The Christmas Sisters (12 page)

“Oh, yeah?
Well, maybe… maybe…”
Petie's
eyes flashed. “Maybe, deep down, I
don't
think that Park has died of food poisoning brought on by my indifference and his total inattentiveness.”

Finally Nic understood something of what prompted her older sister's moods of late.

Petie
fidgeted with the small rhinestone buttons on her pink quilted robe. “My concern over not reaching Park is very real.”

She believed her sister. Indifference, inattentiveness, concern, and not reaching her husband,
those
posed the real problem behind
Petie's
drummed-up drama over the lethal leftovers. Nic saw it now plain as the daylight streaming in through the picture window onto the faded living room rug. Too bad
Petie
didn't see it or wouldn't admit to it.

“Obviously your
concern about Park is real, but let's not play
games about what's really going on here, okay?” Nic folded her arms.

“C'mon, you two, let's not do this now.” A glint of pleading filled Collier's eyes. The baby of the family never could stand much dissention between them. “There are so many things we need to take care of.”

Collier had a point, and Nic had enough to worry about without alienating both her sisters by shooting off her mouth.

“Tell it to Nicolette. She's the one who started it.”

“Well, of course she is. She's always the one who starts it.” Collier grinned like she meant it as a joke, but underneath the jab, they all recognized the kernel of truth in her accusation.

Always the one who starts it, and always the one who finishes
it.
That was her, Nic thought. While it went against her nature to rein in her opinions and she certainly would not want to lie, Nic cleared her throat and shook her head. “I was just saying
,
that's all,
Petie
. If you're really concerned about reaching Park, make a point of calling when he just has to be home to answer.”

“
Which is what I said I needed to do, thank you.
”

She did not look Nic's way. But then she didn't have to for Nic to look right into her heart.
Petie
needed support. She needed comfort. She needed someone on her side. No matter how ridiculous the story she spun to ask for those things, Nic should have responded. They were sisters. If you couldn't count on your sisters to understand you, who on earth could you turn to?

How she wished Willa had that kind of support system. If she did, maybe the whole residential program would not be the only option. If there were a team of family members to help, maybe they could keep her home and help build the kind of future Nic longed to secure for her child.

“Come on, you two, no sulking.” Collier leaped up from the rocker. “It's Christmas, after all! Don't forget that's why we're down here.”

“It is not!” Nic clenched her jaw, her mind freshly fixed on what she must do for Willa. “We are down here to get this house ready to sell so I can take care of my daughter.”

“Maybe if you weren't so tense, you'd figure out there could be another way to take care of your daughter without selling our family home.”
Petie's
tone never even hinted at harshness.

“She's only tense because of Sam.” Collier grinned.

“Won't even let the poor man come with us to pick out a Christmas tree.”
Petie
gleefully joined the teasing.

“I never said he couldn't come with us.”

“There's a word for that kind of reaction, isn't there, Collier?”
Petie
put one finger to her cheek.

“Denial.”
Collier pronounced it with slow emphasis.

“Okay, maybe I did, but it's because we can't let ourselves get sidetracked. We are not here for Christmas; we are here for business.”

“Right.
And the whole family is supposed to just ignore the wonder and joy of the season because it doesn't fit into your plans this year?”
Petie
folded her arms.

“No.” That hardly sounded convincing, even to her. Nic wet her lips.
“No, of course not.
Let's just not go overboard.”

“
This
family?”
Collier put her hand to her chest.
“The last bastion of good taste and subtlety in the greater Bode County area and all parts north to Chicago and east to New York City?
Go overboard?”

“
Nevah
!”
Petie
cried in an accent straight off a movie set.

This was a battle she could not win. Nic knew it. Why waste her time and energy squabbling over trees and decorations and things when she had so many demands on her already? She sighed. “Okay.
All right.
One last big, sparkly, over-the-top, too-many-gifts and way, way-too-much-food blowout of a Christmas in this house.”

“The voice of reason at last.”
Collier laughed.

“But on December 26th?” Nic put her hands on her hips. “This house goes on the market.”

Saturdays were the worst for Sam. That hadn't always been so. He used to like them.
Used to relish them.
Used to consider them the calm before the storm, the quiet before the hectic, fulfilling demands of the large, energetic church he'd left behind.

Of course, in his wayward youth he'd slept away most Saturdays, only crawling out of bed or off the couch in time to launch
himself
headlong into another round of self-indulgent misbehavior.

Now the realities of his small church and doing the right thing preyed on his mind almost constantly.
Saturdays most of all.
For the first time in his life in the ministry, he had begun to worry over things he'd taken for granted before.
Attendance.
The offering.
Plumbing.

He spent far too much time, time when he should have been contemplating the needs of his flock, wondering instead if the groaning pipes would last the hour or if they would burst and recreate the great flood in the Noah's ark-themed nursery. If anyone had ever told him in seminary that he would expend so much energy tending to things like worn-out washers and clogged fixtures, he would have...

He wouldn't have changed a thing. Handling hardware had proved a far easier and more rewarding task than winning over the hard hearts of the church’s congregation. The coldness that greeted him day in and day out grew worse on Sunday when the church sat nearly empty. What had made him think he could make a difference here? Why did he even care if he did or not?

This town didn't mean anything to him. He'd had to go far, far away from this place to find real success and the greater truth of God's love. What was so important about trying to bring what he'd learned elsewhere home?

Home?
Is that what this anemic excuse for a town was to him?
His home?
Hardly.
He snorted and cinched the belt of his thick terry cloth robe more tightly around his middle. He had
on a T-shirt and sweatpants. He slept in those out of a sense of decency at having so many women in the house, even though none of them had any reason to come near his rented rooms. Still, he felt compelled to throw his robe on over his sleeping clothes. Having to take that kind of precaution in his own home, first thing Saturday morning before he'd even had a cup of coffee, only darkened his already grumpy mood.

Sam bypassed the living room where he heard the distinct buzz of intense feminine conversation. Barefoot, he padded silently through his private bathroom and out into the hallway that led to the kitchen. He only had to step lively once as he dashed past the doorway into the living room. From the fleeting looks he got from the sisters' faces, he doubted they would have noticed if he had paraded past with a drum strapped to his chest and cymbals clanging on his knees. Still he sighed in relief as he slipped by the door and his feet hit the cold kitchen floor.

Coffee.
That would do the trick. A couple of cups of good, stiff brew.
Coffee and quiet.
Time alone to think and draw on his inner strength.
That's all he asked for a few minutes this morning.

“Hi.” The small, sober voice startled the living daylights out of Sam.

“Don't do that,” he said, shutting his eyes and pressing his hand over his thundering heart.

“Sorry.” The apology came out before he'd even finished speaking. The child was that ready to accept the blame for his overreaction though she hadn't been even remotely at fault.

Instantly, Sam felt like a total heel. “No, I'm sorry, sweetie. Your sitting there took me by surprise. My mind was somewhere else.”

“That's okay. Sometimes my mommy says my mind is wandering. I don't think it's such a bad thing, but it scares her sometimes on account of it's a scary world.”

Sam had no idea what to say to that. He rubbed his fingertips back through his hair. “Yes, it can be at that. I always think that praying helps make it less scary, though.”

“Mommy prays for me every day.”

“I'm sure she does.” Only knowing this child less than twenty-four hours, Sam had already added her to his own list.

“And angels.”

He smiled. “Angels?”

“Angels to watch over me, to go before me and to guide me, to lift me up and to shelter me, and to help me find grace and gratitude in all that God has given me.”
Willa must have heard those words many times before. So many times she carried them in her heart and in her mind that sometimes might wander but already knew how to focus on what was true and right.

“And angels, for all those things,” Sam murmured.

She pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and gazed expectantly at him.

He had no idea what she wanted. Aside from children's sermons and visits to vacation Bible school, he really didn't have a lot of interaction with children.
And almost none with children who were as special as Willa.

He cocked his head to study her. She looked positively lost in the stark sun-brightened kitchen with its floor to ceiling white cupboards and bare countertops. The big table came up to just under her heart-shaped chin. Her red-and-green-checkered robe bunched where the buttons had been fit into the wrong slot. Her feet, swinging back and forth as they dangled a foot above the floor, sported one purple crocheted house shoe and one pink ballet slipper at least two sizes too big.

Her straight dark hair lay matted against one side of her head with her bangs falling forward like a tangled mop over the top of her blue glasses. He thought of how his own hair had always
been in disarray as a child, and how kind people like his teachers and even occasionally Big Hyde had helped him comb it out because his father could not be bothered to get up and help him with it.

Willa yawned, and it finally dawned on Sam that she had probably just gotten out of bed and come down here without a soul in the house even knowing she was up.

“Does your mother know you're awake?”

Willa shook her head.

He reached up into the cupboard to pull down the coffee filters and the can of special roast blend he indulged in on weekends only. “Should I go get her for you?”

Again, a soft shake of her head was the child's only answer.

With the smell of fresh grounds still in the air and the gurgle of the coffeemaker at work in the background, Sam leaned back against the counter. “I make oatmeal for breakfast during the week, but on Saturdays it's nothing but sugar-coated junk cereal. Does your mom or dad let you have that?”

“I got no daddy.”

“You mean your dad's not here?”

She shrugged and took the salt and pepper shakers in both hands and without a sound began making the pig figures dance around the table. “My mommy and I never had a daddy in our family.”

So many thoughts whizzed through his mind. No wonder Nic had avoided his questions about a husband. She never had one. But what was Willa's story? She looked maybe six or seven but with the wisdom of an old soul. Was she born that way, or had some accident or illness made her as she was? And just what was her situation?
Cerebral Palsy?
Autism?
Neither seemed quite to fit.

He wanted to understand her for Nic's sake and for his own. He wanted to know how to help them both and how to minister to them.
Though they had not asked it of him, he felt compelled to be ready if they should need him.
This was Nic's little girl, after all, and despite the fact that he had forfeited all right to care about what happened to Nicolette or any children she might have, he did care.

Admitting that conjured up new questions about why it still mattered so much, where he expected his feelings to lead, and how he thought he was even entertaining those feelings.

Sam turned and flung open the door to the shelf where the brightly colored boxes of cereal stood. The clutter of choices did not distract him from the one question that nagged him most. Where was the man who fathered Willa, and why didn't he play a role in her life—and in
Nics
?