“Mona, good luck on your new career. I know you’ll be an outstanding nurse.” She couldn’t resist adding, “And you’ll look smashing in a nurse’s uniform.”
Mona left with Nadine, and Abbey was left alone to wait for the cab. What a day this had been! Truly it was one to rejoice in!
While she waited, she prayed and rejoiced and turned her newfound knowledge over and over in her mind. At last the cab arrived, and Abbey decided to have the driver take her directly to the Word of Faith Community Church to save time.
The small church looked like Christmas itself, with glistening white snow drifted around the brick walls. The steeple sparkled in the morning sunlight, and the cross at the top of the spire pointed straight to heaven.
Mike was arranging gift-wrapped packages around a small tree in the narthex. He smiled when he saw Abbey. “How does it look?” he asked, stepping back to look at his handiwork.
“A pile of Christmas presents could never look bad,” she said.
“You’ve definitely been with Grandma,” he said. “Her Christmas spirit has been rubbing off on you! What happened to your humbug disposition, Scrooge?”
“It’s gone. There’s. . .something else there instead.”
“Wow, that’s a change. Cool!”
“That’s not the only thing that’s changed,” she said, suddenly shy.
He stopped and stared at her, a gaily-wrapped package dangling from his fingers, forgotten for the moment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m different. I mean that all the pieces fell into place. They’ve been there, bit by bit, but this morning it all came together. This is the day that the Lord has made, you know? Every day is the day. Every day is, all by itself, the most tremendous gift we have.” She rubbed her forehead. “Am I making any sense?”
“Oh, yes,” he said softly. “You’re making a lot of sense.”
“Good, because I want to talk about it, but I don’t know exactly what to say. This Christianity thing needs some kind of manual.”
“It has one. It’s called the Bible.”
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“I think I do,” he said softly. “At least I hope I do.”
He took her hand and looked into her eyes. “I have prayed for this moment for a long time, almost hoped against hope that this would be the one prayer that God would grant. And He has blessed me beyond belief. This is my Christmas gift from Him, knowing that you are His.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke, until Mike broke the silence. “Would you like to go into the sanctuary with me?”
She nodded, and he guided her into the darkened sanctuary, with only the light from the stained glass windows to illuminate it. “I love that this room is called the sanctuary. I think of all it means—a haven, a safe place, a refuge—and I know that I’m in His presence.”
They stood together, absorbing the atmosphere. “When I’m here,” Mike continued, “the rest of the world falls into the background. I can focus on Him. It’s a special place, beyond explanation. God is very real to me, Abbey, very real. I can’t imagine trying to live without Him—or wanting to.”
There, with the scent of the Christmas tree in the narthex, the wreaths by the coat racks, and the candles on the altar, Abbey thought of the little Baby who was born so long ago and yet had been born again two thousand years later in her own heart. She thought of His death and resurrection and knew, in that moment, that He lived in her heart. She gave her life to God, and her heart sang the wonders of the first birth long ago. . .and of the birth that had just happened in her.
❧
Mike watched her face as she was transformed. He had prayed for this. He knew that this was God’s plan, and he was but a part of the plan.
I don’t ask for much, God, he began, then almost laughed. That wasn’t true. He’d already asked for Claire’s recovery only slightly more than an hour ago. Okay, I usually don’t ask for much, he revised his prayer. But if I could have one more thing. Just one more. . .
He paused before proceeding. Was he asking too much? Would God reject his plea outright?
Abbey looked at him, her eyes glowing, and he knew he had to continue.
Please, God, let her love me.
seventeen
Abbey stared at Mike. Could it be true? Was what she was seeing in his eyes real—or was it just a mirror of her own?
Without the prison walls around her heart, she could see so much more. Had she always loved him, or had it just happened? As she put out her hand, she realized it didn’t matter. Either way, she loved him.
The words were extraordinarily simple. She loved him. And, possibly, just possibly, he loved her too.
She felt absolutely liberated by the thought.
“Excuse me.” A voice echoed in the empty sanctuary from behind them. “Mike, the store just called. The cash register is jammed up again.”
The magic hovered around them a moment longer, until they both smiled.
“Tell them I’m on my way,” Mike called back. Then his glance returned to Abbey, and so did the magic. “Can you come to the Christmas Eve service with me tonight?”
“I’d be delighted to.” And she meant it.
Christmas was full of presents.
❧
The day flew by. Selma and Brianna barely had time to tease their boss about her new attitude. Abbey sang with the mall’s Christmas carols. She bought a cinnamon flavored sucker at Lollipop Time, and by the time lunch rolled around, it was already gone. She got polka-dotted socks with individual toes in them for Selma. She stopped at PiЦata Pete’s and purchased a piЦata shaped like a cow for Brianna.
It was Christmas!
But at last the mall closed. The recalcitrant metal grating slid down to close Trends.
“Whew!” Selma said. “I think we managed twice the sales that we did last year. At least that’s what my aching dogs are telling me.” She leaned over and massaged her swollen feet.
“We did do better. I haven’t run the sales record yet, but—”
“What?” Selma said, in mock horror. “You, Miss Retail-Is-My-Life, you can’t quote me our receipts? You’re slipping, Gal!”
Brianna pushed her coworker toward the door. “Leave her alone, Selma. Can’t you tell our boss is in love?”
“You two!” Abbey protested, but she couldn’t dispute it. They were right.
“There’s something else going on,” Selma said thoughtfully. “Something else has made Abbey different. Softer.”
“Love will do that,” Brianna told her.
“Well, sure, but this is something else. What’s up, Boss Lady?”
Abbey reached for her purse. “It’s very simple. A Baby born in a stable touched me. A star over a small town on the other side of the world touched me. A flock of angels singing in the heavens touched me. Christmas touched me.”
Selma and Brianna stopped. Then, they looked at each other and smiled. “All right!” Brianna said, hugging her.
“Hallelujah!” Selma echoed. “That’s wonderful news!”
“It is,” Abbey agreed. “It is.”
“We’d better get going,” Selma pointed out, “or we’ll still be here when people start rolling in with returns on the twenty-sixth. Eight a.m., right, Boss?”
Abbey groaned. “Unfortunately.”
The two women picked up their packages and purses and prepared to leave by the delivery door in the back of the store.
“See you two the day after tomorrow,” Abbey said. “Have a very Merry Christmas!”
“And a Merry Christmas to you too!” Selma called. Brianna waved a cheery farewell.
Abbey hurried down to Tuck’s Toys. She walked through the gamut of the deserted kiosks, most of which would be gone after the returns and sales had ended in a week or two. She’d miss them when the mall went back to its normal schedule and appearance.
Unless, of course, the mall management decided to go with a King of Hearts theme or something equ
ally as bizarre for Valentine’s Day. She could see it now; Kiss Me Kandies next to Love in Bloom Florists.
But somehow it wasn’t as dreadful as it had first seemed. Maybe falling in love had softened her.
She paused at the now-abandoned Candy Cane Calaboose and remembered the time she and Mike were locked in there together. Well, she mused, even the Candy Cane Calaboose wasn’t bad if you could fall in love with your cellmate.
A horrible realization struck her. She didn’t have a present for Mike.
On the wall, a poster for the Candy Cane Calaboose fluttered by a single staple. An idea struck her, but she’d have to hurry. She tore down the poster and ran back to Trends. One of the last shipments had been picture frames, and she held her breath as she looked through the display, searching for one in particular.
She breathed a sigh of relief. It was there.
The frame itself was a series of interlocking candy canes, and the poster fit perfectly inside it. She wound some tissue paper around it and stuck it into one of their gift bags. She dug through the remaining stock of complimentary small gift cards until she found one with a candy cane on it.
Abbey chewed on the end of her pen. She couldn’t think of a thing to say on a card. “You’re very sweet” was very dumb. “I CANEn’t live without you”? “We were MINT for each other”?
It was always difficult to be clever. Sometimes it was downright impossible, and this was one of those moments.
She opted for no card at all. After all, she’d be handing him the gift in person.
Her eyes scanned the shop for a gift for Claire. Then she remembered something that had come in that morning’s delivery. She had opened the box, but she had gotten so busy that she hadn’t had the chance to unpack it and put the contents out. She dashed into the storage room and dug in the box until she found it.
It was a blue and white china jewelry box. The blue exactly matched Claire’s eyes. Impulsively she tucked a gaily-striped candy cane pin inside it.
She tied it up in bright red paper, then wrote a sales receipt for the items so she could pay for them the day after Christmas.
“Ready to go?”
Abbey jumped as Mike’s voice echoed throughout the cavernous mall. “You startled me!”
She shoved the hastily wrapped packages into a bag. “I’m going out the side. I don’t trust this rusty old gate to work right tonight, and I sure don’t want to be late.”
He handed her a take-out bag as she met him in the mall corridor. “Not too fancy—just a burger and fries from Boomtown Burger. I’ve got two cans of soda in my coat pocket too. We’ll have to eat on the run, or I’m afraid we’ll be late.”
❧
The church service was wonderful, Abbey thought. The carols had a meaning far beyond what they had portrayed while they’d played on an endless loop at the mall, and she sang along with heartfelt gusto.
At the end of the service, ushers passed out small candles with circular cardboard drip-stoppers. The lamps dimmed, and the minister began: “I am the light of the world. . .” One by one the church members lit their candles from their neighbor’s as the light was passed from the minister to the last guest, until the entire sanctuary was lit only by the glow of a hundred candles. And one by one they blew out their candles after the benediction while singing “Silent Night.”
Abbey could not bear to speak until they had left the church and were standing outside, the cold air turning their breath into clouds. A light snow had fallen, making everything freshly white.
Her heart had opened honestly, and she needed to face life—all of it—honestly. She turned to Mike, her emotions overflowing, and started to speak, but he put his finger over her lips.
“Sssh,” he said. “Listen.”
From inside the emptying church, the faintest sounds of the last notes of “Silent Night” drifted out. “It’s the Christmas prayer, the search for silence,” he whispered.
She held his hand until the last notes faded away. “Thank you for giving me this Christmas Eve,” she told him. “There’s something else I wanted to tell you.”
She had to open up, she simply had to, or she would burst with the joy of it. “Mike, I—”
He bent toward her, and time stood completely still. They were the only ones in the world. They were everyone. Then, he kissed her.
It was true. She heard bells. Big loud bells that played “Joy to the World.”
He laughed as their mouths separated. “Perfect timing,” he said, motioning toward the spire where the bells rang out the Christmas carol.
If it were possible to save time, to press it between the pages of the calendar so that she could take it out and look at it again and again, this would be the moment she would save, Abbey thought. It was perfect, completely and totally perfect.
“Abbey, I think I’m falling in love with you.” His words carried across the wintry night, and two of the people leaving the church heard and bent their own heads together.
There was so much she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her heart. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him gently, reverently, in answer.
“I’d love to stay here and kiss you in the moonlight,” he said at last, “but there’s another woman in my life, and I’ve promised her I’d go out to Golden Meadows to play Christmas carols for a sing-along. Want to come?”
But Claire didn’t join them in the Fireside Lounge. She was asleep, the aide told them. It was a calm, healing sleep, though, not the fretful tossing and turning that had signaled her illness initially.
The sing-along was attended by a majority of the residents, many with holiday sweaters and ties on. It was the perfect way to end the perfect Christmas Eve, like a bow on the present of life.
❧
The next morning, Mike picked Abbey up early. “Grandma’s waiting, anxiously I’m sure, to open her presents. She likes to dig in before breakfast, but I’ve told her she’d have to wait a bit later today.”
“She’s like a kid about Christmas, isn’t she?” Abbey asked. “It’s wonderful to see that enthusiasm.”
Claire was sitting up, looking much better than she had, when they arrived. “I’ve got the presents ready,” she announced. “Let’s go!”
At her insistence, Mike helped her out of the bed and into the overstuffed blue chair. Abbey suppressed a grin at the yellow frog slippers that she slid her feet into. Clearly Claire hadn’t waited for her and Mike before starting to open gifts.
With a flurry of paper and ribbons flying, Claire un-wrapped her presents. She oohed over the Wag-A-Muffin and the sweater that Mike gave her and aahed when she opened the jewelry box from Abbey.
“This has been a wonderful Christmas,” Claire said. “And these are terrific presents. Thank you both.”
“The best Christmas gift of all,” Abbey said, giving Claire’s hand a squeeze, “is seeing you healthy again.” Then she looked at Mike. “Slight correction. It’s one of the best presents.”
“What? What?” Claire asked, her eyes glowing with excitement.
“This may be a bit premature, Grandma, since I haven’t checked it out with Abbey, but I think there might be a wedding in the future.” He dropped a kiss on Claire’s forehead. “That is, of course, if we have your blessing.”
Claire wriggled even straighter. “I have a problem with this, Michael James Tucker.”
“You do?” Mike’s face flushed. “Grandma—”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t ask her first!” Claire scolded. “Now, get down on your knees and do it properly.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
Mike gave her a jaunty salute and dropped to one knee. Taking Abbey’s hand in his, he said, “Abbey, we’ve known each other since we were kids. We’ve been through many changes, some good, some bad, that have taken us apart from each other—and brought us back together again.”
His voice caught in his throat, and he had to stop and take a deep breath to keep his words even. “I want to spend the res
t of our lives together.”
Abbey could only hold onto his hand as if it meant life itself. Her lips opened and closed, but no sound came out. Perhaps it didn’t need to.
“Abbey?” His forehead wrinkled in concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice somewhere between tears and laughter. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“Kiss her,” Claire commanded from her chair. “That’s the next step. Sweet, do I have to think of everything?”
Mike playfully shushed his grandmother. “I know what I’m doing.”
Claire gave a good-natured snort. “Ha. Well, it’s a good thing I’m here in case you mess something up. Go ahead.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, grinning at her. Then he fished in his coat pocket and pulled out a box that was about the size of a small popcorn bag. “Okay, let me explain. See, when you’ve got two lovely women in your life, what are you going to do on Christmas? Clearly, get them the same thing. Abbey, here’s your Wag-A-Muffin.”
She opened the box and pulled out a pure white dove, embossed with a golden cross on the wing, a golden collar around its neck. “It’s beautiful!” she said, running her hand down its back and watching the dove’s tail move.
“I’m glad you like it. But now here’s my dilemma. I got Grandma a sweater, and it just didn’t seem right to get you one too.”
“It’s improper,” Claire interjected. “The first gift you give someone shouldn’t be clothing.”
“See what I put up with?” Mike said teasingly. “But then I realized that these old rules are for the birds, so I went ahead and got you something to wear.”
Then he continued to stand there, his hands in his pockets, smiling at her.
“Where is it?” Claire asked impatiently. “I want to see!”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, until at last he said, “Abbey has it already.”
“I do?” she asked in surprise. “What?”
“Look closer at the dove. It’s got a collar on. . .”
Abbey gasped as she realized what the collar was. It was a simple gold band set with a single clear diamond.
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