A Very Merry Christmas

  My parents told me later that they had thanked him, but were so panicked, so hysterical at seeing their daughter on the pavement awash in blood, they never asked his name.

  “It is to my everlasting shame that I did not get that young man’s name,” my father had bemoaned.

  “We searched the police reports, but they didn’t have it, either,” my mother had said. “He was your angel, Meredith. Your angel. At least you know you have one.” My father had kissed me, then my mother. “We love you so much, Meredith. How about some tea and scones. You love scones.”

  “What she needs is some of my calzone!” my father had announced. “We’re all lovers of my calzone!”

  Now I stared out into the darkness toward the cathedral. The priests had put up the lighted deer all across the lawn and a huge cross was lit in the center to celebrate the miracle of Christ’s birth.

  I took a deep breath. I needed a miracle of my own this Christmas.

  Chapter 7

  I continued to find acts for the concert.

  Maly, a Cambodian chef in town, built a magnificent gingerbread house every year for Christmas, which she displayed in the storefront window of her restaurant. She agreed to decorate one house a night, on stage, while the choir sang. We’d have a camera on her and project the images to a huge screen as she iced and decorated it, turning the gingerbread into a magical, fantastical, tasty Santa’s house.

  “Me you want at your Christmas show?” Maly asked, as we drank tea in her restaurant.

  “I sure as heck do, Maly.”

  “I honored.”

  “We’re honored.”

  We made chit chat for a while about the holidays, presents, et cetera, and then she said, her voice catching, “Meredith, my family, we come here in boats from Cambodia. First we stay in camp for one year. Hardly no food. My husband die, he sick. I put my three little sons in boat with me. First one sank. We rescued, back to camp. Second time, we in boat, we pay pirates no hurt us, boat no sink, and we come here. No war. No camp. No bombs. No scary police.” She shook her head. I did not miss the tears. “We work hard. We have restaurant. Sons go to college, all doctors. Help others. Now we ask to make Christmas house in Christmas show in Montana. Funny, life. And sad, too. That life, right? Funny, sad, happy. Yes, I happy to make Christmas house. Meredith, I thank you.”

  “Thank you, Maly. Can’t wait to see it.”

  “Ya, me too.”

  We held hands between our tea cups.

  * * *

  I found another act in my dining room when I sat down with Norm and Howard the next morning after everyone else was gone.

  “I accidentally shot at my brother in World War II,” Norm mused.

  “You did?” I asked.

  They both nodded.

  “I spent one Christmas as a prisoner of war after the Battle of the Bulge, Meredith,” Howard said. “All of us were packed in a cattle car, no windows, headed for a camp. We heard the engine of a plane, and then we were shelled. We all got down on the floor as the train kept moving.”

  “Later Howard and I compared dates and locations,” Norm said. “I was a fighter pilot, and it was me who hit his cattle car. Of course I had no idea there were people in it, much less American POWs, or the order wouldn’t have been made.” Norm’s face grew grave. “We were trying to disrupt the train lines.”

  “I became a guest of the Germans,” Howard said. “It wasn’t pleasant. See this scar? And this one? I got all of those, plus a bunch more on this old body, in the POW camp. By the time the Americans rescued me I was under a hundred pounds and ill. But I remember Christmas there.” He smiled, though the smile was tinged with sadness.

  “We sang Christmas carols. Some soldiers hummed, they were too hurt, too weak to sing. Other guys didn’t sing at all; maybe they didn’t want to remember where they weren’t. A couple sang as loud as can be. Old Petey, a kid from Arkansas, he sang the loudest. He was nineteen, told me later that he sang loud so he could hear his uncle’s voice in his own. The other loud singer was Dirk from Texas. He said he sang because he believed in hope, and Christmas is full of hope. A third guy, Paul, from Georgia, said he sang for Jesus and he sang because he was grateful. I said, ‘Why are you grateful? Look where we are. No food. No clean water. We’re prisoners.’ He said, ‘I sing because I’m still alive, thank you Jesus, that’s why, and I’m proud of us. I’m proud of the American soldiers.’ Then he hit me on the shoulder and said, ‘Howard, I’m glad you’re alive too, even though you snore like a cave man.’ Me and Paul, Norm here, we’re all still friends. We see him once a year. And every year he tells me, ‘I’m grateful to be alive, and even more grateful you two are alive, thank you Jesus and Merry Christmas. ’ You get what I’m saying, Meredith?”

  “I do, Norm, I do. And you and your brother are going to retell that story at the Christmas concert.” I wiped the tears off my face.

  “We are?”

  “Yep. To ‘Silent Night.’ No arguing.” I handed them a plate of pink divinity cookies.

  Howard took five and winked at me. “When you’re this old you stop worrying about what to eat and what not to eat.”

  Norm took six. “Delicious, Merry Meredith. My life got so much better after you moved back to Telena.”

  * * *

  Hannah found me one more act, and that was a wrap. “Do you still need more people for the concert?”

  “I do, if you have someone good.”

  “Ask Simon.”

  “Simon?” Simon, the nervous one, the one with trembling hands, five apple slices, and lots of obsessions?

  “Yes, Simon. When he moved here I introduced myself to him. His name rang a bell so I looked him up on the Internet.” Hannah looked pretty pleased with herself. “Math and music go hand in hand. Very similar.”

  “So who is he?”

  Hannah hummed through one of my favorite classical songs. “That’s who he is.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s Simon Baumgartner. Famous international violinist from Boston. Had a nervous breakdown. Quit playing violin and disappeared.”

  “And he’s reappeared here in Telena,” I mused. “Excellent. I think this concert might be what Santa ordered for him.”

  “I can hear math in his music.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “You could hear math in the wind.”

  “Actually . . .”

  * * *

  The past week or so had flashed by in a crush of work. Four of my rooms were now filled with singles or couples, and all of the guests were cheerful and easy, which doesn’t always happen. Now and then I’ll get guests who are the next worst thing to a furious Frankenstein, and somehow it is my fault they’ve made a wreck of their lives.

  One woman complained twice about my scrambled eggs. She said they were overcooked. Twice. No one ever complains about my eggs because they are spectacular. The third time she complained I cracked four eggs in a glass and slammed it down on her table. “Are those under cooked enough?” I asked.

  One man was ticked off because his wife had left him. It wasn’t difficult to see why. He ranted and raved to anyone who would listen about his lousy witch of a wife. Davis counted off and the Old Timers yelled, “Merry Meredith!” when I came out with a platter with raisins that spelled SHUT UP. The guy shut up.

  The rest of my time was filled with B and B business, concert rehearsals, my glowering at my balance sheet, and my massive sense of responsibility to the town of Telena, which was struggling; Telena needed to have a successful Christmas concert series for its economic health. It made me feel ill.

  Sarah told me, “You can’t control me, Aunt Meredith. I have free will. You’re not my mother you know. You’re my aunt. I’m an adult, and I can make my own decisions, and you’re not going to ruin my life.” Jacob later said, “How old do you have to be before you can drop out of school forever, because I’m thinking about it.”

  I was burnt through, and I was hardly sleeping.

  Except when I tho
ught of Logan.

  He plain ol’ burned me up.

  Soon it would end. Before things got out of control. I would break things off and that would be that.

  When he found his Future Wife I would move to Antarctica so as not to kickbox her face in.

  * * *

  “We’re going fishing.”

  “What, now?”

  “Now.” Logan smiled at me, then got serious. “The weather finally broke, nothing on the rods will freeze, and, honey, you’re working yourself to death. I’m tired looking at you. Let me take you fishing for a few hours. I’ve already got lunch in the car; and I bought pink cake and beer. We’re ready to go.”

  I poured him more coffee in my dining room. He was coming in three days a week for breakfast. Mary and Martha switched off waiting on him because he was, “The best tipper in Montana.”

  “I can’t, I’m too busy.” I put the coffeepot down. I desperately wanted to go. I was liquid, walking stress.

  “Come on, honey,” he said, so soft. “Let me help you. I want to help you.”

  I envisioned candy canes sticking out of his fishing vest.

  I couldn’t believe that I found myself nodding.

  * * *

  “So when did you decide to become a chef, Meredith?” Logan said as we stood in the freezing Missouri River wearing waders and fishing vests and holding the most precious objects of all: fly fishing rods. “Was there a defining moment? Something in your childhood?”

  “I wanted to be an artist, but I had no artistic talent at all. None. My father loved cooking Italian dinners, and my mother loved preparing English breakfasts. I joined in, and voila. A love of cooking was born. I think it was a combination of tomato sauce, garlic, scones, and croissants. I graduated from high school, went to college, finished in three years, then headed off to culinary school in New York and stayed.” I dropped out a hundred details I didn’t want, and couldn’t bear, to share.

  “And you loved it.”

  “Yes, I loved it. I could make food into art.” And I love fly fishing. There is something magical, if shivery cold, about winter fly fishing.

  “Your food looks like art, Meredith.”

  “Well, thank you.” I blushed at his compliment, darn it. I blushed. “But I think food can also be humorous, too, that it should warm the heart, not just the stomach.”

  “Which is why when Ming’s breakfast arrived, her sunny side up eggs and bacon formed a smile, and Torey Higadishi received three shot glasses of orange juice.”

  “One time Torey told me that he needed to see the sun three times a day to feel happy. So the orange juice is the sun from me.”

  Logan’s eyes softened. “That is unbelievably kind, Meredith.”

  “I want people to feel noticed when they’re at my B and B. I want them to laugh. I want them to enjoy their food in a place where they’re comfortable and people know their names and what they like.”

  “I’ll bet Sarah and Jacob appreciate that, too.”

  I thought of Sarah, struggling, lonely at school, furious, and Jacob, dealing with the same destructive emotions brought on by their mother, then felt that sharp swell of fury in my stomach again. “I think they do. But it takes more than food to lighten the heart of a kid in a bad place.”

  “Mind telling me about that situation? I’d like to know. In many ways I can relate to both Sarah and Jacob.”

  I cast again, hoped for a bite, then gave him the story, trying to reign in my simmering anger.

  “You gave up your life in New York to raise the kids, Meredith. That was selfless, heroic.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I hate to tell you the truth, but I wasn’t selfless about the whole thing. I wish I’d left New York with a grin, a skip, and a jump, but I would be lying to you.” The river sparkled all around us, the sky pure blue. “I liked my life there. I liked my job, the excitement. But I was lonely sometimes.” I sucked in a breath. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why not? It’s honest.”

  Because it made me too vulnerable. “I was furious with my sister; sometimes I still am. I had to change my life once before when she . . .” I slammed my mouth shut. Can’t go there. “Anyhow, I came because I love the kids dearly, and I didn’t want to raise them in New York.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “They’re . . .” I swallowed hard. “They’re fine.” I swallowed again. “Actually, they’re not doing . . . well.”

  “You’re worried, I know. Tell me about it.” He turned his full attention to me.

  Worried? Worried? I was panicked about Sarah’s behavior, her attitude, the rebelliousness. I felt sick about the poor kid being ostracized in school. She had a mother who had abandoned her, and she was being attacked in school. And Jacob? He was almost completely closed up, depressed, played piano obsessively, and never smiled. It about killed me to think of him eating alone at school, all the other kids ignoring him, or throwing rude remarks his way, his self-esteem shredded.

  “I don’t think I can talk about it. Give me a second, I’m . . . I don’t know what to do . . . I’m trying . . . Sarah is . . . Jacob he . . .” I choked back tears, as I thought of those two sweet kids. “I can’t believe I’m cry-cry-crying. . . .”

  “It’s okay, Meredith, cry all you want. Crying’s good. You’re worried about the kids. I understand. I would be, too. Tell me what’s going on. Please. I want to hear it. Maybe I can help.”

  I don’t know why, but as I made a lousy cast into the river, tears falling on my cheeks and running into my fishing vest, I took one more peek at those compassionate green eyes to make sure he truly wanted to hear this, and I burst like a human dam.

  I sobbed my way through the story, my tears landing in the freezing river, and it ended with me crying in Logan’s arms, our fishing poles held out, one arm linked around the other, fishing vest to fishing vest.

  I do not know much about parenting, but this I get: The worry one feels about one’s children who are hurting, lonely, lost, or doing dangerous things can bring even the strongest cowgirl-fly fisherwoman to her knees.

  See now. Fly fishing isn’t only about the fishing.

  * * *

  An interesting thing started to happen over the next few rehearsals.

  A woman named Liberty Hall, an attorney in Telena, decided that each rehearsal should have, in the spirit of Christmas, a potluck, and organized everyone into bringing dinner, appetizers, holiday desserts, non-alcoholic drinks, et cetera.

  So each night, we worked hard, ran rehearsal, then we had what many termed “their favorite part,” and everybody ate together.

  Liberty came up to me after dinner one night. “You know, Meredith, I have never been happier to live in Telena than I am now. I have gotten to know so many people, hear all their stories, people I never knew before, yet they’ve been my neighbors for years. I used to be lonely because I didn’t know very many people outside of work.” She smiled at me. “I’m not feeling so lonely anymore.”

  I heard the same story, one way or another, from at least ten other people.

  If I needed proof that people loved being a part of the concert, I had only to listen to the laughter at dinner, see the hugs when we left, the new friendships.

  Darned if I didn’t want to click my cowboy boots together.

  * * *

  “He blew a duck whistle at me.”

  My evening out at Barry Lynn’s bar with the Three Wise Women was off to a rolling start.

  “What do you mean he blew a duck whistle at you?” Hannah asked. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of Einstein.

  “I mean,” Katie said, “he dropped the kids off at his mom’s, got stark naked, except for his hunting hat, stood at the top of the stairs, and blew a duck whistle at me. That was his way of calling me!”

  “Do you mean,” Vicki said, pulling on her ponytail, “that your husband blew a duck whistle at you requesting. . . intimate relations?”

  “I’m saying that exactly!” Ka
tie threw her hands up. “That’s how he called me to him. Does he think that’s exciting for me? Does he think it turns me on?”

  We pondered that. A naked husband, at the top of the stairs, blowing a duck whistle at his wife so she would come up for “intimate relations.”

  “I hardly know what to say, Katie,” I said, choking on my beer as I laughed.

  “What’s the statistical probability of a man doing that again,” Hannah wondered, wiping the beer foam from her mouth. “What did you do?”

  “I did what I wanted to do!” Katie harrumphed.

  “And what was that?” I asked.

  “I stomped into the garage, stripped, pulled my camouflage pants on, hooked the suspenders over my boobs, slammed a camouflage hat with feathers over my head, grabbed my hunting gun, and yelled, ‘I’m coming for you, duck’!”

  I spit beer right out of my mouth. “What did Mel do when you came upstairs pointing a gun at him?”

  “Well, it wasn’t loaded, Meredith,” she said. “As soon as he saw me he quacked again, and we ran all over the house. He kept quacking. I kept yelling, ‘Bang, bang! I got you, duck!’”

  “And then?” Vicki prodded.

  “Well, we ended up in the kitchen. The duck laid on the table, shot, but not actually shot, I laid down my rifle, and we quacked together on the table.”

  “On the kitchen table?” Hannah asked. I could tell she was intrigued.

  “You showed that duck who’s the boss,” I said, laughing through my tears.

  “I sure did. He was one lucky duck.”

  “I’m sure.” I laughed. “Two lucky ducks.”

  “Quack, quack!” Vicki said.

  * * *

  “Okay, folks, here we go,” I said to the mob of people at rehearsal. “We have one problem. We now have a Joseph, but we still need a Mary. Who for Mary?” I asked.

  “I know,” Shawnelle Williams piped up. She was my principal when I went to high school and was now principal at Sarah’s school. “I know the perfect Mary.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Sarah.”