The others in the Martha and Mary Circle were busy discussing Milly and Joe’s move. A low buzz filled the room as speculation arose as to who would assume the director’s role for the Christmas program. Finding someone, anyone, at this late date would be difficult.
“Sally couldn’t possibly do it,” Ruth Darling was telling Joanne. “She’s started back to college.”
“Oh, dear, you’re right.”
“What about Lillian Munson?”
“She and Larry have already made vacation plans for the holidays,” someone responded.
Harriett waited until the possibilities were exhausted and a pregnant pause followed. “I know who could do it,” she said. Every eye turned to her. She waited until she had the group’s attention. This was almost as good as if she were volunteering herself. “My niece.”
“Jayne?”
“I’ll talk to her myself,” Harriett promised. “I’m sure she’d love the opportunity to step in at the last minute like this. Jayne’s the type of woman who thrives on a challenge.”
“But I thought she just started a new job.” Ruth, of all people, looked skeptically toward Harriett.
“That shouldn’t be any problem,” Harriett returned confidently. “I know my niece. She’s going to leap at the chance to help out like this. She’s a lot like me, you know. A lot like me.”
Chapter 5
Some folks wear their halos much too tight.
—Mrs. Miracle
“You did what?”
Reba Maxwell watched as her friend Jayne Preston vaulted upright out of her chair, sending it shooting backward into the filing cabinet. Jayne’s face reflected her outrage.
“Aunt Harriett, how could you possibly volunteer me?…” She clamped her mouth shut. Apparently the news didn’t get better, because Jayne leaned against the poster of Mickey Mouse, arms extended, inviting everyone who entered the Way to Go Travel Agency to explore Disney World.
Reba had heard the stories about Jayne’s aunt from the time she’d hired her latest employee. Apparently Auntie was a holier-than-thou type. Personally, Reba got a chuckle hearing about Jayne’s infamous aunt. She felt more at home attending church services when she realized there were others beside herself whose lives weren’t in shipshape order. According to Jayne, her aunt Harriett had been a thorn in her side most of her life. Reba could hardly wait to hear what the woman had done this time.
Reba had hired Jayne a few months back. She knew her from church, but only by sight, not by name. Her own attendance had been sporadic at best, although she enjoyed Pastor Lovelace’s sermons.
After breaking off the relationship with her sister, Reba had avoided church. She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to attend at all. Habit, she suspected. Her mother faithfully observed the Lord’s day, and both Reba and her sister had tagged along. While in high school, Reba had gotten involved in the church youth group and played on the church volleyball team. The summer between high school and college she’d served as a camp counselor, and she remembered those times fondly.
As an adult, she found herself feeling restless and bored Sunday mornings, so she’d begun to stop by the local community church. She didn’t go often. Every time she was tempted to become more involved, the pastor would preach some stirring message about forgiveness. It stopped her cold.
Few people understood that some wrongs could never be forgiven. Or righted. This was a sermon she didn’t want to hear. A message she chose to ignore. It’d taken her the better part of four months to return after one such sermon.
Even at that she’d come to recognize a few people, Jayne being one of them. She’d hired the young mother because she was a familiar face, someone she knew and wanted to know better.
“I can’t believe it,” Jayne cried as she replaced the telephone receiver. She wrapped one arm around her middle as if protecting herself. “Aunt Harriett’s done it again.” She slapped her side with her free hand.
“What’s she up to this time?”
“Without consulting me, without so much as asking, she volunteered me to take over the job of coordinator for the Christmas program. Milly Waters was doing it, but apparently Joe’s gotten transferred to Oregon. With the move and everything, Milly had to resign.”
“So good ol’ Jayne’s willing to step in?”
Jayne plopped herself down on her chair once again. “Not this time. I can’t, Reba. Surely you realize that. Steve’s working overtime every night, and no one realizes that when Steve works overtime so do I. The girls miss their father and don’t understand why he’s gone so much. I’ve been having discipline problems with them. And now my lovely, interfering aunt assumes that I’ll take on the pressure of organizing and producing a Christmas pageant. I refuse to be emotionally blackmailed. Not this time!”
“You don’t need to convince me.”
“You don’t know my aunt Harriett.” Jayne wiped the hair off her forehead. “She’s like a pit bull. I’ve never seen anything like it. She gets hold of an idea and won’t let go. She’s going to needle away at me, push all my buttons, and remind me of everything she’s ever done for me, and before I know how it happened I’ll give in.”
“Will you really?” Reba was more sympathetic than she sounded. In a number of ways Jayne’s aunt Harriett reminded her of her own mother. Ever since her falling-out with Vicki—although that was putting it mildly—Reba’s mother had hounded her to mend fences with her sister. Like Jayne’s aunt Harriett, Joan Maxwell didn’t give up easily, either.
Jayne glanced anxiously toward Reba. “Come to church with me on Sunday, will you?”
“Me?” If Jayne couldn’t dissuade good ol’ Aunt Harriett, it was unlikely Reba would do a better job.
“Steve won’t be able to come—he’s worked every Sunday for the last month, and Aunt Harriett is sure to corner me, especially with Steve not there. She has a way of getting to me.”
“And you want me there to ward her off?”
“No…well, yes. You don’t know my aunt Harriett. Before I can help it, she’ll have me backed up against a wall.”
Reba hesitated. “Maybe deep down you’re secretly dying to take over the Christmas pageant.”
Jayne mocked her with an abrupt laugh. “Read my lips. I refuse to do this just because my aunt Harriett thinks I should.” Her eyes softened and she looked imploringly at Reba. “You’ll come, won’t you?”
Reba didn’t refuse. This could prove to be downright entertaining. Besides, she’d like to formally meet Harriett. “I’ll be there.”
“Don’t let me down,” Jayne pleaded.
“I wouldn’t think of it.” Smiling to herself, Reba returned to the task at hand.
The phone pealed again, and since her other two employees were on their lunch break, and Jayne remained shaken after the confrontation with her aunt, Reba answered it herself. “Way to Go Travel.”
“Hello, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Mom.” So Reba was due to face her own nemesis. It must be the day for it, she reflected.
“I hate to pester you at the office. You’re not busy, are you?”
She opened her mouth to say that she was in the middle of something important. Her mother didn’t need to know it was merely alphabetizing her Rolodex cards. She wasn’t given the chance.
“I promise to only keep you a moment.”
“Mom…”
“It’s about Christmas.”
“Haven’t we already been through this?”
“No,” her mother denied. “Sweetheart, it’s less than a month away.”
Her mother held true to course: hurt, anger, guilt, in that precise order. It astonished Reba how the routine didn’t waver. Year after year, battle after battle.
Reba replaced the telephone receiver and released a pent-up sigh.
“Your mother?” Jayne asked.
She nodded. A part of her wanted to explain what had happened, but she bit her tongue. Few people truly understood, and deep down she feared Jayne would be
like all the rest. She didn’t want advice, didn’t want to hear that it would be far wiser to settle her differences with Vicki. Nor was she seeking pity. All she wanted was for someone to recognize that she’d been wronged.
“I need to run some errands,” she announced suddenly. “Will you be all right by yourself?” What Reba really needed was a few minutes alone to compose herself.
“Sure,” Jayne assured her, although they both knew it wasn’t true. Office procedure stated that no employee should be left alone to deal with both the phone and the foot traffic.
“I’ll be back shortly,” Reba promised on her way out the door.
“Take however long you need.”
Sunday morning Reba arrived for the worship service ten minutes early, knowing Jayne would be waiting anxiously for her. She stood inside the vestibule as the organ music filled the small sanctuary.
She didn’t have long to wait. Jayne, with her two daughters in tow, arrived shortly.
“Thank goodness you’re here.”
“Have you met up with Aunt Harriet?”
“Not yet. I managed to escape her just now in the hallway outside the girls’ Sunday school classroom. I pretended not to hear her.”
“Mom, can I sit with Becky?” Seven-year-old Suzie tugged at Jayne’s sleeve.
“Even my daughter’s looking for a way of avoiding my aunt,” Jayne whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
“Can I, Mom?”
“All right, but no talking, understand?”
Suzie was off like a shot.
“Let’s take a seat,” Jayne urged, glancing over her shoulder. She accepted a bulletin from one of the deaconesses who acted as a greeter and slithered up the side aisle, seeking, Reba assumed, the one spot in the entire church where her aunt wasn’t likely to see her.
Not that Jayne had much chance of escaping the inevitable, Reba suspected.
“Oh, good,” Jayne muttered after they were seated. Cindy sat between them on the hard wooden pew.
“What?” Reba whispered.
“Aunt Harriett’s playing the organ.”
Reba’s gaze sought out the middle-aged woman sitting at the organ. She didn’t mean to smile, but she would have been able to pick out Jayne’s aunt Harriett from a police lineup. The woman wore a dress that seemed to suggest anything fashionable must surely be a sin. Her glasses rode down on her nose so far, they threatened to glide right off. Her pinched lips made her look as if it required a substantial effort to smile.
“Do you see her?” Jayne asked, leaning her head close to Reba’s.
“Shh…” Six-year-old Cindy pressed her finger to her lips and glared accusingly at the two adults.
Smiling to herself, Reba straightened and focused her attention straight ahead. She’d come for the express purpose of lending her friend moral support, but she was glad she’d come. The music, even if played by Aunt Harriett, was wonderful.
An older woman entered the church, a round portly soul, grandmotherly and kind looking. She paused, her gaze gentle yet focused as she looked squarely in Reba’s direction and smiled as if she’d known Reba her entire life. The directness of the stare caught her unaware. The older woman’s eyes brightened, and she nodded as if acknowledging someone.
Reba supposed her face was new and the woman was making an effort to welcome her. She responded with a smile.
To puzzle her further, the woman glanced pointedly over her shoulder at a man with two small children at his side. Reba’s gaze followed the woman’s.
It was him. Him. The man she’d seen so often at the grocery outside the strip mall. The very one who’d captured her attention weeks earlier. The one she found herself looking for day after day. The one who seemed as needy as she was herself. Another lost soul in a world full of the walking wounded.
“Who’s that?” she asked, gripping Jayne’s sleeve in the same urgent manner in which her young daughter had earlier.
“Who?” Jayne asked, tilting her head closer to Reba’s.
“The man with the children.”
“That’s Judd and Jason Webster,” Cindy supplied, drawing daisies on the church bulletin. “They’re in my Sunday school class. They’re twins.”
“He’s married, then?” Reba’s heart sank with the realization.
Jayne looked to her daughter.
Cindy shook her head. “Their mommy died in a car accident a long time ago. They don’t even remember what she looks like.”
“Do you know his name?”
Cindy nodded. Her grin spread from ear to ear; obviously she was pleased to be the center of attention, the one with all the answers. “That’s Mr. Webster, their dad.”
Chapter 6
Some marriages are made in heaven, but they all have to be maintained on earth.
—Mrs. Miracle
Sharon Palmer’s marriage was dying. A long, slow, painful death. She sat on the edge of her mattress and brushed her fingers through the thick tangles in her dark, rich hair.
She’d slept far later than normal, but she didn’t feel rested. A part of her longed to crawl back into bed, bury her head under a pillow, and weep. She wasn’t sure why she should feel this way. Then again, she did know. Jerry.
Her gaze drifted to the rumpled half of the other side of the bed. She’d slept next to the same man for nearly forty years. That should account for something. It was a sad commentary that she could have lived with Jerry all this time and come to the sudden realization that she no longer loved him. No, that was too harsh. Of course she loved Jerry. She’d loved him from the moment she’d first seen him as a college freshman. So brash and handsome. Her heart had pounded like a ramrod against her youthful breast at the mere sight of him. In the last three decades together they’d borne, raised, and educated three children.
And buried one.
When did this unhappiness, this discontent, start? she wondered. Sharon tried to trace the path of her dissatisfaction, but no clear answer came to her.
After Pamela’s death, she guessed. Sharon’s entire world had been tossed upside-down with the loss of their only daughter. Then the twins had come to live with her and Jerry. Having the babies with them had helped ease the shock and pain. With two toddlers underfoot, Sharon hadn’t had time to grieve or dwell on her loss. Her day had been absorbed with the care and feeding of her grandchildren. The twins had helped Jerry deal with Pamela’s death as well.
When they’d first heard the horrible news, they’d wept in each other’s arms. Clinging to one another had helped them through the terrible dark weeks that followed. Soon afterward, however, Jerry had grown introspective and sullen; but then the children had come to live with them and that had all changed. With Judd and Jason around he was soon his old self again. Both patient and indulgent with the kids, Jerry had been wonderful. And not only with the twins, but with her as well. Then, as time progressed, all that had subtly changed.
Just recently her husband had retired. They’d talked about traveling, playing golf, developing other interests. It had all sounded so good. Sleeping in every morning, staying up late. Chasing each other around the house like newlyweds.
Only none of those things had come to pass. Jerry had retired, and once again their well-organized life had taken a sharp turn for the unexpected.
Sharon had believed that once the twins returned to their father everything would right itself again, but that hadn’t been the case. Whatever was wrong between her and her husband had intensified in the months since Judd and Jason had gone back to live with Seth.
“It’s about time you were awake.” Her husband paused in the doorway leading to their bedroom. Looking at him, Sharon reflected that even now, in his early sixties, Jerry was a fine figure of a man. Although his hair had receded from his forehead, it was a thick mixture of white and gray. He remained fit and routinely played eighteen holes of golf with his friends. Several of Sharon’s friends envied her outright and told her she was fortunate to have such an attractive, active husband.
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“I thought you might be tempted to stay in bed all morning.” He didn’t need to tell her he disapproved of her sleeping in: the message came across loud and clear. His gaze rested briefly on the clock next to the bed. “It’s eight-thirty already. I made my own breakfast.”
This too was a not-so-subtle accusation. For more years than she wanted to count, she’d cooked Jerry’s breakfast. Even when she’d held down a forty-hour-a-week job of her own, she’d taken the time to see that he left the house with a warm meal in his stomach.
“You sick or something?” he pressed.
“No.”
“How late did you stay up, anyway?”
“Around eleven or so. Not late.” They rarely went to bed at the same time these days. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love. Months ago, she realized sadly. But then they were both over sixty, and a decrease in sexual activity was to be expected. At least that was what she told herself.
“Did you look over those travel brochures?”
“Yes.” She stood and walked toward her closet. Jerry had suggested a cruise sometime after the first of the year. It had sounded good, in theory. She envisioned visiting exotic locations, shopping in the Far East. The Orient had always intrigued her. But Jerry wanted none of that. He’d decided early on that if they were going to cruise, it would be through the Panama Canal.
“Well,” he said with a bite of impatience, “which cruise line did you decide on?”
She turned around and glared at her husband. This was the big compromise. He decided where they would tour and she was given the opportunity to choose which cruise line. “I don’t care. They all look the same to me. You decide.”
Jerry scowled at her.
Sharon could see that her answer didn’t please him, but that didn’t concern her, either. It didn’t matter to her which cruise ship they booked. Not when she had no desire to spend thousands of dollars to visit a destination that had never appealed to her.