A Treasury of Christmas Miracles (12 page)

Now, on Christmas day, as Sara tuned in the station carrying the telethon, she was still puzzled by the name of Tony’s doctor.
Where had she heard the name Fiona before?

She watched the telethon intently and saw that Tony was looking very well. He had survived hairy cell leukemia for nearly
twenty years, and because of Dr. Fiona’s tireless monitoring and testing and his cancer-fighting procedures, Tony was the
longest-living survivor of that form of cancer.

Sara watched as the cameras showed Dr. Fiona standing beside Tony, and suddenly she had a flashback. In her mind she pictured
her brother as a three-year-old towhead nuzzling his face against the pregnant abdomen of Maria Fiona.

“My God, could it be?” she wondered out loud. The Fiona family had rented a flat to the Cannucci family when Sara was a young
girl. Maria was pregnant back then, and Tony would have been about three years old.

That night Sara called her brother excitedly.

“Tony, do you know your doctor’s mother’s name?” she asked.

Tony was puzzled at her interest. “Sure,” he said. “Maria.”

Sara was stunned. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “I just don’t believe it.”

She was flooded by a sudden wave of memories. “What is it, Sara?”

“Do you remember when we lived on North Eighteenth Street? You were just a little boy.”

Tony thought a moment. “Not really. I’ve heard about it. An apartment or something we rented from another family.”

“Tony, we rented from the Fiona family. You and I used to go and visit Maria Fiona, and you would always touch her stomach
when she was pregnant. You were in awe over her unborn child, always looking at her and patting her and trying to feel the
baby kick.”

“Okay, so?” Tony still did not see the connection.

“Don’t you understand? That baby was Sal Fiona. Your doctor. The one who saved your life. You were so taken by the life of
that unborn child, and then that child grew up and saved yours.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. I prayed for a miracle, Tony,” Sara said confidently. “And God was working one all along.”

Tony was stunned at the thought, and within minutes was on the telephone with Dr. Fiona.

“Yes, when I was born we were living on North Eighteenth Street,” Dr. Fiona said.

For a while the two men said nothing, absorbed in the realization of how their pasts had connected.

“It’s just about impossible to imagine something like that happening,” Tony said finally.

Sal Fiona smiled at his end of the conversation. “Not really, Tony. You might have been only a child, but children are always
closer to God.” The doctor paused. “I told you God would give you something back for your time on Christmas day.”

T
ara had nothing else to do that winter day, so when her friend saw her at school and asked her to come over for dinner, she
shrugged and readily agreed.

“My brother’s having the football team over,” her friend explained. “If you come, at least I won’t be the only girl.”

Tara laughed and after talking with her friend a while longer made plans to see her that evening. Although Tara did not follow
football, she knew that her friend’s brother was on a semiprofessional team based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was intrigued and
made sure to do her hair carefully before walking to her friend’s house down the street.

That evening as the house filled with nearly thirty football players, Tara felt herself growing shy. She had just turned twenty
and had always been quiet around boys, especially when they were in large groups as they were that night. After a while she
separated herself and sat by the fireplace to warm her feet. While she was there, a handsome football player came over and
introduced himself.

“I’m Andrew Mastalli.” The young man grinned, his eyes sparkling in the light of the fire. “But everyone calls me Andy.”

Tara couldn’t help but laugh, and with the ice broken the two talked through much of the evening. Andy was just twenty years
old and determined to play football as long as possible. Tara listened intently as Andy spoke of his dreams, and when the
evening ended, since Tara lived just three blocks away, Andy offered to walk her home.

“Know what I don’t like about the winter?” Andy asked as they made their way to Tara’s house.

“What?”

“No roses.”

“Roses?” Tara asked curiously.

“Roses are the best. Someday I want a home with my very own rosebush. There’s nothing like the smell of roses in the summertime.”

Tara smiled at her interesting companion. The next day when he called to take her for a drive, she wasn’t surprised.

“There’s an attraction there,” Tara told her friend a few weeks later, after she and Andy had dated several times. “But neither
of us wants to get serious right now.”

Since neither of their families had much money and Andy’s mother was ill, the couple waited eight years before getting married.
When they did, Andy brought Tara a rose to carry down the aisle.

“Now nothing can separate us, Tara,” he told her. “This is the happiest day of my life.”

Although a knee injury ended his football career, throughout the next twenty-eight years Andy and Tara shared a relationship
few people ever have. Andy even got his wish—not long after they were married, they planted a rosebush in the yard of their
home in Tulsa.

Then, shortly after his fifty-fourth birthday, Andy was passed over for a promotion at the school where he was the head maintenance
worker.

“The kids loved him, the faculty loved him, everyone loved him,” Tara told her close friend sometime later. “The administrator
was the only one who had something against him.”

When it became clear that Andy wouldn’t be getting the promotion, he began suffering symptoms of stress. He had headaches
and chest pains and complained about feeling tired. Tara was worried about him and arranged for him to see a doctor.

“You need to take it easy, Mr. Mastalli,” the doctor told him. “But I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong with you.”

But on a sunny afternoon just one week after the appointment with the doctor, Andy suffered a massive heart attack. Tara rushed
to the hospital to be by Andy’s side, but there was nothing the doctors could do. Andy died.

The love of Tara’s life was gone forever. Without Andy, she plummeted into a deep depression that nothing could ease.

For weeks after his death students sent letters to Tara telling her what a wonderful man Andy had been and stating how badly
they missed him. But nothing helped Tara’s grief.

Over the next several months Tara lost weight and rarely left the home she and Andy had shared. It was not until late that
year she began seeing friends and spending more time socializing. She even went on a few casual outings with a male friend
of hers. But her heartbreak over losing Andy was still so great that it hurt too much to go out with the man. Christmas was
approaching— Andy’s favorite time of the year—and she could not stop the terrible ache inside at missing him.

“I don’t know when I can see you again,” she told her male friend one night. “I still have so much of my past to deal with.
You see, Andy and I were married for nearly thirty years. I just don’t know how to stop loving him after all that time.”

The week leading up to Christmas was perhaps the darkest of all for Tara, who felt as if she’d made an attempt to live again
and failed. She still missed Andy so badly that she thought she might never leave home again.

Christmas morning dawned and Tara awoke to the heavy smell of ...roses. Puzzled, Tara climbed out of bed and wandered through
the house. There was a Christmas snow on the ground and outside everything around her was frozen. Still, as she made her way
from one room to the next, she was overwhelmed by the smell of Andy’s favorite flower.

Quickly she went to the telephone and dialed her friend and neighbor, Lisa.

“Please, Lisa. Come over right away,” she asked her friend. “I know it’s Christmas morning but I have to see you. Just for
a minute.” She did not mention the roses because she wanted to see if the smell was only in her imagination. Since it was
so strong, she knew that if she wasn’t imagining it, Lisa would recognize it as soon as she walked into the house.

“Hey, where are the roses?” Lisa asked as she opened the door bundled in a coat and boots. “It’s Christmas. No one’s supposed
to have roses.”

Tara stared at her friend strangely and tears filled her eyes. Lisa realized that something was wrong. “What is it, Tara?”

“There aren’t any roses in the house. None at all. And there can’t be any on the bush outside because it’s frozen solid.”

Lisa looked around and suddenly an expression of understanding filled her face as if she understood.

“It’s from God, Tara,” she said. “He must want you to know that Andy’s fine and that everything’s going to be okay. You can
go on with your life.”

“Do you really think so?” Tara asked, sitting down and steadying herself in the chair.

“Yes. How else can you explain this smell? It’s so strong it can’t be anything else.”

Tara nodded slowly. “You’re right.” Then she began to cry softly. How good God was, letting Tara know that he still cared—that
somewhere Andy still waited for her. It was the greatest Christmas present Tara could ever have received and with it came
a sense of peace and closure.

“I guess it’s time for me to let go.”

At that instant the smell of fresh roses disappeared from the room. Tara looked at Lisa to see if she had noticed.

“It’s gone,” Lisa said simply.

“Yes. As soon as I said it was time to let go.”

* * *

Tara has never again smelled roses in the dead of winter as she did that cold Christmas day. Soon after that she began socializing
with her friends again and in time her depression disappeared completely. Although she has male friends, she has never remarried.

“There will never be anyone like Andy again,” she told Lisa some time later.

As if to remind herself of that fact, she has kept a rosebush every year without fail. Each summer when the flowers bloom
she is taken back to that Christmas day when she was not sure whether she could live without the man she had loved for so
long. And Tara remembers the smell of roses and how by some miracle God himself gave her the strength to go on.

P
astor George W. Nubert looked at his watch and took a deep breath. His wife was busy making dinner in the kitchen, and he
had ten minutes to get over to the church, light the coal furnace, and be back in time for dinner. Sometimes he felt like
he was performing a circus act, twirling plates in the center ring. He had to keep a dozen plates spinning at all times; not
one of them could crash to the ground.

But Pastor Nubert didn’t mind.

Over the years he had learned to deal with the pressures that came with the ministry. Inevitably his life was surrounded by
crises while he was expected to remain calm. Through prayer and discipline, he had discovered one secret to being dependable
for those around him: he was organized and punctual beyond reproach. And so although he would rather have sat down and rested
for a moment on that cold December evening, he slipped into a jacket and kissed his wife good-bye.

“Be right back,” he said. “I need to light the furnace for tonight.”

At six-thirty he arrived at West Side Baptist Church on Court Street and LaSalle in the center of the town of Beatrice, Nebraska.
The church was something of an anchor, a landmark that everyone in town used when giving directions to outsiders. A stranger
could find almost any place in Beatrice as long as he could first find the tall white steeple that marked West Side Baptist
Church.

Pastor Nubert made his way inside the church building and climbed down two flights of stairs to the basement. There he lit
the coal furnace, making sure it was working before he turned to leave. Next he walked up to the sanctuary where twenty rows
of wooden pews made up the seating for Sunday mornings. Glancing at the thermostat, he adjusted it so that the building would
be warm in exactly one hour. It was Wednesday. And choir practice was always at seven-thirty on Wednesday evenings.

Glancing once more at his watch, Pastor Nubert quickly left the church and headed home for dinner. He intended to be back
at his usual time, no later than seven-fifteen.

* * *

Martha Paul had been the choir director at West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice for sixteen years; as far as she could remember
she had never been late to choir practice. Without fail Martha arrived at least fifteen minutes early.

“That way I have time to get the hymnals ready,” Martha liked to tell her husband. “I can be sure there’s enough sets of choir
music, get the lights turned on, and still have time to catch my breath.”

Martha had often impressed upon her choir the importance of being on time, reminding them that nothing could be accomplished
until every choir member was in his or her place ready to sing.

“A choir is not one or two voices,” she would say. “The plan is not to arrive at seven-thirty but to begin singing at seven-thirty.”

That particularly cold Wednesday evening in December, Martha had every intention of being at church as usual by seven-fifteen.
This was to be a special practice since it was the last rehearsal before the church performed its annual Christmas cantata.
In addition to the fourteen choir members there would be a trio of teenage girls joining them. The trio had been working on
a musical piece for the cantata and that night would be the first time the two groups would practice together. More than any
other Wednesday it was crucial that she be at church especially early that night.

But she had run into a problem.

Her daughter, Marilyn, had been attending junior college and working part-time to pay tuition. That evening she returned home
from her afternoon job and gave a weary nod to her mother.

“I’m going to sleep for a while,” she said. “Wake me up for practice.”