The Christmas Sisters (35 page)

I'll scoot on in there and start playing some hymns until it's time to start the service.”

“Thank you,
Shirleetha
. I appreciate that.” He traded her music for the coat. “I won't be too long getting ready.”

“Well, my advice is don't start early on account of this group—you know, the ones who came early to get the best seats are not the regular churchgoers, or even the ones leaning toward supporting you, should it get to taking up sides.” She patted his arm with her gloved hand. “Start when you said you would in the bulletin and on your poster.”

“I will,
Shirleetha
. Thank you.” He put his hand on top of hers, and just as quickly she slipped it away, turned, and hurried out into the sanctuary.

Sam took a deep breath, walked back to his office, and hung
Shirleetha's
thick red coat on the rack. Outside his office window the crunch of tires on the gravel lot, the buzz of voices, and the blinking of Christmas lights only wound the knot in his stomach tighter and tighter.

This was it.
The test.
He had come back here knowing he would face it. But how could he have known then that it would demand so much of him. That when he took that pulpit tonight he would be fighting for his church, the woman he wanted to marry, the child he would love and shelter all his life, and his place in the town he hoped to make his home?

“Home.”
He shook his head, pulled off his jacket, and hung it by
Shirleetha's
. He started to toss his truck keys onto his desk as he normally did, then at the last second decided he'd better tuck them in his coat pocket, muttering, “Never know when a fellow might get run out of town on the spot.
Would hate to get tossed out into the night without these.”

He laughed at taking the situation to an outrageous conclusion but still took the keys and stuffed them inside the jacket pocket. “What's this?”

He pulled free the snowbird Big Hyde had carved and Willa loved so much. “The birds have their homes but Jesus...is in the shoe box!”

He was there all the time. They'd just forgotten. Sam knew what he had to do now, but he didn't have much time.

The last chord of “O Come All Ye Faithful” still hummed in the sanctuary as the congregation sat and Sam stepped up to the pulpit. Nic lifted her chin to better see him from the back row where he'd asked her to sit with Willa. She had no idea what he had planned, but she trusted his decisions, whatever they might be.

She trusted him.
She folded her coat more tightly around her and tried not to smile too big at that sudden and amazing revelation. Looking up at the man, who nodded his thanks to the organist, then addressed the gathering with his eyes clear and genuine goodwill on his face, Nic's heart soared. She loved Sam Moss.

She always had, she supposed. But now the love that had been too shallow to hold them together before had
maturd
. It was whole and wonderful and too strong to deny ever again. She put her arm around Willa and made a quick, silent prayer on Sam's behalf and for the church and all gathered here.

“Good evening.” Sam put both hands on the edge of the pulpit and turned his head to acknowledge every row in the crowded sanctuary.

“Good evening,” many churchgoers murmured back; The Duets, the Stern family, and Big Hyde more enthusiastically than the rest.

“What a joy to see so many new and familiar faces come together tonight, especially when I know many of you have meals and parties and gifts waiting at home for you that you are anxious to get to. I imagine the most uttered phrase while walking up the stairs this evening wasn't Merry Christmas but more like 'If that preacher gets long-winded, we're sneaking out the back.'“

A flutter of laughter answered him. Here and there people exchanged sheepish looks for being called out.

“Don't worry, y all. I promise to try to get you out before the kids get rowdy and the ham gets cold. And as for my long- windedness...” He bent his head for a moment.

The candlelight glinted off his golden hair.

Nic held her breath.

He flexed his hands against the edge of the pulpit and raised his head. “As for the chance of long-windedness—you are looking at a man who has most recently had the wind knocked clean out of him.”

Nic could feel the crowd collectively tense up.

“And all I can think to ask you now is one simple question.” Sam stood straight.

The congregation leaned forward or scooted to the edges of their seats. More than one person braced their hands on the pew ahead of them.

Slowly, Sam moved his gaze around the room, then, pushing back his black suit jacket, put his hand in his pants pocket and gave an absolutely disarming half smile. “
Anybody seen
the snowbirds?”

“The...?” People cocked theirs head like they hadn't heard right.

“What did he ask?” Wives whispered to husbands.

“You see, Persuasion used to have snowbirds. You've seen them, I think.
Little birds.”
He held his thumb and forefinger up to show the size. “Come in along about the first storm of winter and they flock under trees and bushes?”

Heads shook. Hushed voices rustled like wrapping paper throughout the room.

“I only ask because...” He leaned forward now as if imparting a wondrous secret.
“Because
I've
seen them.”

Nic stole a peek at Willa then at something under the pew, trying to make the connection between what Sam requested of them and the odd direction of his homily.

“I have it on good authority that they haven't been around Persuasion the last year or so. But I saw them, friends, right here,
right
in front of All Souls Church, and I was hoping that I wasn't the only one.”

“Forget about asking him to leave on grounds of moral turpitude,” the man in front of her said to the woman at his side. “They should kick him out for plain ordinary nuttiness.”

“
Shh
.” Aunt Bert put a finger to her lips and scowled at the man.

“Two warnings and they get a pew pinch,” Willa whispered, nodding her head in confidence.

Nic tried not to picture Aunt Bert climbing over the back of the pews to squash everyone who had a comment about tonight's service.

“They are deceptively plain-looking birds at first glance.” He withdrew his hand from his pocket. “My ornament,” Willa said, but not loud enough to attract attention.

Sam held the carved bird with its back to the congregation. “Just a little bit of gray on the ground.
Maybe at your house.”
He dipped his head toward someone on the left of the room, then shifted to the right and did the same, subtly seeming to single out Lee
Radwell
. “Or yours.”

Lee shifted his broad shoulders.

“They could go virtually unnoticed.
Whole flocks of them.
They can seem that much a part of the landscape of our lives.
Until someone draws your attention to them.”
He caressed the bird with his thumb, studying it before he looked again at his own flock. “Our transgressions are like that, don't you think?”

Pews creaked. Shoes scuffed against the wooden floor.

“For most of us they are a quiet part of our everyday. We often take them for granted in ourselves and sometimes even in others.” He put the ornament down on the pulpit.
“Until someone points them out.
That happened to me lately, I think you all know. That it was unjustified is not the point, and I won't argue about that here, not on this holy night.”

More than one person watched for Lee's reaction.

He folded his arms over his chest.

Sam did not
so
much as glance in his detractor's direction. “That I have fallen short—many times—I readily confess
. '
Confession is good for the soul.' 'Get it off your chest, you'll feel better.' Even nonbelievers will tell you that. But confession is only part of the story.”

He scanned the group, his face somber.

Nic wound her hair around one finger, bit her bottom lip, and met his gaze as it swept the room.

He smiled. “The real miracle is what happens after the confession. What happens between the sinner and God and what happens among our fellow believers. It is that which sets us apart from the world.
Which transforms us.
”

Willa swung her feet back and forth, holding her hands so tightly together in her lap that her knuckles were white.

“Not much longer,” Nic whispered, sensing rather than knowing that was so.

“It's like...” Sam's brow furrowed, then he dipped his chin and his expression mellowed. “It's like this little snowbird here.”

Willa beamed at her mom.

“Dark as the daily missteps that clutter our lives, so common we scarcely see them all anymore.” He rotated the object in his hand slightly.
“Until touched by the blood of Jesus.”
He put his fingertip to the tiny red beak of the carved bird. “And we are made white as snow.”

He took his hand away to show the white underside of the snowbird.

The room grew still.

“White as snow, my friends. When the snowbird lifts its wings, just as we lift our hearts to God, the darkness is gone.”

“Amen to that,” Big Hyde lifted his own hand.

Nic
sighed
her own amen.

“Oh, one more thing about the snowbirds.”
Sam opened his palm as if he held a real bird in it. “They go where they are welcomed. They don't usually come to this part of Alabama, but year after year they did because people left the right kinds of seed for them. In essence we asked them to come.”

All around, Nic could see heads nod.

“The first day I saw this ornament God impressed on my heart verse 58 from Luke, chapter 9
. '
Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'“

Her heart stirred at the memory of him quoting that very verse on that confusing, amazing day.

“I thought at first God must be trying to tell me that Persuasion was not meant to be my home. And events that followed might seem to have substantiated that idea.”

Lee snorted out a hard chuckle.

No one else joined in.

“But how could that be? It clearly wasn't talking about
me
.” He ran his thumb over his forehead as if trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle in his mind. “Today my daughter—I think most of you have known her longer than I have, actually.”

Willa wriggled in her seat, her shoulders thrown back and her head high.

In row after row ahead of them, heads turned. The smiles on those faces warmed Nic to her toes.

“Today my daughter asked me, 'Where is Jesus?' You see, in the Dorsey family they have a tradition of hiding the baby Jesus from the nativity set, and then they have to find him before they can open any gifts on Christmas morning.”

Now the entire row of Dorsey descendents became the object of curious eyes. Not a single one of them shied from the attention, Nic noted.

“But today we realized we had lost Jesus. We put him away for safekeeping and had completely forgotten about him.”

“We did,” Willa confirmed softly to her family.

“Now, listen closely, everyone. Here comes the part where I dazzle you by bringing it all together.” Sam moved from behind the pulpit. “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. The snowbirds have left Persuasion. Unto you
is
born
this
night in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

The restless shuffling in the church stilled.

“
Tonight
, my friends, tonight on this sacred night, as we contemplate the greatest gift ever given, you must decide.” He pointed outward at no one in particular and yet clearly everyone felt he spoke to them. “Where is Jesus?”

Sam walked the length of the platform, then halfway back, giving everyone time to contemplate the question.

“He had no room in the inn. Does He have one in your hearts? Are grace and salvation and forgiveness
lived
in Persuasion?”

He waited as if he expected an answer. Waited until the congregation grew introspective, began bowing their heads, or lifting their eyes to the cross.

“Only you can answer for yourself. But for our family...” He held out his hand to beckon to Willa.

In a flash she jumped from her seat. She bent to retrieve the ballet slipper box from under the pew then ran to her new father's waiting arms.

A wave of laughter rolled through those watching.

Sam helped the little girl open the box then lifted her up, her arms around his neck.

“Where is Jesus, Willa?” Sam asked.