Hope's Angel

by Fifield, Rosemary

  “Well, if you had half as much to drink as my son, I can see why you might not feel well,” Mr. Fairchild said.

  “She’s not a drinker, Dad.” Greg released her hand and picked up his fork once more. “Her family has a much better handle on alcohol than this one. They don’t drink for recreation.”

  Mrs. Fairchild immediately stiffened, and her face went cold. “I hardly think that’s a fair statement, Gregory. What does that make your guest think of our family?”

  Greg slammed his fork onto the table beside his plate, and Connie jumped. “Her name is Connie, Mom, and she’s not my guest. She’s the girl I’m going to marry, so you might as well get used to using her name.”

  Mrs. Fairchild gasped, “Gregory! I don’t understand where that’s coming from!” and his father yelled, “Apologize to your mother!”

  Greg pushed back his chair and stood up. He turned to Connie, his eyes fierce with anger, and offered her his hand. “We need to go.”

  Connie stared up at him, uncertain what to do.

  “Let’s go,” Greg said to Connie once more, his eyes burning into hers.

  Connie rose to her feet and turned away from the table without looking at either of his parents.

  A chair scraped across the floor behind her, and his father bellowed, “Sit down now and apologize to your mother, or you are out of this house for good!”

  Greg slipped his arm around Connie’s back and propelled her down the length of the table toward the door. “Just keep going,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Connie’s legs were shaking; she had no idea what would happen next. She only knew that she had been raised to respect her elders, and everything about the situation felt so wrong, including the leaving. Yet submitting to his father’s abusive behavior would only vindicate it, and that didn’t feel right either.

  When they reached the sitting room door, Greg pushed it open and led her through. The two black Labs rose to their feet to greet them, but he ignored them, hurrying her through the room and out into the sunlit foyer. He grabbed their coats from the deacon’s bench where they lay, but kept moving, ushering her out the front door, into the cold outdoors, without giving her time to put on her coat.

  “I’m sorry,” he said as they stepped out into the frigid December air and headed down the stone stairs. “I’m so sorry.” He draped her coat over her shoulders, then rummaged through the pockets of the coat he was carrying over his arm, pulling out his car keys as they approached the Mustang parked in the circular driveway.

  “Greg, what are we doing?” Connie’s heart was pounding as she hurried along beside him. “We just—“

  “It was time to leave.”

  “But your dad—“

  “My dad’s had too much to drink.” He bent to open the car door for her and held her elbow until she was inside.

  Connie watched him hurry around the hood of the car and slide in beside her. “What about your mother?”

  “She’s had her share, too.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I feel bad—“

  Greg was gruff. “Well, you shouldn’t. And I’m sorry for what she said.”

  Connie turned away from him to look out the side window at the front door. Why had Mrs. Fairchild’s comment come as such a surprise? Connie knew what she did for a living.

  Greg turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear. “I asked my mother about the eugenics survey. She said it was over when she and my dad moved to Vermont. They shut it down in 1936.”

  Connie continued to stare at the house, waiting for someone to burst through the door and call them back.“Maybe UVM shut it down, but the ideas didn’t die. Social workers kept developing pedigrees on families. They just called it Children’s Aid or something. Poor people had plenty of reasons to stay afraid well into the fifties.”

  “I’m sure they did. But I don’t know what her part was.”

  Connie turned back and nodded, not wishing to pursue it further. “Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she really did help them find healthcare and stuff.”

  “Sorry you didn’t get to finish dinner.” He drove away from the curb. “One hell of a Christmas, huh?”

  Connie glanced back at the house, picturing a lot of yelling going on inside. “I wasn’t hungry. Your dad … he … gave me a speech about sowing wild oats before keeping the blood lines pure.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry.”

  Connie turned in her seat to face him. “How did you see that working, Greg—me and your family? They don’t want me here.”

  “I don’t care. We’ll never have to see them.”

  “And you’d be okay with that?”

  Greg sighed. “It’s not a coincidence that nobody else came today. ”

  “Really?”

  “I guess things got pretty ugly on Thanksgiving. We were lucky we left.”

  Connie was horrified. “Because of me?”

  “No, because that’s what happens. My father’s a prick when he drinks.”

  Connie leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Then, why did we come today?”

  Greg gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Because I’m the eternal optimist, always thinking things will be better this time.”

  Connie’s heart ached at the sadness in his voice. “Did your dad mean what he said about kicking you out of the house?”

  “For now.”

  She turned to look at him. “Has he kicked you out before?”

  Greg kept his gaze on the road. “A couple times. I just went and stayed with friends.”

  “Why do you still live there?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “That’s what you said the last time I asked.”

  “And it’s still a long story.”

  Connie turned away from him, miffed by his evasiveness. “Do you have friends you can stay with tonight?”

  “On Christmas?”

  “What about Steve and Georgianne?”

  “They’re at his parents’ house in New Hampshire. And I don’t have a key to theirs.”

  “Then come to my house,” she said, even though she had no idea how her parents would take to that idea.

  “That’ll make an impression.”

  “Well, you can’t sleep in your car.”

  Greg glanced at her. “What are your parents going to say?”

  Connie shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to be on the couch.”

  He let out a chuckle. “Wow, stop the presses. That’s a turn of events I didn’t expect.”

  Connie laughed and playfully punched his upper arm. She spent a moment openly admiring his beard. “You know, I kind of like the scruffy look you’re sporting today. Very manly.”

  “Don’t ply me with flattery. You’re not luring me off that couch.”

  They had come to her street. He parked his car behind David’s black pickup truck, and he and Connie climbed the stairs to the flat above the store. When they entered the kitchen, Angie was bringing several small wrapped gifts out of the bedroom, while Gianna piled Christmas tins and small cardboard boxes on the kitchen table. Their faces registered surprise when Greg and Connie walked through the door.

  “What are you doing here?” Gianna asked with a confused smile.

  “Uh, it’s kind of hard to explain,” Connie said. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to take Angie up north.”

  “Where’s Ma and Pa?”

  “They went to Nonna’s to help clean up. They’re going to stay there for supper, because we’ll be gone, and they weren’t expecting you.” Gianna regarded her with a frown. “Is everything okay?”

  Connie shook her head and pursed her lips. “Not really. But it is what it is. Where’s David?”

  “Taking a nap on the couch. I guess the spare bed at the rectory wasn’t very comfortable.”

  “Do you want to come along?” Angie’s face was bright with expectation as she set her colorful packages on the table. “You can come se
e my other house.”

  “Are you sure that would be okay?” Connie was intrigued by the idea but reluctant to interfere. “They’re not expecting us.”

  “They’d love it. It’s Christmas! Plus, we’re bringing food.” Angie’s smiling eyes shifted to Greg, standing behind Connie. “You want to come?”

  Connie could hear the smile in Greg’s voice as he said, “As long as I can sleep on the way up.”

  The others loaded up the station wagon while Connie changed out of her dress and heels into jeans, a black turtleneck, and a pair of boots. Greg borrowed her dad’s razor and some shaving cream, and Connie leaned against the doorframe in the bathroom to watch him shave.

  He gave her a sideways glance. “I know you said my scruff was wicked sexy, but I’ve never met these people.”

  “And I’ve never watched you shave.” Connie gave him a suggestive smile. “This is wicked sexy in itself.”

  When he finished, she moved into his arms to test the smoothness of his shave against her cheeks, then hungrily kissed his mouth. She was beginning to regret the decision to make this trip with her sisters when she and Greg could have had the house to themselves for hours.

  Somebody was honking the car horn for them. Connie reluctantly stepped out of his arms, and he smiled at her, his eyes telegraphing the same feelings she was struggling with. “We’d better go. It’s for the best. Too much temptation on a holy day,” he said.

  They locked up the house and hurried downstairs to join the others waiting in the station wagon. Connie took the center position in the backseat beside Angie, and Greg slid in. When he leaned into the corner to sleep, she snuggled up against him. He put his arm around her and pulled her close without opening his eyes.

  “Wow, there’s room back here for two more people,” Angie teased, eyeing the empty space beside her. Connie smiled as she closed her eyes. She and Greg rarely had such an opportunity, and to be that close to him for a prolonged period was an unexpected Christmas gift.

  ***

  The ride on snowy back roads took almost two hours, and darkness had closed in when Connie awoke. She was still under Greg’s arm, and as she stirred he kissed the top of her head, then helped her to sit upright. Both of them groaned like two old people over how stiff they were, and everyone in the car laughed.

  David turned down a dirt road with nothing but darkness to either side, and then, on the right, small, dim squares of light shone in the distance. As the car drew closer, the squares became the windows of a narrow, two-story house set back from the road. David turned the car onto a plowed area beside the house, his headlights shining on an old blue pickup Connie recognized as Mr. LaCroix’s.

  Everyone took boxes or tins from the back of the station wagon and followed Angie to the front of the house. It was built of chinked logs of varying diameters and sported a bright blue front door between two pairs of windows, each with a candle flickering inside a glass jar on the inside sill. A spiky wreath of pale gray pussy willow branches hung on the door, the soft, fuzzy catkins a surprising change from the usual evergreens and holly.

  “Ma mère makes those,” Angie said when she saw Connie inspecting it. “She uses willow bark for medicine. It’s got the same stuff in it as aspirin.”

  The door swung open as she was speaking, and they were face to face with Mr. LaCroix. The smile on his weathered face widened, and his dark eyes shone as his gaze traveled over the many guests at his door.

  “Joyeux Noël,” Angie said, stepping forward to kiss his cheek.

  He hugged her, then stepped back to give them all room to enter, his face glowing with delight. “Merry Christmas to all of you. Come in, come in. Marie, our daughter has brought family.”

  David gave him a bear hug, engulfing the smaller man in his arms, then introduced him to Greg, while Connie moved inside the warm house with her sisters and took a moment to look around.

  They stood in a low-ceilinged, single room that comprised the entire depth of the house and most of its width. Its honey-colored pine walls, warm in the golden glow of incandescent lamplight, were hung with dried flower wreaths and small colorful quilts. Strings of multi-colored Christmas lights traveled across the tops of the window frames on three sides of the room, giving the space a holiday feeling, even though no Christmas tree was in sight. A small black cast-iron stove against the back wall contributed warmth and the fragrance of burning wood.

  Mismatched armchairs and a sofa, each covered with a colorful blanket, formed a gathering space on the left end of the room where Mrs. LaCroix sat with a quilt of red, white, and black squares across her lap. Her eyes were bright with happiness as she extended her arms to Angie and gave her a hug and a kiss, but the unnatural puffiness of her face and her overall fragility revealed the effects of the medications she took and the ravages of her illness. Connie smiled and bent into the woman’s outstretched arms to give her a hug and a greeting, then stepped aside to let Gianna do the same.

  A wooden table surrounded by a mix of chair styles comprised the dining area to their right. Behind it, a wall made of vertical pine boards held a doorway to the kitchen. Nineteen-year-old Francis, dressed in jeans, a gray sweatshirt, and leather boots came through the doorway, a broad smile on his face. He hugged the women and shook hands with the men, then took the boxes and tins they held. Connie watched with amusement as Angie instructed her brother where to put things, sending him with Christmas presents to the floor near Mrs. LaCroix and into the kitchen with the food and cookies.

  “We waited to have our réveillon with you today,” Mr. LaCroix said as Connie and her family settled into the seating near his wife.

  Angie lowered herself to the floor beside her mother’s chair. “It’s normally a party at midnight on Christmas Eve, just like ours.”

  “Francis made the tortière.” Mrs. LaCroix’s smile indicated her pride in her son’s culinary skills. “I hope you like it.”

  David rose to his feet to help Francis in the kitchen, indicating that the others should sit and visit. Connie held Greg’s hand as they sat side-by-side on the couch, absorbed in an easy conversation with the senior LaCroixs. Connie studied them closely, aware now of their relationship to Angie, and resemblances she had never noticed before became apparent. Yet none was so startling that she would wonder why she hadn’t seen it for herself.

  Francis called them to dinner, and they squeezed in around the table meant for six, sliding folding chairs into corner spaces, laughing when their elbows collided. Mr. LaCroix led them in the saying of grace, then poured glasses of apple cider for everyone. They passed their plates to Francis who cut and served perfect wedges of the deep-dish meat pie in a flaky homemade crust.

  “It’s pork and venison plus potatoes, onions, cinnamon, and cloves. And, of course, my secret ingredients.” He handed Connie a bowl holding a pale green sauce. “Try this on it. It’s ketchup made from green tomatoes. Hope helped me put it up this fall.”

  A moment passed before his words made sense to her. Her eyes shifted to Angie. Of course. She was Hope to them. In more ways than one.

  Conversation buzzed around the table as everyone passed plates and the bowl of green ketchup. Mr. LaCroix rose to his feet and lifted his glass of cider in a toast to family and the birth of Baby Jesus that had brought them all together. Greg was smiling as he sat beside Connie, forking the delicious pie into his mouth, talking with David and Francis about hunting. She listened as Mr. LaCroix discussed wild apple trees and explained how grafting was necessary to get the variety one wanted because apples didn’t grow true from seed. Mrs. LaCroix ate little, but she was fully present, her hand resting on Angie’s forearm, her eyes shining as she looked at the people gathered around her table. She talked with Connie and Gianna about her quilting, which she continued to do when she felt well enough, and Angie proudly pointed out the small nine-square wall hanging she had recently completed, her first attempt at quilting.

  It was after ten when the two couples who were leaving reluctantly put
on their coats and said good-night. The dishes had been washed and put away, and pieces of pork pie were wrapped in wax paper for delivery to Papa and Mamma. Mrs. LaCroix had already said her good-nights and gone upstairs to bed, but Angie and her father and brother were at the door to hug everyone good-bye.

  “This was an amazing Christmas,” Angie whispered into Connie’s ear as they embraced. “Thank you. I’m so glad you came.” She stood on her toes and planted a kiss on Greg’s cheek and thanked him, as well. Connie wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking, that this wouldn’t have come about if they had stayed at his parents’ as planned.

  Greg was smiling as the four of them stepped out into the cold night air. “I’ll drive,” he said to David, holding out his hand, palm up. “It’s your turn to snuggle in the back seat.”

  David grinned and handed him the keys.

  ***

  When they reached home David said good-night and drove away in his pickup to spend the night in the church rectory once more. Greg parked the station wagon in the pickup’s space. No lights were on in the flat upstairs; Gianna had left a note explaining where they all were, and Papa and Mamma had apparently gone to bed.

  Gianna left the backseat and headed for the stairs, while Connie and Greg remained in the front seat.

  “It’ll be okay,” Connie said when Greg peered up at the dark windows with a worried look on his face. “You can sleep in Angie’s room. Gianna and I share a room. She’ll vouch for us behaving ourselves.”

  Greg didn’t look convinced. “Are you going to put a sign in the bathroom or something? I don’t want your mother screaming when she realizes there’s a strange guy in her house.”

  “You’re not that strange.” Connie gave him a teasing grin, then leaned forward to press her lips to his. “Thanks for making the trip. That was fun.” She kissed him again, savoring the feel of his mouth on hers.

  He pulled back to look at her with a frown. “Quite a difference from my house, huh?”

  Connie shook her head. “Don’t do that, Greg. You’re not responsible for what happened at your house.”