A Wish for Christmas (27 page)

“Thanks, but . . . well, I know it’s just chance or fate or something, but I feel as if I screwed up and let those guys down.”

Christine sighed. He could tell she didn’t know what to say.

“This is what I mean about not being the same, Christine,” he said finally. “I might always be like this. Dragging around all this heavy baggage. Jumping out of my skin at the sound of rain on the roof of a car. You don’t need this,” he said bluntly. “You’re lucky we didn’t stay together. You’re better off with Alex. Way better.”

Christine sat back and turned away from him, facing forward again. After a few moments she said, “Looks like the rain stopped. We can go back.”

She steered the car off the shoulder of the road and turned back into the flow of traffic. They would be back to the tree farm soon; they weren’t far. David couldn’t wait.

This afternoon had started out so well. So promising. Dressed in his new clothes, finally walking with the cane. How had it ended up this way? So bleak and hopeless.

 

 

“LOOKS LIKE THE RAIN FINALLY STOPPED, GRACIE. WHAT DO YOU think?” Digger stood by the parlor window. He held the lace curtain back and gazed down at Main Street, the street lamps and car lights reflecting in the wet pavement.

“I’d rather not take the chance of it starting again. That was hail coming down a little while ago, Dad. I would hate to be caught driving in it.” Grace gently drew him away from the window and steered him back into the parlor. “We don’t have to go to the store tonight, Dad. We can go tomorrow. Let’s sit down and figure things out a little, shall we?”

“Okay, Grace. What do you want to figure?” He took a pipe from a handmade wooden box on the mantel and then sat in his favorite wingback chair.

Digger had given up smoking some years back but still liked to hold the pipe in his mouth. Especially on a cold, nasty night, like this one. He still liked the feel of the hard mouthpiece and the rich, comforting scent of the tobacco.

“Well, here’s our list. I think we’ve done pretty well so far.” Grace sat across from him on the sofa with a yellow legal pad in her lap.

“We’ve done very well,” Digger agreed. “Just seeing the look on those folks’ faces when they get up in church and tell their stories . . .” He shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “Does my heart good, Grace. You know what Charles Dickens said about doing a good deed?”

Grace didn’t know what Dickens had said about good deeds, but she had a feeling she was about to find out.

“What was that, Dad?”

“ ‘No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.’ ” Digger clamped his teeth on the pipe end and nodded. “That’s the truth. You feel like you’ve done one good thing in the world, just helping out one single person, and that’s something money can’t buy, you know?”

“I know, Dad. It is a good feeling.”

“So, where are we at on that list?” he asked with interest.

Grace was surprised at his question. She had not seen him this clear and focused in years. She felt quietly happy inside.

“This week we paid the three months’ owing on Elsie Farber’s mortgage and three months into the new year. That ought to give her a good cushion. She told everyone at the Christmas fair committee that she’s renting out the second floor of her house, starting the first of next month, so she can cover the payments easier.”

“That was good thinking on her part. ‘God helps them that help themselves,’ ” he said, adding his favorite quote from Ben Franklin.

“People just need a little hand up sometimes. They don’t expect much more.” Grace looked over the long sheet of notes, the list of names and dire situations she had compiled over the last few weeks. The challenge had not been finding folks in need; it had been choosing the most pressing situations.

“I wish we could help everyone,” she went on. “But we have to pick and choose. We don’t have a million dollars down in that freezer, not unless the bills have multiplied.”

“You never know,” Digger said. “We could find ourselves with a real miracle going on. Like the loaves and fishes.”

“Mostly fishes,” Grace added tartly. She peered at him, but he had not understood her joke.

Grace scanned the list again. “Oh, here’s a good one. I just overheard this today, in the Clam Box,” she explained. “You know that waitress in there—Trudy? The one with the red hair?”

Digger nodded. “I remember her. She looks a lot like Lucy Bates,” he remarked.

“Yes, she does,” Grace agreed. “I never thought of that before. Maybe that’s why Charlie hired her. Well . . . I was having a cup of tea at the counter, and I heard her talking to Tucker Tulley about her car. It’s very old, past a hundred thousand miles. The car didn’t pass inspection, it has so many things wrong with it. She can’t afford to fix it either. She was telling Tucker that she didn’t know what to do, asking if he knew a good mechanic who would let her pay on time. She’s a single mother and needs a car to get to work and take care of her children. I know it’s ambitious, but I think she’s a perfect candidate.”

Digger chewed on the tip of his pipe, considering the suggestion. “A car, huh? That is a big ticket, Gracie.”

“Yes, it is. I was actually thinking we might findagentlyusedcar,sayone or two years old? You can find one with a good warranty and not so many miles on it. I don’t want to stick the woman with the same problems.”

“Of course not. It wouldn’t be any help to her to give her a newer car that breaks down like the old one.”

“I think we can find something used but good quality. A compact model would be fine. One with good gas mileage, of course,” she added.

“Yes, gas mileage. That’s important.” Digger took the pipe from his mouth and peered into the empty bowl. “Sounds like you’ve thought this all out, Gracie. You have any color in mind?”

The question almost made her laugh. She had thought a lot about it. She was hoping to find a blue car for Trudy and had even figured out how they would manage to give it to her. She explained that to her father, too.

“The easiest way I think is to leave it for her on Main Street, parked outside the diner. After we buy it, I can park it there late at night, when nobody is out, and walk right home. We’ll get all the papers in her name and leave them in the glove compartment.”

“That’s the way to do it,” Digger agreed. “Oh, I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see that woman’s face when she finds that new car. Wouldn’t that be something?”

Grace wished he could be a fly on the wall, too. She had not seen her father so happy and animated in a long time. This secret gift-giving project had rejuvenated his mind and his spirit. It did her heart good, not only to give these gifts, but to give her father this pleasure. He might not be around for very much longer, she knew, but she would always have these memories to look back on, the Christmas they fooled the entire town in such a wonderful way.

“Well, let’s see. That might be pretty simple,” she told him. “Maybe we can get a front-row seat this time. I mean, if we just happen to be having lunch at the diner when she gets our note and goes outside . . . then we’d see it firsthand, right?”

“Yes, we would. And nobody sitting there would know it was us that gave the car, either. We could act surprised just like the rest of them.”

“We would absolutely
have to
act surprised,” Grace said, reminding him of their promise to remain anonymous. “It might be tempting to tell in all the excitement. Is that going to be a problem for you?” she asked gently. “You’re not going to forget yourself, are you?”

“No, Gracie, I swear.” He lifted his hand with a solemn expression. “I won’t give us away. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

She held his gaze a moment, then sighed and sat back against the couch cushions. “All right. Then that’s the way we’ll do it.”

She knew her father fully intended to keep his promise and fully believed that he could, but when the moment arrived it would be another matter altogether.

It would be risky to let him sit right there and watch Trudy find the new car. But it did mean so much to him. And he had given so much. Didn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt?

Grace decided it was a chance she would have to take.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“
I
’M GLAD YOU CAME OVER TO HELP ME, EZRA. IF I LEFT IT TO MY daughters, or these inept companions they keep sending over, I wouldn’t have a Christmas tree up until the Fourth of July.”

It was Saturday night, less than a week until Christmas. Lillian had decided that if she didn’t get her tree up this weekend, she might as well send the boxes back up to the attic unopened this year.

But luckily, when she called Ezra that morning, he was free and happy to come over and help her. He also brought another lovely roast chicken, compliments of his housekeeper, Mrs. Fallon. Altogether, it had been a very enjoyable night. After dinner, Lillian served tea and dessert in the living room, along with some classical music on the stereo, and they had gotten started on her Christmas tree.

Lillian held the small, tabletop-size pine tree while Ezra secured the screws in the stand. He had to crouch down to do the work and seemed a bit winded when he stood up, but the tree was perfectly straight, Lillian noted. “That looks fine,” she said, surveying it from all sides. “There’s a gap in the branches back here. I guess it had better go on the table facing the other way.”

“As you wish, madam,” Ezra said in a courtly manner.

He lifted the tree by the trunk, stand and all, and placed it on a marble-topped table that stood in front of a bay window, an antique in the Eastlake style.

“Very nice,” Lillian murmured. “Now for lights. I don’t care for too many, and make sure we don’t put on any twinklers. Sara bought a package of those last year, and they gave me a migraine.”

“No twinkling lights. Got it.” Ezra plugged a string of lights into the outlet and tested it. “Good one right here. It looks plenty long enough, too. That should cover it.”

While Lillian held one end of the strand, he worked the other around the tree, hooking it onto the little branches.

“A touch lower there,” she told him. “Let it drape more, a little looser . . . Not that loose.”

He stepped back and handed her his end. “You try. I’m going to sit the rest of this strand out.”

She glanced at him then focused on the tree again. He sat on the sofa nearby, rubbing his arm.

“What’s the matter, Ezra? Did you pull a muscle or something?”

“Perhaps,” he replied. Lillian didn’t like the way his voice sounded. She turned to look at him, then put the lights down.

“You shouldn’t have moved the table by yourself. You must have strained something. I said that I would help you. Do you want some liniment? I’ll go get it.”

“It wasn’t the table. I don’t think so, anyway.” His complexion looked ashen, and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“You don’t look well, Ezra. Do you want some air?” Lillian rushed over to the bay window and pulled one side open. “Maybe you should loosen your collar, open your bow tie.”

Oh, she didn’t like the looks of this. He didn’t look well at all. Now he was rubbing his chest in a most alarming way.

“I . . . I don’t feel very well, Lily. I have a sharp pain in my chest,” he told her, each word pronounced very carefully. “You need to call an ambulance. Dial nine-one-one.”

“Yes, I will,” she said, feeling a burst of fear.

She quickly walked to the telephone, dialed the emergency number, and spoke to the operator. “I’m at 33 Providence Street. We need an ambulance right away. My friend Dr. Elliot, he’s having a heart attack or a stroke or something. Please come right away.”

Ezra’s eyes locked on hers a moment as she walked back toward him, then his eyes closed and his head dropped forward.

“Oh, good God!” Lillian cried. “Ezra, please! Wake up. Say something. . . ”

She sat beside him and put her arm around his shoulders and her hand on his clammy cheek. Thank goodness he hadn’t fallen off the couch and onto the floor.

He opened his eyes a moment but couldn’t speak.

“Hang on, dear. They’ll be here in a minute. They come very quickly,” she promised.

She knew very well how fast the emergency calls were answered in this town; she’d made enough of them lately. Lillian had a sudden chilling fear that this time the response to her call would be delayed. That someone would hear her name and think it was another false alarm.

Oh, dear heavens, she prayed that was not the case. She prayed that they would come right away and take care of Ezra. What had happened to him? She didn’t even want to think of the possibilities as she supported him in her arms.

His breath was labored. At least he was still breathing. But he looked so horribly pale, and his eyes had drifted closed again, his hand pressed to the middle of his chest.