The Christmas Sisters (19 page)

“My sister, the spy,” Nic muttered.

“Actually I showed her how to do it. It wasn't hard, really, since they share an account with two different addresses. We just had to keep trying until we figured out his password.” Collier had the good taste not to sound boastful.

“That hardly qualifies as a challenge.” Nic laughed. “Let me guess—his number from his glory days in football?”

“The year he captained the team when they almost took
allstate
?”
Sam ventured, feeling only a tiny bit guilty at playing along.

“Yes and yes, with his college fraternity nickname in between.”
Petie
held up both hands. “I don't know whether I feel worse that I did this, or that in doing it I confirmed my greatest fears.”

Nic was off the couch and beside her sister in a flash. She put her arm around
Petie's
slumped shoulders. “It doesn't confirm anything. Not a thing.”

“Oh yes, it does.” She turned enough to face her sister in profile. “It confirms to me what I've suspected for far too long now. After all these years, I can no longer deny where my husband's priorities lie—with himself and himself alone.”

In a heartbeat, Collier joined the others. They stood silhouetted against the yellow light from the kitchen, framed in the large, arching doorway.

Sam wished he knew what to say or do to help. Or maybe he just wished he knew a way to become a part of it all. He had never known this kind of family kinship and caring. He didn't pretend to understand the kind of love that moved from quarrels to conversation to commiseration as fast as the need arose. But he wanted to know it. All his life he had wanted that kind of bond with someone, to build that kind of family for himself. He had
come
the closest with Nic and her family but had messed that up horribly.

Now more than ever the blind selfishness and fear that had guided his choices that long-ago New Year's haunted him. If not for that, he might be a part of this family now. And he might be of more help. “
Petie
, if there is anything I can do—”

A sniffle answered him. The girls moved apart.

“No.” Her voice was thick and hoarse.
“No, but thank you, Sam.
Just talking has made me feel better, and let's face it...none of this really means anything.”

“It could all be very innocent,” Sam assured her.

“I sure do hope so.” She smiled at him.

“Everything is going to look a whole lot better in the light of day.” It was a lame promise at best, Sam knew. Yet, looking at these sisters, he couldn't help but believe it. They had each other; they had family and home, faith and hope. No matter what came their way they could handle it, couldn't they?

Thirteen

This just looks awful!” Nic kept her voice low and her head down as she practically went slinking along behind Aunt Bert into the third pew from the front. She hated to leave the first two pews empty but told herself that maybe having her whole family front and center would throw Sam off. Besides, only the goody-goodies and women with new hats they wanted to make sure everybody saw sat in the front pew.

“Where is everybody?”
Petie
slid in behind Nic.

Collier, then Nan, Willa, and Fran rounded out the row. Willa had insisted on sitting with her doting great-aunts. Nic knew that move had as much to do with the fact that they would feed her pink peppermints from their huge pocketbooks all service long as it did that Nic would expect Willa to sit still and behave. She leaned out to send a warning glance at her already fidgeting child. Willa grinned back at her, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel storing nuts for winter and a stomach-medicine pink on her teeth. Nic smiled at the sweet child then sighed and made a quick survey of the rest of what could hardly be called a crowd.

Across the aisle, a family from the cottages sat. Nic did not know their names. She would not have known they lived in the old cottages if Aunt Bert had not specifically told them when they walked in to “sit on the side opposite that family from the cottages.” She had not said it with any prejudice against the people dressed in not quite their Sunday best clothes that Nic could discern. They seemed nice, to look at them. The woman pressed a bundled baby to her shoulder while the man flipped through the hymnal, jiggling one leg up and down.

A row behind them sat the Stern family. An aptly named household of serious-faced people who had spent many years as missionaries before settling in Persuasion where Mr. and Mrs. Stern pretty much ran the high school by teaching and taking on every extracurricular activity they could manage. Despite their sometimes off-putting expressions, they were some of the nicest, most generous, most faithful people Nic had ever known. It did her heart good to know they supported Sam and his effort to rebuild the church that had once been the center of the community.

Behind Nic and her family, Mrs. King and her daughter scooted to the center of their pew. The pair who ran the town's lone beauty parlor sat down demurely, their posture perfect and their hairdos right out of the latest issue of
Modern Hair and Beauty
—the only reading material besides the Bible and current religious tracts they kept in their small salon.

Two generations of the Freeman family took up both back rows. A couple of older folks that Nic did not know rounded out the sparse congregation.

“Surely there are more people than this attending church?”
Petie
nodded to the people across the aisle.

“Maybe they are late getting out of Sunday school.” Collier craned her neck looking around.

“Not this late.” Nic flicked her younger sister's arm to remind her not to gawk.

“They haven't had regular services here in a long, long time. Could be they found church homes in
Cordy
or
Fayton
or Gilbertville.”
Petie
settled in as if she'd hit the reason on the head and any further speculation was unwarranted.

“Don't kid yourself. We saw all the cars parked down at
Dewi's
.” Nic glanced over the bulletin. “That lot's fuller this Sunday morning than it was that New Year's they brought in the live dance band.”

“The Twelve Tunes,”
Petie
murmured.

“What?”

“The name of that band.
It was the Twelve Tunes. I remember because Park and I walked over there that evening after Scott and Jessica drifted off to sleep.”

“Were they good? The band, not Scott and Jessica,” Collier asked.

“Let's just say their name over-exaggerated their repertoire.”
Petie
rolled her eyes then her expression softened. “But Park and I sure had a wonderful time.”

“See, you do feel better toward him this morning, don't you?” Collier wriggled in her seat, all smug and satisfied.

“What was I thinking? There has to be a logical explanation for his behavior.”
Petie
ran her hand over the church bulletin thoughtfully then grinned at her sisters and added, “Park isn't the kind to do anything crazy or rash. We're talking about a man whose idea of going hog-wild is wearing jockey shorts with a pattern on them when it's not even Saturday night!”

Nic and Collier giggled at the apt description.

“
Shh
.” Aunt Bert put her finger in front of her lips so as not to smear her coral lipstick. “You girls behave yourself during church. You are not too big to get a pew pinch.”

A pew pinch was the Dorsey family's favorite form of church discipline. The adults, who always placed themselves on either side of a child, scooted in closer, then closer until said child could scarcely move a muscle. Nic looked at Aunt Bert with her ample attitude on one side and
Petie
with her pent-up emotions over Nic's bad behavior last night on the other and decided not to risk it. “As soon as the service starts, I'll behave and so will everyone else. We want to set a good example, and I can't wait to see Sam in action.”

“In action?”
Petie
clucked her tongue. “Honey, he's preaching a sermon in the All Souls church, not blowing away bad guys in some blockbuster movie.”

The long, low creak of the back door swinging open made every head in the place turn. Aunt Lula waddled in on her grandson's arm with her daughter following dutifully behind.

Nic gave a wave to her cousin, who pretended not to see as that small segment of the family walked right on past to the very first pew.

“What's that about?” Nic whispered to Aunt Bert. “Gone all front pew on us, have they?
And Aunt Lula not even with a new hat to show off for it.”

“It's your cousin's doing.” Fran practically hissed.

Nan hurried to finish the story in a hushed and haughty voice, “She drives over from
Cordy
to take Lula to services once a month. I reckon she marches them right to the front of the church so everybody sees she's done her duty.”

Nic stifled a grin. “Now who needs a pew pinch?”

Bert snorted. “I love my sister and my sister's children, but sometimes...”

“I hear you on that,” Nic muttered.

“You tell it, Aunt Bert,”
Petie
added.

“Uh-huh,” Collier lent her agreement.

“You know she'll convince Lula to go off to her place for the holidays rather than bring her brood over to be with the rest of the family.” Bert's large, soft body rose then
slumped
a little as she heaved a hard sigh. “'Course I'm not one to talk, what with my young ones trading off spending either Thanksgiving or Christmas at home every other year.”

“They have to take their in-laws into account.”
Petie
reached over Nic to pat Bert's age-spotted hand resting on the skirt of her navy blue polyester dress. “With Park's parents living here until they passed and Collier and Nic not married, we don't have that problem.”

Nic stiffened. Though she never came out and said it, it remained pretty clear that
Petie
enjoyed her personal brand of superiority in
lording
her married status over her sisters. But with them in church and her marriage potentially crumbling, Nic decided now was not the time to pick a fight about it.

“When's this going to start? We've been sitting here for more than ten minutes.” Collier leaned past
Petie
to ask Nic.

Both sisters gazed at her expectantly.

“How would I know?” Nic adjusted her shoulders and tugged at the neckline of her dark green velvet dress. She'd intended to wear this dress to Christmas Eve services. But this morning as she started getting ready, it just seemed the right thing to do to put on her very best for when she heard Sam preach for the first time.

The altar looked beautiful, decked in fresh greenery and the colors of the season. The old brass candlesticks gleamed as if newly polished. The wood of the organ, benches, altar, and pulpit glowed with a new coat of wax, obviously the result of hours of elbow grease and patience. It both did Nic's heart good to see it like this and weighed down her spirit to think how few others in town were reaping the benefits of Sam's loving work.

She inched closer to Aunt Bert to ask in the woman's ear, “Where is everybody? What's the holdup?”

Bert spoke softly but not in a whisper, so anyone else in the church listening intently could have heard her explanation. “I think Big Hyde went down to
Dewi's
to see if anyone could be persuaded to give the church a chance.”

“What's with all those cars there on Sunday morning anyway?” Collier asked.

Bert shrugged.”Well, you know, used to be we'd have a traveling preacher in once a month and got so a bunch of the
menfolks
drove their wives and families in, dropped '
em
off at the church, then went to
Dewi's
to drink coffee and chew the fat.”

“Okay, I can see that. But there aren't any wives and families dropped off here today. The men just drive into town to meet there out of habit?” Nic asked.

“More out of spite than habit,” Fran chimed in. Followed quickly by Nan, “When Sam showed up, it made a lot of people pretty unhappy.”

“Because of his reputation as a kid?”
Collier glanced around, as if maybe she shouldn’t be bringing that up in the church.

“Yes, and because of where he came from and how his father acted.
Because he reminds some of them, like Lee
Radwell
, where they came from.”
Bert shook her head. “I think most of them go there because they aren't
ready
to accept Sam, not because they won't
ever
accept him. It's a small town with small-town ways. Sometimes a person has to prove his sincerity to win folks over, and that can take time.”

Nic could only nod to that. If she said what she really thought, how she had experienced that same attitude when got turned up pregnant and unmarried and how nearly nine years later many people still didn’t seem ready to accept her she might have earned herself a pew pinch for sure.