A Family-Style Christmas and Yuletide Homecoming

by Carolyne Aarsen

  Freedom.

  She had been in bondage to her father and her feelings about him for too long. She needed to move on to a different relationship with him.

  And while she had desperately hoped Logan would be with her to give her moral support, to stand beside her, maybe it was better to do this on her own.

  Her step faltered when she thought of Logan.

  Please help me, Lord, she prayed. Help me to care for Logan in the right way. As first of all your child and second of all.... She didn’t know what to put there.

  She knew she had come to a place of forgiveness for what her father had done to her. What he had done to Logan’s father and Logan’s family was not hers to forgive.

  A lab tech pushed a rattling cart past her. A nurse hurried in the other direction. Another carol played from the other room. Joy to the World.

  She pressed her hand to her stomach to still her shaking nerves. Help me, Lord, she prayed. Help me to say the right thing. Help me not to be weak, but help me to love him. And thank You for Your love for me. Thank You that You are my perfect Father.

  One more long, slow breath and she was ready.

  But as she came nearer his room, she heard a voice coming from inside. A deep voice. She stopped just outside the room, puzzled as to who it would be.

  “...that she still cares about you in spite of what you said to her is a miracle.”

  Her heart thundered in her chest.

  Logan? Here?

  Her feet wouldn’t move. Her legs seized up.

  Had he slipped past her?

  Then her heart sang. Logan was here. Talking to her father. On his own.

  “...I want you to know that I don’t deserve her,” he was saying, his voice ringing with conviction. “But you know, you don’t deserve her, either. She has a deep and pure love that I don’t understand. I’m trying because I know that you are not going out of her life. But I want you to know that I’m not going out of her life, either. I’m here. For as long as she needs me, or wants me, I’m here. I love her, Frank. I love her with all my heart.”

  Sarah’s breath trembled in her throat. She was running out of air. Was he really saying those precious words? To her father?

  “...I need to forgive you, because for now, this is the only way I’m going to be able to be a part of Sarah’s life. You’ve hurt a lot of people and I’m still learning to forgive you for my father and my mother. I have to confess I still struggle with bitterness over that, but I can’t presume to withhold forgiveness when God has forgiven me so much himself.”

  As he spoke his words of absolution, the sorrow and hurt she had been carrying all night slipped away.

  “But I may as well be honest,” Logan continued. “I’m struggling even harder with forgiving you for what you did to Sarah. What you said to her. You hurt someone I love dearly.”

  “I...love her, too,” Sarah heard her father say.

  Go inside, a voice urged her. Move.

  But she felt frozen and unsure she should intrude on this moment.

  “Then show her. For her sake. And mine.”

  Sarah finally felt her legs. Finally could force her paralyzed feet to move. She pushed herself away from the wall and walked into the room.

  Her father sat in a wheelchair beside his bed, Logan in an armchair facing him. Logan leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped between them.

  He hadn’t shaved. His tumbled hair looked as if he had been running his fingers through it.

  And as he turned to see who was coming into the room, his dark eyes looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  And he looked fantastic.

  He loves me, Sarah thought, the words singing through her with all the promise of a Christmas carol.

  “Sarah.” Her name burst from him as he got to his feet. Logan glanced from her to his father, a frown creasing his forehead. “What did you...”

  “I love you, too,” she said quietly. It was all she could say. It was all she needed to say.

  Logan swallowed the distance between them with two strides and dragged her into his arms. His one hand held her head, his other arm wrapped all the way around her, holding her tight, close. Safe and secure.

  “Sarah, oh, Sarah,” he murmured into her hair. “I tried to call you to tell you that I needed to talk to your father on my own, but you weren’t answering.”

  He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, his own scanning her features as if seeing them for the first time.

  “I love you,” he whispered, then, in front of her father, he bent over and kissed her mouth, her cheeks, each eyelid, her hair.

  Then he hugged her again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Logan stood back as Sarah walked over to her father, leaned over and gave him a careful hug.

  Frank’s one hand came up and he caught her around her neck, his awkward response.

  When Logan had first walked into this room the change in Frank Westerveld had set him back on his heels. The once proud face hung slack on one side. One eyelid drooped, masking the bright intensity blazing out of his other eye. When he saw Logan, his one eye widened and then he looked away, as if ashamed.

  Or so Logan preferred to interpret it.

  All the things he had rehearsed on the way here, all the things he was going to say, fled in the sight of Frank’s incapacitated state. This man was not an enemy to be subdued.

  But he had come to talk to Frank and talk he did, going where his thoughts and heart led him. He wondered how much Sarah had overheard. Wondered what she thought.

  “I’m going to get a coffee,” he said to Sarah as she settled into the chair beside her father. He wanted to give her some time with him alone.

  “No. Please. Don’t go,” she said, catching his hand. Her eyes, eyes that shone with love, caught and held his and he couldn’t say no.

  “Okay.” He gave her a smile as he knelt down beside her, his one hand on her back for support, his other holding hers.

  Sarah turned back to her father.

  “Do you know why I haven’t visited you?”

  He nodded. “Dan told,” he said.

  “When you told me you forgave me for Marilee, I didn’t know what to think, Dad,” she said. “I may as well be honest, I was angry. And I was hurt. I didn’t think I had done anything that needed forgiving.”

  “No...I...was wrong.”

  Watching Frank struggle to formulate even these simple words created pity for this man. He had so little now.

  “I know I can’t judge you, Dad,” Sarah was saying, “but I was so hurt by what you said. That’s why I stayed away.” She glanced at Logan over her shoulder, gave him a tremulous smile, then turned back to her father.

  “I was going to tell you that I forgive you for what you did to me, but that I couldn’t pardon what you did to Logan’s family until I heard him forgiving you. And I know I’ve been wrong in staying away, but I needed to figure out who I was apart from you.” She turned to Logan, granting him a gentle smile. “And Logan and I spent time together, finding out where we fit in each other’s lives. And I think I know that now.”

  Logan squeezed her hand, returning her smile.

  She turned back to her father who was watching them with a look of futility. “But I want you to know that I forgive you, Dad. I forgive you for what you did to me then and what you did to me now.” She squeezed Logan’s hand. Hard. “I was young and I cared too much what you thought those many years ago when you told me to break up with Logan. I should have had the courage to stand up to you, but I didn’t. Thank goodness Logan and I found each other again.”

  Frank’s good hand opened and closed. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Then he looked at Logan. “Thought lots. Not
hing else to do.” The time it took Frank to work his mouth around these words lent a weight to them. “Please. For your father. Forgive. For Sarah. Forgive.”

  Logan looked into Frank’s eyes, held his gaze, his own unwavering. But all he could see in Frank’s expression was brokenness and sorrow.

  And suddenly, the feeling of forgiveness he didn’t think he could muster flowed through him like a refreshing stream, washing away the residue of anger and resentment.

  Logan was realistic enough to know that when he was away from Frank, away from the brokenness on his face and the sorrow in his expression some of his feelings might return.

  Logan had much to be forgiven for, as well.

  And Sarah, dear, precious, loving Sarah had forgiven her father for what he had done to her. Surely he could do no less himself. God required no less.

  “I forgive you, Frank.” He spoke the words slowly and quietly, giving them weight. “I forgive you because Christ has forgiven me.”

  And as he repeated those precious and, yes, holy words, which he knew would help release Frank from his pain, Logan felt as if God’s hand of grace and mercy brushed over him.

  Sarah sniffed lightly and as she pulled a tissue from a box beside the bed, her father’s Bible fell down.

  Logan bent over and picked it up.

  “Shall I read a piece?” he asked as he opened it.

  Sarah and Frank nodded.

  Logan found a Psalm of praise and thanksgiving. And as he read the words, he once again felt God’s presence in this room.

  When he was done, Sarah wiped her eyes, then slowly got to her feet. She stood in front of her father, hovering. Then she reached out, gently wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders and held him for a few, precious seconds. Frank pressed his good hand against Sarah’s back and Logan caught the shimmer of tears tracking down his cheeks.

  Poor, poor man, he thought as Sarah drew away. What you have missed out on in this precious woman’s life.

  He pulled himself back from a moment of pity for himself and Sarah. For what they had missed of each other’s last years.

  They were together now, he thought. Maybe they had needed this time apart to complete whatever journey God had in mind for them. But God had brought them together now.

  And now was all that mattered.

  Logan stood, as well, and cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “Frank, I have something to ask you.” He waited, then amended that. “No, actually, I have something to tell you.”

  He took Sarah’s hand, lifted it to his mouth and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, smiling down into his beloved Sarah’s eyes. “I want to marry your daughter. If she’ll have me.”

  Frank looked from Sarah to Logan and what looked to Logan like resignation flitted across his face. But then he nodded and raised his hand as if in blessing.

  Sarah turned to Logan, flung her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

  “My answer is yes,” she said, hope, peace and triumph ringing in her voice. “My answer, Logan Carleton, is yes.”

  * * *

  “You know, this is the first time in six years I’ve looked forward to Christmas,” Sarah said quietly as she let herself into the house.

  Logan thought of the gift he had in his pocket. A gift that had sat in a corner of his dresser for six years. Taking it today had put him through agonies of indecision. He didn’t want to presume on a relationship that had uncertainty hovering around the edges. But he wanted to show her that she mattered to him.

  He’d bought it when he was so sure that he had found his soul mate and that they would be together forever. He was now older and wiser about love, but he still held remnants of that old hope in his heart.

  Sarah turned to him. “So do you want some coffee? Or hot chocolate?”

  “Just you,” he said, with a contented smile.

  Then he turned serious and drew her close. “How are you doing?”

  Sarah melted into his arms, leaning into his embrace. She sighed as if she was releasing all the tension of the day.

  “It was hard, but it was good. I feel like I’ve turned a page in my life again.” She pulled back. “How about you? You’ve had a lot to deal with, too.”

  “I’ll admit it’s been a rough day. But what my mother made me read helped. I have no right to withhold forgiveness when I’ve been forgiven for so much more.” He looked down at her, his dark eyes glimmering with intensity. “But what bugged me the most, what had me running absolutely scared was the thought that we weren’t an ‘us’ anymore. Now that I know that’s not true, everything else seems pretty inconsequential.”

  His deep voice rang with a conviction that created an answering tremble in Sarah’s heart.

  “I’m glad we’re still ‘us,’ too,” she said quietly.

  He kissed her again, then pulled back. “So, still no Christmas decorations in this place?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No energy and no desire to put them up.”

  “Do you have any of that stuff?” Logan asked.

  “In the attic, though Marilee was always the one to do the decorating.” Another little hitch to her heart, though a gentle one this time. “She had a better eye for that.”

  “I’ll help you put some up.”

  “But it’s late and you have to work tomorrow,” Sarah protested. He couldn’t be serious.

  “Hey, I have a guaranteed contract with Westerveld Construction, so I’m on easy street.” He gave her hand a gentle tug. “I’m kidding, but I want to bring some Yuletide cheer into this home.”

  “In the attic. But I’m not kidding—it’s not worth it. It’s only me in the house.”

  Logan caught her by the arms and gave her a little shake of reprimand. “You’re worth a bit of Christmas cheer. It depresses me to think of you coming home to this place and there’s not one single candle or twinkly thing.”

  “That’s not very guyish of you to admit.”

  He held up a warning hand. “Don’t tell my brother. Now, let’s get that Christmas stuff up and plugged in.”

  An hour later the lights in the artificial Christmas tree twinkled from one corner of the living room. The Christmas village was set up and Logan was haphazardly weaving garland up the banister of the staircase.

  Marilee would have laughed, Sarah thought, watching Logan struggling with the fake garland. Every now and then he would sigh, looking down at Sarah following him, weaving lights through the boughs. Whenever she offered to help, he turned her down. “This is not rocket science,” he grumbled, unkinking the strands that had sat twisted too long in the attic.

  Finally they were done, and in spite of her initial protests, Sarah had to admit that the lights, the decorations and the tree all heightened a sense of anticipation and nostalgia that were the hallmarks of any Yuletide season.

  She could enjoy coming home to this, she thought with a smile as she swept up the bits of garland that had come loose.

  Logan took the broom from her and set it aside. “Come over here,” Logan said, pulling Sarah out of the foyer into the living room.

  “Why?”

  Logan pointed up at the mistletoe he had pinned above the entrance.

  “That’s rather cheesy, don’t you think?” Sarah said.

  Logan shrugged. “But traditional.” He drew her into his arms and his chest lifted in a sigh. “And here we are. In your house. And I’ve got you in my arms. I think I like this setup.”

  “I think I like it, too.” She slipped her arms around him, holding him tight.

  He looked down into her eyes, his expression growing serious. “You know I love you.”

  “I’m getting that.” She gave him a joyful smile. “I love you too.”

  “Sarah...will you marry me?”

  Her breath sl
ipped out of her so that all she could do was nod her acceptance.

  Logan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. “I took a chance and picked this out myself.” He flicked the box open and in the overhead lights, the single diamond winked back at her like the most glorious promise.

  “It’s beautiful, Logan.”

  He slipped the ring on her finger and held her hand up, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “Fits just right,” he said, turning her hand this way and that, the ring shooting out sparkles of light.

  “Feels just right.” As Sarah looked down at the ring, a sense of wonderment flooded her. “Is this real, Logan? Is this really happening to us?”

  “Better be,” he said. “We’ve waited long enough.”

  “Too long,” she agreed.

  “We’ll have to make some decisions. About where we’re going to live.”

  “Later,” she whispered, unwilling to let thoughts of this house, her father, his mother and the myriad of people involved in their lives intrude on the moment. “We’ll talk about that later.”

  He smiled his agreement and pulled her close.

  Then when he bent to kiss her, the empty years slipped away into memory and forgetting.

  She was here. With Logan.

  And for the first time in months she felt as if she had finally come home.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of Montana Dreams by Jillian Hart.

  Dear Reader,

  Our relationship with our parents is our first and, probably, most defining one. I’ve been thankful to have loving parents who have nurtured me in my faith. In this story, however, I wanted to examine this relationship from the point of view of a woman who didn’t have the same relationship I had.

  Sarah has tried most of her life to please the wrong father. In the end she learns, thanks to a man who has always loved her, to see her father through other eyes.