C
HAPTER
28
According to the wooden sign posted at the village limits, the population of Linden Corners was 724 people, and give or take a couple dozen, it seemed as though everyone had turned out to celebrate Christmas with their families and with each other at St. Matthew's, a testament to the sense of community that I had felt from the very moment I stepped into its environs. Of course, folks from some of our neighboring towns came, as well, since the St. Matthew's Children's Christmas Pageant, I'd been told, was famous in these parts. St. Matthew's sanctuary was decorated with three trees that towered upward to the vaulted ceiling, all of them alight with sparkling white lights, their gleam caught in the flickering candles positioned atop the altar. A manger scene was set before the altar, the Baby Jesus not yet resting in his waiting cradle. And all around us, the smell of incense and the scent of pine reminded us all that Christmas was finally upon us. Gerta sat at my side and Cynthia and Bradley were in the row behind us and lots of other familiar faces filled the pews, parents who waited with anticipation for the start of the mass, eager to see their children process up the middle aisle.
The adult choir began to sing “O Come All Ye Faithful,” the triumphant blast of an accompanying trumpet raising the roof on our celebration. Then began the solemn procession with a trio of altar boys, the lead carrying a large brass cross, the other two with long, burning candles. Behind them followed a cherubic young boy, carrying in his hands the Baby Jesus, who would be placed in the manger. Next came four adults who would perform the readings and assist in the Eucharist, and at last came the parade of children, forty of them dressed brightly for the holiday, the girls all dressed in red with crimson bows in their hair and the boys with green ties set against crisp white shirts and dark pants. Bringing up the end of the procession was Father Eldreth Burton, the kindly, wise pastor of our little church. As the music swelled and the sound enveloped the church, the lead child placed the Baby Jesus in the manger and the other children placed their gifts beneath the trees until the sanctuary was overfilled with an abundance of giving.
For a moment I gazed up at the broken pane of glass, recalling the shards of Mary and Jesus hidden behind the boards. But today they were dreamed into reality by our manger. Nothing could keep them from our celebration. Turning back, I caught a glimpse of Janey near the end of the procession of children. With her colorfully wrapped present that she would place under the trees and her face lit with glee, she was a vision among visions. I watched with unwavering pride, sharing in the joy of the other parents but envious of the larger bond they enjoyed, a blood connection. Still, Gerta squeezed my hand and remarked to me how wonderful Janey looked, “so healthy and filled with love. And we all know who to thank for that.”
“All of us,” I said quietly. “Annie included.”
The children returned to their seats, and when Janey joined us I told her what a great job she had done. “So assured and professional,” I said, “so grown-up.” She kind of rolled her eyes at me, so I made a goofy grin.
“One of us has to be,” she whispered to me.
That was my Janey.
The mass began, prayers were issued, readings read, songs filled the air, and Father Burton delivered a short, powerful sermon about the real truth of Christmas and how the best gifts weren't to be found beneath any tree. I knew where mine wasâthe sweet little girl who sat between me and Gerta. A makeshift family, bonded by loss, forging ahead to the future.
As communion ended, Father Burton returned to his seat and like magic, the lights throughout the church were dimmed. Only the glow of candlelight flickered in the quiet of the church. The gentle sound of a piano could be heard, and moments later, the tender voice of a man's dulcet baritone. Not another sound could be heard throughout the church as the man sang a hymn called “Joseph's Song,” a remarkable song whose lyrics spoke volumes to me, the words “Not of my flesh, but of my heart” seemingly directed right at me and Janey. The song came to an end, and the congregation sat in utter and absolute silence. All around us was embodied the power of Christmas, its message more clear to me on this occasion than any I could ever recall. Still, I thought of my family, of Kevin and Didi Duncan, and Rebecca and Junior, and then I added silent intention for Philip. The lights came back on as I wiped away my final tears of the night, and the mass concluded with a rousing “Joy to the World.”
Afterward, I shook the singer's hand and thanked him profusely for his voice, his words, his lyrical song.
“I liked it, too,” Janey said.
As the church emptied, I noticed Father Burton shaking hands with the departing parishioners. I told Gerta to hop into the line, taking Janey with her. I needed a moment, I told her. I went against the tide of the crowd, making my way forward to the sanctuary, kneeling before the manger. Glancing at the ceramic figurines of Mary and Joseph, at parents who had never asked to be but knew in their hearts that destiny had chosen them, I felt a sudden kinship with them. That's when I laid down one last gift, setting it inside the manger for safekeeping.
Janey and Gerta were waiting at the back of the church, Father Burton at their side.
“Beautiful service, Father,” I said.
“Very glad to see you, Brian Duncan.”
We shook hands and wished each other the merriest of Christmases. I nodded as we left, a lump in my throat.
“You okay, Brian?” Gerta asked.
“Yeah, I'm great.”
“Don't say âyeah,'” Janey instructed me, and even though the solemnity of the evening vigil still pervaded, I laughed aloud. My voice carried throughout the church and outside, where the wind billowed past and caught its sound.
We wished Gerta a wonderful Christmas with her daughter Viki and family, who were expected within the hour. Coming up behind were Cynthia and Brad, the two of them bundled tight against the enveloping cold. We all exchanged hugs, and I asked if we would see them later. I had invited them over for some holiday cheer.
“Actually, Brian, if it's okay, Cyn and I just want to spend a quiet Christmas, just the two of us,” Brad said. He then gave his wife a look that could only be described as loving.
“Sorry to change the plans, Bri,” Cynthia said, “but since this will be our last Christmas with just the two of us, we wanted to make it special.”
“Sure,” I said, but then realized I wasn't so sure. “Wait, what?”
Brad embraced his wife from behind, his hands resting on her belly.
“I just passed my first trimester,” Cynthia said.
“Oh Lord, what a blessing,” Gerta said, kissing Cynthia's cheek.
“Oh, Cynthia, Brad, I couldn't be more happy for you.”
“We didn't want to say anything, until . . . well, until we were sure.”
Cynthia, I knew, had suffered a couple of miscarriages early in her pregnancies. But now she assured us the doctor had said all was great. She was due in late May, she said, crouching down to look at Janey. “You may be a bit too young to babysit, but you'll be even more special for him or her. You'll be just like a big sister. What do you think of that, Janey?”
“I think I can teach your child a lot,” Janey said. “After all, I've had such good practice with Brian.”
Everyone laughed at my expense, and then we wished our holiday farewells to all. Brad led Cynthia down the snowy sidewalk and into their car, and they sped off in the darkness. A miracle had happened for them, and I felt pride fill my heart. We walked Gerta to her car, and soon she, too, was gone, leaving me and Janey in the parking lot, snow falling all around us.
“I told you,” Janey said.
“Cynthia told you about the baby before tonight?” I asked.
“No, I just guessed.”
“Come on, Know-it-all, let's get home and warm up.”
Janey and I returned to our car and headed back to the farmhouse, the still-falling snow dancing in my headlights. Nearly a foot of snow had dropped already since this afternoon, and it showed no sign of stopping, not on this cold, blustery Christmas Eve night.
We listened to Christmas carols as we drank hot chocolate, and finally after she yawned, she remembered how “exhausted” she was. Good, Santa will be here soon, get to sleep, I said. First she had to place a few wrapped packages beneath the tree, telling me, “don't peek.” Upstairs we went and she readied for bed. I considered reading to her
'Twas the Night Before Christmas,
“just like Momma used to do,” but then decided upon another story. A new tradition, a new story.
“What's it about?” she inquired, cradling her purple frog.
“It's a story about the greatest gift of all,” I said, settling onto her bed.
“Where's the book?”
“Oh, I don't need a book to remember how this one goes,” I informed her, and then, at last, I began my tale. “Once upon a time, the most special person lived. His name was Philip and he decided one year that he wanted to give the best presents of anyone in his family, and so that's what he set out to do. He found these beautiful glass ornamentsâred and blue, green and goldâand had one made for each person in his family. âPut their names on it in glitter, I like that touch,' he told the glass blower, who had in his workshop silver glitter, the color of tinsel. Icicles,” I added, which made Janey smile brightly. “And so that's what happened and Philip took them home. Then one Christmas morning the family awakened and under the tree were these pretty packagesâjust like the ones you placed downstairsâand the family opened them. There was a glistening red ball with the name
Kevin
on it, and a green one that read
Didi,
and then the gold one that spelled out
Rebecca
and the blue one that read
Brian.
They came with a note, each of them.”
“What did the note say?”
“It said to remember him alwaysâat each Christmasâand to always remember that Christmas means happiness and it brings families together. That's what he taught the family, Janey, and each year they remember his lesson when they place the beautiful ornaments on their tree. Ever since then, each of them has tried to live out his legacyâremembering that giving is greater than receiving.”
“I like that story,” Janey said. “Are you sad, Brian, not to have your Christmas ornament?”
I considered my answer before speaking. “What I've learned just today, Janey, is that I didn't need the ornament to remember Philip. I can honor him in another way, by passing along his story to those who will hear it. I call it âThe Greatest Gift.' ”
Then I kissed her good night. She closed her eyes, and I watched as she drifted off to sleep.
Returning to the warmth of the living room, I sat in the recliner and stared at the glistening Christmas tree, knowing I still needed to brave the outdoors and retrieve all of Janey's presents from inside the windmill. I felt a yawn overcome me. I was exhausted from the activity of the past few days, the planning and execution of the tavern party and the emotional catharsis Janey and I had gone through earlier today. I was spent and so I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, thinking about the end of the story I hadn't told Janey, discovering my brother Philip asleep in his bed that Christmas morning. But he hadn't been sleeping ; he would never again awaken. Philip Duncan had been twenty-three years old; I'd been eleven.
And beneath the tree, there had been no “Philip” ornament.
C
HAPTER
29
“Brian, wake up! Santa didn't come, look, there's no presents !”
I jumped up from the recliner, surprised not only by Janey's voice but by what she was saying. Hadn't she just gone to sleep? I was just napping . . . right? Rubbing sleep from my eyes, it dawned on me that morning had indeed arrived. And not just any morning, but Christmas morning.
“Of course, he did, Janey, he must have . . .” When I looked down at the emptiness beneath the tree, my mouth closed. All that waited to be unwrapped beneath the tree were the gifts Janey had set out last night. Gifts she had wrapped for me. Words failed me as I realized I had failed Janey. For the past month my only concern had been giving Janey the most perfect Christmas ever, and here it had arrived and what had I done but fallen asleep before being able to set out her gifts. A boneheaded move on my part, for sure. Maybe Janey was right. Maybe she was the grown-up and I was the child. But, of course, there were gifts for her.
“They're in the windmill, all the gifts are there.”
In her pajamas, her tiny self rolled her eyes as she placed hands on her hips. “That's where you're supposed to hide them, Brianâbut on Christmas morning, they're supposed to be under the tree. That's Momma's tradition.”
“Well, I guess we're going to have go get them,” I said, a rare bit of inspiration on my part.
“Now, in the snow?”
“You want to wait until spring?”
“Not likely,” she said.
Actually, Janey said she approved of my idea, it was the windmill after all, and so she went darting up the stairs and quickly dressed in her warmest clothes. I followed suit. As we stepped out onto the back porch, we saw that the snow had finally stopped sometime overnight and that glaring sunshine was brightening the white blanket of snow that covered the land.
“Wow, we got a ton of snow, Brian. How do we get to the windmill now? It's too deep for my little legs.”
“An easy solution,” I said, and went trudging through the deep drifts of snow, some as high as five feet because of the wind that had blown past the open field. I made my way to the barn and inside grabbed hold of the trusty red toboggan. I returned to the back porch, the sled trailing behind me, and asked Janey to hop aboard.
“Wait, not yet,” she said.
Then she ran back inside the house, only to return with an armful of gifts.
“We can open them all in the windmill, Brian, that way Momma can see. She can have Christmas with us.”
So maybe falling asleep last night had been the perfect thing, because what we ended up with was the ideal, smalltown Christmas setting. Janey hopped aboard the toboggan, setting the gifts in front of her, and then I took hold of the rope and began making our way through the snow. Once we reached the hill, I sent Janey off, the sled racing downward with exponential speed, her gleeful laughter filling the air. I did my best to chase after her, but the drifts were too big and too difficult to maneuver through and more than once I fell forward. By the time we arrived at the windmill, I'd gone from Windmill Man to Snowman.
“You look like Frosty,” Janey said.
“I feel frosty,” I said, “and I think you need to, too.” Then, with a devilish grin crossing my face, I pushed her backward into a large fluffy drift. A puff of white powder flew into the air as she hit the ground, downy flakes falling down on her face. “Now you're a Snow Girl.”
Suddenly Janey began to move her arms and legs back and forth and in moments she had gone from a girl to an angel.
“No, Brian, I'm a snow angel.”
“That you are,” I said, and then I dropped down beside her.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a bigger angel.” I began jerking back and forth, wondering what my friend John might think of me at this moment. He'd think the farm boy had finally cracked his eggs. Janey informed me that I was just making a mess and when I got up and looked at my handiwork, I had to admit she was right. Her angel looked perfect and graceful. Then there was mine, which looked an angel in the midst of a seizure. I suggested we open some gifts instead, only to find the entrance to the windmill was blocked by even more drifts. Not even the spare key would help us now, buried under all these feet of snow.
“This isn't the easiest Christmas I've ever had,” Janey said.
“But it sure is fun, isn't it?”
I looked around at our surroundings, searching for a solution to our dilemma. Once last summer, in a moment of desperation I had reached the second level of the windmill by climbing its quiet sails, but today they were turning in the breeze, and even though their rotation was gentle I didn't want to risk injuring myself. So I returned to the barn, the snow continually dogging my progress and further delaying our morning celebration even more. But when I made my way back, I carried with me a ladder. I set it against the rear of the windmill, climbed to the catwalk with the gifts in my arms. Then Janey began her ascent and I grabbed hold of her gloved hands while she maneuvered under the low railing. We were something out of a children's picture book, a knight returning his princess to the tower after a grand adventure. From there I brushed some snow away from the outer door and soon we entered directly into Annie's studio.
I turned on a light, but we both left on our coats, since the cold had permeated through the wooden walls of the mill. There was no heat in this place. Remembering that I had stored a couple of blankets inside the mill, just as Annie had done, I retrieved one of them and set it on the floor. Janey sat down on the blanket and then I opened the closet and proceeded to place before her piles of gifts wrapped in shiny paper that showed reindeer and Santa and snowmen.
I sat beside her and watched as she began to unwrap each gift. Janey was a typical little girl in her likes, dolls with which you could play dress up, and so there was a new Barbie and several different designer outfits in which to dress her; there were some clothes, too, for Janey, and several stuffed animals, new friends for her favored purple frog. Finally there remained just two more gifts, and I presented the first one to her with excitement.
“This is from your past,” I said.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Unwrap it and find out.”
She began to tear at the paper. Underneath she revealed one of Annie's paintings, newly framed and protected by a glass covering. I had gone back and forth on which painting would be perfect, thinking maybe the one of Annie's Bluff, thinking maybe one of the windmill. In the end, I settled upon the painting of a very young Janey cradled in the arms of Dan and Annie Sullivan, the two of them proud new parents.
“Thanks, Brian, I love this gift so much. It helps me remember, especially my father.”
“We'll hang it in your room, okay?”
“That's the perfect place,” she said, hugging me so tight I thought I might explode with emotion.
“There's one more gift, Janey.”
“But you've already given me too much,” she said.
Seeing her surrounded by the numerous gifts, perhaps she was right. I had spoiled her, but if ever a little girl deserved to be spoiled, well, here she was. So that's when I handed her the last gift. “This gift is from your future.”
“Momma just used to say they were all from Santa Claus.”
“I like to do things differently,” I said.
“Tell me about it.”
Still, she gazed up at me with wide, curious eyes, then returned them to the small, square box I'd placed in her hands. Gently she unwrapped the present, opening up the lid on the square box. As she discovered what lay inside that box, her mouth dropped with wonder and surprise.
“Oh, Brian . . .”
“Go ahead, take it out of the box.”
And she did, and what she saw was her very own Christmas ornament, a shiny red glass ball, the name “Janey” lettered in silver glitter.
“Consider that one a gift from Uncle Philip,” I said.
“Just as I'm part of your family, you are now part of mine. And nothing can ever change that, not anymore.”
Janey had no words to offer up, perhaps a first. I had to settle for a hug, one that lingered for minutes, and that was just fine with me. I could feel her sweet tears seeping through my shirt.
“You're welcome,” was all I said.
Finally, with obvious care, she returned the ornament to the box. Then she informed me that it was my turn to open up my gifts. There were two boxes, the first of which contained a 3-D jigsaw puzzle called “The Spectacular Spinning Dutch Windmill,” which Janey informed me “really spins” once you put it together. I told her what a special gift it was and how I looked forward to the two of us building the windmill, “Something we seem to be very good at.” The second gift was a box of staplesâ“you know, for the staple gun. You used up an awful lot when you decorated the windmill with all those lights.” I laughed at this second gift, treasuring the sentiment behind it.
“But those are just fun gifts, Brian. I wanted to get you something really special, and I asked Gerta and Cynthia and even John, when he showed up for the party. They all kept telling me you already had the gift you wanted.”
“You,” I said.
“Hey, that's what they said. But Brian, that wasn't enough, not for me. So the decision was all mineâto find the best gift in the whole wide world. So I got you something I think we'll both like.” From the inside of her jacket she pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. “It's the other reason I disappeared yesterday from Cynthia's. I went to town all by myselfâI know I'm not supposed to, but I just had to, Brian, I had to get this card from Marla's store. I knew she carried lots of cards. It was on my way home from Ashley's that I stopped there.” She paused, momentarily looking away from me. When she returned, her eyes locked directly on mine. “That's when I dropped the ornament, Brian, when I was buying the card.”
I looked at Janey with surprise at her ingenuity and at her boldness, her impulsiveness and at the tragic irony, too, of her tale. She must have been very determined to get me this particular card to have risked so much. So without further ado I opened the back flap of the envelope and withdrew the card. As soon as I saw the writing on the front, my lips quivered and a wave of emotion rippled up and down my spine. My eyes blurred with tears and I almost couldn't make out the words. But I could never forget them, though, because what it said was, “For My Dad, At Christmas.” On the inside of the card she had written, “To my new Dad, Merry Christmas, Love, Janey.” I was left without a single word on my tongue.
“I'm only eight and I have lots of growing up to do and I'm going to need help,” she explained. “After I bought the card I came immediately to the windmill because I needed to ask Momma if it was all right that I have a new dad. She's my momma and she always will be, and my father will always be my father. But you can have a dad, too, that's what I learnedâJunior taught me that.”
“Janey, you bought this card yesterday? Before we talked? But . . . you were so worried that I might want to return to my old life and get married. You thought . . .”
“Yes, Brian, that's what I thought. I'm a little girl, I'm going to think weird things sometimes. Besides, that's only what my head was telling me. My heart, though, it knew what to feel. I knew you were here to stay. So, will you, Brian, will you be my new dad?”
“I think I already am,” I said.
With a squeal that echoed far and wide, Janey jumped into my arms and I didn't let her go, not for the longest time, relishing this moment with the little girl who on this most giving of holidays had given the best gift of all, her unconditional love and her great big heart. I couldn't believe this incredible gesture, this most wondrous and unimaginable sacrifice.
“Come on,” I finally said. “Let's go hang your new Christmas ornament on the tree.”
And when we did, Janey and I held it together and found just the perfect branch for it.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said.
This time words failed me.