Catching Christmas

by Terri Blackstock

  She heads down the hall as I go into the kitchen. As I’m putting ice in the glasses, I hear her calling urgently, “Grammy!”

  I turn and step into the hallway. “Everything okay?” I call.

  “Grammy, wake up!” Her voice sounds broken, raspy.

  I hurry down the hall to Callie’s bedroom and see Sydney bent over her grandmother. Callie looks like she’s still sound asleep, but her face is a pale gray, and her lips are colorless.

  Sydney’s crying. “She’s . . . I don’t know what . . . Grammy, please . . .”

  I put my arms around Sydney and hold her for a minute. She’s shaking so hard I don’t know how her legs are holding her up. She pulls free and tries again to wake her, but Callie doesn’t move.

  I touch the old woman’s face. Her skin is so cold. I don’t want to check for a pulse, but someone has to. I move my fingers to that place on her neck and wait. Nothing. I move my fingertips and wait again.

  I turn my helpless gaze back to Sydney, and she covers her face and breathes in a deep, dreadful sob that pulls something from me. I leave Callie and go to Sydney again and pull her against me, letting her weep against my shirt while I bury my face in her hair.

  Minutes pass while my brain races for a thought it can’t quite grasp. Finally, I realize we have to call someone. I pull out my phone, call 911, and tell them that Callie is unresponsive. I tell them to hurry, even though I can see that it will do no good. I surprise myself when tears come to my eyes as I tell them she has no pulse.

  “I should have been here all day,” Sydney says. “I should have let Steve fend for himself.”

  “Shhh,” I say, stroking her hair. “She had the day she’d been looking forward to. She had you here . . . on Christmas . . .”

  “And you.”

  “She had both of us. She successfully set you up. She gave us gifts and saw how much we loved them. She ate to her heart’s content. She decorated the tree and laughed and sang . . .”

  We hear the siren coming up the street, and I let Sydney go and look out Callie’s window. The ambulance pulls to the curb.

  Sydney goes to the door to let them in, and I stay with Miss Callie. I lean over and press a kiss on her forehead. “Thank you for including me in this beautiful Christmas, Miss Callie,” I whisper.

  My tear falls onto her wrinkled cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb. I straighten up as I hear footsteps coming through the house.

  “And thank you, Jesus, for giving me a second chance.” Callie doesn’t hear me, but I feel like someone does.

  CHAPTER 25

  Finn

  Callie doesn’t leave the same way she came home.

  Sydney and I stand apart from each other, watching, shocked, as the paramedics wheel her little body out on the gurney. Her head is covered by the thing they’ve zipped her into. It looks like a white sheet over her face.

  When the dust settles, will Sydney blame me for bringing Callie home when she wanted her to stay in the hospital? Maybe Sydney was right. Maybe they could have saved her.

  As the ambulance drives slowly away, taking Callie to the funeral home, I look at Sydney, not sure what she will tolerate from me now. I wait for her to lead.

  “Do you think she knew she was going to die today?” she asks.

  “When she lay down for that nap? No, she didn’t know.”

  “If she did, I think she was okay with it. All she wanted was Christmas. And that was for me.”

  I want to say that it turned out to be for me too, but that might be presumptuous. I don’t know where all this leaves Sydney and me. Just because we were starting something this afternoon doesn’t mean we’ll continue it. Callie put us together, but that doesn’t mean Sydney will want to stay that way.

  Just as I’m about to talk myself out of this whole thing and convince myself that the relationship birthing between us was just in my head, Sydney walks into my arms again. I instinctively let her in, closing my arms around her as she lays her head against my chest, as if she’s found a home.

  “I never should have wasted one minute of today on that spoiled brat.”

  “No, no should-haves. She wanted you to be happy.”

  “I was happy today.”

  “So was she. Trust me on that. We should all go on a day like this.”

  She pulls back and looks around as if she doesn’t know what to do next. “I guess I have to plan the funeral. What do I do first? When my dad died, my aunt planned everything. I didn’t pay attention to the details.”

  “Maybe you should wait until tomorrow. I’ll go with you if you want.”

  She lets me go and looks up at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I want to.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah. If you mean it, I’d like it if you came. But what should I be doing now?”

  “Why don’t you sleep a little? Get some rest. If you just can’t, maybe you could write up something to put in the paper.”

  “Yeah.” She looks around Callie’s house. The tree is still on, and there’s a garbage bag of torn Christmas paper on the floor next to it. Callie’s scooter sits against the wall.

  “I don’t think I can be here. I’m just gonna go home.”

  “I can drive you.”

  “No, I need my car. I’ll be okay. Will you?”

  “Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile. “But if you need anything—even just a friendly voice—you call, okay? Doesn’t matter what time it is.”

  “I will.”

  I feel like it’s my cue to go, so when she gets her purse and the things she needs from the house, she walks me out. I kiss her cheek before she gets into her car. She seems a little distracted, as though the weight of reality is beginning to crush her.

  That night I sleep with the iPad on the bed next to me. Before I go to sleep, I pray. This is getting to be a habit. “If you could help Sydney . . . It’s going to be a long night for her. Maybe you could just zap her with sleep and help her feel better. Let her think happy thoughts.”

  I’m as surprised as God must be that I’m praying again. I feel as if he heard me. I’ll bet Callie has put a bug in his ear for Sydney.

  The next morning I call LuAnn to tell her I won’t be driving today. “I need a few days off,” I say. “I have a death in the family.”

  “Your mother?” she asks.

  “No, not my mother.”

  “Grandmother?”

  “No. LuAnn, can you give me the time off or not?” I really don’t want to talk about it.

  “A sister or brother? Aunt or uncle?”

  “Why do you care?” I almost shout.

  “I’m just worried about you. I want to know how bad a shape you’re in.”

  “I didn’t say I’m in bad shape. I just need to help with the arrangements.”

  “Why won’t you tell me who it is?”

  “Because it’s none of your business.”

  “I might have wanted to come pay my respects.”

  “You didn’t know her. How could you have respects to pay?”

  “I know you! I go to funerals, okay? I’m a good person.”

  I don’t want to tell her who it is, and I realize my reluctance is making me seem crazy.

  “Oh my gosh,” she says finally. “It’s that Callie Beecher, isn’t it? Did she die?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Okay, yes. She died yesterday. Are you happy?”

  “No, I’m not happy. She was a sweet woman. All those trips to the doctor. I knew she wasn’t doing well. Why did you say it was family?”

  “Because I didn’t think you’d give me time off for the death of a customer. I had gotten . . . kind of attached to her.”

  “You old softie. I knew you would.”

  I sigh. “And I got to know her granddaughter. She’s pretty torn up. I thought I could help her.”

  “Her granddaughter, huh? The one who wasn’t anywhere to be found when her grandmother was sent by a cab to the hospital?”

  “She had good rea
sons.”

  “So you like her, huh?”

  I’m getting madder by the minute. “Time off or I quit, LuAnn. Your choice.”

  “You’re so touchy, Finn. Of course you can have time off.”

  I slam the phone down.

  CHAPTER 26

  Finn

  Because I’m worried about Sydney, I make her muffins before I go to her house the next morning and take her a Starbucks coffee. She’s dressed when she answers the door, but I can see that she’s already been grieving this morning. “Thought you might be hungry,” I say.

  Smiling weakly, she steps back from the door and invites me in. “I hadn’t even thought about food.”

  She takes the plate of muffins, lifts the tin foil cover, and smells. She sets them on her table and takes one out, bites into it. I wait for a reaction. “I just talked to the funeral home,” she says, taking another bite. “They told me to come as soon as I’m ready. My meeting is with a guy named Conrad. Can you believe that? A funeral director named Conrad? I don’t know, something about that seems creepy to me.” She finishes off the muffin and reaches for another one. That’s the response I’d hoped for.

  “I’m sure Conrad is a very nice man,” I say. “Maybe he goes by the name Con.”

  “Oh, that’s better,” she says. “I want a guy selling me coffins who goes by the name Con.”

  “Okay, maybe he goes by Rad. Radley?”

  “As in Boo?” She grins. “You’re not making me feel better, Finn.”

  “You know, he probably won’t have anything to do with preparing your grandmother. He’s just a director, right?”

  Her smile fades. “I don’t want to do this,” she says. “I don’t know if I can. I’m too young. Isn’t there some rule that you have to be in your sixties to plan a funeral?”

  “There should be.”

  “How did you do it?”

  I’m actually embarrassed. I grab a muffin myself and bite into it, hiding behind it. “How did I do what?”

  “How did you plan your mother’s funeral?”

  I consider lying and making up something about how I stepped up to the plate and bit the bullet, or any of a dozen clichés that would make me look good. But I have to tell the truth. “Honestly, I didn’t. I had relatives who did that.”

  “So you just had to show up?”

  I don’t say anything, and she just assumes that’s true. What would she think if she knew I didn’t even do that?

  She bites into another muffin. Not hungry, huh? This is her third. “I’m seriously shaking like a leaf.”

  “Of course you are. It’s a terrible thing to have to do. I’ll be with you.”

  When she finishes off the rest of the muffins, she wipes her mouth. “Those were good. Did you realize I was eating the whole batch? Did you even get any?”

  “I got what I wanted. If I’d known you were that hungry, I would have made two dozen.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she says. “I wasn’t hungry at all. They were just so good.”

  “You needed comfort food.”

  “I guess I did.”

  When she’s ready and has worked up her resolve to go do this, she drives us to the funeral parlor. I’m uneasy because I’m so rarely in the passenger seat. But I try not to show it.

  She gets us there in one piece, though some of her stops at intersections were iffy.

  We step up to the door and it’s mysteriously opened for us. The man called Conrad stands before us in a black suit with a gray pinstriped tie. There’s not a single wrinkle anywhere. Has he been standing at the door since getting dressed? Or is there some special kind of funeral starch that prevents normal human creasing?

  “How are you?” he says in a midhappy to sorrowful voice. That’s a neat trick to pull off, I think. To straddle the line between happy and sad all day long, when he probably just feels indifference. After all, he does this all day, every day. It’s not like he’s mourning for each of his clients. But if he laughs or grins or cracks a joke—or wears color, God forbid— families could be deeply offended. I feel kind of sorry for the guy.

  He takes us into a richly paneled room and sits behind his mahogany desk. It’s exactly the way I pictured. “First, let me say how sorry I am to hear about your grandmother,” he says in an oh-so-somber tone. “I know it was quite a shock. And on Christmas Day.”

  “Yeah, I’m really sorry about the timing,” Sydney says. “I know you’d rather be spending time with your family.”

  “No, I assure you, your grandmother was not the only one. We have a lot of bookings over the holidays.”

  I look at Sydney and see how stricken she looks. “You mean lots of people die on Christmas? What is it about the holidays? The CDC needs to put a bulletin out. They need to warn people.”

  “It’s always been this way,” Conrad says. “My point in telling you that was to let you know that we’re happy to help. Now, can you tell me what your budget is?”

  Sydney looks distressed again. “What does it cost?”

  “Well, that depends on several things. For instance, the cost of the casket you choose. We have various models. It also depends on where you have the service—here or at a church she attended. Sometimes churches offer use of their sanctuaries for free to their members. And of course there are flowers, photography, and various other choices.”

  “I don’t know the budget,” Sydney says. “I don’t have any cash lying around, and I sure wasn’t expecting this. I don’t know what Grammy had.”

  He takes notes, then looks back at her, and I get the feeling he’s a disapproving teacher in a math class, hoping his student gets at least one problem right.

  “So do you know who you would like to officiate at the funeral?”

  Sydney frowns deeply and looks down at her lap. “Officiate?” she mumbles. “No, I don’t have a—”

  “I know who,” I cut in. “Miss Callie’s preacher. I’ve met him. She took me to visit him.”

  Sydney perks up. “Yes. We could ask him. That’s right. It would make sense for her own preacher to officiate.”

  “Do you know his name?” Conrad asks.

  I deflate again. “No, I don’t remember his name. But I know the church. I can go back there and talk to him. We can go right after we leave here.”

  Conrad is trying to hide his frustration. “Do you know the name of the church?”

  I squint up at the ceiling. “It was something-something Baptist. Big River, maybe. Is that a church?”

  “Greater Rivers,” he says, smiling broadly now as if he’s forgotten he’s supposed to be funereal. “Greater Rivers Baptist Church. The senior pastor there is Dr. Randall Seagrove.”

  “Huh,” I say. “He didn’t look like a doctor anybody. He was young . . . and single.”

  “They allow single men to get their doctorates.” It’s a joke, but no one laughs. Funny guy, that Conrad.

  “So would you like to ask him yourself? He may not be aware that Mrs. Beecher has died. We’re certainly willing to contact him, but sometimes the family prefers to talk to the pastor themselves. He can provide comfort in a time like this.”

  Sydney looks up at me, a question in her eyes.

  “I’ll go with you,” I say quickly. “Since I’ve already met him and everything.”

  “Yes, okay. We’ll go see him ourselves.”

  “Have him call me after you speak to him,” Conrad says, “and we’ll set a time for the service. Now, do you happen to know if Mrs. Beecher had a will?”

  Sydney shakes her head. “No, I don’t. She never told me.”

  “You might look through her things. See if you can find it. That might help you with planning, and possibly the budget. If you learn that you’re the beneficiary, then perhaps you could use her money to pay for the funeral.”

  Sydney looks wan, and I pat her back and stroke it, trying to remind her that she’s not alone. “Okay, I’ll do that after we see the pastor.”

  “And we would like to have so
me photos. If you have any at all of her, we can blow them up and frame them to have at the funeral. We can even play a PowerPoint slideshow.”

  “Wow. There’s no rest for the grieving, is there? I didn’t know there was so much to do. Pictures, huh?”

  I know her mind is drifting to where Callie might have pictures. Polaroids in a drawer somewhere?

  “Also, we’ll need clothes.”

  She sucks in a breath. “Of course. I should have brought them. I didn’t think about that. I don’t know why. I made a list last night of people to call and a million other things, but no clothes, which is ludicrous since she’s been wearing the same thing since yesterday and it’s probably not her favorite. Should I buy her something new? Do I need to go shopping?”

  I want to rescue her from her rambling, so I squeeze her trembling hand again. “I bet everybody forgets clothes, huh?”

  “Yes. Practically everyone. You have plenty of time to get that to us. It doesn’t have to be new.” Conrad rises to his feet. “Now, if you’d like to join me in the next room, we can look at the various choices of caskets.”

  Sydney doesn’t move. “Do I . . . have to do it now?”

  “It would be helpful,” Conrad says. “At the very least I can give you several options, and you can go home and think about it and let me know sometime today.”

  Her hand is sweating, but it’s ice cold. We finally get up and follow him into the room next door. It’s a warehouse room full of every model of caskets, from bronze to gold to deep rich mahogany, to the basic boxes with hinges that look like they could be plastic. I stay very quiet, not sure what would make Sydney feel better. She’s wavering now, as if she’s going to pass out.

  “Conrad,” I ask, “do you happen to have any brochures with all the choices?”

  “Yes, of course we do.” He goes and pulls one out of a rack and hands it to Sydney. “Why don’t you make a choice and call us back? We can take your payment over the phone if it’s on a credit card. Otherwise you can come by and pay with a check.”

  “Are the prices on here?” I ask, because I know she’ll want to know.

  “Yes, they’re in a chart at the back.”

  “Okay, we’ll be in touch.” I take her elbow, but she’s just staring in front of her. “Want to go now?”