Twelve Days

by Teresa Hill

  "You know, those kids deserve to have the best Christmas ever," Mary Jane said.

  "I know. I bet most Christmases, they get so little. It won't make up for not having their mother, but I want to spoil them this year." If it brought them some temporary pleasure in this big bad world, it would be well worth it.

  She thanked Mary Jane and off they went through what seemed like the entire downtown. They were on their last stop, a store specializing in things for babies, when she ran into her sister Ellen, who was forty-two and just going gray, looking more like their mother every day. Ellen had teenagers and a husband, Bill, of twenty years who seemed to adore her and now a thriving second career selling real estate. A seemingly perfect life.

  Rachel introduced the older children to her sister, and then when Emma took Zach off to play in the corner of the shop where there were some toys set up for children, let Ellen fuss over the baby.

  "What an absolute doll!"

  "Isn't she?" Rachel relinquished the baby, as her sister demanded without a word merely by reaching for her.

  "Oh!" Ellen held Grace close and smelled her hair. Even though Rachel hadn't had any baby shampoo or lotion to use, Grace still smelled wonderful. Whatever the baby smell was, it didn't come from a bottle. "She's so beautiful. How could anyone leave her like that?"

  "I don't know," Rachel said. Miriam still hadn't found out anything about the children's mother when Rachel had talked to her a few hours ago.

  "It's so awful."

  Rachel nodded. People did awful things to children in this world. It was one of the things that had fueled Rachel's anger over the years, wanting children so badly, thinking she had so much to give, when there were so many people who had them and didn't give a damn about them. Or worse, hurt them.

  "Maybe if their mother doesn't come back," Ellen suggested. "I was telling Bill last night that maybe you and Sam—"

  "No." Rachel stopped her right there. "I've been hearing that all day, and with most people, I just let it go because... Well, because." People didn't need to know everything about her life. But with her sister, she was more forthcoming. "I can't think that way. I promised myself and Sam that I wouldn't. Not after what happened with Will."

  "But, Rachel—"

  "This is just until after Christmas, and it's..." Rachel started to say it was okay, but of course it wasn't. If things had been different, she'd love to keep these children, to make them her own. But Sam was leaving, too. Rachel had her goals firmly in place. They were simple and very straightforward. "We're just going to give them a good Christmas. That's all."

  And then she could start trying to fix everything else, starting with what was inside of her.

  "Ellen, do you think I'm selfish?" she blurted out to her sister in a moment of pure panic and fear.

  "No."

  "Do you see me as someone who thinks of no one but myself?"

  "No, you're just... You're the baby of the family. I guess we've all always tried to take care of you, to make things as easy for you as we could."

  It was true. They had. There'd always been somebody to pick her up and dust her off and help her out.

  "You do." Rachel took a breath, scared. "You think I'm selfish."

  "That's not what I said. I just know that it's hard for a mother to let her baby grow up. My Steffie's in middle school now, and I still find myself wanting to take care of her. We all did that to you. Not just Mom. All of us."

  "That's how you see me? Like a woman who still needs someone to take care of her. Poor little Rachel."

  "That's not what I said, either."

  "Do you think I'm a nice person?" Rachel asked.

  "Of course I do."

  "I'm just not strong enough—is that it? I just haven't handled things as well as I should have."

  "I think you're someone who's had her share of problems—"

  "My share?" As if we were all allotted a certain amount and maybe someone was weighing them all, to see if they were evenly distributed?

  "More than most people," Ellen said.

  "Have I really?" She'd always thought so, but...

  "Rachel, you lost a child. I can't imagine anything harder than that."

  She nodded. It was that hard. And yet, other people had lost children and found a way to go on. She'd tried grief groups before. She'd seen people who seemed to be able to resolve it somehow, and she'd resented them for it. She hadn't wanted to come to terms with any of it. She'd hung on to the hurt, to the anger. She'd been waiting for someone to come along and say they'd made a mistake, that this was not her life and that she was going to get everything back. She'd been waiting for God to bring her baby back.

  Those other people who'd dealt with their losses had just made her mad. She wanted them ranting at the injustice of it all, the way she had been for a dozen years. She wondered if they'd hurt as much as she had, if they'd actually loved their children as much as she had, and yet how could they not have loved their children and suffered the same way she had? She knew they had.

  But they hadn't sunk into a dark hole and not come out for twelve years.

  "Hey?" Ellen asked. "What's happened?"

  "I don't know," Rachel said shakily. "I've just been thinking that I haven't handled anything well, not for a long time."

  "We do the best we can, Rach. That's all anyone can expect from us. Have you done the best you could?"

  Rachel hesitated, panic creeping in once again. Had she? At the time, it felt as if it was all she could do to simply get through each day. And after that phase had passed, she'd been so angry. At everyone. She'd never really moved on from there, and it had been twelve years. She felt every one of them now, every day, now that it seemed she and Sam were about to lose everything.

  "I don't think I have done the best I could." It wasn't easy for her to admit that, but surely at some point, she could have been stronger, done more. "I look at Emma and I feel ashamed. She's been abandoned by her mother, maybe by the only person in the world who cares about her. And instead of falling apart, she's taking care of her little brother and sister. I haven't even seen her cry about it. She just goes right on...."

  "Rachel—"

  "She's only eleven, and here she is, so much stronger than I am."

  "Did something else happen?" Ellen asked.

  "No," she lied. She wasn't ready to let the family in on this. Not yet. It was too new, too raw. Besides, this wasn't about Sam. This part was about her. She was ashamed of what she'd done. "I've just been thinking... about me and my life. I think I've messed it all up, Elle."

  "It's been hard," her sister began.

  "I know, but it doesn't really matter, does it? It's my life. It's what I've got, what I have to deal with. I have to do better than this."

  Ellen hugged her and then stood there looking at her with a worried expression on her face. "We've all wanted to help," she said. "We just didn't know what to do anymore."

  Rachel felt tears filling her eyes, knowing it was true. All she'd ever had to do was reach out her hand and someone would help her. She was truly blessed in that.

  "Thanks. It's just hard sometimes." To let anyone into her world, so filled with pain and maybe with self-pity. She was shamed to let her sister know how bad it had been, how badly she'd dealt with it. "And I'm going to do better."

  "Good," Ellen said, then started looking around the store. "Now, what does this beautiful baby need?"

  "Everything."

  * * *

  When they got back home, the car loaded down with packages, Sam was outside on a ladder hanging Christmas decorations.

  Rachel sat there and stared up at the house. It was always colorful, with its dove gray paint with bright white and blue accents and multiple stained-glass windows she'd painstakingly restored over the years. It had porches upstairs and down and an octagon-shaped turret room in the corner, which she absolutely loved. There were arched doorways and three fireplaces, hardwood floors and wide wood trim, even the original, old-fashioned cut
glass doorknobs. She absolutely loved it, especially at Christmas.

  She put butter-colored candles in every window that could be seen from the street. Not real ones. The fire risk was too great. But very nice electric ones, to set the windows aglow with warmth and light. They used only soft white lights on the house, along all the rooflines, windows, and porches, wreaths strung with the same white lights in the biggest windows and on the doors, even on the white picket fence out front. And there was a giant fir tree in the front yard they decorated in the same white lights and big, red velvet ribbons.

  It was a sight to behold when it was all done. It was also a big job and, at one time, one of her favorite days of the year.

  "Miss Rachel?" Zach asked, pulling her back to the present. "Are we goin' somewhere else or can we get out now?"

  She realized she'd pulled into the driveway and neglected to turn off the car, and Zach had obviously been taught not to climb out of a car still running.

  "We're staying, Zach," she said, cutting the engine and setting the emergency brake. She'd lock the car, too, and hide the keys, just in case. She couldn't stand it if anything happened to these children while they were here.

  Zach scrambled out of the car and gazed up at the house in awe, babbling about all that Sam had done, which was to finish stringing the lights along all three stories. Emma got Grace, and Rachel got out and stood there, staring at the house.

  She remembered one Christmas so long ago when, as they were nearly finished decorating, Sam had made her his present, wrapping her in a long strand of red ribbon and carrying her inside. He lay her down on the rug beneath the tree. They'd already turned off all the lights in the house except for the candles and the lights on the tree.

  There in the Christmas glow of it all, he'd slowly unwrapped her, kissing every inch of her as he went and telling her that she was the best present he'd ever received. All he'd ever wanted, all he'd ever need.

  They never made it to bed that night, had slept on the rug, wrapped in an afghan, Sam's big, muscular body so beautiful in that light.

  It had been after they lost the baby, but before the other things, the things that had cemented that first, terrible loss and sealed their fate. Rachel frowned at the idea that their fate was truly sealed, that it had been years ago. What had all the intervening years been? Nothing but her and Sam playing out the hand fate dealt them? Was there no way to stop it? No way to change it?

  And then there was no time for thinking at all. Because Zach was running for the ladder, and Sam was still three stories up. She managed to stop Zach from grabbing on to the ladder and knocking Sam down, but barely.

  Emma took Grace into the house, and Sam climbed down. Zach was so excited, he was practically dancing at Sam's feet. He had all sorts of questions about the lights—how many were there, and how did they get them to stay up, and could he help. Sam answered all the boy's questions, and then Rachel gave Zach one of the smaller shopping bags and asked him to take it inside. He did, bouncing as he went, leaving her with Sam.

  "The house looks good," she said tentatively.

  Sam nodded, looking at it instead of at her. She thought about taking him by the collar of his coat and turning him to her, making him look, saying, See me, Sam. Me. Think about leaving me now. Can you do it? Can you give up on us? After all these years? All we've been through?

  But she didn't. Not yet. She was still too afraid of what he'd say. Afraid he'd say, Yes, I can go. Because I don't love you anymore, Rachel. Maybe I never did.

  "I spent a lot of money," she said instead.

  She went to the car and opened the door, showing him all the packages. He didn't say anything, just took what she handed him. And then the thought of money had her stomach clenching tightly. What was she going to do for money if Sam left? She made some money off her stained glass, but truly she'd always done it for the challenge and the sheer pleasure of it, not for the money. And what she'd made in the past wasn't enough to support herself, certainly not enough to keep up this house, which she honestly loved and would hate to leave. She hadn't even thought of it before, but what about the money?

  Oh, she had people who wanted to hire her now. At least, they had after she'd finished the Parker mansion. Melissa Reynolds, whom she went to school with, had a gift shop in town and often talked to Rachel about selling small custom-made glass products, wind chimes, sun-catchers, small windows, mosaics, maybe even stained glass panels to fit in doors and windows. But Rachel had never talked to her seriously about prices or quantities of products or anything like that.

  "Rachel?" Sam said. "It's fine, Rachel."

  But it wasn't. She was an incredible anachronism in this thoroughly modern world. She'd never had a real job. Oh, she'd always been busy, and Sam had told her more than once, when she'd worried about what she was contributing to the family finances, that he never would have gotten the business off the ground without her. Truly, they'd worked side by side in the first few years. Every minute she hadn't spent taking care of her sick grandfather or her mother, she'd spent helping Sam.

  But the business was his. She'd helped get it started, but it would never be hers. She would never claim a share of it. It wouldn't be fair. And she certainly would never expect Sam to go on supporting her once they were no longer man and wife.

  She felt so ridiculous. She was a grown woman, thirty years old. How could she be so unprepared to take care of herself?

  "Rachel, I don't care how much you spent on these kids, okay?"

  She nodded, her gaze locked on his for a moment, that sense of panic rushing over her again. What was she going to do?

  "Look," he said, still caught up in the kids and clothes, thinking that was all this was about, "I know what it's like to live in hand-me-downs. To have—"

  He stopped abruptly, his face flushed in the cold, and she puzzled over what he'd been about to say. Sam had lived in hand-me-downs?

  She remembered him in disreputable-looking jeans, the fabric worn almost white and so smooth, clinging to every muscle in his thighs, and some kind of shirt. Nothing that nice, but she hadn't seen Sam as the kind of boy who'd ever care that much about what he wore, and the snug, worn jeans fit with that bad-boy image of his. She'd never given his clothes a second thought. His grandfather was known as a tightwad around town, but she didn't think he was poor. She hadn't thought much about the way they lived at all, except that his grandfather was a grouch. She'd wanted to make it up to Sam for the lack of closeness between them, for what she suspected was a lack of love, by lavishing him with love of her own and pulling him into the midst of her big, loving family. She had wanted to be the one who made that all better for him.

  Rachel frowned. What a joke that was. How long had it been since she'd lavished her husband with any kind of love?

  "Are you okay?" he asked, finally looking at her.

  "I will be," she claimed, an optimistic boast at best.

  "Come inside. It's freezing out here."

  And she followed him inside, trying to fight off that sense of melancholy, trying to live in the moment—the children, Christmas—instead of what was sure to follow.

  * * *

  It turned into a good day. They all finished decorating the house together, something usually accomplished with a good deal of order and precision, all of which was lost with two children helping them. Zach wanted to pull everything out and examine it, and he had his own ideas about where things should go. He was also determined to climb the biggest ladder they had. Sam pulled him off of it three times, only to find him right back up there a second later. Finally, Sam put Zach on his shoulders with the white lights they put on the fir tree in the front yard. They went round and round, circling the tree with lights, Zach cackling with delight as they went.

  Emma and Rachel twisted red ribbons onto the branches once the lights were up, Grace hanging quite contentedly from a backpack like thing on Rachel's back. She seemed enthralled by all the colors and made cooing sounds and sucked on her fingers th
rough her gloves, which perplexed her greatly. She found Rachel's ear and tugged on that, on Rachel's hair, wouldn't leave a cap on Rachel's head.

  They laughed more in that day than Rachel could remember in months. Even Emma, somber, serious Emma, had laughed. Sam was still hiding behind the gruff exterior, still seeming a bit uncomfortable, but even he had cracked a smile or two when he and Zach had gotten into a scuffle in the drifting snow.

  Finally satisfied and freezing, they'd all stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, staring up at it and deciding all their hard work had been worth it.

  "It's just like in the book," Zach said. He finally believed he was living in the Christmas house. Maybe he still believed in magic, just a little bit.

  "Come on," Rachel said. "We've got to get inside."

  "I'm not cold," Zach said.

  "I am," Rachel insisted.

  They went to the back door, she and Sam brushing the snow off the kids as best they could before they all traipsed inside and made a mess of the laundry room, with wet boots and coats and hats and gloves everywhere.

  Rachel insisted that Zach have a hot bath, and Emma volunteered to give him one. Rachel sent them up with hot chocolate, and a moment later, her middle sister, Gail, dropped by with hot homemade soup and fresh bread. Gail who had four children of her own, the youngest of whom just started school this year, and a husband, Alex, whose work as a pharmaceutical salesman kept him on the road a good bit. She'd been a bit lost herself lately, and Rachel found herself wondering how her sister had coped.

  "Thanks," Rachel said.

  "It was nothing. I was just so excited for you, and I had to see the kids. Besides, it's tradition. You always bring me food when I have a baby."

  It was true. She cooked for both her sisters when they had new babies. Still, "I didn't have a baby."

  "You have one right there," she said, pointing to Grace, who was sleeping happily in Rachel's arms.

  "But I can't keep her. She has a mother somewhere, and Miriam's going to find her."

  "Couldn't I just hope this works out for you? Finally?"