The train station sat across the street from a Best Western, situated on U.S. Highway 4, only a mile or so from the center of the Christmas Jars universe: Chuck’s Chicken ’n’ Biscuits.
~~~
I handed the jar to my four-year-old to give to the chosen woman. She gave us hugs and many blessings. The jar we gave didn’t contain much money this year, but it is not the amount that matters, it is the lesson behind the Jar.
—Molly
Ten
~~~
Hope hadn’t rung the doorbell at the Maxwell home since her initial visits three years earlier when she was posing as a college student. She hadn’t needed to then or now; it was the kind of home you just walked into as if you were a family member.
She practically was.
Lauren was standing in the kitchen making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Hi, there,” Hope said. “Haven’t seen you since the funeral.” She kissed her on the cheek and snuck half a sandwich. As Hope took a bite, Lauren wiped peanut butter across the back of her hand with a butter knife.
“Thief.”
“Anyone around?” Hope asked and licked the back of her hand like a cat. She even added a purr for effect.
“Nope,” Lauren snickered. “I’m just in the mood for six PB&J’s.” She cut the last sandwich in half and placed each half-sandwich on a paper plate with four baby carrots, a celery stalk, and a peanut butter cookie.
“Hardy har har, Miss Smarty Shorts,” Hope sassed. “Got the grandkids?”
“They’re downstairs. Hannah and Dustin went on a lunch date.”
“You’re such a good grandma.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Hope began making herself her own sandwich. “I haven’t had one of these in forever. Mom used to make ’em for those all-day cleaning jobs.”
“Hold that thought.” Lauren carried a stack of paper plates down the stairs and was met with a chorus of “Yippees” and “I hate carrots.” A moment later she returned to the kitchen and took a seat at the table across from Hope.
“Kids, kids, kids,” Lauren said.
“Darn munchkins. Everyone’s having them. What’s the deal?”
Lauren got up, grabbed the baby carrots, and sat again. “Everyone but you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hope pulled the crust off her bread. “I’ve got nieces and nephews—who needs real kids?”
Lauren smiled. “You ready for Marianne and Nick to leave tonight?”
“You heard.”
“We all did. You were probably the only one who didn’t know.”
“Figures. I don’t know why they worried so much about it. This trip is a great opportunity. And it’s her dream.”
“She worried because she didn’t want you to be alone. She wanted you to be cool with it.”
“Cool with it?” Hope laughed.
“Just trying it out.” Lauren smiled back. “You should be grateful she cares. A lot of people wouldn’t dream of asking permission from people they love.”
“True.” Hope took the last bite of her sandwich.
“She was worried, trust me,” Lauren repeated. “Worried about leaving you alone on Christmas and shorthanded at the diner. She loves the tradition as much as anyone.”
“I know she does. She’s a good woman.”
“The best,” Lauren agreed.
“Speaking of good women—you seen Gayle?” Hope asked.
“No, I need to call, maybe go by. I was waiting until some of her family started heading back out of town. It’s probably still a mess of people. She’ll need some real love from us when things calm down. Trust me.”
Hope put her hand on Lauren’s. “I keep forgetting this must be tough on you, too. Lots of fresh memories?”
Lauren nodded. “Yeah, lots of memories, but not all bad. As hard as it was losing Adam, I sure did feel loved that week. I suppose that’s the silver lining for Gayle and me. For all widows. You find out who loves and supports you in times like these. Like you.”
“Your husband died?”
Lauren flicked a baby carrot at Hope’s nose and it caromed onto the floor.
Hope picked it up and ate it.
Lauren covered her eyes.
Something crashed to the floor on the other side of the house.
“Who’s that? Someone in the shop?” Hope asked.
“Clark.”
Even when she was angry with him, the name alone gave Hope goose bumps. “Of course.”
“Still mad?”
“You might say that. He stopped by Chuck’s on his way into town. All glib and fit.”
“You really need to get over yourself,” Lauren said and got up again to pull a bottle of ranch dressing from the refrigerator. “He’s a good catch if you’d slow down.”
“Hard to catch someone who is in and out of town more often than the train.”
“Sigh,” Lauren said, pulling a cereal bowl from the dish rack. Then she actually sighed and poured a deep pool of dressing into the bowl. “You’ve talked to Hannah?”
“Some.”
“She and Dustin are having awfully mixed emotions about this.”
“I’m sure they are. Can’t blame them.”
Lauren sat at the table and dipped a carrot into the dressing, biting it in half. “I know. I just want them happy, and this just isn’t making them happy. But you know Dustin, he feels so committed to this. He’d always promised Adam he’d take over someday. Now that the business is his, though, he’s discovered his heart isn’t in it.”
“Does he know what he wants to do?”
“He won’t talk much about it because what he really wants is to learn to love the trade. But it’s been three years. I don’t know, Hope, I love him like he was my own, and I can see he’s only going through the motions to keep his promise.”
“Hannah sees it, too, doesn’t she.”
“Of course,” Lauren said. “They’re so close, and he’s never had to say a word. She sees it in his eyes.”
“Maybe you could make the decision for them. Tell him it’s not working out. Make it easy on him.”
“I’ve considered that.” Lauren swirled a carrot in the dressing. “We’ll see. Clark is giving it a serious look.”
Hope took a carrot from the bag and doused it in the ranch dressing until she couldn’t see any orange. She dropped the whole thing in her mouth and crunched. “Does he even know anything about furniture? Restoration? Repair? He’s a baseball player. And judging from the way he swings a bat, he’s not the greatest with wood.”
Lauren shook her head. “You’ve been waiting to use that one, haven’t you?”
Hope shrugged.
“Be sweet. . . . And no, he doesn’t know a lot yet, but he’s always been interested in it. He’s been in the shop plenty over the years and used to love helping Adam when he was younger.”
“Does he know anything about business?”
“Yes, that’s not a problem. He’s always had a mind for that and studied business in school. You should have remembered that.”
Hope furrowed her brow. “Hmmm.”
“Go say hi.”
“Maybe later.” Hope got up from the table and rinsed out the bowl.
“Come on, Hope. This is different from his other visits. This is serious. And if this works, if it’s a fit, he’s going to be around for a long time. The business needs him. And we need him. . . . Besides, he’s got to know you would support this.”
“Maaaaaybe laaaaater,” Hope said as she swiped a cookie.
“Here, I’ll give you an excuse. Take him a sandwich.” Lauren quickly wiped jelly over one piece of bread and peanut butter over another. “Here.”
Hope turned around with two carrots sticking from her mouth like fangs. “This OK?” she said, but one of the fangs fell to the floor.
“No!” Lauren said, reaching for it.
But it was too late; Hope tossed the carrot in her mouth. “Fine. Gimme the PB&J. Grrrr.”
Adam’s shop was connected through an air lock off the kitchen. Hope stepped through it, pushed open the door, and saw Clark standing over a smoke-stained wooden headboard. He was dressed in slacks and a snug-fitting T-shirt. He had sawdust in his hair and a yellow pencil tucked behind his ear.
Hope’s mouth said, “Hi, Clark,” but her arms said, “Welcome back, goose bumps,” and her mind said, “Leeerowr.”
~~~
I haven’t found much of the Christmas spirit this year.
The bright spot in my holidays has been the Christmas Jar and sharing the idea with others. We may have given a gift, but I think that we were the ones who were blessed.
—Penny
Eleven
~~~
She is risen from the dead,” Clark teased.
“Hilarious.” She put a hand on her belly and mock-laughed. “You taking your act on the road?” Hope practically tossed the sandwich at him, but Clark wasn’t expecting either the sandwich or the speed of delivery and caught it halfway from the floor with one hand. A piece of peanut butter and jelly crust fell to the floor.
Clark bent down, picked it up, and held it out for her.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I already ate.”
Clark put the crust in his mouth, and Hope exercised more self-control than she thought she possessed to keep from laughing.
Clark then took a largemouth-bass bite that consumed about a third of the sandwich. “You know how long it’s been since I’ve had one of these?”
“Last time you visited Lauren?”
“Yup,” he said, and he took a bite even bigger than the last. A small glob of jelly clung to the corner of his mouth.
Hope walked over to the far side of the shop and admired the intricate hand-carved designs on the face of a grandfather clock. “This is gorgeous,” she said.
“Agreed,” Clark said. He finished the sandwich and tossed the paper towel in the trash can without wiping his mouth first. “Dustin said the owners took it to one of those antique valuation places and they told them it was German, pre-World War I, and worth a bundle. But it needed some work.”
“Adam would have loved a project like this,” Hope said.
“Probably.”
Hope turned the hour and minute hands to twelve. “Is Dustin doing the work on it?”
“He’ll do the wood and deep cleaning on the case. But someone else will come in and work on the mechanism itself. He tells me he’s got a clock guy.”
“A clock guy?”
Clark raised his hands up and shrugged his shoulders. “Who doesn’t have a clock guy anymore, right?”
“Duh, right,” Hope said. “I’ve got two. One just for weekends.” She considered telling Clark he still had strawberry jelly in the corner of his mouth, but decided not telling him was much more fun.
Clark pulled a stool out from underneath a workbench and slid it toward her.
She sat, remembering sitting on the very same stool the first day she met with Adam in the shop.
Clark dropped into Adam’s old rolling office chair and a cloud of sawdust puffed up around him.
“I can’t believe Dustin hasn’t replaced that old nasty thing,” Hope said. “It’s a giant piece of sawdust.”
“Maybe that’s why he hasn’t,” Clark mused. “It’s not a piece of sawdust, it’s a piece of Uncle Adam.”
Hope looked down at her feet and kicked her heels against the legs of the stool. After a long, awkward silence she finally said what she’d been thinking since Labor Day. “You really hurt my feelings, you know.”
“Oh, please,” Clark said. “The picnic thing?”
She continued examining her shoes.
“Not just that, though drenching me in front of my friends at the paper—including my boss—was definitely a new low for you.”
“What else then?”
She looked up.
“What?” he repeated.
Hope sighed.
“This is how it’s going to be, then? Every time I come around?”
“Not if you’d quit coming and going like a bad cold.”
Clark took a turn at an overdramatic sigh. “Last time was different, Hope, I had a real shot at making that club in Tennessee.”
“You always have a real shot at making some team somewhere—Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, Florida, blah blah blah. You zoom into town, we have dinner, I remember how much I like being in the same room with you, we go for a drive, then you drive out of town again.”
Clark spun a full circle in his chair. “Let’s start again, all the way from the top. . . . It’s good to see you again, Hope. I’m sorry about your friend, Hope. I’m sorry I chucked you in the river, Hope. I’m sorry I ruined your shiny sneakers, Hope. I’m sorry I didn’t come back to apologize for being a jerk before leaving to take the best shot I’d had all year of living my dream and getting a permanent slot on a team with a path to the Majors, Hope.”
“You done?”
Clark rarely embarrassed himself. “Yes.”
“Want to try that again?”
Clark spun the chair once again as if to rewind. “It is good to see you, Hope.” He slowed his pace. “I am sorry about Chuck. Truly. And I acted like a fool when I saw you last. I’m sorry. I’m also sorry I didn’t say good-bye—again.”
Hope finally smiled enough to throttle down the tension. “And?”
“And I owe you a pair of shoes.” He kicked playfully at one of her feet with one of his.
She kicked him back and wished she didn’t enjoy the snarky reunions quite so much. “So how did it go?” she asked.
“What?”
“Baseball in Tennessee.”
“I hit .169 with two homeruns and sixty-nine strikeouts in thirty-five games.”
“Even I know that’s not good,” Hope jabbed.
Clark gave her his “you’re killing me” look.
She’d seen it before. “I’m sorry, Clark. You’ll get there.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Shoot, I don’t even know where ‘there’ is anymore. Maybe there isn’t at the ballpark. Maybe it’s here.”
“Here?” Hope asked.
“Maybe.” Clark looked across the room. “You must know what’s up. You and Hannah are too close not to. This just isn’t what Dustin thought it would be, but it’s tough to admit that. I know. And of course he doesn’t want to feel like he’s letting Adam down. Which I also understand.”
Hope studied her sneakers again.
Clark watched her.
“So why you?” Hope looked up to ask. “You think you can handle this small-town life?”
“Hmmm. A loaded question if ever you’ve asked one.” He leaned back and rested his feet on the desk. “I loved Uncle Adam. He was my dad’s best friend. I know Dad would love to take over, keep it in the family, but he’s too old for this. Bad back, bad knees, two mortgages on a house two hundred miles away. It breaks his heart he can’t help more with it.”
“Enter Clark to save the day.”
“Hardly. You know I wasn’t looking for this. It’s just happening. But I gotta admit that being here feels comfortable.”
“Here right now or here in general?”
“Both,” he answered. “And maybe I see Restored like a cousin I never knew well enough or never saw enough.” Clark dropped his feet to the floor and walked over to the circular saw. “Being here feels like I’m getting to know him all over again.”
Hope stayed on her stool with her back turned. With the grief and heavy days following Chuck’s death, she had forgotten just how much she still missed Adam, too.
Clark pulled a brush from a nail hook and swept dirt and dust off the saw.
Hope got up and walked to the other side of the room. “Do you even know how to use all this stuff?” She again nearly told him of the jelly on his mouth, but the flecks of sawdust coating it made it even more fun to look at.
“Most of it. My dad has a small workshop at home. Nothing like this, obviously, but he made m
e a couple baseball bats I used in college. He never wanted me to use metal. Said if I used wood bats as an amateur I’d be ready for the pros. . . . Anyway, he’s always loved working with wood. He’s very good with his hands. Hopefully good hands run in the family.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Hope said and instantly regretted it.
“Will we?”
“I didn’t—”
“Forget it.” Clark gently poked her in the ribs with the brush before returning it to its hook.
“Ay yi yi,” Hope mumbled and walked toward the door. “I better let you get back to it.”
“Hope?” Clark called.
She turned, still feeling surprisingly flushed. It was an unusual feeling for a woman who prided herself on never being flustered. “Yeah?”
“I need some help.”
“With . . .”
“Getting to know the layout here, all the personalities. I know Hannah, but I don’t really know Dustin very well. I need someone to help me cut through the . . . I don’t know, the sawdust, I guess. Someone to guide me through what makes this place—the family, the town, all of it—tick. Make sense?”
“I think so. But you know I can’t make a decision for you.”
“Obviously.”
“And I won’t pressure you one way or the other.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m really busy right now. I’ve got my column. I’m keeping an eye on Gayle. Plus it’s Christmas Jars time at Chuck’s. So I don’t know how much time I’ll have to hang out and gossip.”
Clark stepped toward her. “You need more help?”
“We can always use more hands. There’s a lot to do.”
“Rumor says I’m good with mine.”
Hope covered her face. “Ugh. You’re pressing repeat on that forever, aren’t you?”
Clark smiled and extended his hand. “Let’s make a deal. You give me some time and some inside knowledge into the family, Aunt Lauren, her quirks, the town, whatever, and I’ll be your right-hand man for your little Christmas Jars project.”
Hope tapped a foot and crossed her arms. She looked down at his hand, still hanging in midair to seal the deal. “OK, done.” They shook hands very professionally.
Hope turned for the door, but before disappearing through the air lock and back into the kitchen, she called over her shoulder, “You might use that hand to wipe the jelly off your mouth.”
Christmas Jars Reunion Page 6
