A Christmas to Remember (13 page)

He thought about the things Miriam Randall had said to him that afternoon. Maryanne’s appearance here, tonight, when he’d been prepared to drink himself into a stupor, was nothing more than a miracle. A real, everyday miracle.

Maryanne had changed everything by her presence here tonight. It was as if she’d thawed something frozen inside of him. And listening to her talk about that one Christmas she’d spent here with her grandparents made him realize how blessed he’d been in his life. He was the lucky one. He’d had his mother and father for a long while. He’d grown up here, safe and sound and loved.

Maryanne hadn’t had any of those blessings. But she would have them now that she’d come home. And the moment he realized that this
was
a kind of homecoming for Maryanne, it made him wonder why the heck he was selling the farm. Why he’d been so anxious as a younger man to move away to the big city.

Maybe he could come home. too.

He turned and headed back into the dining room, where he’d stacked a bunch of boxes that had been designated for the Salvation Army. Now he knew he was a fool to have even thought about giving Momma’s Christmas stuff away. Sure, the boxes were loaded with memories. But maybe it was time to go looking for the good ones instead of dwelling on the bad ones.

He carried the box with the tree into the living room.

“What’s that?” Maryanne asked as he set the box down in the middle of the room and started pulling out green branches.

“It’s a Christmas tree. Wanna help me decorate?”

She cocked her head. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“It’s not Christmas yet. And it’s never too late for a little holiday spirit.”

This won him a big smile. “Yeah, I guess.”

She put the sleeping baby back in his makeshift bed, and the two of them put up the old tree in the front window, just the way Momma used to do it. The tree was a little worse for wear. It looked as if some mice had gotten to some of the branches. But when the lights were on, and the old ornaments came out of the box, it didn’t look half bad.

“Oh, it’s so pretty,” Maryanne said as she stood back to admire the angel he’d put on the top. Her eyes danced in the lights like a kid’s. And that look of exhaustion had faded away. She turned and headed out to the porch. “I want to see what it looks like from the outside.”

And out into the icy night she ran, slipping and sliding down the steps. He wanted to shout out to be careful, but somehow her enthusiasm caught him, and he found himself following after her to stand in the freezing rain looking at the lights.

“Gosh, it’s like the way I remember it,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Oh!” her voice sounded strained, and her joy faded. “I mean it looks like something in a greeting card.”

He chuckled. “Not really. You should have seen the house when Momma was alive. She had pine roping draped on everything.”

Maryanne nodded, as if she really remembered.

* * *

Oh boy, she was losing her mind. But the sight of those colored lights through the lace curtains was like something from a deep memory. Never mind that it wasn’t a real memory. She’d imagined living in a place like this for so long that sometimes it seemed more real than the awful reality she’d experienced.

She needed to back off and get a grip. It would be so easy to let herself trust Daniel. Or trust this situation. Or believe that maybe she’d found what she had been wishing for.

She turned and made her way over the ice back to the warmth of the farmhouse. Joshua was awake and making cooing sounds. He was also working hard to get himself unwrapped.

Maryanne felt another pang as the reality of her situation settled back on her shoulders. It was all well to sit here and pretend that she lived in a pretty little farmhouse with Joe, her best friend who would take care of Joshua no matter what, when in reality she was homeless. And Joshua was getting older, and taking care of him while trying to finish school or find a decent job was going to be impossible.

Her life was impossible.

“Can I play with him?” Daniel asked. He had snuck up behind her, his body warm against the chill from outside. His voice was deep and masculine.

Of all the things Daniel could have said to her in this moment, this one thing surprised her. She turned to look at him and came right up against his endearing aw-shucks, open-faced look. “We have a Christmas tree, and I even have a Christmas present to put under it for him. But you wouldn’t mind if I gave it to him early, would you?”

“You have a Christmas gift for him? How can that be?”

He shrugged. “It’s a miracle.” Then he turned and headed into the kitchen. A moment later, he came back with a little stuffed reindeer in his big hands. “It’s not much. Just a little jingle toy.” He shook it. And the sound of bells filled the room. Joshua started looking around.

From his last comment about miracles, she knew better than to ask why he was in the possession of a toy that looked brand new. She certainly didn’t believe it was a miracle. There had to be a rational explanation for it.

He crossed the room and sat down on the floor, Indian style. He really had to fold up his long legs to sit like that.

He finished unwrapping the baby and then he dangled the little reindeer toy just within Joshua’s reach. The baby had been learning how to reach for things, and the bright, red-and-brown Rudolf immediately captured his attention.

His little legs kicked, and he got a fierce look on his face as he slowly reached out and grabbed the reindeer’s leg. Then he let the toy go. It bounced on the elastic that Daniel was holding crooked in his finger. When the toy bounced, it jingled.

Joshua smiled and made a little sound that might have been a laugh.

Daniel held the toy back within reaching distance. The baby caught the reindeer and let it go again. This time there was no mistaking the noise that issued from his little body. It was the deepest, most infectious belly laugh Maryanne had ever heard. It was Joshua’s first laugh, and it made a joyful sound.

* * *

Daniel found it impossible not to laugh along with the baby, or to let Maryanne’s enjoyment of the Christmas tree creep into his heart. It had been so long since he’d felt anything like this.

He’d come here to hide from Christmas and to be alone with his grief. But here he was, miraculously, given the one thing he thought utterly impossible. He wished he had toys and gifts to put in the old stockings he’d found in the Christmas box. He wished he’d come here a few days ago and put up the lights out front on the porch the way Daddy used to.

He was tired of living in the dark. He wanted to light up the world, if for no other reason than to see those holiday lights shining in Maryanne’s eyes.

He couldn’t put up the lights now. It was too icy outside. He might not have anything for the stockings, but he
could
start a fire. What was Christmas without a fire burning in the hearth?

He had to haul in some firewood from the stack out back. But he didn’t mind, especially after the fire was crackling in the hearth, giving the old living room a real Christmas glow.

Maryanne let Daniel hold the baby for a while. He played with the boy until Joshua got a little fussy. And then he walked the floor with him until the baby settled into a blissful, innocent sleep.

When the child was finally snoozing, Daniel didn’t have the heart to put him back into his improvised bed. Instead he sat beside Maryanne on the couch.

“So, by the way you manage Joshua, I guess you and your ex have kids, huh?” Maryanne asked.

And just like that, Daniel’s warm, fuzzy feelings evaporated.

“No, we never did,” he said, and swallowed back an overwhelming surge of guilt and sorrow.

Maryanne must have sensed something because she didn’t press the point. Instead she moved a little closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder, and together they watched Joshua sleep for a long, quiet while. And, oddly, the silence made him want to tell her everything that was in his heart. How had she managed to open him up like that? He’d been keeping all of it so close for so long.

“I lied a minute ago,” he finally said. “Julia and I had a child.” His voice was surprisingly firm.

“Had?” Her head remained on his shoulder.

He drew in a deep breath. “He was born with a congenital heart defect. The doctors couldn’t fix him. He lived for about a month. He never came home from the hospital.” The tell-tale tremble in his voice was like a warning. “We discovered that the problem was genetic. Julia and I each carry a recessive gene for something called Zellweger Syndrome. So if we tried again, we had a twenty-five percent chance of having another sick baby. Julia couldn’t deal with that. So she left.”

He braced himself for Maryanne’s pity. But it didn’t come.

“What was your son’s name?” she asked. The question struck him as odd. No one ever asked that question. They always wanted the details of the disease. They always wanted to dive into the facts and figures and all that. As if the facts and figures and details could obfuscate the fact that his son had been, for a brief time, a living human being.

“We called him Christopher,” Daniel said. It had been a long time since he’d spoken that name aloud. “He died on Christmas Eve, five years ago. That’s why I was planning on drinking alone. So I’m glad I found you in the barn.”

He said these words and the moment they left his mouth he knew he was deeply grateful. Not just because she’d given him a moment to play with a baby. But because, somehow, even though she had nothing, she’d walked into this house and brought light into it. And just being here with him, sharing a meal, putting up a tree, resting her head on his shoulder, had brought him back into the land of the living.

* * *

Daniel’s story broke Maryanne’s heart and made her realize that there were worse things than being homeless on Christmas Eve.

Daniel had a home, but his parents were gone. His wife was gone. Even his child was gone.

Maryanne had spent a lifetime being alone. She knew what it was like. And her life had changed, for the better, when Joshua had come into it. She was the lucky one.

Maybe that’s why she had been hanging on so tight to the baby, even though having and keeping him meant giving up her job and school, and now, ultimately, her home. Of course, it was crazy to even think about raising a child without a home. She knew that.

But here was a man who had a home with no one to fill it up. And somehow that seemed to be way worse. What good was a home without anyone living in it?

They put Joshua down in his makeshift bed and sat in front of the fire and talked for hours.

He told her boyhood stories about living on a farm, and it was almost as if she already knew them. As if, somehow, that secret other life she had pretended was true. As if there really was a boy next door who climbed trees, and made hay, and milked cows, and went fishing in the river. A boy who had a mother who baked him pies and put up pine roping above every window during the holidays.

Maybe that’s why she’d come up Ridge Road this afternoon and mistaken this farmhouse for the one she’d visited so many years ago. Maybe in her mind she’d been visiting this place for years.

So in that instant, hours later, when he leaned in and kissed her, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

His mouth awakened a dangerous desire inside her. For just one moment, a whole range of new possibilities opened before her. And then reality clicked in her head. She hardly knew this guy. He was a high-priced lawyer from Atlanta, not the fantasy she’d created for herself as a child.

More important, she didn’t want to make the same mistakes her mother had made. She wasn’t going to go from man to man. She was going to learn how to be independent and stand on her own two feet.

Maryanne gently disengaged. And he let her go, as if he, too, remembered that this was impossible.

They sat there staring at one another. “I—” he started, but she interrupted.

“That’s not going to happen again, okay?” she said. “I mean, you don’t need me. And I don’t need your pity. And besides, you’re some rich lawyer dude and I’m a homeless, welfare mother. So maybe I should go back to the barn and get some sleep.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He stood up and checked his watch. “You know, it’s only one-thirty. Jenny is probably just getting back from midnight services.” He dug into his jeans and came out with one of those big-screened, expensive smart phones. Exactly the kind of phone a rich Atlanta lawyer would be carrying around.

“Here,” he said, handing her the phone. “I’m sure Jenny’s number is listed. Why don’t you give her a call?”

The phone ended up in Maryanne’s hands.

Oh boy. The very last thing she wanted to do was call Cousin Jennifer in the middle of the night. What the hell was she supposed to say?

She looked up at Daniel, unable to read the expression on his face. He looked a little like the man who had come charging up the ladder a few hours ago, wanting to know how she could be so stupid as to think about sleeping with a baby in a barn.

“I have no idea how to look up her number. I don’t have a smart phone like this. I can’t afford one.” She handed the phone back to him.

He ran his long fingers over the device in a dance that was both mysterious and sexy. He handed the phone back to her. “All you have to do is press the little green button and the phone will make the call for you.”

She stared down at Jennifer’s name and number. “I can’t call her at one-thirty at night.”

“She’ll be awake. Trust me. Almost everyone in Last Chance goes to church at midnight on Christmas.”

She looked up. “They do? Really?”

“It’s a pretty churchy place, Maryanne.”

She stared at the number, increasingly disturbed by her own reluctance. “She might not remember me. And if I call her at this hour of the morning, she’ll think I’m desperate or something.”

“Aren’t you?” he asked. His voice wasn’t hard. It was as soft as it had been all night, but somehow having him point out the truth hurt.

“You’re right. I
am
desperate. And I’m a coward. But I’m not the only coward in this room.” She raised her head. She wanted to take the words back almost from the moment she said them. Daniel was the last person in the world she wanted to lash out at.