A Merry Little Christmas (26 page)

After whistling a few more favorite Christmas tunes, he rose from the boulder and turned to head home. At that moment, he witnessed what he considered a miracle, and it was one that he could not have imagined.

His brother Willie was coming up the hill toward him.

“Willie?” His younger brother looked well and, with the grin on his face, happier than he’d seen him in years.

Charlie hurried down to his brother and pulled him into a hug. “It’s good to see you. What in the world are you doing way out here?”

“I’ve come to see
you
, big brother.”

When they released each other, Charlie asked, “How did you find the farm?”

“I took a few wrong turns. Story of my life. Right?” Willie chuckled. “But then I stopped at a farmhouse and got some better directions. So, here I am.”

“Stay as long as you want.”

“Well, I’m not sure if—”

“Come on. At least until Christmas. The accommodations aren’t what we’re used to, but it feels like home.”

A pained look shadowed his brother’s face. “Yeah, well, we know that feeling is hard to come by, so I’m glad you’ve found it out here.” Willie brightened. “Look at you, with those overalls and that raggedy coat. You look like the real McCoy, man.” He slapped him on the back. “Fit and healthy. So, farming agrees with you.”

“Well, it grows on you.”

Willie grinned. “Guess so.”

Charlie ruffled his brother’s hair like he’d done when they were kids, and Willie jostled him right back with a punch.

Willie had changed too; he’d gone a little beatnik with his paisley shirt and Nehru jacket. Their father would hate it, but it looked good.

“Come see the view.” Charlie headed to the top of the ridge.

His brother followed him, and they both sat down on boulders. The wind teased them with several bursts of air. “It blows like a dust devil up here sometimes.”

Willie chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s always blowing somewhere in Oklahoma.” He buttoned up his jacket. “This is invigorating. I like it up here.” After a few moments of quiet between them, his brother looked him over with curiosity. “You’ve changed some. More than the healthy thing.”

“How’s that?”

“Just a few weeks ago, I doubt you would have thought that sitting on a rock was worth your time. But here you are.”

“Do you think it’s a good thing?” Charlie asked. “The changes?”

“Probably, yeah.” Willie snapped his finger as he hit his palm. “So, what do you do for fun around here?”

“Oh, people do a lot of moseying.”

“That bad, huh?”

“And a lot of backbreaking work too.”

“Eww.” Willie got up from the boulder, picked up several acorns, and studied them. “Well, you must be staying around for
her
, then. I met your Franny.”

“You did? Never did take you long to meet my girlfriends.”

His brother laughed. “You’re right about that.”

“How did you know she was
my
Franny? Did you weasel it out of her? You were always good at that too.”

“Man, I was the best weaseler around. Still am. Used to drive our nanny crazy, though. Remember?” Willie slipped the acorns into his jacket.

“I remember.” It was good to see Willie picking up things, taking an interest in life again. It meant he’d gone back to painting.

“In answer to your question, no, Franny never said a word about it. But she glows like a woman in love. There’s no mistaking that.”

“Franny’s not like anyone else. She talks about crickets and candling eggs and shucking the corn and birthing piglets, but she also has a passion for music and, well, life. She forgives easily, finds joy in the smallest things, and loves with her whole being. I think if fire came from the sky and burned up the whole earth, she would be left standing, because Franny is a woman after God’s own heart.”

Willie whistled. “Man, oh, man, I hope
I
fall in love that hard.”

“I’ve dated a lot of women over the years, so when I found some wheat among the chaff, well, it was easy to see.”

“Truth?”

“Yeah, I want the truth.”

“Well, I think she’s a real darling, Chuck, and if you don’t marry her,
I
will.”

Charlie laughed. Willie hadn’t called him
Chuck
since they were teenagers. It felt really good. “So how did Franny know where I was?”

“I don’t know.” Willie shrugged. “She just knew. You know how women are. They’re intuitive.”

Especially Franny.
Charlie pondered that pleasant fact for a while and then said, “I’ve missed you.”

“And I, you.” He chuckled. “Did I say that right?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Willie picked up a stone. “This is quite a cliff you’ve got here.” He peered over the edge and looked back at Charlie. “So has our father been out here to harass you yet? To check up on your progress? If he hasn’t, he
will
now, with me here. Pardon the lousy pun.”

Charlie scrubbed his hand against his chin and wondered just how much he should tell his brother about their father’s visit. He wasn’t going to mention the threats. It would only cause his brother to go into a tailspin of depression. “Yes, he found me.”

“I knew he would. He always does.” Willie’s hand twisted to the right as if it were deformed.

Charlie hated to see the straining contortion in his brother’s hand, since it was one of the signs that he still struggled with past emotions connected to their father. “Should we change the subject?”

“No.” Willie dropped the stone. “I need to talk about it.”

“All right.” Charlie wanted his brother to be healthy, but he couldn’t imagine how talking about the latest turn of events would help him. Maybe he could find out about his brother’s health without revealing anything significant. “I have a question for you, then. If you want to answer it.”

“I’m ready.” Willie backed away from the edge of the cliff.

Charlie relaxed his shoulders. “When we were there for dinner, Father said you’d been in the institution recently.”

“Just for the weekend.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “But I don’t want to go back there. As you know, Father has always paid my way to the institution, and as you also know, he encourages me to go. But he and the director are getting to be closer friends, and that’s a little worrisome. I’m well enough to know that I’m not being paranoid when I say this. Father has a need to control everything within his grasp.” Willie straightened his hand and laced his fingers together.

“I’m glad you can see it.” Charlie had never heard his brother speak so clearly about his situation or their father. Willie was surely getting better. “I have one more question.” He paused and then asked, “What do you think made you depressed on and off all those years? What started it?” Charlie felt he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it in his brother’s own words.

Willie picked up another rock and rolled it around in his hand. “Father always claimed that being an artist would cultivate more madness than it would great art. But after all these years I see it now…. Art was never the problem. It was Father.”

Thank God you can see it now.

“I admit, even when Mom was alive and life was good for us, I got depressed sometimes. But the depression was manageable without being institutionalized.” Willie closed his fingers around the rock, making a fist. “But when I defied Father at age seventeen and told him what I intended to do with my life, to be an artist, that’s when it really started…when I found myself in those black holes I couldn’t get out of. He deployed all his influence against me as if he were calling in the troops to some great battle. He manipulated me into a frenzy of confusion. I know now it was his control over me that made my depression unbearable.”

Willie looked at Charlie. “I know you tried to tell me, but I never really believed it. My respect for him, my need to please him, blinded me from the truth.”

“What made you see it now?”

Willie sighed. “Well, I’m older. I eat better and I run.” He smiled.

“That’s good news, Willie.” Unfortunately, if Father could prove that Willie was a threat to himself and others, he could still coerce his son into the institution against his will. But Charlie would do nothing to force his father’s hand. He would keep his brother safe at all costs.

Willie threw the stone into the canyon, and it splashed into the creek below.

“Nice hit. So, you haven’t told Father what you’ve told me?”

“No. He’s usually too busy firing his secretary or suing his accountant.”

Charlie laughed.

Willie laughed.

And their laughter rang out over the canyon.

“By the way,” Willie said, “I’m painting again.”

“Really? Tell me about it.”

“Watercolors. I’m going to have a show in a few weeks…at the same place I’ve had it before, Live Oaks Gallery.”

“You always did well there.”

“I should make enough money to move out and be on my own. I’ll be a free man. So, I came to tell you all that. Well, and to see how you looked as a farmer.”

“We should celebrate, then. To art and farming.” Charlie pretended to toast with a glass.

“Yes, we should. Hey, I’m starving. I know it’s after lunch, but do you think you could feed me?”

“I’m sure we can.” He suddenly realized that he’d been so wrapped up in the quiet of the ridge that he’d forgotten to eat. Forgetting about meals wasn’t something that happened every day. Hopefully Franny and Noma had gone ahead and eaten lunch without him.

Willie frowned. “By the way, I forgot to mention it…but as I followed Franny’s instructions on how to find you, I saw a police car of some kind driving up the lane. More like a sheriff’s car. I should have said something right away.”

Charlie’s thoughts raced through a dozen scenarios—and none of them were good. He wondered if it had something to do with Noma—if someone had come to harass her. “We’d better get home. Now.”

Franny’s whole constitution relaxed the second she saw Charlie walk through the back door.
Thank God he’s here.
Charlie’s brother was with him, which was also good, but it was unfortunate that Willie’s first visit to the farm would be so unpleasant.

Charlie looked at the two men seated at the kitchen table. “Gentlemen?”

Franny introduced Charlie and Willie to the two “men,” if you could call them that. Better descriptions would have been, “Sheriff—the minion. And Dunlap—the murderer!”

Charlie paused when she introduced Payton Dunlap, as if he was conjuring up all of Franny’s accusations against the man.

Willie seated himself on a kitchen stool by the sink.

Dunlap pulled a pouch of tobacco and rolling paper out of his shirt pocket.

They were the two most unwelcome Sunday afternoon callers who had ever assembled in her kitchen. “Sorry, we don’t keep ashtrays in the house.” Franny crossed her arms.

Dunlap shrugged, shuffled his false teeth around in his mouth, and then continued the process of rolling his cigarette. The man looked in the general direction of a person but never
at
him or her. He apparently had an aversion to eye contact.

Franny set her lips in a thin line. It was going to be a rough ride. At least Noma was in the middle of a leisurely hike along the creek. Her friend wouldn’t have to know—she wouldn’t have to listen to the vicious and ignorant ramblings of the local sheriff and Dunlap—two men who didn’t have enough intellect between them to fill the head of a pin and two men who’d already given her a dose of their witless lectures. Both guests looked thirsty, but she refused to waste her good Christmas cider on them. And the sheriff could eye those fresh-out-of-the-oven pies on the counter all he wanted. Neither one of them would get a single bite.

“So, how may we help you?” Charlie’s tone was reserved.

“Well, they have a
couple
of reasons for their visit,” Franny said. “First, they wanted to—”

“I’ll take it from here.” The sheriff turned to Charlie, scratched his double chin, and then adjusted his badge, which was attached to his soiled shirt. “We just wanted to make certain that no one took advantage of our Miss Martin out here.” The way he said her name, “
Miss Mar–TAN
,” was enough to give Franny the heebie-jeebies. “Our wives were concerned,” he went on to say, “about your arrangements out here, since you two aren’t married. And since we found out that you are one of the boys from
the
Landau family, well, we thought…”