The Christmas Sisters (20 page)

“None of the lot of the troublemakers wanted to serve on the committee to bring a permanent preacher in, of course,” Fran leaned forward and shared a bit too loudly.

And Nan backed her up in matching huffiness and volume. “But they sure told those of us who did serve what we did wrong when we selected Sam Moss.”

Bert gave them all a stern look and finished the story, “So they decided to deliver a message. That's what they called it, 'delivering a message' to us and Sam by starting up their own Sunday morning Bible study.”

“Poor Sam.”
Nic looked up at the still empty pulpit.

“
Sam'll
be just fine in this, young lady. The real issue is the way this divides this church and community. It’s wrong, so wrong.”

She had rarely seen her Aunt Bert's eyes pool with tears, but when she had, it had always been over an injustice done to someone she cared about. Nic slid her arm around her aunt's round shoulders. She had nothing to add beyond Bert's assertion that those meeting at
Dewi's
were wrong, so she just sat there, hugging her aunt lightly.

The organ music swelled to conclude some old hymn that Nic no longer remembered the name of, and almost instantly the organist,
Shirleetha
Shively, launched into another song. They could not wait much longer before even this small, faithful group got restless, Nic thought, glancing around another time. Even looking the other direction, she could still hear Willa thumping her shoe against the back of the empty pew in front of them. She started to turn to tell her child to sit still when the crinkle of cellophane made her whip her head around.

“Tell Aunt Fran and Aunt Nan not to give her the whole bag of those mints,” she whispered to
Petie
.

Her sister looked like she didn't know what Nic wanted and, in fact, like she scarcely recognized Nic's face.

From the back of the church the creak of the door swinging open again registered in Nic's mind, but she stuck to her goal of preventing the disaster she saw coming in the mix of kid and candy. “Stop daydreaming about New Year's, Park, and the Twelve Tunes and tell them not to give Willa a whole bag of candy.”

From the corner of her eye Nic saw Big Hyde enter the church, stand at the back of the center aisle, and shake his head. Bad as she felt about what that meant, she also understood it cut her time short for taking care of the situation at hand.

“Take the candy away from Willa.” She nudged
Petie
with one elbow to urge her to act then pointed toward her aunts. “Pass it on.”

Mrs. Shively sounded the solid notes that concluded all their hymns in a booming amen. Then the place fell silent except for some shuffling at the front of the sanctuary.

Petie
turned slowly as if she needed to study the situation with Willa firsthand before allowing herself to get involved.

“Never mind, just let me—” Nic lurched across her sisters.

“Please rise for the singing of hymn 124,” Sam's rich voice carried over the hushed scene.

Nic stumbled forward as the row of Dorsey women stood. She managed to get her footing in time to get her fingers on the bag of mints seconds before Willa would have dumped them onto the floor. Remembering the slant in the floor, Nic sighed in relief to have avoided the spill.

She pulled at the thin material of the candy bag hoping to snatch it away. Under the cover of the singing of the hymn and the thundering organ music, she planned to explain to her daughter that she'd return the precious pink treats after the service.

The congregation prepped for the hymn by all drawing in their breath at once.

Willa scowled at Nic.

Nic scowled back.

The organ music surged, swelling to fill the place to the very ceiling.

Nic gave the bag a tug.

Voices rose in harmony in an old favorite Christmas song.

Willa set her jaw, blinked behind her thick glasses, and yanked the candy back with both hands.

At least the candy didn't go arching upward, which might have sent it raining down on Nan and Fran, winging the cottage family, and perhaps plopping down as far away as Aunt Lula's lap in the first pew. Instead, the bag ripped and the candy tumbled downward. One landed in the empty hymnal slot. Two or three landed flat on the floor around Willa's feet. The rest bounced and tumbled and hit just right to send them wheeling down the slanted floor like ball bearings down a sliding board.

The hymn ended just as the last two mints struck the edge of the platform directly in front of Sam.

Nic put her hand to her forehead. She had worn her best dress and been considerate in where she had her family sit in order to make this day run as smoothly as possible for Sam.
Now this.

Down the row of women, Willa jounced up and down on the balls of her feet, her arms tucked in to her body but her hands flailing. Her lower lip stuck out and trembled. At any moment she would burst into a wailing cry.

Putting her pride aside and ignoring her chagrin over the incident, Nic scooted past her sisters, intent on taking Willa in her arms and sweeping her off to comfort her in private.

Head down, she could not see what commotion they had caused. She did hear the murmuring, the scuffing of feet from the front of the church, then something so startling that she had to stop before she got to Willa's side and look in the direction from which it came.

Sam was laughing.

Not a mean, sneering laugh that would ridicule Willa for what she had done, but a gentle, rolling chuckle that filled the room with a sweetness to rival the carol they had just finished.

Nic looked at him, then Collier and
Petie
, then back at him. Finally she looked at Willa, who had calmed down enough to only be shaking her hands and rocking slightly. Fat tears clung to her long, dark lashes but they did not stream down her cheeks. She sucked on her lower lip and sniffled, her gaze never leaving Sam at the front of the now silent church.

He came from behind the pulpit, stepped off the platform to the place littered with mints, and extended his hand toward Willa.

She looked to Nic, her brown eyes questioning.

Nic bent forward and brushed the tears away. “You can go up there to Sam if you want.”

“Can I have the candy?” she whispered.

“No, we'll get you more candy after church. But you can go up there and offer to help pick up the candy you spilled.”

“Okay.” Willa looked to Sam again.

“Come on down here, Willa, honey. There's something I want to say to you and to all our friends gathered here today.”

Willa gulped, made her way to the center aisle then took the short walk up to Sam with a somber reverence that did Nic proud.

When she reached him, Sam sat on the edge of the platform and held his arms out. “I wanted to tell you not to worry about dropping the candy and sending it rolling toward the pulpit, honey. Believe
me,
I know
exactly
how that feels.”

Everyone laughed lightly and the tension around them broke.

“You do?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Except I had a bag of marbles, not mints, and the floor was just as sloped then as it is now. But the response, that was, um, a wee bit different.”

The laughter came out a bit more stiff this time.

Sam didn't seem to notice, he just looked at Nic's daughter, his arms open.

Willa fit neatly into his embrace and laying her head on his shoulder said, just loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I'm sorry about the candy. I'll help you pick it up, and Mommy can get us more candy when you're done
churchin
' us.”

“It's a date,” he said against the side of her head. Then he lifted her to sit on his leg and looked out at the small gathering before him.

“I suspect most of you recall the great marble misadventure of my youth. I expect most of the town remembers it.”

The older folks nodded and murmured their agreement.

“I think of it every time I take the pulpit in this church where I was once told I was no longer welcome.” He seemed to make eye contact and look into the heart of every person there as he spoke. “I thought of it this morning with anxiety and discouragement weighing heavy on me as I prepared for the morning service. I was tired of the fight and ready to give up. I was considering coming here this morning to tell you all I would not stay on after the
new year
. “

“No.”

“You can't give up on us.”

“Please don't.”

Words of support came from the congregation.

“It's true. I was ready to walk away from the church in the lurch because I felt like it could never be anything more than that, a body of believers without solid grounding. Or if it could be more, then I simply was not the man to help guide it to that point.”

Nic swallowed and lifted her chin to keep from giving in to the threatening tears Sam's earnest confession inspired.

“That all changed when I saw those little pink candies come rolling down at me.” He gave Willa a squeeze and she grinned at him. “When I had the chance that so many of us wish we had in life but so few of us actually realize—the chance to actually do over something that went wrong and set it right again.”

“I see where you're going,” Big Hyde spoke out, as was his way in church.

Sam nodded and smiled. “I'm not going, Big Hyde. That's the point. I should never have been turned away from God's house. I certainly won't let the same people who
did it to me before drive
me to it again.”

“Good for you.” This time Aunt Bert raised her voice, as was not her custom, at least not in church during the service.

“All it took was a little pink mint to remind me that all are welcome here, no one should feel they have to leave to make other people feel more comfortable.”

Nic took her sister's hand and sighed. Much as his words comforted her, seeing Willa and Sam together before the church did churn up her protective urges. She had to wonder if this would become fodder for speculation over Sunday lunches all over town.

“Who'd have thought God could use a man with a sullied past such as mine? Or a little girl with big brown eyes who only wanted a piece of candy?”

“That's me.” Willa pointed to herself.

“Who'd have thought it?
No one.
No one but the people who could believe that a tiny baby born into a family who had nothing more to offer him than an animals' manger for a bed.”

“That's Jesus,” Willa said with quiet authority.

“Yes, that's Jesus.” Sam stroked her hair back from her cheek.

She beamed.

Nic held her breath to keep from blubbering like some great gushing bowl of motherly goo.

“We all belong here. We are all welcome here, and it is our job as believers in that baby to make all people welcome here.”

A gentle murmur of approval worked over the gathering.

“We have one Sunday and the Christmas Eve candlelight service to go before Christmas. It's not a lot of time but it should be enough. Let's all of us reach out to others in our community in that time and see what kind of difference we can make.”

“How do we do that?” Big Hyde shouted out.

Sam Smiled. “Glad you asked, sir.
Because I have a plan!”

Fourteen

Do you think lots of people will come?” Willa looked up from where she sat in front of the family Christmas tree.

“I hope so.” Sam shuffled through the selection of Christmas CDs Collier had brought with her. Traditional and religious samplings would suit the mood he wanted to create for the community festivity. His congregation had responded wholeheartedly to his idea, and all afternoon the phone had rung with people saying they thought they had convinced friends and neighbors to attend.

The sisters had not had as much luck canvassing their little corner of town. Though people living in the cottages were receptive when Sam stopped in with a personal invite no new families committed to come.

“Do you have enough decorations?” Willa stood with worry etched on her face as she peered into the small box of decorations marked for them to take to the trimming party tonight. “It doesn't look like a lot.”

“That's the point of us having a tree for the whole town.” Sam gave her head a pat thinking seconds after he’d done it that it might have scared the child. When she rewarded him with a shy grin, his heart lifted. “Everyone is supposed to bring a decoration of their own.”

She turned her anxious gaze to him again and pushed her small blue glasses up on her adorable nub of a nose. “It's a big tree.”

“Yes, it is,” he conceded. “But if all the people pick out an ornament they like from home and bring it to the church, we'll fill up the branches real fast.”

“They bring their own ornaments? Like from their own tree?” She shook her head.