The 24 Days of Christmas
Page 5
“Life is hard sometimes, Liss,” Frank said quietly. “It’s okay to feel bad for a while, but sooner or later, you’ve got to let go and move on.”
Addie’s throat tightened. She wanted to take the child in her arms, hold her, tell her everything would be all right, but it wasn’t her place. Frank was Lissie’s father. She, on the other hand, was little more than an acquaintance.
They passed Pine Crossing General Hospital, then the Sweet Haven Nursing Home. An idea rapped at the backdoor of Addie’s brain; she let it in and looked it over.
She barely noticed when they pulled up in front of the house.
Frank got out of the sleigh first, helped Addie, Lissie, and the dog down, then reached up to claim Henry from the driver’s seat. Everyone thanked Mr. Renfrew profusely, and Frank invited him in for coffee, but he declined, saying he had things to do at home. Almost Christmas, you know.
“Better get Floyd inside and give him some kibble,” Frank told his daughter, laying a hand on her shoulder. “All those snowflakes he ate probably won’t hold him long.”
Lissie smiled a little, nodded, and grabbed Henry by the arm. “Come on and help me,” she said. “I’ll show you where we’re going to put up the Christmas tree.”
Addie thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat and waited until the children were out of earshot. “What if there were more than one way to be an angel?” she asked.
Frank pulled his jacket collar up a little higher, squinted at her. “Huh?”
“You kept so many of Eliza’s things,” Addie said, looking up at him. If they’d had any sense, they’d have gone in out of the cold. “Do you still have her sewing machine?”
“Maggie used it for mending,” Frank answered with a slight nod, and then looked as though he regretted mentioning his late wife’s name. “Why?”
“I’d like to borrow it, please.”
Frank looked at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “What’s this about?”
Having noted the time-checking, Addie answered with a question. “Do you have to work tonight, Frank?”
“Town council meeting,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t suggest dinner.”
“I’ll be happy to look after Lissie and Floyd until you get home,” she told him, so he wouldn’t have to ask. But she was already on her way to the steps leading up to her over-the-garage apartment.
Frank caught up with her, looking benignly curious. “Wait a second,” he said. “There’s something brewing, and I’d like to know what it is.”
“Maybe you’ll just have to be surprised,” Addie responded, watching as snowflakes landed in Frank’s dark hair and on his long eyelashes. “Right along with Miss Almira Pidgett.”
Frank searched her face, looking cautiously amused. “Tell me you’re not planning to whip up a trio of spirit costumes and pay her a midnight visit,” he said. “Much as I love the idea, it would be trespassing, and breaking and entering, too. Not to mention harassment, stalking, and maybe even reckless endangerment.”
Addie laughed, starting up the steps. “You have quite an imagination,” she said. “Drop off the sewing machine before you leave for the meeting if you have time, okay?”
He spread his hands and then let them flop against his sides. “So much for my investigative skills,” he said. “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”
Addie paused, smiled, and batted her lashes. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Why are we going to a thrift store?” Henry asked reasonably. He blinked behind his glasses, in that owlish way he had. He and Lissie were buckled in, in the back of Addie’s station wagon, with Floyd panting between them, delighted to be included in the outing. Lissie was still very quiet; in the rearview mirror, Addie saw her staring forlornly out the window.
She flipped on the windshield wipers and peered through the increasing snowfall. The storm had been picking up speed since they got home from the sleigh ride with Mr. Renfrew, and now that dusk had fallen, visibility wasn’t the best. “I plan to do some sewing, and I need material,” Addie answered belatedly, wondering if they shouldn’t just stay home.
Lissie showed some interest, at last. “Mom used to make my Halloween costumes out of stuff from the Goodwill,” she said.
“I was Harry Potter Halloween before last,” Henry said sadly, as Addie drew a deep breath, offered a silent prayer, and pulled out onto the road. “This year, Dad and Elle went to a costume party, but I didn’t get to dress up.”
Addie felt a pang of guilt, bit her lower lip. She’d thought of calling, inviting Henry to come trick-or-treating in her apartment complex, but she’d overruled the urge. After all, Toby and Elle had made it pretty clear, following all the publicity, that they didn’t want her around Henry.
“With those glasses,” Lissie remarked, perking up, “you wouldn’t even need a costume to look like Harry Potter.”
“I had a cape, too,” Henry told her in a lofty tone. “Didn’t I, Addie?”
Addie gazed intently over the top of the steering wheel. “Yes,” she answered. Toby had dropped him off at her apartment that Halloween afternoon, a few months after their divorce became final, without calling first, flustered over some emergency at work. She’d fashioned the cape from an old shower curtain and taken him around the neighborhood with high hopes and a paper sack. They’d both had a great time.
“I was a hobo once,” Lissie said. “When Mom was still alive, I mean. She bought an old suit and sewed patches on it and stuff. I had a broom handle with a bundle tied to the end, and I won a prize.”
“Big deal,” Henry said.
Addie pulled up to a stop sign intersecting the main street through town, and sighed with relief. The blacktop, though dusted with a thin coating of snow, had recently been plowed. She signaled and made a cautious left turn toward the center of Pine Crossing.
The lights of St. Mary’s shimmered golden through the falling snow. Addie would have preferred not to pass the school, with the rehearsal going on and Lissie in the car, but it didn’t make sense to risk the children’s safety by taking unplowed side streets.
When they rolled up in front of the thrift store, at the opposite end of town, Lissie hooked a leash to Floyd’s collar. She and Henry walked him in the parking lot while Addie hurried inside.
An artificial Christmas tree stood just inside the door, offering a cheerful if somewhat bedraggled welcome. Chipped ornaments hung from its crooked boughs, and a plastic star glowed with dim determination at its top.
I know just how you feel, Addie thought, as she passed the tree, scanning the store and zeroing in on the women’s dresses.
She selected an old formal, a musty relic of some long-forgotten prom. The voluminous, floor-length underskirt was satin or taffeta, with the blue iridescence of a peacock feather.
“I don’t think that will fit you,” said a voice beside Addie, startling her a little. “It’s a fourteen-sixteen, and you can’t be bigger than an eight. But you can try it on if you want to.”
Addie turned and smiled at the young girl standing beside her. Her name tag read, “Barbara,” and she was chubby, with bad skin and stringy hair. “I just want the fabric,” Addie said. “Is there anything here with pearl buttons? Or crystal beads?”
Barbara brightened a little. “Jessie Corcoran donated her wedding gown last week,” she said. “It’s real pretty. Her mom told my mom she ordered it special off the Internet.” She paused, blushed. “I guess things didn’t work out with that guy from Denver. For Jessie, I mean. Since she came back home to Pine Crossing one day and chucked the dress the next—”
“She might want it back,” Addie mused.
Barbara shook her head, and her eyes widened behind the smudged lenses of her glasses. “She stuffed it right into the donation box, out there by the highway—my friend Becky saw her do it. Didn’t even care if it got dirty, I guess. People dumped other stuff right in on top of it, too. A pair of old boots and a couple of puzz
les with a lot of pieces missing.”
“My goodness,” Addie said.
Barbara produced the dress, ran a plump, reverent hand over the skirt. The bodice gleamed bravely with pearls and tiny glass beads. In its own way, the discarded wedding gown looked as forlorn as the Christmas tree at the front of the store.
“How much?” Addie asked.
Barbara didn’t even have to look at the tag. “Twenty-five dollars,” she said. “Are you getting married?”
Addie was taken aback, as much by the price as by the question. “Ordered special” or not, the dress was hardly haute couture.
Barbara smiled. “It’s a small town,” she said. “I guess you used to live in Frank Raynor’s house. Now you’re staying in the apartment over his garage and working at the Wooden Nickel. Down at the bowling alley—my mom plays on a league—they’re saying Frank’s been alone long enough. He needs a wife, and Lissie needs a mother.”
Addie opened her mouth, closed it again. Shook her head. “No,” she said.
“You don’t want the dress?”
“No—I mean, yes. I do want the dress. I’ll give you ten dollars for it. But there isn’t going to be a wedding.” She wanted to make sure this news got to the bowling league, from whence it would spread all over the county.
Barbara looked disappointed. “That’s too bad,” she said. “Everybody got their hopes up, for a while there. Fifteen dollars, and the dress is yours.”
“I’m sorry,” Addie said. She glanced toward the front windows bedecked in wilting garland, and thought of Lissie’s halo, now a castoff, like Jessie Corcoran’s wedding gown and the peacock-blue prom dress. “Fifteen dollars it is,” she told Barbara. “I’d better hurry—the roads are probably getting worse by the moment.”
Five minutes later, she was out the door, her purchases carefully folded and wrapped in a salvaged dry cleaner’s bag. Henry, Lissie and Floyd were already in the backseat of the station wagon.
“Buckle up,” she told them, starting the engine.
“What did you buy in there?” Henry wanted to know.
“Secondhand dreams,” Addie said. “With a little creativity, they can be good as new.”
“How can dreams be secondhand?” Lissie asked, sounding both skeptical and intrigued.
Addie flipped on the headlights, watched the snowflakes dancing in the beams. “Sometimes people give up on them, because they don’t fit anymore. Or they just leave them behind, for one reason or another. Then someone else comes along, finds them, and believes they might be worth something after all.”
“That’s really confusing,” Henry said. “Can we stop for pizza?”
“No,” Addie replied. “We’ve got beans and weenies at home.”
“I wanted to be an angel,” Lissie said, very softly. “That was my dream.”
“I know,” Addie answered.
* * *
It was after ten when Frank climbed the stairs to Addie’s front door, listened for a moment to the faint whirring of his aunt’s old sewing machine inside, and knocked lightly. Floyd let out a welcoming yelp, the machine stopped humming, and Frank heard Addie shushing the dog good-naturedly as she crossed the living room and peered out at him through the side window.
Her smile, blurred by the steamy glass, tugged at his heart.
“Shhh,” she said, putting a finger to her lips as she opened the door. He wasn’t sure if she was addressing him or Floyd. “Lissie’s asleep in my room.”
Frank stepped over the threshold, settled the dog with a few pats on the head and some ear ruffling, and eyed the sewing setup in the middle of the living room. Bright blue cloth billowed over the top of an old card table like a trapped cloud, the light from Eliza’s machine shimmering along its folds.
He set Maggie’s coffee mug aside, on the plant stand next to the door, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Are you going to tell me what you’re making, or is it still a secret?”
“It’s still a secret,” Addie answered with a grin. Her gaze flicked to the cup, then back to his face. “Do you want some coffee? I just brewed a pot of decaf a few minutes ago.”
He hesitated. “Sure,” he said.
“How did the meeting go?” Addie started toward the mug, then stopped. Frank handed it to her.
“Fine,” he said.
“You look tired.” Carrying the mug, she headed for the kitchen. “Long night?”
He stood on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, gripping the doorframe, watching her pour the coffee. For an instant, he flashed back to that afternoon’s sleigh ride, and the way it felt to put his arm around her shoulders. He shook off the memory, reached for the cup as she approached, holding it out. “Yeah,” he said.
Hot coffee sloshed over his hand, and the mug slipped, tumbling end over end, shattering on the floor. The whole thing was over in seconds, but Frank would always remember it in slow motion.
Addie gasped, put one hand over her mouth.
Frank stared at the shards of Maggie’s last gift, disbelieving.
“I’m sorry,” Addie said. She grabbed a roll of paper towels.
He was already crouching, gathering the pieces. “It wasn’t your fault, Addie.” He couldn’t look at her.
She squatted, a wad of towels in her hand, blotting up the flow of coffee. He stopped her gently, took over the job. When he stole a glance at her face, there were tears standing in her eyes.
“Maggie’s cup,” she whispered. He didn’t remember telling her his wife had made the mug; maybe Lissie had.
“Don’t,” he said.
She nodded.
Floyd tried to lick up some of the spilled coffee, and Frank nudged him away with a slight motion of his elbow. He put the pieces of the cup into his pocket, straightened, and disposed of the paper towels in the trash can under the sink.
“Shall I wake Lissie up?” Addie asked tentatively, from somewhere at the periphery of Frank’s vision.
He shook his head. “I’ll do it,” he said.
Lissie didn’t awaken when he lifted her off Addie’s bed, or even when he eased her into her coat.
“Thanks for taking care of her,” he told Addie as he carried his sleeping daughter across the living room, Floyd scampering at his heels.
Addie nodded and opened the door for him, and a rush of cold air struck his face. Lissie shifted, opened her eyes, and yawned, and the fragments of Maggie’s cup tinkled faintly in his pocket, like the sound of faraway bells.
An hour later, with Lissie settled in her own bed and Floyd curled up at her feet, Frank went into the kitchen and laid the shards of broken china out on the counter, in a jagged row. There was no hope of gluing the cup back together, but most of the bright red heart was there, chipped and cracked.
“Maggie,” he whispered.
There was no answer, of course. She was gone.
He took the wastebasket from the cupboard under the sink, held it to the edge of the counter, and slowly swept the pieces into it. A crazy urge possessed him, an unreasonable desire to fish the bits out of the garbage, try to reassemble them after all. He shook his head, put the bin away, and left the kitchen, turning out the lights as he passed the switch next to the door.
The house was dark as he climbed the stairs. For the first six months after Maggie died, he hadn’t been able to sleep in their room, in their bed. He’d camped out in the den, downstairs, on the fold-out couch, until the night Lissie had a walking nightmare. Hearing his daughter’s screams, he’d rushed upstairs to find her in the master bedroom, clawing at the covers, as if searching, wildly, desperately, for something she’d lost.
“I can’t find my mommy!” she’d sobbed. “I can’t find my daddy!”
“I’m here,” he’d said, taking her into his arms, holding her tightly as she struggled awake. “Daddy’s here.”
Now Frank paused at the door of his and Maggie’s room. Daddy’s here, he thought, but Mommy’s gone. She’s really, truly gone.
Maggie’s words came back to him, echoing in his mind. I want you to mourn me for a while, but when it’s time to let go, I’ll find a way to tell you.
A single tear slipped from the corner of his right eye and trickled over his temple. “It’s time, isn’t it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
Once again, he heard the cup smashing on Addie’s kitchen floor.
It was answer enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Addie didn’t even try to go to sleep that night. She brewed another pot of coffee—no decaf this time—and sewed like a madwoman until the sun came up.
It was still snowing, and she was glad it was Sunday as she stared blearily out the front window at a white-blanketed, sound-muffled world.
“Can I open the calendar box,” Henry asked from behind her, “or do we have to wait for Lissie?”
Addie took a moment to steel herself, then turned to smile at her stepson. Still in his pajamas, he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his dark hair was sleep-rumpled. Blinking at her, he rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.
“We’d better wait,” she said. Lissie might show up for the ritual, but she wondered about Frank. The look on his face, when that cup tumbled to the floor and splintered into bits, was still all too fresh in her mind.
Of course it had been an accident. Addie understood that, and she knew Frank did, too. Just the same, she’d glimpsed the expression of startled sorrow in his eyes, seen the slow, almost reverent way he’d gathered up the pieces....
Something a lot more important than a ceramic coffee mug had been broken.
“Couldn’t I peek?” Henry persisted, still focused on the matchbox calendar. In a way, Addie was pleased; he was feeling more secure with the new living arrangement, letting down his guard a little. In another way, she was unsettled. For all his promises that Henry could stay until February, or even until school was out for the summer, Toby might appear at any moment, filled with sudden fatherly concern, and whisk the child away.