by Nancy Naigle
“That had to be hard. And you’re right. Sometimes people get caught up in the what instead of the why.” His voice was gentle. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Thank you.” His words were surprisingly comforting. “It was a long time ago. I was just a teenager.” She closed her eyes and took in a breath. “She died right here, in fact. In room 304.”
“Which explains why you were so distracted that first night we met. Probably brought back some feelings. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah. After all these years, it’s still hard. Maybe mostly because she died with a heart full of hope, and it didn’t do her a bit of good. I miss her all the time.”
“Do you still talk to your dad?”
“No.” She stared into the glass of milk. “Funny. I was mad at my mom for a long time for making me switch schools. I blamed her for the separation from my dad. Only when she died, I tracked him down. I found out that he was the one who left us when he found out Mom was sick. She’d been sick for a long time, and I never even knew.”
“She probably didn’t want you to worry.”
“She was so sick by the time I knew what was going on that we didn’t even have much time. And I’d been angry with her for so long. And she never said a bad word about my dad. Not one. But then, I’m not sure I ever heard her say a bad word about anyone. Mom had had no choice but to pack me up and come here to live with her sister. My aunt Ruby. We were here for over a year before she finally told me she was sick.”
“So you were here in Crystal Falls as a teenager?”
“I sure was.”
“We must have crossed paths. It’s a small town.”
“You’d think, but I doubt it. I was an angry teenager. I kept to myself.”
“That had to have been so hard for you.”
“It still is.” Why did she just tell him all of that? She never talked about her dad. “You know, we better get a move on if we’re going to put our ornaments on the community tree. I have to get Molly back to catch the bus.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
“I’d like that. Let me get Molly.”
He stood and waited as she gathered Molly from the vivid holiday display. A Christmas village amid a fluffy pile of tufted sterile cotton.
“Follow me,” he said. “I’ve got keys to the shortcut.”
He led the way through the back halls of the hospital and outside. They crossed the asphalt parking lot to the grassy median just across from the ER entrance. A whimsical fence of two-foot candy canes outlined the perimeter, with the community tree stretching nearly thirty feet into the air from the center.
“It’s a beautiful tree,” Joy said, leaning back to see the whole thing. “The bark is almost a red, and the bluish green needles look so pretty.”
“Carolina sapphire. My family has bought trees from the local farm that grows these for as many years as I can remember.”
“This one is perfect.”
“The hospital has the horticulture students from the university come out and prune and shape the tree every year. It’s good practice for them, and we get all the benefits.”
“So many people have already added their ornaments.”
Molly made a beeline to the tree, still holding the plate with their ornaments on it. Her mouth dropped wide as she touched and cherished every ornament she could reach. “So pretty.”
Joy and Ben exchanged a gentle smile.
“I’m glad you’re part of our community tree this year too,” he said.
“Do you have an ornament on the tree?”
“Of course.”
“Which one?”
He took her hand and walked her around to the back of the tree. “That one.” He pointed to a letter A about four inches tall, made of birdseed. The Andrews was written in script on a glossy white card with holly leaves and berries painted on it.
A tiny chickadee flitted from the tight branches of the tree, sending Joy back a step with a yelp.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. It just startled me.” She recovered quickly. “Where do you want to hang your ornament, Molly?”
“Right here,” Molly said.
They’d carefully strung pipe cleaners through the hole in the top of each cookie so they could hang them on the tree. “Here you go.” She delicately held the stocking that Molly had decorated with a row of red hot hearts and her name in blue frosting along the top.
Joy had brushed a thin layer of watered-down confectioners’ sugar atop her star-shaped cookie, then dusted shiny sky blue sprinkles along the very edge of each point. A row of rainbow jimmies etched a stitchlike look around the whole cookie, and dragées in the shape of the letter H graced the center in shiny silver. The shiny silver pipe cleaner was curved into an S. She handed it to Molly to hang on the tree.
“Where should we put this one?”
“Wherever you’d like. When Ruby comes home, we’ll bring her out here to show it to her.”
“She will love it.” Molly walked around the tree with a serious look. Finally she stopped and placed the star between a gingerbread-man-shaped birdseed ornament and a bright red Santa hat. “It looks pretty right here next to mine.”
Ben said, “It sure does. Thanks, Molly.”
“We better get going,” Joy said. “Ben, it was good to see you again.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as Molly reached for Joy’s hand.
Ben finally cleared his throat. “How long are you going to be in town?”
“I don’t know. I guess that depends on how long Ruby needs me.”
“Do you have a boyfriend waiting on you back home?”
Joy almost stubbed the toe of her boot as she walked. That had come from left field. “Not really. No. I don’t.”
“Divorced?”
“Never been married.”
The slight eyebrow raise didn’t get past her. “What?” She hated that reaction from people. “What did that look mean? It’s not like any woman never married by the age of thirty is going to be an old maid. Market research shows that women have just as good a chance of being married at thirty-five as at the age of thirty. And by the way, I am not yet thirty.”
“Well, that explains it,” he said.
“Explains what?”
“Why I didn’t remember you from school. You’re younger than me. Nothing wrong with never having been married.”
She’d wondered the same thing. “What about you? Single?”
“Divorced.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Are you wondering why we split up?”
“It’s really none of my business.”
“Good. I don’t really like to talk about it,” he said. “We’ve got the obligatory Match.com questions out of the way and have agreed to work together. How about I stop by tonight around seven, unless you’d like to grab dinner?”
“I’ll eat early. I’ve got a lot to do. Seven works fine, and that will leave me time to get some things done tonight before you get there.”
“Okay. I’m looking forward to it.” He opened the passenger door of Joy’s wrecked Prius for Molly. “Have a good day at school, Molly.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ben.”
She should have offered to fix something for his dinner, but then that seemed a little forward, and why take a chance on sending him the wrong message?
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Joy pushed her hand into her coat pocket and handed over a thumb drive. “I put my plan for Ruby’s decorations on this. We can discuss it tonight when you come by.”
“I’ll take a look, and I’ll bring the paperwork Ashley had on the Extreme Gingerbread Bake-off. It’s really a matter of setting up the part for the community to vote. That’s scheduled to take place this Sunday. We don’t have much time. At least all the information from previous years is in the file too.”
“Great. No need to re-create the wheel.”
Joy had always thought she’d have a c
areer instead of a family, because it was no secret that children required a lot of attention. Visions of Margie and her hellions popped into her head. But Molly had shown her a different side of the equation.
Had she been so focused on her work that she hadn’t even taken the time to figure out what she wanted besides a career? She didn’t have any hobbies. But then she didn’t have the downtime to engage in them. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d turned on the television in her apartment. And she paid a pretty penny for the high-resolution curved screen, not to mention the cable bill each month.
She glanced over at Molly. Hard to believe that a child like Molly would do anything but add to your life.
Chapter Twenty
Joy was glad she’d thought to put Molly’s things in the car just in case they were running late, because no sooner did she pull into the driveway and take the key from the ignition than the bus pulled up in front of Ruby’s house.
Joy got out, waving to the bus driver as she helped Molly get her things out of the backseat. “Have a fun day.”
Molly slipped her backpack over her shoulder and picked up her lunch bag. “I already did. Thank you for so much fun. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, you will.” And Joy felt something inside that she didn’t expect as she watched Molly run for the bus with her bunny lunch bag swinging from her hand. She was looking forward to Molly’s coming in the morning.
She looked so tiny as she stretched to climb the stairs, her knee practically touching her chest as she boarded.
Joy understood some of the comments Renee had made about watching her kids on their first day of school. They’d sounded so absurd at the time, but when Molly plopped into the fourth row of the bus and pressed her tiny face to the window and waved, Joy felt her chest tighten in a way it never had before.
“Bye, sweetie,” she said quietly. The bus driver slapped the door closed, and the gears ground before they finally took off with a jerk.
Joy went straight to the barn and fed the animals. Ben had moved the tree that the goats had eaten off to the side. How had she been so stupid? It wasn’t like it was an unknown fact that goats would eat anything, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind that the well-fed critters would bother the tree, since it had been placed on the other side of the fence. She grimaced at the sight of the naked quarter of the tree. At least they hadn’t been able to reach the top.
Ben was right, they probably could camouflage the accident with a healthy dose of some big ornaments and extra garland. And since she’d already decided to do an updated take on paper garland this year for the tree in the living room, she’d have pretty good ammunition in hand.
Joy fed Molly the Bunny last. “Hey, Molly. Are you as sweet as your namesake?” The bunny stomped, nibbling from the bowl, and came to the front of the cage. Joy cautiously reached her finger through the chicken wire to scratch the bunny’s ear, then bravely opened the door and lifted her out. The bunny nuzzled into Joy’s arms. “You like that, don’t you?” She paced the screened-in porch with Molly in her arms, then eased her back into her cage.
Joy went inside and showered. As she dried her hair, she noticed she’d missed a text earlier. Two hours ago, Ruby had texted her a picture of her breakfast with a note that said, Please bring hot dogs! I need real food.
She texted Ruby back with a smiley face. Since when were hot dogs considered real food? But who was Joy to argue? She made it to the rehab center by lunchtime with the hot dogs in hand.
As she strolled through the lobby, Joy eyed the decorations with new interest. Coming up with the theme for Ruby’s Christmas décor had turned the chore into more fun than she could have imagined. The only problem was figuring out how she could get it all done in the time she had left. Especially with the trip back to D.C. for the office gala just around the corner.
Ruby’s nurse Carolyn was in the hall just outside Ruby’s room. “Hot dogs again?”
“I got a text request this morning. Kind of hard to sneak anything with chili and onions in.”
“Yeah, I could smell them from ten feet away. That aunt of yours is a pistol. She had Johnny bring doughnuts for her this morning.”
“She sent me a pitiful picture of a breakfast. Not one single doughnut in sight.”
“She’s tricky. Loves her junk food, but she’s healthy, so it’s working for her.”
“With all the preservatives she eats, she’s liable to live to be two hundred!”
“Don’t laugh. She’s healthier than all of us put together. We should be so lucky as to be in her shoes at her age.”
“Come have a hot dog with us. I bought extras.”
Carolyn came around the desk. “I’ll go grab a couple sodas from the fridge for us.”
Joy could hear Ruby talking from her room. No surprise she had company. That woman made friends everywhere she went. Only when she walked into the room, it was just Ruby sitting in bed with her leg propped up, talking on her cell phone like she’d had one forever.
Ruby flipped her hand in the air in a wave and a just-a-minute gesture.
Joy rolled the table over to Ruby’s bed, positioned it across her lap, and laid the box of hot dogs in the center of it. Carolyn came in with three pint-sized cans of ginger ale.
“My favorite,” mouthed Ruby. “Shirley, I’m gonna have to let you go, darling. I’ve got hot dogs and ginger ale here. You know I can’t let those just sit.” Ruby ended the call and placed the phone next to her hot dog tray.
“How’s Shirley?” Joy asked, and bit into a chili dog.
“Not as good as me. Thank you so much. I was having such a craving.”
“I brought dessert too. Although rumor has it, you may already have had your share of sweets first thing this morning.”
Ruby glanced in Carolyn’s direction. “There’s no limit on sweets. Did you bring me cookies?”
“Yes, ma’am. Figured you better test them out and be sure I am holding up your tradition.”
“You are the best niece ever.”
She knew that was about as far from the truth as could be, but she hoped she could turn that around going forward. Not just for Ruby. But for Molly too. If some women could make time for career and children, certainly she could fit in a little family time and fun with people she cared about. Somehow.
After they ate lunch, Carolyn excused herself to do her afternoon rounds.
“I loved that picture of you and Molly last night,” Ruby said. “You two looked like you were having so much fun.”
“It was an evening of adventure, for sure. But yes. We did have fun.”
“Thank you so much. That little angel deserves fun. Her mother—she’s so young, bless her heart—is trying to keep Molly’s life on an even keel, but she’s been so sick. And Molly is a smart girl. She knows. I don’t know how Ginny is keeping things going. I tried to get them to move in with me, but she wouldn’t do it.”
“Her mother is sick? Is it cancer?”
“She’s had some complications. I haven’t even asked what all, because you know it really doesn’t matter exactly what’s wrong. Her husband ran off, and she came to this town with no one at her side. And she’s sick. Just that they need help is enough. Right?”
Joy sucked in a breath. She hated the thought of Molly going through something so similar to her own tragic experience. And Molly was so much younger than Joy had been when her mom got sick. “She’s a wonderful little girl.”
“She is.” Ruby sniffled and shook her head as if pushing the negative aside. “Let’s talk about something happy. How are the decorations going?”
“I’ve sorted through the inventory of boxes. Goodness gracious, you have a ton of ornaments.”
“I know. It’s a little on the crazy side, but I always end up adding some new things every year. I feel like it keeps things fresh-looking, mixing the old and the new.”
“You definitely have plenty of both, and I’m afraid I’m adding more to the collection this year, a
lthough I am reusing a lot of the stuff you already have. I was so excited when I suddenly figured out the theme.”
“What’s the theme?” Ruby’s eyebrows sprang up.
Joy loved seeing that excitement in her aunt’s eyes. “I want to surprise you.”
“But—”
“Please? And if it makes you feel any better, Ben is going to help me.”
“Shirley didn’t mention that.” Ruby looked relieved.
“She probably hasn’t heard yet. We struck a deal last night.” That quirky smile that Aunt Ruby got when she was up to something and the twinkle in her eye let Joy know the conclusions her dear aunt was already jumping to.
“Really?” said Aunt Ruby.
“You can get that sparkle out of your eye right now. This is strictly out of necessity. His volunteer backed out of helping with the Extreme Gingerbread Bake-off, so we made a trade. I’m going to help him finish the final details on that event, since that’s my strong suit, and in exchange he’ll help with the decorating. We’re just working smart.”
“It sounds like a perfect swap to me. You’ll make that event the best it’s ever been.”
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t have entered that. I’ve never even heard you mention it.”
“It’s not just cookies, it’s actually building houses. Heck, last year someone built a whole village out of gingerbread and edibles. That’s way more sit-in-one-place kind of work than this old girl has any interest in. You know me. I like being out and about.”
“True.” But even so, Joy thought it would be a fun project. Maybe next year. And maybe she and Ruby could partner with Molly and Ginny on the project.