat.”

  She giggled. “Honey, I know how to fend off married men. I wrote the book on that a long time ago.” She strolled forward, took him by the arm, and half led, half dragged him over to a small concrete bench not far from Pete’s grave site.

  “So,” Aunt Arlene said, “what brings you out here on a nice morning like this?”

  Stone took Arlene’s hand in his. “How’re you doing, Arlene?”

  “I’m fine. I play bridge every week. I go to the book club meetings every other Wednesday. I have my hair done on Thursday. And I have church on Sunday. I work every day at the store. I have friends. I get lonely, sometimes, but it makes me feel nice when Roy Burdett comes in and flirts with me. When was the last time you flirted with anyone?”

  “It’s been a long time.” Of course, last night he’d wanted to flirt, but had messed it up entirely by talking about combat and Sharon’s piano. Too bad he had yelled at Lark before he decided that flirting with her was what he wanted to do.

  Boy, he was confused.

  “Catch any fish lately?” Arlene asked. “I hear you do a lot of fishing down at the pier on the river.”

  “Arlene, you know good and well that I don’t use bait or a lure.”

  “Why is that? I can’t think of anything more boring than fishing without bait. It’s mighty peculiar, if you want my honest opinion.”

  He laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Yeah, it is.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  Stone thought about it for a moment. He thought about his behavior last night, yelling at the girls. He thought about Lark Chaikin with her dark eyes fired up with indignation. Even a city girl like her knew it was crazy to fish without bait.

  He gulped down air and spoke. “After Sharon died, when I was offered the job here, one of the perks was knowing that the chief of police was welcome to fish from the pier anytime. So naturally, my first week on the job—this was about six weeks after Sharon’s accident—I went down there with a can of worms and my fishing rod.

  “I baited my hook, and I threw the line in. And durned if I didn’t get a hit right away. It was a little panfish, about yea big.” He measured out about five inches between his index fingers.

  “Not big enough to keep,” Arlene said.

  “Yeah. But the damn fish had swallowed the hook.” His voice wavered. “I worked for five minutes to get the hook out, but by then the fish was dead.”

  “It happens.”

  “Yeah, I know. And I never had any problems with it before. But I couldn’t deal with that dead fish. I didn’t want to be responsible for it. If I were a stronger man, it wouldn’t have bothered me. Or maybe, I would have just given up fishing altogether. But I couldn’t do either.”

  “So you fish without bait.”

  “It’s not bad. The best part of fishing isn’t catching fish. It’s the casting and the reeling in.”

  “Ain’t that right. Pete used to say that a man could hear himself think out in a bass boat. Once, your uncle told me that it was amazing what he could hear in the silence.”

  Stone patted Arlene’s hand. “Well, it’s been nice talking fishing with you, Aunt Arlene, but I gotta go.”

  “Stone, they have a grief counseling group that meets on Thursday night. I’ve found that it’s very help—”

  “You’re the third person this week who’s suggested that I need grief counseling. But I’m not much for talking in a group setting, and certainly not to the people I’m supposed to be serving and protecting. I don’t need people gossiping about my feelings. They already gossip enough in this town.”

  “I suppose that’s fair. But you should talk to someone. Maybe—”

  “I gotta go.”

  Arlene grabbed his hand with a fierce grip. “You listen to me, son, and you listen good. I didn’t understand what you’re going through until recently. But I’ve learned something by losing Pete. We all have a hole inside us. Every single person on the face of the earth.”

  That stopped him. He turned. “A hole?”

  “Yeah. You can’t be angry at God for making you that way. You have that empty place for a reason.”

  Stone could feel his brow lowering in a scowl. “Aunt Arlene, I didn’t take you for one of those holy rollers.”

  “I’m not. I’m not trying to get you to come back to church on Sundays. I’m just trying to point out that you’re hoarding yourself and pouring your love into something that can’t give you anything back. Sharon is gone. Uncle Pete is gone. We loved them both when they were here, and they loved us back. But I sure know that your uncle would be disappointed in me if I went out on Roy’s bass boat and fished without any intention of catching a fish. That’s living half a life.”

  Arlene shook her head in disgust. “Fact is, Pete would be horrified. Son, you’re holding on so hard to Sharon that the empty place inside is about to swallow you whole. Only love can fill that empty place inside. You have to let go. I think the Buddhists would say that you have to transcend.”

  “Right.” Stone had no idea what Arlene was talking about. Buddhists? In Last Chance? No way. “I gotta go.”

  But Arlene wouldn’t let go of his hand. “Have you thought about consulting Miriam Randall?”

  “What?”

  “You
heard me. If you won’t talk about your grief to the minister or a psychologist, at least let Miriam help you find someone else to talk to.”

  “Miriam already found me my soulmate. I don’t believe in much, but I do believe that. And my soulmate is buried right over there, by the big magnolia.”

  “You’re right, I know that.” Arlene’s voice was so calm and quiet.

  “Then what in the Sam Hill are you talking about?”

  Arlene gave him a pointed look. “Has it occurred to you that believing in Miriam Randall’s abilities has boxed you into a corner? I happen not to believe that God is so mean-spirited that He would give you a soulmate, take her away, and then insist that you spend the rest of your life battling the empty place inside. Love is God’s greatest gift.”

  “So, let me get this right. You want me to ask Miriam to find me another soulmate?”

  Arlene’s over-made-up eyes lit up with amusement. “Yes, I do. Miriam knows about love. And I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t, for one minute, believe that the Lord wants you to live the life you’ve been living the last few years.”

  “I don’t want another soulmate.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’s part of the problem right there.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Aunt Arlene.” She finally let go of his hand, and he stood up.

  “Honey,” she said as he was about to turn away, “the only thing that matters in this life is love and kindness. If you turn away from love, you’re just consigning yourself to misery. Go find yourself a girlfriend.”

  Stone had no idea what to say in response to that, so he said good-bye. He turned and strode through the graveyard and out to the parking lot. When he reached the sanctuary of the Crown Vic, he sat for a good fifteen minutes reading and re-reading Haley’s letter to her mother.

  Maybe Haley’s angel was right. He needed to make some changes. For Haley’s sake, if for no one else.

  The nightmare awakened Lark at about two in the morning. The dream was always the same.

  She was on a street filled with rubble and smoke, and she was framing a perfect shot of warriors at work. And then she pressed the shutter, and the world went to hell. No matter how hard she tried to stop it, she couldn’t take her finger off the shutter.

  She got out of bed and paced the small bedroom for hours. Dawn was lighting up the sky when she finally managed to fall back to sleep. And then she slept until after noon and woke up groggy and out of sorts.

  She’d wasted most of the day. It was well into the afternoon before she finally headed out to find Nita Wills. Lark left her camera behind.

  The Allenberg County Public Library was a 1970s-style building that shared space with the Last Chance Police Department. Her stomach knotted as she entered the glass double doors. She didn’t want to run into Chief Rhodes… much. And of course, she wanted her talk with Nita to solve all of the mysteries her father had left her.

  The library wasn’t very large. Its cinder-block walls were painted a bright yellow that glowed under the fluorescent lights. A few long tables occupied the front of the room adjacent to the only windows. The stacks occupied the back of the room.

  The main patrons this afternoon were schoolkids.

  “Hope you weren’t expecting a real quiet place to read,” the woman behind the reception desk said in a hushed voice.

  The woman smiled, and Lark’s heart turned over in her chest. Nita’s hair was longer and her figure fuller, but she was the same woman in the photograph Lark had seen last night. Nita had an open face and a pair of dark, intelligent eyes. One look at her face, and Lark understood why Pop had befriended Nita all those years ago.

  “We have a study hour every Thursday for grade-school kids, but it’s hard to keep the library quiet,” Nita whispered.

  “I can see that.”

  “So, you’re new. Are you one of the people who’ve come to build the factory? If you are, I have some information right here on our book club. It meets every other Wednesday evening.” She stood up from her chair and pulled a flyer from a stack on the counter. “It’s a great way to meet new folks. I have to tell you that the membership is all women, though.”

  “Uh, thanks, but I’m not here with the factory, and I’m not planning on staying long. I’m so glad to meet you. I’m Lark Chaikin, Abe’s daughter.”

  Nita’s face changed. The smile vanished, and her dark eyes narrowed. “I heard you were in town,” Nita said.

  “I know this might not be a good time…” Lark cast her gaze toward the kids lining the long tables. She recognized Haley Rhodes among them, kneeling on a chair and bent over a book, her hair falling out of a pair of pigtails.

  “You want me to talk about your father, don’t you? I heard that he recently died,” Nita said, pulling Lark’s attention away from Haley.

  “Yeah. It’s been a little more than a week. He wanted to have his—”

  “I know what he wanted. It’s all over town.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  Nita blinked. “You don’t know why?”

  Lark shook her head. “Pop used to talk about the trip he took in 1968. He always made a big joke out of Golfing for God. But then he’d get this funny look in his eye and tell people that he found himself on the eighteenth hole. He never mentioned it was a hole with a larger-than-life statue of Jesus. That alone should have been worth some kind of comment or explanation, given Pop’s view on religion. Ever since I arrived here in Last Chance, the father I thought I knew has become a complete stranger.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t shed any light.”

  “But you and he broke the rules.”

  “Yes, we did. And we stirred up a hornet’s nest. All in all, I wish I had never done such a thing,” Nita said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, someone had to sit down at the lunch counter and get things moving here in Last Chance, but I wish I hadn’t been the one. I’m not a brave woman. Somehow your daddy talked me into it, and I’ll never understand how he did that.”

  This wasn’t exactly what Lark expected to hear. “I see.” Lark reached into her purse and pulled out the photograph.

  “I was at Ruby Rhodes’s house for dinner last night, and the family was looking through an old photo album and came across this one. Ruby said it was probably the last photo ever taken of Zeke. You all looked so happy. Why?”

  Nita shrugged. “I have no idea. We were young and foolish. Oh, not Zeke, of course. Zeke was just plain crazy.”

  “Really?”

  Nita nodded. “Elbert is peculiar, but Zeke was crazy. He used to stand on the corner of Palmetto and Julia on Sunday morning and preach so loud that folks attending church at Christ Episcopalian, the First Methodist, and the Last Chance AME could hear him.” She giggled. “Used to annoy my uncle, Reverend Robinson, something fierce.”

  “You knew Zeke well?”

  “I did a little bookkeeping for him. Back in 1968, I was a student at Voorhees College. I left school here and restarted at the University of Chicago in 1970. I left Last Chance for a long time. I came back when my husband died. I thought this town would be a better place to raise my daughter, Kamaria. I was right. She’s done well for herself. She was just elected mayor.”

  “So you can’t explain why Pop sent me on this wild goose chase?”

  Nita shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. Your daddy was here in Last Chance for a grand total of ten days. I didn’t know him at all. We just did a silly, foolish thing that changed my life in ways I can’t even fully explain. And not all those changes were for the good.”

  Nita was holding something back. Lark had spent enough time with journalists to know when someone was lying. So she pushed a little harder.

  “Do you think my father was responsible for Zeke Rhodes’s death?”

  Nita’s eyes sparked with anger. “No. And don’t you go listening to that story.”

  “Stone’s father seems to believe it.”

  “The truth is what I told everyone forty yea
rs ago: Your daddy had nothing to do with Zeke’s death. I can’t help it if there are crazy people living here who believe in conspiracies.” Nita’s voice had dropped down to a hoarse whisper, and by the vehemence of her words, Lark knew that she had pushed one of the librarian’s hot buttons.

  “So Zeke’s death was an accident?”

  “I didn’t say that. But your daddy had nothing to do with it. I was there when Abe said good-bye to Zeke. I watched him drive off in that VW bus of his. And that’s where the matter should be left.” Nita gave Lark a sharp and meaningful look. She wasn’t going to say anything more, but it was clear that Nita thought Zeke’s death was not accidental.

  “So, if that’s true, then why does Elbert dislike me so much?”

  “It’s not my place to explain that. You might want to ask the chief of police. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

  Nita turned away and headed toward a group of kids who had forgotten to use their library voices. Lark was about to leave, utterly defeated, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She shifted her gaze just in time to see an older boy give Haley’s pigtails a hard and malicious tug. Haley let out a yowl of protest, but by the time Nita looked up, the culprit had scooted to the water fountain where he made a show of loudly slurping water.

  Nita gave Haley her stern-librarian look, and the little girl’s eyes filled with tears.

  The look on Haley’s face cut Lark right to the quick, and she found herself crossing the library instead of leaving it. Just then, the brat at the water fountain straightened up and headed back toward his chair. As he passed Haley, he called the little girl a name that shocked Lark to her core. No way Haley knew what that word meant. Lark was surprised the boy did.

  The little girl was stoic. She knew she had been insulted in some way, but she pretended to read her book. She tried to ignore the insult with a valor that ought to have won her a medal.

  “Hey you,” Lark said to the bully. “What’s your name?”

  The kid looked up, a blush coloring his cheeks.