The Christmas Sisters (31 page)

“The gossip about us, the cruel things people might say about and to Willa.” He filled in what she had left unsaid.

“Sam, how can I stay here and raise her in a town where someone will always look at her as Sam and Nic's illegitimate daughter? And that's the nicest of it, I'm sure.”

“We talked about forgiveness not wiping away consequences, Nic.”

“That's easier to face when it's not your child we're talking about.”

“What if it is?”

“What?”

“My child we are talking about?”

“Legally she is my child. Your name is not on the birth certificate.”

“Since when did a name on a birth certificate make any man a real father? That comes from here, Nic.” He put his hand to his chest. “I know it's not the same way you feel about her. Sure, my connection cannot be as deep or as strong as yours yet, but I do love that little girl.”

“I know you do.”

“And I understand your drive to protect her. But you can't
pack
her up in shredded newspapers, put her in a ballet slipper shoe box, and tape the lid down tight to keep anything bad from ever happening to her.”

It touched her to hear him conjure up the image of the box that housed Willa's precious snowbird ornament, even if he used it to make her confront her futile actions.

“Maybe you are a wise man after all, Sam.” She swept her hand along the back of the pew.

“If you stop to think it over, you will see that running away from Persuasion is not the answer.” He took her hand in his and pulled her around so that she faced him. “You said it yourself. There are enough good people in town to make this the right choice for raising Willa in a safe, nurturing environment.”

“But if Willa and I don't leave, things may get very hard on you.”

“Don't worry about me. I have a backup plan.” He put his hand on hers on the back of the pew and met her gaze in the dimming light of the sanctuary.

“Sam?” Something about the way he said it gave her heart an anxious flutter. Or maybe that was his touch. She couldn’t allow herself to sort it out
now,
she had to ask, “What have you got in mind?”

Before he could answer, the door at the back swung open.

“Sorry to interrupt, Nic.”
Petie
stood in the doorway clutching her winter coat tight around her body.
“Hi, Sam.
Sorry about this, but Nic promised she'd come with me when the time came, and well, it's time.”

“Time for what?”
He asked Nic, but his eyes stayed trained on
Petie
.

“You'll see.”
Petie
motioned for them to follow her. “You can come, too, but we have to hurry. Time's running out.”

Tw
enty-Two

“What are we doing? Where are we going?” Sam put his folded arms on the back of the front seat of
Petie's
car.

“Over to the old Bode County High football field.”
Petie
made a wide turn toward what was now Bode County Middle School but had once been the high school.

“The
old
one?
From when we went there?”
He sounded like that was a thousand years ago. Well, in some ways, he supposed, it might as well have been. Still, why would anyone go out to a football field abandoned nearly a decade ago? “What are you up to,
Petie
?”

“I told you she wrote Parker an e-mail.” Nic hung on to her seat belt as the car went sliding into the straight stretch that led to the darkened field.
“Slow down,
Petie
!
Parker will either be there to meet you or he won't. Your wrecking the car on the way over won't improve the odds one iota.”

“Be there?” Sam squinted to make out the outline of the battered scoreboard coming up on their left.
“Why would he be there and not at the house?”

“Because that's what
Petie
asked in her e-mail.”
Nic relaxed as the car pulled to a stop by the lone raft of metal bleachers.

“Okay, we're a little early.”
Petie
turned off the engine then the car lights and scanned the area around them as she spoke. Edginess glittered in her eyes. She sat with one hand on the wheel and the other on the back of the seat, like someone ready to move in either direction at a moment's notice. “Let me get you up to speed. I'd like your opinion on this anyway.”

He decided to keep to himself any comment on the value of asking for his opinion
after
she'd already gone ahead with her plan.

“I know that Nic or Collier or Aunt Bert or...possibly the mailman has filled you in on my situation with Parker, about his administrative assistant, that is.”

“Yes.”

“After I had a while to think on that, and on what you had said about my not adapting all that well to this empty nest business, everything just sort of came together. All at once like an image coming in clean and sharp when you finally find the right focus on a camera, you know what I mean?”

“Actually, I do,” he said, thinking of his own new plan to make things right.

“And it dawned on me that I stood to lose my husband, and not to some other woman. She was incidental, not personally significant at all. Right place right time sort of thing.”

“More like wrong place wrong time, if you ask me,” Nic muttered. “
Which seems to have suited her plans quite nicely, too.
”

“Yes, she was in the wrong to go after my husband, Nic. I'll grant you that. My point is
,
she is neither the issue nor the problem here. If you don't take care of your house, let support beams rot, the roof fall in, and the very foundation crack and crumble, you can't blame some storm that comes along for knocking the whole thing down. You've got to take responsibility for your part in it all.”

Sam put his hand on Nic's shoulder. “Funny thing, your sister and I just had a talk about responsibility for things that go awry in our lives.”

Through the windshield a thousand tiny stars littered the night sky. The town lay quiet around them with only a few Christmas lights still glowing here and there. Sam checked his watch. It was almost ten o'clock. “What time did you ask Parker to meet you here?”

“He should show up any minute now.”
Petie
chewed her lower lip and pinched the top button of her closed coat between her thumb and forefinger. “In my note I confessed everything, how I'd checked his e-mail and knew about his...about how confused and unhappy he is. Then I did the only thing I had left to do, offered him the only thing I still had to offer.”

“Which was?”

“My heart.”
Her tear-filled eyes met his. “My whole heart, not just the bit left over after I divvied up the pieces between the kids, my family, and the part I held back out of fear over growing older and things changing.”

“Oh,
Petie
, after all the things you've told us about Park lately, what if—”

Sam gripped Nic's arm to keep her from voicing any doubts. If it all fell apart, he knew she would not want even the inkling of an I-told-you-so to stand between her and her sister.

“I told him how much I love him, how much he has always meant to me. I let him know what I should have been saying to him all along over all these years. He has always been my hero. He was in those days on the football field at homecoming. He still is each night when he drags in from work dead tired and sometimes grumpy but
home
.”

“That's really great,
Petie
. It had to mean a lot to him.”

“I guess we'll soon see. I told him if he wanted to rekindle the relationship we knew back when it was just the two of us, to meet me here on the field at ten.” She clicked the key in the ignition over a few notches making only the lights on the dash come on.

Sam checked his watch. He hoped against hope that he would find the car clock running fast and could tell
Petie
it was not really fifteen minutes after the hour already.

“He could be running late.” Nic moved her hand to her sister's shoulder.

“Held up by what?
Traffic?”
Petie
stared straight ahead as if she thought the answer lay out there on the dead grass of the empty field. “It was a foolish idea, wasn't it?”

“No.” Sam and Nic spoke at the same time, though the joining of their voices did not strengthen their weak replies with greater confidence.

“Don't patronize me. It was dumb. To think one e-mail could make up for at least a year of letting things slip away. He told the kids he might not even come for Christmas. That's how bad things have gotten. Why did I think my one letter could...
”

She sighed. Or had she stifled a sob? Sitting behind her, Sam couldn't tell for sure, and before he could move closer to comfort her, she cranked the key in the ignition. The engine growled to life. She flicked on the car lights.

Nic's hand jolted out toward the steering wheel. “
Petie
, you can't drive when you're this...oh, my word!”

“Well, I'll be!” Sam sat back in the seat, blinking against the sudden bursts of brightness as one by one the stadium's huge overhead lights hummed then sprang to life.

Petie
cut the engine and flung open her car door. She scrambled to stand by her seat, hanging onto the open door with one hand and shading her eyes with the other. She peered over the car's roof toward the bleachers.
“Park?
Parker
Sipes
, are you out there?”

“I'd almost given up on you coming,
darlin
'.” All those years up north had not put a dent in Parker's low, lazy drawl.

“I been sitting here in the dark since before ten,” she called back.

Laughter answered her. “Guess that's a fine metaphor for us lately, isn't it? Two people right next to each other, both completely in the dark about what the other one needs or wants.”

“Oh, Parker, I love you!”

“I love you, too, sweet thing. And I have missed you more than I ever thought possible.” He started toward the car, and as he passed from the shadow where he had stood to the brilliant light, it became clear he was wearing his old Pirates football jersey.

“You stay right where you are!”
Petie
held up her hand. “I'm coming to you.”

“How 'bout you meet me halfway?”

Petie
hopped to the ground and began working open the buttons on her coat as she bent down to grin at Nic, then Sam. “He came!

“I'm so glad for you both.” Nic scooted over to the driver's seat,
then
reached up to give her sister a quick kiss on the cheek. “We'll take your car back to the house and see you there...well, we'll see you when we see you.”

“Thanks.”
Petie
gave Nic a wink, then pulled her coat off to show her old cheerleader's uniform.

Nic probably had something to say about that, but
Petie
never gave her the chance.
Wham!
The door slammed shut and
Petie
was gone in a blur of box pleats and
bouncelessly
perfect hair.

“You going to sit in the backseat and let me drive you home like a chauffeur?”

“Hey, I don't want to ruin their special moment with the distraction of me getting out and in again.” He leaned back like a man of luxury. “Just take me home, driver.”

“You mean take you to Aunt Bert's.” She backed the car out.

“No, got to go back to get my things.
Don't think even Aunt Bert could stand the scandal of the preacher moving into her guest room with nary a piece of luggage nor a stitch of nightclothes.”

Nic laughed. “There'd be buzzing at
Dewi's
for sure.”

“Besides, I'd like to tell Willa good night before I go. I kind of got used to our having breakfasts together.” Even though his banishment would not last forever, it tugged at Sam's heart to realize he would not see the child's bright face first thing in the morning. “Do you think she'll still be awake?”

“I hope not, but given
it's
so close to Christmas and so much is going on, she might not have fallen asleep right away.” She pulled to a stop at an unlighted corner,
then
twisted her head around to speak to him.
“Awake or asleep.
No harm in both of us going in to check on her, if you don't mind my company.”

“I'd like that, Nic. I'd like it very much.”

“She's sleeping but we could sneak in just to take a peek if you want.” Nic left Willa's bedroom door open just a sliver behind her as she spoke to Sam, waiting in the hall.