by Mary May
“I can do it, Nate. Stormy will be doing all the work. I just have to give him his head and stay on.” Nate studied her face for a moment longer then flashed her a smile and gave her hands one more rub.
“Ok! Good girl! Let me go first and then do exactly like you said; give him his head because he wants out of this cold rain as much as we do. He will get you across the creek. You just stay in the saddle!” Nate backed Jack up a few yards then he kicked him into a fast gallop, approaching the spot where the creek was the most narrow. Charlie held her breath as the Appaloosa’s feet left the ground and he sailed over the water, landing safely on the other side. Now it was their turn.
“Ok, Stormy, I know we can do this! I have total trust in you! God, please help me to hang on!” Gritting her teeth and hanging on with every ounce of strength she had left, she backed her horse up to the same spot Nate did and kicked him into a gallop, praying with every stride that brought the creek closer and closer until she felt Stormy’s muscles bunch up as he pushed off with his powerful hind legs.
Gideon placed his arms on each side of Charlie, holding onto the saddle horn as Stormy flew across the creek. He knew she wouldn’t be able to keep herself in the saddle as they made the hard landing on the other side. Sure enough, as the horse’s hoof made contact with the soft ground on the other side, he stumbled and nearly went to his knees. Charlie’s head bounced up and hit the center of Gideon’s chest, but she stayed in the saddle as the horse finally regained his footing.
“Alright, Charlie! Wow, you did it! I don’t know how, but you did! Good job!” Nate rode close and gave her a high five that she didn’t even feel with her frozen hands. They parted ways a few minutes later, and she was never more thankful in all of her life to see the barn come into view. She struggled to open the barn door when it suddenly swung open and she was looking into Devon’s worried blue eyes.
“Thank God! Charlie girl, you are going to make an old man out of me yet. I was putting the saddle on old Buck and coming after you. Are you ok?” He took Stormy’s reins and led him inside. Charlie nodded as she shivered uncontrollably.
“Oh, darlin’, you are near frozen!” Devon quickly shrugged out of his raincoat and wrapped it around the shivering girl; then he left the horses where they were and picked up Charlie, walking quickly into the house with her. When he opened the front door, Sabrina took one look at her daughter’s pale face and blue lips and ordered them upstairs to the bathroom where she quickly had her in a warm bubble bath. After a half hour of soaking, Charlie finally started to warm up a little.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered softly. Sabrina looked at her with concern, reaching to brush the damp curls from her forehead.
“Sorry for what, baby?” Sabrina asked.
Charlie sighed as she scooped up some bubbles and piled them up on her knee.
“I didn’t keep my promise to keep an eye on the sky and watch out for the storm. It was on us before we knew it!” She looked up at her mama from under a fringe of heavy lashes so much like her fathers that it made Sabrina’s heart ache just a little.
“It’s ok, baby. I know you didn’t mean to break your promise. I’m just so happy you are home safe and sound!”
“I was scared, Mama, but I prayed like you taught me to do. We had to jump the creek, and it was really big with rain water. I didn’t know for sure if I could do it, but I prayed for God’s help and, Mama, you know what?”
Sabrina smiled at Charlie’s serious expression. “What baby? What happened when you prayed for God’s help?”
“Well, I was still kind of scared, but I knew I was going to be ok. I knew that Stormy and me could make the jump and everything would be ok. God didn’t get me out of the storm but he got me through it, didn’t he, Mama?”
Sabrina leaned down and brushed a kiss across Charlie’s cheek, amazed at the words of wisdom that had just tumbled from her young mouth.
“That’s right, sweetie. You might want to remember that as you grow up.” Sabrina left Charlie to finish up her bath and went to find Devon, who was just coming in from putting the horses up.
“How is she?” he asked as soon as he saw Sabrina standing in the kitchen.
“Oh, she is fine, I think. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if she comes down with a nasty cold from this.” Sabrina filled up the kettle to make some hot cocoa, smiling the whole time.
“So what’s with the smile? Did I miss something?” Devon asked. Cleo came into the kitchen from putting the twins to bed just as Sabrina was about to answer. She told them both what Charlie had said about God getting her through the storm but not out of it.
“Yes, ma’am, our little girl has it right. Hit the nail right square on the head. Of course, not all storms of life are quite as literal as hers was, but the point is still the same,” Cleo said with a smile and sharp nod of her head.
Just as Sabrina predicted, Charlie woke up the following morning with a fever and a sore throat. Spooning a dose of purple medicine into Charlie’s mouth, Cleo clucked and fussed like a mother hen.
“You stay under those covers and don’t be getting up and running around when my back is turned, you hear? I’ll bring you up some chicken soup and tea with honey in just a few minutes.” Cleo gave the orders gruffly then fluffed the blonde curls and kissed the top of Charlie’s head, which was really all that she permitted to be out of the covers.
“Poor little baby done got the croup. Don’t you worry your sweet little self. Miss Cleo will have you right as rain in no time.” Then she bustled out of the room, muttering to herself a long list of things to do to make Miss Charlie all better.
As soon as the door shut behind her, Charlie popped her head up. “Is she gone?”
Edgar nodded his head after looking around. “Yes, for the moment I believe she is.”
Charlie struggled to sit up under the mountain of covers that Cleo had piled up on top of her. Edgar helped her sit up; then he sat back down in the chair next to her bed. Charlie sighed in relief as she kicked off some of the heavy quilts. Edgar arched a brow at her.
“You know she will be back and will blister your ears for not being under the covers,” he pointed out. Charlie just rolled her eyes.
“I couldn’t breathe! I think she was trying to burn the fever out of me, Edgar! Feel my hand; I bet I’m hotter now than I was before.” She held her hand out and Edgar reached out and felt it. He got up and started removing the heavy quilts.
“I told you so,” Charlie muttered.
“We will tell her that we just removed them for a moment when she comes back in,” Edgar advised before sitting back down. Charlie rolled her head on her pillow and looked at her friend with big eyes.
“We are going to lie? Really?”
This time Edgar rolled his eyes, which always made Charlie giggle. “Of course not, young lady. A moment is simply a standard of time that can be of varying lengths, depending upon who is using it. Who is to say how long I think a moment may be?” He delivered this speech using his stuffy butler voice, but he gave Charlie a wink at the end. She giggled as she closed her eyes.
“I like the way you think, Edgar.”
“I like the way you think, too, Miss Charlie.”
“Edgar?”
“Yes?”
“How old are you?”
“Very old, Miss Charlie; why do you ask?” Charlie paused and then she rolled over onto her side so she could look at Edgar.
“Do you think you will go to heaven soon?” she whispered.
Edgar leaned closer and then whispered back. “I already have, Miss Charlie.”
Charlie’s eyes grew very large. “Really? You have been to heaven?”
“Yes, ma’am, when I was not much older than you.”
“Tell me. Please.”
So briefly Edgar told Charlie of his trip to heaven. He told her of the love and the peace that he felt there. He told her that heaven was a very real place and that he was looking forward to returning one day.
&nbs
p; “So you are not scared of dying at all, are you, because you have already been there it will be like…like…going home?” The old man reached and took the young girl’s hand into his own; he held it as he gently rocked back and forth.
“That’s right, Charlie. It’s exactly that way for all of God’s children because we all came from heaven, so when we die that’s what we do. We just go home.”
Gideon stepped from Charlie’s room and just stood there at a complete loss for once in his long existence. He knew that Edgar was preparing her for his passing just as he had tried to prepare him. Just how does one “prepare” themselves for the loss of someone you hold so very dear? With Sherrilyn there wasn’t any preparation time, not really. Sherrilyn herself probably knew her passing was imminent, but the rest of them held on to hope that she would find a donor. He tried to imagine being a human, of being Sabrina or even young Charlie, and facing the loss of someone you love. He absolutely knew he would see them again because he was an angel, and most people didn’t have the insight that Edgar and Sherrilyn had. They didn’t have that face-to-face encounter with a heavenly being that wiped any doubt from their minds of life after death. They had to go by faith and faith alone. For the first time Gideon understood just how hard that must be sometimes. Losing Edgar was going to be incredibly hard for him, so he tried to imagine losing a spouse or a child.
He heard Sabrina laugh at something Devon was saying, so he went to the stairs and looked over the staircase. Sabrina and Devon were seated in the living room on the sofa. Devon was teasing her about something. To look at her now you wouldn’t guess the agony that she had been through with the loss of Luke. But Gideon remembered it well, the sleepless nights, or sprinkling his aftershave on his pillow for over a year so she could sleep. Then the rage that finally came spilling out and the destruction of several pillows as she screamed her pain at God, then at last…healing. Through it all her faith carried her. Gideon stared at Sabrina like he was truly seeing her for the first time. She didn’t have the firsthand knowledge that Gideon had; all she had was her faith and the Word of God, and it was enough…
A week later a much-improved Charlie was sitting on the couch watching the twins as they played with trucks on the rug in the living room. The doctor had said she could go back to school Monday. She never thought she would be glad to return to school, but she was. She was bored out of her mind. Between her mama and Cleo keeping a close eye on her, she wasn’t able to do anything fun all week. Even Edgar couldn’t sneak her out, and he tried. A knock on the door had her on her feet and jumping over Luke to see who might be visiting. Hopefully it was her best friend Lakyn. She swung the door open and frowned when she saw Nate standing there.
“Oh. Hey, Nate. Come on in.”
“Well, try to control your excitement, Charlie,” Nate said with an amused grin. Charlie walked back to the living room and flounced back down on the couch.
“I’m sorry, I was just hoping Lakyn might come see me today. What are you doing? I mean besides visiting me?”
“I wanted to come see how you were doing. I’m sorry you got so sick. I feel like it was my fault.”
Charlie frowned at him. “Why do you think that?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. I should have kept a closer eye on the storm; I knew it was coming. I’m older. I should have taken care of you.”
Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and frowned even harder at him. “Well, that’s a dumb reason. I knew the storm was coming, too, and I even made Mama a promise to keep an eye on the sky, so it’s more my fault than yours. I don’t know why you think you being older has anything to do with anything.”
Nate scowled down at her. “It has everything to do with it, and if you were older you would understand that!”
“What I do understand is every time you open your mouth dumb stuff keeps coming out, Nate Jackson! I’m sick and tired of you telling me how young I am or how if I was older I would understand. I can do everything you can do! I made that jump, didn’t I? I kept up with you, didn’t I? I bet Emily Ross couldn’t have done either one, and if I’m such a baby, then why do you hang out with me?” Nate got to his feet, his dark brown eyes looking like thunderclouds.
“Fine, then, I won’t hang out with you, Charlie Blakely!” He turned to walk to the door.
“Fine by me!” Charlie shouted back just as Sabrina came into the living room to see Nate stomp past her and walk out, shutting the door behind him. She turned to see Charlie race up the stairs with tears streaking down her face. Sabrina looked at the twins, who looked just as confused as she was.
“Oh, Lord, help us…the tween years!”
Charlie heard a knock on her bedroom door a few minutes later. “Come in.”
Her mama poked her head in. “Hey, sweetie, do you want to talk about it?” Charlie shook her head and buried it back in her green and pink comforter. “Not really.”
Sabrina came in and sat down on the bed next to her daughter. “Ok. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Charlie lifted her head up and eyed her mother with suspicion. “You’re not going to make me talk about it?”
Sabrina shook her head. “Nope, not if you don’t want to.” She got up and started walking to the door.
“Boys are all mentally challenged, aren’t they?”
Sabrina stopped dead still at the door and carefully smoothed out her expression before turning around. Honestly, her daughter never failed to surprise her with her words.
“Well, mentally challenged is a tad strong, but they do think differently than we do. Why was Nate here?”
Charlie rolled over onto her back and grabbed her stuffed bear to cuddle. “He came by to see how I was.”
“Oh, that was nice of him.” At her daughter’s narrowed eyes she hastily added,
“Or not.”
Charlie huffed out a breath. “Yes, Mama, that part was nice, I guess. It was all the other stuff afterwards that wasn’t so nice. All he ever does is tell me how little I am and how I will understand stuff better when I’m older. What does that even mean anyway? Understand what stuff exactly?” Without giving her mother a chance to answer, she continued.
“If he means I’ll understand why he likes spending time with dumb old Emily Ross, he can stop waiting. I understand that now. But I won’t ever act like her!” Charlie collapsed into a heap on her bed and Sabrina gathered her up and held her as she cried. She knew right now no words could soothe the hurt in Charlie’s heart…
Devon packed for his assignment while Sabrina told him of Charlie’s fight with Nate.
“She has her first crush and doesn’t even know it. Poor baby, I wish there was something I could do. I just feel so helpless. I also feel old. How can Charlie be old enough to have a crush?”
Devon laughed at Sabrina’s forlorn expression as she examined her reflection in the mirror. He walked over to her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist that wasn’t quite as tiny as it was before the twins.
“You are not old; you are still beautiful and breathtaking. When your hair has turned silver and your face is lined with all the time that we have shared, you will still be beautiful and breathtaking. I may have to chase you in a wheelchair, but I promise I’ll still be chasing.”
Sabrina smiled up at his reflection in the mirror. “Those were some mighty pretty words, Mr. Lane, thank you. I’ll hold you to them. Now what about Charlie?”
“Our Charlie is nearly twelve and growing up so fast. Some days I look at her and think who are you and what did you do with the little girl that I used to ride around on my shoulders? But she is also growing into a strong young woman just like her mother, who has a good head on her shoulders. She can handle a little crush. Although I do wish sometimes I could step on the tail of time and slow it down just a little.”
Sabrina nodded in understanding. “I know! I do, too. I look at the boys and gosh they are three and talking and will start pre-k in the fall. I don’t know, Devon, time just seems t
o be passing by so fast! It’s scary sometimes.” She felt him nod his head, but he made no reply. Sometimes there just weren’t any words…
Christmas was fast approaching and Sabrina knew in her heart that this would be the last one that Edgar would spend with them. While the old butler’s mind was still as sharp as ever, his body was playing out; every day she could see him getting weaker and weaker. There weren’t any major illnesses or problems. It was as if his body was running out of energy like a battery running out. He had stopped going to the estate several months ago. It had been his weekly routine to go and visit the staff and patients that were living at the Center. The Center or Sherry’s Place, as most people fondly called it now, was a huge success. Sabrina’s only wish was for Sherrilyn to have lived long enough to see her dream fulfilled. Somehow she thought that maybe she knew, because, while speaking with the staff or the doctors, she would sometimes feel the presence of her sweet friend. Edgar enjoyed those visits as much to see the house itself, although he would never admit to such a thing, but Sabrina knew better. She knew how hard it was for him to move from the place he had cared for and called home for so many years.
“A grand old lady,” he called her. He delighted in seeing the house being used once more to her full capacity. They had given the caretakers and the maintenance staff maps of all the tunnels for safety reasons -- couldn’t have anyone getting trapped or lost. So when he had returned from their visit last summer and he told Sabrina that he wouldn’t be going back, it had broken her heart. She wanted to make this Christmas, his last Christmas, really special.
Charlie stepped off the school bus with a spring in her step. Two full weeks off from school! She ran down the driveway feeling the cold December air sting her cheeks. Maybe it would snow; it sure felt cold enough to snow. The Christmas lights were already strung up everywhere on the house, making it look festive and cheerful. The Christmas tree could be seen in the large plate glass front window. It was already loaded with brightly-colored wrapped presents underneath. This was her favorite time of year. Not just because of the presents, although she liked that, too, but because everyone just seemed to be in good cheer. The twins were watching for her and she could hear them hollering from all the way down the driveway. They were good kids, even if they did get on her nerves sometimes. She skipped up the front steps and opened the door. Instantly the smell of gingerbread cookies filled her nose.