None of them could wait for Christmas.
Earl’s story stopped short. He blinked and his gaze fell to his weathered hands. This was the hard part, the part that didn’t make sense. Earl and his family had been halfway to forever, enjoying the kind of life and love most people only dreamed of.
Bad times weren’t supposed to fall on people like Earl and Anne and Molly.
Across from him, D. J. inhaled sharply. “Something happened to them?”
“Yes.” Slowly, painfully, Earl allowed a handful of stubborn layers to join the others in a heap on the floor beside him. If he was going to tell the story, he couldn’t stop now. “Yes, something happened to them.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Earl hadn’t talked about this to anyone. Not ever. But there, with the kindly mission director listening, it was time. He drew a slow breath and let the details come.
On December 22 that year, most of their gifts had been wrapped and placed beneath the tree. Anne and Earl still had shopping to do, but Molly was adamant about going out to dinner and taking a drive to see Christmas lights. Usually the three of them waited until after Christmas to check out local displays.
Earl cast Anne a questioning glance and shrugged.
“Why not?” She grinned at their daughter. “Shopping can wait. Maybe your grandpa and grandma would like to come.”
“That’s okay.” Earl’s father grinned at them. “You young people go and have a good time.”
At six o’clock that evening they set out. The night was cool and clear; a million stars fanned out across the winter sky. They were two blocks away from home when it happened.
One moment Earl was driving his family through an intersection. They were all talking at once, pointing at lights and laughing about something Molly had said. When suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Earl saw a truck the size of a freight train barreling toward them.
“Noooo!” Earl’s piercing shout stilled the laughter just as the truck made impact. For what felt like minutes, they were surrounded by the deafening sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. Their car was spinning, flying through the air. Then, finally, it jolted to a stop, leaving a bone-chilling silence.
Earl’s legs were pinned beneath the dash. His breathing was shallow and choppy and at first he couldn’t find the wind to speak.
“Anne… Molly…” His words were the dimmest of whispers. Inch by inch, he forced himself to turn until he could see Anne beside him. Her head was hanging strangely to one side. Blood trickled from her mouth and ear. “Anne!” This time his voice shook the car. “Anne, honey, wake up!”
There was a moaning in the backseat and Earl fought the pain to twist around. “Molly? Sweetheart, are you okay?”
She was silent. Then Earl noticed something that turned his stomach. Her head wasn’t right. The entire right side was flatter than before. “Somebody, help us! Please!”
Sirens sounded in the distance and Earl heard people running toward them. A man’s voice shouted at him. “Hang on, in there. Help’ll be here any minute. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Earl wanted to shout at the man that no, it wasn’t okay. His girls were hurt. He needed to check on Anne, make sure she was breathing. But black dots clouded his vision. The man outside the car began to fade and Earl realized he was fainting.
No, he ordered himself. Not now. The girls need me. Then with a final burst of strength he reached out and took hold of Anne’s fingers. “Anne…”
It was the last word he said before blacking out. When he woke up the next day he was in a hospital, desperate to find his family. Within an hour he knew the awful truth.
Anne had died on impact, and Molly was on life support. Her brain waves were completely gone, but doctors wanted to wait. In case Earl woke up in time to say good-bye.
His own injuries were life threatening, but he insisted they wheel him in to see his daughter. He was holding her hand when her heart stopped beating, and with it, every reason Earl had to live…
Again the memories lifted.
Tears spilled from Earl’s eyes onto his old parka as he searched D. J.’s face. “I buried them the day after Christmas.”
The mission director placed his hand on Earl’s shoulder and said nothing. For a long while they stayed that way, while Earl quietly cried. “I’m sorry. It still hurts like it was yesterday.”
“Take your time.”
Earl closed his eyes and finished the story.
The night after the funeral, despite his breaking heart, Earl had opened his presents. He did so in the quiet of the night, long after his parents were asleep. Among the practical store-bought things were two gifts wrapped in white tissue paper—the symbol he and the girls had used over the years to designate the gifts that were homemade. He opened the one from Molly first.
It was a framed painting she’d worked on at school, a picture of the manger scene that was eerily similar to the one Gideon had drawn for him. Above it was scribbled this message: “Daddy… you make every Christmas beautiful.”
Earl had stared at it, run his fingers over the glassed drawing, and wept as he hadn’t since the accident. All of his hopes and dreams for the future had been caught up in that one girl. How was he supposed to live without her?
Finally, he opened the package from Anne.
Inside were the red gloves—lovingly knit with heavy wool and tiny stitches. They were lined for warmth, and Earl held them like they were made of glass. How had she found time? Another wave of tears filled his eyes and he ached for her, ached for one last chance to tell her he loved her. One last day together.
When he could summon the strength, Earl lifted the gloves and studied her handiwork and attention to detail. Sweet Anne. How careful she’d been to keep them a secret. Slowly, carefully, he buried his face in the red softness, and deep within the fibers of the wool he could smell her. Smell the woman he’d loved since he was a boy.
The woman he had lost forever.
Earl had hidden the gloves beneath his pillow. Every night after that he nestled his face against them as he fell asleep. Breathing in the smell of her, dreaming she was still there beside him.
In the weeks after the accident details began to surface. The truck had experienced brake failure. The driver had done everything he could to keep from hitting Earl’s car, but the accident was inevitable. A week later an attorney contacted Earl about a class-action lawsuit.
“The truck was owned by a multimillion-dollar company. This is the tenth accident where one of their fleet lost its brakes. Each time the brass has looked the other way and done nothing.” The man hesitated. “The company deserves to be punished.”
Earl agreed, but he was hardly interested. Over the next four months the attorney built his case against the company, carefully contacting each of the other victims and their families. Earl paid no attention; he was hurting too badly, caught up in a pain he had never experienced before. Each morning he would shower, dress, and look for work. But every step, each breath, was an effort. The tragedy of what had happened to Anne and Molly was so agonizing that at times Earl came back to his parents’ house after lunch, unable to last another hour.
Finally, in June, the suit against the truck company wrapped up. A verdict was handed down: The corporation was guilty as sin. It was ordered not to operate until a brake inspection and all necessary repairs had been performed on the entire fleet.
“What this company allowed was an abhorrent act of negligence,” the judge said at the verdict.
The judgment was more than the attorney hoped for. After everything had been divided between the plaintiffs, Earl received two million dollars for the unnecessary deaths of Anne and Molly.
With the legal victory, Earl had expected to feel relief from the constant hurt of missing his girls. Their deaths were not in vain, after all—no one else’s mother or daughter or wife would die as a result of that company’s negligence.
But there was no relief whatsoever.
When the
check for Earl’s money arrived in the mail, he drove to the bank, opened a savings account, and deposited the entire amount. He wanted nothing to do with it. The check was blood money—money bought and paid for with the lives of Anne and Molly.
That night back at his parents’ house he knew it was over.
He could no longer play the game, no longer get up each morning pretending there was a reason to live, a reason to come home at the end of the day. If not for his parents he would have bought a gun and ended his life. Certainly he wanted to die. Wanted it more than anything. But he was afraid to kill himself, afraid such a move might hurt his chances at getting into heaven.
And getting into heaven was his only hope of seeing Anne and Molly again.
But if he couldn’t kill himself, at least he could stop living. Stop pretending.
As his parents slept that night he reached under his pillow and pulled out the red gloves. He still slept with them near his face, pretending he could smell Anne within the fibers, though her gentle scent had long since faded. In the closet he found an old duffel bag and filled it with a few jeans and T-shirts, a raincoat, a pair of boots, and the red gloves. Then he opened his wallet, slipped a photograph of Anne and Molly inside, and shoved it in his pocket.
For the next hour he took a final look at the house he’d grown up in, the box of artwork Molly had made for him, the photographs that lined the walls. It was over, all of it. Earl’s injuries had healed by then, but the man he’d been had died right there on the street beside Anne and Molly.
He scribbled a note to his parents telling them not to look for him. “I can’t do this anymore,” he wrote them. “Forgive me. I love you both.”
An hour later he was at the train station and by the next morning he was halfway to Portland.
“I had planned to find a quiet place where no one knew me, sit down, and wait for death.” Earl stared out the window of the mission. “But it didn’t work that way.”
D. J.’s voice was kind. “It usually doesn’t.”
“It took me a while to get smart about the streets. They stole my wallet, my clothes, my sack. Over time I lost just about everything from my old life. But not the red gloves. Never them.” Earl shifted his gaze back to the mission director. “Until this past November. Someone found me under a tarp and took them off my hands while I slept.”
“Ah, Earl. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Earl fumbled in his pockets, his eyes locked on D. J.’s. Then he pulled out the red gloves and held them up. “These are the gloves. At least I think they are. They look… exactly the same.”
The mission director stared at them for a moment. “I don’t understand.”
“Me, either.” Earl lifted the gloves higher. “This is the gift I got from Gideon.”
Confusion spread across D. J.’s face. “The gloves your wife made?”
“I think so. They don’t have her initials, but they’re the same in every other way.” Earl let the gloves fall slowly to his lap. “That child couldn’t have possibly known what they would mean to me. I still can’t imagine where she found them. But I know this: Her gift saved my life. She made me want to live again.”
“And now? Now you want to help Gideon? Is that right?”
Earl could feel the sorrow lining his face. “That little girl loved me. For no reason at all she loved me.” He swallowed, searching for the right words. “The gift she gave—I can’t explain it but it was a miracle.”
D. J. nodded. “I have no doubt.”
“You know what she said?” Earl’s tone was filled with awe. “She told me Christmas miracles happen to those who believe.”
A smile eased the sadness in D. J.’s eyes.
“She told me about her perfect Christmas, and then she said none of that would matter if she could get a Christmas miracle.”
“That’s Gideon.”
“Well.” Earl drew a deep breath. “Sounds like Gideon could use a miracle about now.”
The mission director was choked up, touched by Earl’s story. “Your money—is it still in the bank?”
“All of it.” Earl reached down, untied his boot, and lifted the insole. From underneath he pulled out a worn bankbook and tossed it onto the desk. “I haven’t looked at it since I left home.” He leaned back. “I couldn’t bear to spend it. Not when it was Anne and Molly’s blood money. Not for anything in the world.” Earl shrugged, the pain in his soul deeper than the ocean. “Besides, what good was money with my family gone?”
“Unbelievable. I never would have guessed.”
“The point is, now I know how I can use it.”
For the next two hours the men worked out a plan. When they were finished, D. J. helped Earl find clean clothes and shoes. Before lunchtime they set out with two activities in mind.
Banking. And shopping.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gideon wasn’t getting better.
Brian hated to admit it, but the truth was obvious. Gideon was pale and weak and it seemed she grew worse by the hour. It was the day before Christmas and they were gathered in her hospital room, searching desperately for a way to make the moment feel happy.
Dustin watched television as Gideon received constant treatment. Nobody said much. Every time Brian looked at Tish she was wiping her eyes, filled with the terror that Gideon was slipping away from them.
And she was. The doctors had told them so earlier that morning. Her blood levels were not responding to the chemotherapy like they’d hoped. A transplant was critically necessary.
When Brian wasn’t leaning over Gideon, holding her hand or stroking her thin arm, he dreamed of ways he might get the money. Bizarre, outlandish ways. Like selling his organs or spending a season on a crabbing boat in the icy seas of Alaska. He’d heard on television once that a crew member could earn twenty-five thousand dollars in eleven weeks.
He wondered if he’d have time to work a season and return with the money before Gideon died. He wondered if anyone might be interested in purchasing his lung or a kidney.
He wondered if he was losing his mind.
The only good news of the day came just after two o’clock. One of Gideon’s doctors entered the room and approached her bedside. “I have a surprise for you.”
Gideon raised her eyes. She looked so frail, her body wasting away before their eyes. “I’m getting better?”
A flicker of sadness crossed the doctor’s face. “We’re working on that part.” He smiled first at Tish, then Brian. “We’ve reviewed her chart and decided she can go home this afternoon.” He looked down at Gideon again and patted her hand. “You get to be with your family for Christmas, Miss Gideon.”
Tish took a step closer to the doctor. “Does she have to come back?”
“Yes.” The doctor shot her a sympathetic look. “First thing on the twenty-sixth. A few days away won’t hurt. We’ll have a nurse stop by twice a day with her medication. But after that she needs to be back here.”
When the doctor was gone, there was silence. Then Dustin flicked off the television and popped up from his chair. “Why’s everyone so sad?” He looked around the room at each of them. “At least we’ll be together for Christmas.”
Brian forced a smile, though he was certain it didn’t reach his eyes. “Dustin’s right. If we have this time, let’s make the most of it. In fact”—he met Gideon’s eyes and winked—“let’s stop for ice cream on the way home.”
An hour later they were making their way along the hallway toward their apartment when Brian stopped a few feet from the front door. Gideon was in his arms, Tish and Dustin in front of him, but even then he could see something wasn’t right.
The door was open half an inch.
“Wait.” He set Gideon down and moved past his family. He had locked the door that morning; he was sure of it. So why was it open? Had someone broken in and torn the place up? On the day before Christmas?
Brian looked back at Tish and motioned for her to keep the kids. Then he pushed the door open a
nd slammed on the light, ready for the worst.
What he saw took his breath away. His mouth fell open as his eyes circled the living room and kitchen. How in the world… Who had done this? And how had they gotten in?
From behind him, Tish sounded impatient. “What is it, Brian? Let us see.”
He stepped back into the hallway, swept Gideon into his arms once more, and took three steps into the apartment. Tish and Dustin fell in beside him. For a moment they stood there in stunned silence.
The place had been completely transformed.
In the middle of the living room stood a towering Christmas tree laden with twinkling lights and dozens of colorful ornaments. Beneath the tree were wrapped presents piled so high they spilled over onto the matted gray carpeting. A brand-new toy fire truck was parked against one wall. Leaning against the other were four stockings stuffed with gifts and labeled with each of their names.
“Daddy?” Gideon tightened her grip around his neck and stared at him. “How did you do this?”
“I didn’t do anything, honey. Not a thing.”
“But the tree is alive and it reaches to the ceiling just… just like the one in my perfect Christmas.”
“Come on, Brian. You didn’t plan this?” Tish wandered about the room, her mouth open. “You must have. Where did all this stuff come from?”
“Santa Claus brought it!” Dustin was still frozen in place. He looked like he was afraid to blink, lest the entire scene disappear like some sort of wonderful dream.
Lined along the kitchen floor were bags of food, one after the other. Brian opened the refrigerator and found it full to overflowing. Milk and fruit and cheese and bread. And on the center shelf was a turkey twice the size of anything Tish had ever cooked.
“Hey!” Gideon shifted in his arms, and pointed to the kitchen counter. “What’s that?”