“Don’t spend Christmas with God,” she whispered to Claire. “Spend it with me.”
❧
Mike held the gnarled hand and gazed into his grandmother’s eyes, which opened and closed irregularly. “Grandma, go to the hospital.”
Claire shook her head. “I’m staying here. I’m around the people I know. Sweet, for us here at Golden Meadows, death isn’t quite the scary ogre it is for you young folks. It’s not wearing a big black cape and reeking of the grave. It’s simply how we get from this life to the next. Kind of like a bus.”
He laughed. “Only you, Grandma, would come up with that. Death is like a bus. But this bus isn’t yours. Yours is waaaaaay across town.”
She patted his arm. “When my bus comes, Honey, I’m hopping on. Destination: Promised Land!”
“Plus it’s almost Christmas,” he reminded her. “You know how much you love Christmas. You wouldn’t want to miss that, now would you?”
“Christmas! That reminds me. Help me sit up, Sweet.”
“Oh, Grandma, do you think you should—”
“Hush your mouth and help me. I’d hope by now you’d know enough to listen to your elders. I’m not going to run a marathon. I just want to sit up.” Her china-blue eyes twinkled weakly.
He gently lifted her thin shoulders and helped her edge up to a sitting position. “Good?”
“Super. Now, you have to get Abbey out here. I’ve got her present, you see. She never did pick it up.” Claire leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “She’s a bit absent-minded, I’m afraid.”
Mike smiled at that. “I suspect she likes coming out here to see you more than she lets on, and that present is just an excuse.”
“Do you think so?” Claire seemed very pleased.
“By the way, a gentleman named Albert Caldwell asked me to relay his concern.”
His grandmother sat up straighter and patted her puff of white hair. “He did? Did he say anything else?”
“We—”
A knock at the door interrupted them. It was the doctor who had checked on Claire earlier.
“Sweet, do you mind for just one minute?” Claire asked. “I’d like to talk to Dr. James for a moment alone.”
Mike hesitated, but the doctor nodded and said, “Go ahead and wait in the lobby. I’ll stop by before I leave and give you an update.”
“Then you can come back up and see me. But if you can find me a piece of chocolate, that’d be nice,” Claire said. Then, as if suddenly tired, she sighed. It was the sigh that worried Mike. His grandmother wasn’t a sigher.
He did the only thing he knew to do: he prayed. God, make her all right. If she needs to go, I’ll try to understand. But I love her, and I want her with me a little while longer. I need her.
This prayer came with a postscript that totally surprised him: And Abbey needs her too.
❧
Dr. James joined him in the lobby and, after updating the other residents on Claire’s condition, invited Mike into the Fireside Lounge. Most of the chairs were filled, and their arrival created a curious stir, but the two men managed to find a fairly secluded spot.
“I’ll tell you what I know,” the doctor began, “which is that I don’t know. She seems to be as healthy as a horse, although, of course, the horse is eighty-two years old. She seems to have good moments and bad moments, but her mind is sharp.”
“That’s true,” Mike agreed. “What concerns me is that she seems to be willing to let go so easily. She’s not fighting any of it.”
“In most patients, that would be a worry,” the doctor said, “but with Claire, I see it more as a natural acceptance. She’s certainly not hurrying toward death.”
“Not racing to catch her bus,” Mike murmured.
“Excuse me?” Dr. James was clearly confused.
“Just vintage Claire,” Mike said.
❧
Abbey’s pacing had slowed down, simply because her legs were getting tired. She hadn’t heard anything more from either the mall or from Mike. How could all her worries come together like this on one single day. . .and just before Christmas too?
She stared at the phone, her arms clutched across her chest. If only she could will the phone to ring!
As if by telepathy, it did just that.
She lifted the receiver, dreading the mall manager’s drone. But instead it was Mike.
“The doctor checked on her again, and they’re going to keep her here at Golden Meadows tonight. If her condition worsens, they’ll move her to the hospital pretty much whether she wants them to or not. The hospital is less than a block away, and for now she’s comfortable in her own room. They can monitor her there for the time being.”
Abbey breathed a grateful sigh. “It sounds like she’s going to be fine.”
“I’m still being cautious. She can still use our prayers.”
She paused. “I prayed for her.”
There was a long silence. Abbey wished she could see his face to know how he was reacting. Then he said, simply, “Thank you. By the way, she wants to see you. She still has your present.”
“Oh, I forgot! I’m getting as loopy as Aunt Luellen. But I’m not going to be able to get out until I get ahold of someone to plow me out. The snow fairies didn’t come in and dig out my car or my driveway.”
Mike promised to come by the next day and either get her car out or give her a ride to Golden Meadows, then to work.
“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” he reminded her.
sixteen
Abbey awoke to the sound of a snowplow outside her window. She leaped off the couch where she’d fallen asleep and stumbled to the front door. She opened it a crack. Mike was out there, a blade attached to the front of his four-wheel drive vehicle. He waved at her, and she wiggled her fingers back at him before retreating into the bathroom to pull herself together.
One look in the mirror confirmed her worst suspicions. She looked horrible. One side of her face was wrinkled where she’d slept on it, and her eyes were puffy and swollen. She hoped that Mike wouldn’t hurry with his plowing outside. Maybe he’d go slowly and give her the necessary time to make herself presentable. Nobody, she reasoned as she splashed water on her face, deserved to see her looking the way she did when she first woke up. It was enough to scare a bear back into hibernation.
One side of her hair bent straight up, and no amount of combing would make it settle down. In desperation, she clipped a barrette in it. It didn’t look very good, but this was no time for vanity. She wanted to get to Golden Meadows and see how Claire was doing.
She’d caught only a glimpse of Mike’s face, but it had been enough to know that the news from the retirement home must have been good. Plus, he wouldn’t have stopped to plow out her driveway if his grandmother was still gravely ill.
She had just pulled on a red sweater when he knocked on the door.
“Thank you so much,” she said as she let him in. “How’s Claire?”
He smiled. “Much better but still weak. She’s holding her own, and I think we’ll have her around to tell us how to live our lives for quite awhile.”
Our lives. The words had a glorious ring to them.
“Are you ready to go?” Mike was wrapping his muffler around his neck.
She gulped down a final splash of coffee. “Ready.”
It was odd, she thought as she rode to Golden Meadows with him, how much everything about her had changed. Just a month ago she would have done anything to avoid going to the retirement home. Now she couldn’t wait to get out there.
And Mike. He had changed her in ways she wasn’t yet ready to explore. What was especially strange, she mused, was that she was still changing, and it was a wonderful sensation, like a butterfly must feel when it finally emerges from its long cocooned sleep.
Perhaps she was just caught up in a generally good mood. It was the day after a storm, the sun was shining, it was Christmas Eve morning, and Claire was doing better.
Mike’s car was
already warm, and Abbey’s lack of sleep began to catch up with her on the drive to Golden Meadows.
He glanced over and grinned as she yawned. “Big night?”
“I couldn’t sleep, worrying about Claire, so I decided to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. I just bought it the other day, and I still hadn’t seen it all the way through.”
“So what did you think?”
“A bit predictable.”
“Really?” His eyebrows arched in surprise.
“But sometimes predictable is good, very good.” Her smile threatened to wobble out of control as she added, “Last night I would have taken predictable.”
“No kidding. I was so scared about Grandma. I must have talked God’s ear off. I couldn’t stop praying.” He pulled into the parking lot of the retirement home. “Well, here we are.”
He turned off the car engine and sat, his hands still on the steering wheel. “Can you give me a minute here? I need to get a little strength before I go in.”
Abbey reached over and touched his arm. “Please, pray aloud.”
“Dearest Father, thank You for another morning, for a blessed morning, as we approach Your Son’s birth. Abbey and I ask that You keep Grandma in Your healing hands. We love this woman.” He paused. “Amen.”
“I’m not very good at praying out loud,” he confessed as he helped Abbey out of the vehicle. “I know what I’m saying in my heart, but when I say the words out loud, it sometimes seems too little.”
“I’m sure God listens to both your heart and your lips,” Abbey said.
Mike’s quick smile told her how much he appreciated her comment.
They were mobbed as soon as they opened the front door of Golden Meadows.
“How’s she doing, Sweet?”
“Tell her I’ve been praying!”
“She’ll pull through. She’s a strong one.”
“A good Christian woman.”
“That Norwegian blood, it’s going to keep her going, that’s for sure.”
Mike laughed as their voices assailed him. “I’m going to go up and see her, and I’ll tell her you’re all thinking of her and praying for her.”
Claire’s eyes were shut when they entered her room, but they flew open as if spring-loaded. “Sweet! Abbey!”
“Merry Christmas, Grandma,” Mike said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. A little on the woozy side, so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on the ice-skating. Remember, Sweet, how we used to go ice-skating on Christmas Eve? The moonlight on the pond made it look like we were skating on a huge diamond.”
Mike laughed. “I’d almost forgotten about that! We’d pretend that the diamond belonged to us, and we’d decide what we were going to buy with the money we’d get when we sold it.”
Claire turned her bright blue eyes toward Abbey. “What would you buy?”
“Skating lessons, to start with. I’m afraid I’m probably the only Minnesotan who’s a total klutz on the ice.”
The elderly woman beamed happily at her. “When I met Arthur, I could have skated circles around any Olympic ice-skater, but I pretended I didn’t know how, just so I could hold his hand. Silly fool, he fell for it. He couldn’t skate for beans, but I sure did like to hold his hand.”
A beeper sounded. Both women looked at Mike, who had the grace to be abashed about the interruption. “Sorry. I got this pager, but I never thought anybody would ever page me on it. Grandma, can I borrow your phone? It’s the store.”
After a quick conversation, he hung up the phone and turned to them. “I’ve got to run. The cash register won’t start up. Abbey. . . ?”
“Oh, no.” Claire looked as disappointed as a child who’d just lost out on candy. “I wanted to watch Abbey open her present from Luellen.”
Abbey looked at Claire, at the forlorn expression on her face, and made a decision: “I’ll stay. I can take a cab back.”
Claire beamed happily. “Good.”
Mike hugged his grandmother and promised to be back later. Then he left them alone together.
“Abbey, Dear, I know you need to get to work, especially with this being Christmas Eve and all, so I won’t keep you long. It’s just that I’m so anxious to find out what Luellen gave you.” Claire wiggled with barely-subdued enthusiasm.
At that moment, a health-care aide knocked on the door and entered, pushing a metal cart covered with a white linen napkin. “Claire, I have some breakfast for you. It’s your favorite—French toast. I knew you had guests, so I brought some extra.”
Claire’s eyes lit up at the sight of the French toast, but she glanced at the Christmas present. She was clearly torn between finding out what was in the package from Aunt Luellen and having the French toast, so Abbey resolved the issue for her. “I’d be glad to join you for breakfast. We can open the package when we’ve eaten.”
Abbey was amazed at how hungry she was, and she mentioned it to Claire, apologizing for gulping down her meal.
“Young people don’t eat enough anyway,” Claire said. “Everybody worries about being thin, although I don’t know why. What’s the point of dieting all the time? Es-pecially when you can’t have chocolate. I love chocolate.”
Abbey smiled. Claire was really a dear.
“I know you have to get back to your store, Abbey, but I really do want to see what Luellen sent you. She always sends such interesting gifts.” Claire motioned toward the tiny tree. “It’s over there. Could you get it for me, please?”
The package was wrapped in gaudy green foil sprin-kled with golden stars. “I wonder if this paper came from Brazil.”
“Chile, Dear. Luellen’s in Chile. Open it so I can see what it is!”
Abbey pulled the paper off the box. Inside was an elegant leather-bound pocket calendar. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed as she examined the burgundy, tooled leather. “Look, Claire, there’s even a spot for one of those teeny electronic gizmo things that does everything but park your car!”
As she handed it to Claire, a piece of paper fell out. “Of course! It just wouldn’t be a gift from Aunt Luellen without a note.”
“What does it say?” Claire asked expectantly.
“Wow. This is short for Aunt Luellen. It just says, ‘As you plan your days ahead,’ and then ‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.’”
“Ah.” Claire nodded her head as if that explained it all. “From the Psalms.”
“That’s the same one that was in—” Abbey said, stopping before she could spoil the surprise of Claire’s slippers, which remained unopened under the Christmas tree. “But why—” And before she could finish the question, she answered it.
Because Claire, whose days were limited, looked forward, while she, who had her whole life ahead of her, planned only by an hourly schedule at work. The Lord, the one that Mike spoke of so easily, existed for her too, and He gave her each day as fresh and new and bright as each day that He gave to Claire.
The same God made them all. The same God. This was why Mike and Claire were so happy—they were rejoicing in each day that the Lord had given them. It didn’t matter if she had a thousand days. . .or one. They were all gifts.
The iron bars that had held her heart imprisoned fell away. She was free, totally free now to love. . .and to be loved. An aura of happiness and well-being surrounded her, too new and fragile to be analyzed or explained. She knew what she had to do. She had to tell Mike.
“Can I borrow your phone, Claire?”
Just exactly what she was going to say to him, she had no idea. She just knew she wanted him to be with her right now, to be at her side as she explored this wonderful sense of freedom.
But Mike wasn’t at his store. The employee who answered the phone said that after Mike unjammed the cash register, he had run over to the church to drop off some toys he was donating for the Christmas Eve service. So Abbey kissed Claire goodbye with a promise to come back later and fairly flew down the hall
to the lobby.
Too bad she didn’t have her car with her. She could have zipped right over there, but instead she was forced to wait for a taxi.
And wait she did. She watched the clock over the door of the lobby as the minutes slowly ticked by. Selma assured her, when Abbey called every five minutes, that the store was doing fine. Both Selma and Brianna were on duty and wouldn’t need Abbey there until noon.
Nadine, the desk clerk, emerged from the office with a young woman at her side. “Miss Jensen!” the teen-ager exclaimed.
Her face was familiar, but it took Abbey a minute to realize where she’d seen her before.
“I’m with the Jeremiah Group. Remember, you came out and talked to us?” She stuck out her hand awkwardly and said, “I’m Mona, by the way.”
“Mona, it’s good to see you again,” Abbey said. “Do you work here?”
“I do now,” the young woman declared. “Something you said got to me, and I had a talk with the career counselor with the Jeremiah Group, and bingo. Here I am. I want to be a nurse, I think.”
“That’s great! Nursing is a wonderful, noble career.”
“I have you to thank for it too,” Mona added shyly, her eyes darting down to study her shoes.
Warmth surrounded Abbey’s heart. “That’s so sweet,” she said. “Thank you for saying that. You know, I wasn’t too sure that anything I said that evening had an impact at all.”
“It wasn’t anything you said. It was what you wore.”
“Excuse me?” Abbey couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Oh, not that it was gross or anything. It just made me realize that I didn’t want a job where I had to dress up everyday like that. So when I thought about what I did want to wear, I always saw myself in a nurse’s uniform. I figured, hey, nobody’s going to come to my door and hand me one. So I decided to go out and get it myself. And this is where I’m starting. I’ve even signed up at the university to start on my degree.”
Abbey was overwhelmed. She remembered Mike’s words: “Who knows, you may very well have touched someone’s heart here today in a way you can’t know.” And in turn, today, that someone had touched her heart.
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