Keeping Christmas

“It wouldn’t hurt you to improve your mind a little with a good book,” Almeda said, reaching for her walker, her only concession to the infirmities of age.

“I already have one. It’s Stephen King’s newest thriller. I love the way that man can scare your socks off without half trying.”

Almeda sniffed. “Rubbish. Good night, Jacob boy,” she said, lifting her cheek for his kiss. “Sleep well.”

“Good night, Aunt,” he said, touching his lips to her cheek. His aunts were all the family he had left; all the family he would ever have, now.

“I wonder,” Faye said, lifting the lace curtain over the bowed dining-room window, “if we should move Weezer onto the back porch. It really is miserable out there.”

“I’ll bring her inside,” Jacob offered, wondering what flaw in his character caused him to volunteer for such hazardous duty.

“Would you, Jacob? Thanks. Lois and I have to finish the designs for the Christmas decorations we’re planning this year.”

“I’m not putting up any outside lights as long as the weather keeps up like this,” Janet warned as she headed for the back parlor a few steps in front of Almeda so that she could turn on the TV for her sister.

“I’ll do the lights, Aunt J,” Jacob interjected. “But I agree, not until the weather improves.”

“That’s okay,” Faye and Lois chorused, almost in unison. “We have to buy a couple of new strings of lights first, anyway.”

“How many is a couple?” Almeda asked suspiciously, half turning in the doorway, her hands planted firmly on the handles of her walker.

“Well, five or six, maybe,” Faye admitted with a quick glance at her sister.

“We thought it would be great to outline the whole house with lights this year.”

Jacob groaned. The roof peak of the big old Victorian house was at least forty feet off the ground. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow, okay?” he said, pushing his hip against the swinging door that separated the dining room from the kitchen. “I’m not sure I’m interested in climbing around on the roof at this time of year.”

“But you do such a marvelous job with the lights,” Faye said cajolingly.

“It wouldn’t be Christmas in Owenburg if we didn’t put up the lights. You know how the children look forward to it. And we’ve designed a new display for the side yard,” Lois added, her voice rising with excitement. “Christmas geese. Just like Weezer. With wreaths around their necks, and four little goslings exploring a Santa’s bag of presents that have spilled out on the lawn. We’ve already hired Wiley Harrison to make the geese.”

“Okay,” Jacob said, giving in without a fight, just as he always did when his aunts had their heart set on something. “I’ll do it. But not till the ice melts. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” The twins went off beaming.

“You’re too good to us, Jacob,” Hazel said. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Aunt H.” He kept his voice gruff, devoid of emotion. “That’s what family’s for.”

“You need a family of your own,” Hazel replied without missing a beat. None of his aunts was hesitant about voicing an opinion on the matter of his seclusion. But Hazel, a widow herself, was the most vocal of all. “You need to get out, meet someone. Find someone to love again.”

“No.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t change expression but his aunt looked as if he had.

“All right, I won’t mention it again.” She turned away from the big double sink where she’d deposited her armload of dirty dishes and opened the back door. A blast of cold, wet air and stinging crystals of sleet blew halfway across the room. “Oh, dear, Lois wasn’t exaggerating. It is sleeting very hard. And it’s miserably cold. Would you mind very much bringing Weezer up onto the porch?”

“I’ll do it right now,” Jacob offered, deciding he might as well get it over with. He grabbed his coat off the rack by the walnut pie safe his great-grandfather had built and pulled it on.

“Look, Jacob,” Hazel said, holding the door half-open as she pointed toward the small strip of the interstate that could be seen across the valley. “Goodness, see all the flashing lights. There’s been an accident. A bad one, by the looks of it. Oh, dear, I wonder if there’s anything we can do to help?”

“I doubt it.” Jacob, too, watched the array of red and blue flashing lights, but he didn’t feel any of his aunt’s quick compassion. He didn’t let himself feel anything at all but a mild curiosity as to what might have occurred. “With the roads as bad as they are, Aunt H, it’d take forty minutes to get over there. There’s nothing we can do.”

“We can pray,” Hazel said with the assurance of a deep and abiding faith.

“Do that,” Jacob said, turning away from the lights, setting off into the storm with his head tucked low on his chest. “It does about as much good as anything else.”

“I’m sorry, missus. Any other time I’d take you all the way to the Fuller place, but this here weather caught me off my guard. I ain’t got no chains on the tires. There’s no way I can get up the hill tonight. You and the little boy, though. You’re sure welcome to come on home with me. My wife’ll have my hide when she hears tell I dropped you off here, alone with it snowin’ to beat the band.”

“No, really. I couldn’t impose on you that way. The motel you mentioned will be just fine.” Just fine, Katie repeated to herself, because it was so far off the beaten track that no one would find her there. “Thanks so much for giving us a ride.” She covered her mouth with her hand as a fit of coughing threatened to take her voice away.

“That’s a bad cold, missus,” the old man said, not for the first time. “Better see about takin’ somethin’ for it.” He nodded his head, barely covered with wispy white hair, sagely. “My wife. She’s got the perfect cure for what ails you. Tea with lemon and—”

Katie broke in on his good-natured rambling. “I’m sure she does, but I’ll be all right as soon as I get a good night’s sleep.”

“Sure you will,” the old man agreed, but he didn’t sound as if he meant it. He peered at her sharply over the top of dark-rimmed, half glasses. “Sure you will.”

Katie felt another painful cough working its way up from deep in her chest. She struggled to hold it back. Kyle squirmed restlessly in the canvas carrier that held him strapped against her chest. His weight, comforting as it was, made it harder than ever to breathe.

“We really appreciate you giving us a lift,” she said again as the old man’s equally venerable pickup eased to a halt at the edge of a tiny hamlet he named as Owenburg.

“No problem. I still think you should have waited for an ambulance to check you and the little one out, though.”

“No.” Katie bit her lip and tried to smile. “I mean, we weren’t hurt at all. The bus just slid off the road. It happened so quickly I didn’t even have time to be afraid. It was all the police cars and flashing lights that upset Kyle. That’s why I wanted to move on.” She stopped talking before she got herself into more trouble. She was certain her explanation of why she was in such a hurry to leave the scene of the accident did not sound very convincing.

“Sure, sure.” The old farmer had been one of the first to stop and assist the dazed and disgruntled passengers of the cross-country coach. He’d helped Katie and Kyle off the bus and he’d helped find her purse, which had slid down the aisle when the bus tilted over in a small depression. Every cent she had in the world was in that purse. She’d be forever grateful to him for finding it, even if he hadn’t also agreed to give her a ride away from the wreck. “Now, if you want, I can help you carry your stuff up the hill to the motel.”

“No, thanks,” Katie said, remembering the old man’s painful limping gait. “I appreciate the offer but we can get there on our own.”

“You’re still welcome to come to my place.”

“You’re very kind but no, thanks,” Katie said again, opening the truck door before she could weaken and change her mind, take the kind old man up on his generous offer, be warm and well fed and taken care of, instead of setting off into the night with her child in the middle of a winter storm. Despair welled up inside her and threatened to choke off even more of her breath. She pushed it away, pulled Kyle’s blanket over his head and prepared to step down out of the truck. “Good night,” she said, smiling at the old farmer. She’d forgotten to ask his name but it was too late now. Besides, if she asked his name she would be obliged to give hers in return. She couldn’t risk that.

“God bless,” he replied, sliding the big cloth tote that held everything they owned, including her purse, across the seat. “The Fuller’s Motel is halfway up the hill, to the left. You can’t miss it. The only other house up there is Holly Ridge. That’s the Owens sisters’ place. If you end up there, you went too far.”

“I think I can manage that,” Katie said, ignoring the pounding pain in her head that began again the moment she stepped out into the swirling snow.

“Like I said, you can’t miss it.”

Katie waved and closed the truck door. She turned her back on the helpful old man and surveyed the narrow road winding up the hill. Behind her the lights of the little sleeping town glowed faintly through the storm.

She started off through the snow with the wind blowing her hair in her eyes. The tote pulled heavily on her shoulder, while Kyle squirmed beneath his blanket. His diaper needed changing and he was hungry. It was madness heading off into the storm like this but the memory of all those highway patrol cruisers, six of them at least, back where the bus had slid off the interstate, kept her moving forward. It seemed as if the sharp-eyed patrolmen had all been watching her and Kyle.

Katie had begged a ride from the old farmer when he’d decided there was no further need for his help and had prepared to resume his journey. He’d agreed without even asking why she wanted to go. She didn’t think that would ever happen in the city. But here in the hill country of Tennessee, people not only helped their fellow man; they respected their privacy while they were about it.

Katie trudged on uphill, through a thin layer of snow that hid the treacherous patches of ice beneath it. She kept walking, head down, crooning to Kyle, who was crying now from discomfort and fatigue. How much farther could it be? she wondered, keeping an eye on the side of the road, looking for the turnoff to Fuller’s Motel. She’d given up looking for a sign. If there was one, it was hidden in the feathery pines along the side of the road. She shifted the tote to her left shoulder, folded back the blanket a little from Kyle’s face and kissed the tip of his nose, slipped and nearly fell in an icy puddle of half-frozen water. When she regained her balance she realized she’d walked all the way to the top of the hill.

In front of her there was an iron gate, lacy with grillwork. On either side a white picket fence stretched away into the snowy darkness. Ahead was the dark bulk of a big old Victorian house, two stories high, with dormered attic windows and a cupola tower from which warm yellow light shone through lacy curtains.

There was also a light in the foyer behind a door with a center oval of leaded glass. “I don’t think this is Fuller’s Motel,” Katie said, spots of bright light dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked hard, trying to dispel the dizzying sensation. She shifted Kyle to her shoulder, having taken him out of his carrier after nearly falling in the icy puddle. It had frightened her to think she might slip again and fall hard, landing on top of him. His little head kept bobbing up and down. He wanted out from under the sheltering blanket. Now. Katie tried to hush him and decide what to do. If only her head didn’t hurt so badly, and she could take a long steadying breath, it might be easier to think.