A Family-Style Christmas and Yuletide Homecoming

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe you better ask her.”

  “Well, I’m talking to you now and all I’m asking is that you give her some space and time.”

  “I would think that the six years we spent apart is enough space and time.”

  “I know you care for Sarah,” Tilly said, ignoring his outburst. “I know you cared for her six years ago and I’m sure you care for her now. Sarah hasn’t been to see her father for some time. I hear you and Sarah have been spending time together. Maybe you could speak to her about her father. Encourage her to visit him again. Give her space so that she can establish her relationship with him. I know it would be good for her.”

  “I care for her too, Tilly. A lot. I always have. I will always do what is best for Sarah.”

  “I know, Logan. All we’re asking is that you give her some time, and now I see I’ve taken up enough of yours. Give my greetings to your mother.”

  Logan ended the conversation and dropped the phone on the desk. He laced his fingers behind his head as he struggled to contain his own frustrated anger. With that last line, did Tilly know something about Frank’s feelings toward his mother? Did any of the town know?

  Logan leaned back in his chair, his thoughts slipping back to the conversation he’d overheard between Dan and Frank.

  From the moment Logan had heard what Frank had done, or rather hadn’t done, his anger had burned hard and hot. Buying the contract from Crane became more than a business decision: it became a way of getting in Frank Westerveld’s face.

  Now it seemed other emotions had worked themselves into the mix and were growing more important than his original reason.

  Sarah.

  Each time he saw her it was as if pieces of the six years that had separated them fell away. Old assumptions that had created such strong barriers had been brushed aside. Some of his overall anger had subsided.

  He thought of the vague comment she had made the other day in the sleigh. She wasn’t going to stay, of that he felt certain.

  Was this worth it? Was she worth it? Surely he could find another girl who had a less complicated past, who would cause fewer problems for him.

  Tilly’s call underlined the fact that Sarah and her father had unfinished business. Whether Sarah wanted to admit it or not, Frank Westerveld was not going away.

  And for Logan that meant if he got involved with Sarah, Frank came with.

  * * *

  Sarah dropped her bags of groceries on the kitchen table, the welcome warmth of the house easing away the chill from outside.

  The bags held enough food for a week, as far ahead as Sarah had been planning lately. Inside one of the bags was a package of large trash bags to hold the stuff from Marilee’s room.

  She had talked herself carefully around the decision, weighing, considering. Logan’s words kept resounding through her head.

  He was right. The room was like a shrine to a person long gone. And today she was going to do something about it.

  She pulled the package of trash bags out, holding it in her hand, a few second thoughts teasing the back of her mind. Should she? Did she have the right?

  The doorbell broke into the moment. Logan? Already? She ran to the door, expectation hurrying her feet, and opened it, only to have her expectations doused.

  Uncle Dan.

  “Sarah, how are you doing?” he asked, his voice booming as he stepped into the house. “I haven’t talked to you for a while.”

  Sarah closed the door behind him and held her hand out for his coat. “Do you want some coffee?”

  “No, honey. I’m on my way home. I just came back from the hospital though.” He pulled his boots off and walked inside with the ease of someone familiar with the place. He glanced around and Sarah felt as if she should scurry through the house, tidying the magazines and books she had been reading. He gave her a wide smile. “Place looks lived in, Sarah. That’s good. All you need now is some Christmas decorations. I think your dad has some in the attic.”

  Sarah hadn’t considered decorations. That had always been Marilee’s department.

  Her uncle crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his index finger against his upper arm, as if considering what to say.

  “So, you’re not coaching basketball anymore? I was sorry to hear that.”

  Well, that was classic Uncle Dan. Get right down to the nitty-gritty. “That’s okay, I’ve been keeping myself busy,” she said carefully.

  “Not busy visiting your father.”

  His blunt words plowed up the guilt Sarah had tried to bury. The past few days it had been pushing itself more and more to the surface and she knew she had to face it sometime. “Do you want to know why?” she said, taking an offensive tack, crossing her arms herself.

  “I stopped by to find out.”

  “We had a fight.” Those four concise words could not begin to cover the magnitude of what had happened to her, but she didn’t know how else to proceed.

  “What about?” His frown wrinkled his forehead, making him look more intimidating than he was.

  “He said...he said he forgave me. For Marilee. As if it was all my fault.” Sarah stopped there, before her voice faltered.

  Dan’s sigh echoed Sarah’s own hurt and frustration. “Oh, honey. Tact has never been a Westerveld’s strong point.”

  Then, to her surprise, he crossed the distance between them and pulled her into an awkward hug, his bulky coat pushing up against her cheek. He patted her on the head, then released her as if his duty was now done.

  Sarah suppressed a sigh at her uncle’s expression of the very thing he just said. “This is more than an untactful comment, Uncle Dan.”

  She paused, gathering her thoughts, trying to put them into a semicoherent sentence. “It’s no secret to this family that Marilee was Dad’s favorite. I’m not going to whine about that. But for my dad to make it sound as if I had anything to do with her death...something that he needed to forgive me for...” She lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Not only hard to take, but hard to believe that still, after she’s been gone six years, Marilee is still more important than me.”

  Dan’s eyes held hers and the slow, disbelieving shake of his head made her feel less petty. Made her feel justified in staying away.

  He walked into the living room and sank down on a chair. Sarah followed him, sensing that she might be getting some answers.

  “I wish you had told me this sooner, Sarah girl.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Phone up all my relatives and tell them what Dad had just told me? It was hard enough to take as it was.”

  “I’m sure it was.” Dan pulled in a breath and pushed it out on a heavy sigh. “If it’s any help, I think I know where this is coming from. We had a talk a while back, Frank and me. About you. About being a father. About some of the things he had done in his past. He was struggling in his faith life. In fact, he had been staying away from church. So when I asked him what the problem was, he said that he felt as if he had to atone for his sins and he didn’t know where to start.” Dan leaned forward, his eyes gentle with understanding. “I think, in some convoluted way, he thought that you were waiting to be forgiven.”

  As Sarah sorted through what her uncle was saying, she realized that if her father was feeling contrite, this might be exactly the kind of thing he would think. And maybe, just maybe, his misdirected forgiveness for Marilee was something she needed to hear, as well.

  “I know he’s not been the best father,” Dan continued, “And I’m not excusing what he said. I’m sure that was hard for you to deal with, but Frank is a complicated man. And I think he has a few more secrets hiding behind that paralyzed face. He’s not one to open up much, but I do know he’s been struggling with what to say to you.”

  Sarah sat back in th
e chair, letting the words settle over her hurt and anger with her father.

  “I know he’s not been the best father, he’s still your father. And you’re still his daughter. And he misses you. More than you realize.”

  Sarah felt the gentle tug of his words, his unspoken expectations mix with the reality of Sarah’s lifelong desire to be close to her father. “Okay. I’ll go see him. But I won’t do it alone.” She thought of Logan and the hurt her father had caused him. “I want to take Logan Carleton with me.”

  “This Logan, you’ve been spending time with him again?”

  “Yes. I have.”

  Dan nodded. “He means a lot to you?”

  “Even more than he used to.”

  Dan nodded again.

  “And you’ve got this great big ‘however’ waiting to come out,” Sarah said.

  Dan gave her a casual shrug. “We know that Logan doesn’t have much love for Frank. So Tilly and I were thinking that maybe he was the reason you weren’t visiting your father.”

  “If Logan doesn’t have much love for my father, that’s my dad’s fault, not Logan’s. He should never have done what he did to Logan’s father.”

  “What happened to Jack Carleton during his trial was wrong and I am sure that Frank has much to atone for.”

  “Like Dad canceling his contract?”

  “I’m hoping to fix the contract.” Dan gave Sarah a cautious smile. “Logan will be getting a contract with us. But I don’t want you to tell him. That will be my job.”

  “He shouldn’t have to buy it, Uncle Dan. Logan said that was the same contract that my dad took away from Logan’s father.”

  “He won’t have to buy it. Crane is going to be very disappointed to find out that we were thinking of canceling his contract anyway on grounds of misperformance.”

  Though Sarah knew enough to advocate for Logan, she didn’t know what her uncle was talking about. But she suspected he and Logan did. And that was good enough for her.

  “I’m glad.”

  Dan smiled. “Me, too. Logan has had a rough time the past few years. He was one miserable young pup when you left.”

  Sarah felt a curious stab of joy at the thought, and on its heels came her own misguided notion of what she thought Logan had done. With Marilee.

  And right behind that came a flash of realization.

  She had made mistakes, too. Just like her father had.

  In the midst of these musings, Dan glanced at his watch, then pushed himself off the chair. “I gotta go. I promised Tilly that I’d be home on time. She wants to do some shopping before the game. Are you going to come?”

  Sarah pulled herself back into the moment.

  “Yeah, I hope to.”

  “It’s really too bad you’re not coaching the team,” Dan grumbled, a heavy frown creasing his forehead.

  “How are they doing?” Sarah couldn’t help asking.

  “Okay, but this Berube guy doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing.”

  Sarah laughed at her uncle’s grumpy defense of her as she followed him to the foyer. Family. She did miss it. “I hear the boys have been winning, so that’s good.”

  “Not because of him, that’s for sure. That Billy kid is finally doing his job and turning into a leader.”

  Then the ringing of the phone broke into the question she was about to ask. She gave her uncle a quick hug as he put his boots on, nearly throwing him off balance. “I’ve got to answer the phone. Thanks for coming.”

  “I’m glad I did.” Dan gave her another avuncular pat on her cheek, then left.

  Sarah ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone and hit Talk. She didn’t have a chance to check who was calling and assumed it was another concerned relative, determined to reunite father and daughter.

  “Sarah, how are you?” Logan’s voice drifted into her ear.

  Sarah leaned back against the kitchen counter with a sigh of contentment. “Hey, Logan. I’m doing okay.”

  “What are you up to?”

  She smiled at the very ordinariness of his question. The kind of slow introduction to conversation between couples.

  “Just puttering in the house. I’m probably going to clean up Marilee’s room.”

  “By yourself? Why don’t you get Janie or Dodie or someone else to help you?”

  “They’re busy.”

  “I was going to pick you up at three-thirty, but I can come earlier.”

  “That would be nice.” She had steeled herself for doing the job alone, but at the same time she knew that sitting in the middle of all of Marilee’s things would bring on loneliness and grief.

  “I’ll be by as soon as I can. I’ve gotta run now, but I’ll see you later, right?”

  “See you then.” Her heart lifted up in her chest at the thought. They said goodbye and, as Sarah put the phone back on the cradle, she glanced over at her father’s study, thought of the Bible he had lying on the desk.

  She pushed the door open to her father’s study, pausing a moment.

  This room had always been his sanctuary even when her mother was still alive. His books were here, his computer. If she let go of the picture of her father in the hospital, she could easily picture him here, sitting at his desk, frowning as he worked on his computer. He didn’t like computers, but he put up with them, recognizing what they were able to do for his business.

  The book-lined room held a chill and Sarah shivered as she sat on the cool leather of the chair. Her father’s Bible lay on the desk and with a sense of expectation, she pulled it toward her.

  At one time daily readings of the Bible were as much a part of her life as breathing was. She had pushed that aside with the rest of her past, when she left, disillusioned and heartsick.

  Since coming back, her perception of the past had shifted. She had been freed from the guilt that had kept her and God apart.

  It had taken coming back to realize that Marilee’s death was not her fault. And it had taken talking to Logan to put Marilee’s actions of that night in the right light.

  She had been wrong about Logan. So wrong.

  Sarah flipped open the Bible and paged through it. Books, word, phrases, all as familiar to her as the lines on her hand, flowed through her fingers.

  She skipped past Numbers, Deuteronomy—books her father resolutely plowed through with his usual Westerveld stubbornness and thoroughness. Her eyes skimmed familiar passages and then she stopped.

  Psalm 103. The same Psalm Donna had read. And now, she read it again.

  “‘Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being praise His holy name. Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all His benefits....’” she paused, letting the memory of the words sink in. This Psalm was often read after communion and it brought Sarah back to a time when they were Sarah and her mother, Frank and Marilee. A complete family. She read on. “‘He does not treat us as our sins deserve... as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.’”

  He doesn’t deserve you.

  Logan’s words sifted through her thoughts. Maybe not, Sarah thought as the words from the Psalm settled in her soul, but I have not been a faithful daughter to God, either. I don’t deserve God’s love. God loves me like a father, a perfect father and I am not worthy of that love. I have come to wrong conclusions, judged and assumed. I have put many things ahead of God—my father, basketball, my career. And, at one time, Logan. When have I ever put God first?

  She felt a stirring in her soul as the reality of her thoughts came home.

  “‘...but from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him...’”

  Sarah read on to the next Psalm, her soul thirsting for the so
lace and comfort she found in words extolling God’s creation.

  This world was God’s and she’d been walking through it so focused on so many other things and neglecting her perfect, heavenly Father who wanted to give what she needed most.

  She ran her fingers over the Bible passage again as two words rose up as a whisper in her mind, circling, waiting for expression.

  “Forgive me,” she said aloud. “Father, forgive.”

  She laid her head in her hands and let her heavenly Father’s perfect love and perfect forgiveness wash over her.

  Then she read on, drawing nourishment, strength, forgiveness and love from the Father she’d neglected so long.

  A while later, she set the Bible aside, pushed herself away from the desk and walked upstairs.

  She stopped in front of the door to Marilee’s room.

  The wrong daughter died.

  I forgive you for Marilee.

  Her father had it wrong, but hadn’t she also made big mistakes? Hadn’t she also judged Logan wrongly? Who didn’t err in this world?

  The past was too much a part of the present. She needed to narrow its hold. Sarah slowly opened the door to Marilee’s room, stepped inside and flicked on the light. She walked to the chair where Marilee’s shirt hung like a beacon and gently drew it off the back. She held it a moment, catching the vaguest scent of Marilee.

  She smiled, and then she began.

  The time passed in a blur as she bagged clothes and memories. The dress from Marilee’s eighth-grade Christmas pageant, her neat and respectable school clothes and, as Sarah dug further back into the cupboard, the alternate ones that Marilee would change into at school. Each outfit brought a flood of recollections and tears. But she kept on, sometimes wiping her eyes with the very clothes Marilee had once worn. Now and again she would pause over an item, allowing herself time for a memory. Then she would put it in its rightful place on one of the piles.

  She pulled a pair of pants that lay haphazardly on the bottom of the closet and pain clutched at her again. Sarah had bought these pants and Marilee had borrowed them, later telling her they’d been lost. Sarah remembered being angry with Marilee as much because she hadn’t returned the pants as the fact that there had been twenty dollars in one of the pockets.