The words of "We Three Kings." The wise men's song.
Heart pounding, Cait dropped to sit on the floor. "Shep? Shep, can I talk to you a minute?"
After a second, he peeked out from between the long black robes, his expression wary.
"Shep, guess what's happened." He continued to stare at her. She took a deep breath and gripped her damp palms together. "Leon, the first wise man, is sick today. He has a bad sore throat and can't sing or even be here."
The little boy before her started to dive back behind the robes.
She caught his hand in time to stop him from disappearing. "No, wait. Would you...sing the song for us? Just that one verse about gold? I've asked absolutely everybody else and can't find anybody to help."
Wide-eyed silence greeted her request.
"If I could think of another way, I would use it," Cait continued to plead. "But I just heard you singing the words. You have a really nice voice. And the costume would fit you—it's the purple robe, you know, with the pointed crown." She held her breath, hoping for an answer. "Please, Shep?"
After a long, long time, he said, "I can't." Softly. Hoarsely. But she heard him.
I bet you could." Cait forced herself to stay calm.
We three kings of Orient are...'" she began to sing. By the time she reached the chorus, Shep was singing with her.
Just at the beginning of the second verse, Maddie ap-
peared in the doorway. "Miss Caitlyn, I finished the candles." Shep vanished under the robes.
Cait clenched and unclenched her jaw. "Thank you very much."
"What are you doing on the floor? And why is Shep hiding under those long dresses Pastor David wears?"
"We were...I was hoping he would take over the part of the first wise man tonight. Leon has strep throat."
Maddie looked over at the robes. "You could do that, Shep. You could even sing the verse. I bet Miss Caitlyn would be really happy if you would."
Cait got to her knees and reached out to hug Maddie again. "You're right." She pressed a kiss on the dark curly hair tickling her chin. "Can you convince Shep to help me out?" she said softly. j
Maddie nodded with a very adult confidence. "Let me talk to him alone for a minute." j
Ben and his crew were in the midst of setting up the backdrops when Maddie and Shep reappeared. Cait looked at them hopefully. ]
"He'll wear the robe," Maddie announced. "He won't promise to sing, but...he says he might." 3
How many situations in this world were ever exactly perfect? Cait heaved a sigh of at least partial relief. "That's great. I'm so grateful. The other kids have started coming in. Are you two ready to put on your costumes?"
"Oh, boy!" Still holding her brother's hand, Maddie whirled and headed for the dressing rooms. "It's time to be an angel!"
At seven O'clock the church was filled to capacity. Two spotlights, borrowed from a drama teacher in Winchester by Regina Thorne, focused attention on the stage. The rest of the room stayed in shadow.
David Remington stepped into one of the spotlights to welcome everyone to the Goodwill Christmas pageant. He said a brief prayer of thanksgiving for the faith and hope children offer.
Then the music started—a guitar, with rolling chords, joined by the organ singing a familiar, plaintive song of waiting. The young woman Mary stepped out of a backdrop doorway on the left, to be greeted by an angel with golden wings, coffee-colored skin and a profusion of shoulder-length braids. Cait watched, a little anxious— Tiaria had been hyperventilating with stage fright just twenty minutes ago. But she swallowed hard, then spoke the words of annunciation in her sweet, deep voice. At Cait's signal, the children came to the steps of the stage, singing another Advent hymn as Mary pantomimed telling her cousin Elizabeth about the baby. With everyone in their places, the lights suddenly went out. Eerie, uncertain, the last notes of hope died away into the dark.
When the lights came up again, Mary and Joseph stood at the door to the inn. They knocked... and knocked... and knocked again. Joseph cast Cait a questioning look and the audience chuckled slightly. Maybe this innkeeper wasn't even going to answer the door.
Fumbling, a red-faced Bobby Porter finally pulled the door panel back. With a lot of "urns" and "ahs" and "you knows" he explained to Joseph and a drooping Mary that he had no room. Then he offered them his stable. "Don't milk the cow," Bobby, a dairy farmer's son, warned them. "The milk's for the paying customers." Cait glanced at Anna and rolled her eyes, while the audience laughed at this strictly improvisational dialogue. Psst." Cait called softly to the youngest singers.
Cows, sheep, doves, donkeys. It's your turn!"
One by one the little faces turned away from the stage.
Standing, they all stared hard at Cait as the introduction to their special piece began. And if some of the doves sang with the cows, if the sheep wiggled and only a couple of the donkeys remembered all the words, it was still very sweet and true. The stable animals received their own round of applause at the end of the song.
Then, with "Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," and "Away in a Manger," the baby Jesus was born. Again the spotlights shut off. A backdrop panel slid into place with oiled ease, and the shepherds trooped onto the stage.
Cait gasped as the lights came up again, and heard the audience stir in surprise. The boys looked very much the way those long ago shepherds might have—a little surly, a little sleepy, arguing and teasing each other to stay awake for the night watch. And glory be—they sang their verse all the way through, strongly, without missing a word. Cait found Ben in the corner by the robing room door and they shared a moment of pure delight.
Then, without anyone having noticed their approach, the announcing angels stepped onto the stage. Dressed exactly alike, Brenna and Maddie complemented each other perfectly—Maddie's dark eyes and curls, Brenna's gray eyes and long, cornsilk hair. Cait played the guitar introduction for "The Angel Song" and looked up at Maddie to cue her entrance.
Maddie didn't need a cue. She sang as if it were as easy as breathing, as if she spent her life in song. Making eye contact with the shepherds, she told them the good news she brought. Brenna joined in with the harmony, the two voices weaving together in seamless beauty. Cait squeezed her eyes shut as she played, felt teardrops cool the back of her hand.
The other angels stood to join in the celebration with
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"Joy to the World." One last blackout brought Mary and Joseph and the manger back to center stage, surrounded by angels and animals and worshiping shepherds.
Cait closed her eyes, murmured a quick and fervent prayer. The three wise men were about to make their entrance.
Anna started the song on the organ and the choir picked up the words. Gradually every head in the church turned toward the back where Shep stood in the doorway, a small yet regal figure. Pacing majestically, holding a wooden jewelry box filled to overflowing with gold-wrapped chocolate coins, he approached the stage. His servant came behind him, carrying the long train of the shining purple coat. At the front of the church Shep stopped just as the choirs reached the end of the chorus. Cait couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes, because she couldn't bear to watch.
"Gold I bring to crown him again..." Still a little hoarse, not as steady or as confident as it would one day be, Shep's voice rose above the gasps of the assembled crowd. Anna's accompaniment faltered, stopped. But Shep sang on, alone, finishing his verse with perfect certainty.
After a moment, Anna began to play again. The children sang the chorus, the second and third wise men delivered their equally well-done parts. Cait let her shoulders slump. The pageant was over.
At her signal, Maddie and Brenna left the stage, followed by the wise men, all singing the "Star of Wonder" chorus. Cait winked at Shep as he went by her, and got his wonderful smile in return. While the congregation shared the lighting of their candles, Mary and Joseph filed out, cradling a bundle of blankets, followed by animals and angels, and then the c
hurch full of people.
SHENANDOAH CHRISTMAS
Still carrying her guitar, Cait scooted out the back door of the church and came up behind Timothy's bales of hay just in time to hear the children's collective "Ooo" when they glimpsed the scene outside. ]
Lit by tall torches, real sheep, two white ewes and a black lamb, grazed from a trough of hay. A red-and-white Holstein cow stared at the growing audience with placid unconcern. The same couldn't be said for the donkey, who protested being tied to a tree with loud and penetrating bray. I
But the camels stole the show. Cait didn't know how Timothy had done it—especially given what had happened at the meeting with David and the church committee. But the farmer had used his miraculous contacts to produce two dromedary camels. The entire procession came to a stop as the children admired those miraculous additions to the Christmas menagerie. Cait gave them plenty of time, then caught Maddie's eye and restarted the chorus of "We Three Kings" on the guitar. The little girl's strong voice resumed the song and, with the help of a few moms and dads, the congregation moved on. Holding their flickering candles, singing in unison, the townsfolk of Goodwill advanced through the Christmas Eve darkness.
And as they walked, the snow began to fall.
Cait followed at a distance. She couldn't remember ever having experienced such a powerful, peace-giving ceremony, not even as a child. The children of Goodwill had shown her the meaning of love with their voices, their talent, their willingness to give. And the moment Shep started singing symbolized all that they'd done. Now Maddie's wish was coming true—the world was receiving a healing blanket of snow.
David and Anna didn't really have enough room for the whole town inside their house—every window was lighted, each room within filled to capacity with people. Cait hung back, letting everyone else enter, so she could treasure the quiet and solitude of this one special night.
After a few minutes, the front door opened with its distinctive squeak and she looked down the length of the front walk to see who was leaving. A tall man stepped out, as tall as Ben but broader, in a long overcoat and scarf—something she'd never seen Ben wear. He stood on the porch, gazing around him as the snow fell. Cait felt the moment his eyes found her in the dark. Without hesitation, he started down the steps. His walk—proud, measured, confident—identified him immediately.
She braced her fists in the pockets of her slacks. "What are you doing here?"
He stopped a couple of yards away. "Your sister invited me. She wants me to meet my grandson. And..."
The Reverend Allan Gregory knew how to pitch his voice for maximum effect, and he did so now. ' 'Most of all, I believe, she wants me to welcome you back into the fold."
When Ben finally found Shep, the boy was resting high against Harry's shoulder, with his pointed crown askew, holding an iced Christmas cookie in each hand.
"Can you believe this young man," his granddad demanded. "Just coming out like that with a song?"
Ben's pulse was still thudding double-time. "I'm pretty amazed." He put his hand on his son's back. "Good job, Shep. I'm really proud of you."
"Thanks." The simple word, its matter-of-fact tone, just about wrecked Ben's control.
"What about me, Daddy? Did you like my song?" Maddie pulled on the hem of his sweater.
He picked her up and hugged her tight. "The most beautiful song I've ever heard, Maddie," he said softly against her ear. "I'm betting your mom heard it, too, and she's just as proud and happy as I am."
Maddie tightened her arms around his neck. "I love you, Daddy."
Christmas, Ben decided at that moment, was his favorite time of the year.
"But where's Cait?" Peggy joined them, carrying a glass of punch for Harry and one for herself. "I haven't seen her since the procession started."
They all looked around as if they could locate her in the crush of people filling the Remingtons' house from wall to wall. Ben set Maddie down again. "I'll find her— it's easier for one person to move through the crowd."
But he couldn't see her, though he searched all the rooms of the house. She could have been traveling in the same direction, always leaving a room just as he entered, but the people he asked hadn't encountered her either.
As he wrestled his way through the living room for the second time, he glanced out the window and saw Cait at the end of the sidewalk, confronting a man he could see only in profile. A minute's study, though, gave him a name. Cait was smaller, of course, more feminine, but the angle of their stances as they faced each other were the same, the tilt of their chins, the air of self-reliance and the power of personality. ]
Cait's father had come for Christmas.
"You expect an apology?"
Her laugh sounded bitter. "That's an interesting idea, but not really accurate. I stopped expecting anything from you ten years ago tonight."
For a couple of minutes the only sound was the soft plop of snowflakes on the ground.
Finally, the older man shook his head. "I started this in the wrong manner. Let me begin again." He took a deep breath. "I...regret...my reactions that day. I should have listened to your side of the argument."
"You should have." Her voice held a hint of surprise.
"I was, however, very disappointed and hurt at being deceived by my own daughter."
Now Cait hesitated. "Hiding the applications was wrong. I ought to have stood up for myself, been open about what I intended."
"I agree. But—" Mr. Gregory actually chuckled "—I doubt I would have been any more receptive. I believed I knew what was the best course for you to take in life."
"Believed? Past tense?"
"It's obvious that the fears I had for you were groundless. I thought the career you wanted would destroy you, as it has so many others. Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity...the popular entertainment industry has always been notable for its excesses."
I've seen my share."
I'm sure you have. But you seem to have emerged unscathed. And if you could produce a program like the one this evening, I must conclude that your heart and your soul are sound."
Ben could only hope Cait heard the admiration, the concession in her dad's words.
"Well...thanks. I really wasn't sure—" She broke off, shaking her head.
i (-t c
"Of what?"
Cait shrugged. "That I could do this. That I still understood the message."
"And your lack of faith is—is my responsibility." When his daughter stared at him, without saying anything, Mr. Gregory made an open-handed gesture. "The irony of the situation isn't lost on me. How could you be expected to trust yourself, when I, as your parent, did not? Why should you forgive, if I couldn't?"
"Dad..."
He held up a hand. "Let me say it all. I am sorry, Caitlyn. I allowed my hurt feelings and my own pride to drive you out of my life. I nursed an inappropriate sense of outrage, until the breach between us became insurmountable. And yet—" he blew out a long breath "—and yet, I've missed you every day. I don't follow the news in your.. .profession, but I hoarded what information I could glean about you. You've done well. And you've remained what you were ten years ago—a lovely, honorable, admirable woman."
Cait covered her face with her hands and stood without moving for a long moment. When she lifted her face, Ben could see the tears on her cheeks.
"We're very much alike," she said. "Maybe that's why the explosion was so—so violent. I've spent a lot of time being mad at you. For a decade I've refused to make the first move, though I was the one who hid those papers, the one whose deception betrayed your trust. But..."
Cait took a step toward the man facing her. ' 'But just these last two months, I've learned—remembered, maybe—about love. About forgiveness and tolerance and sacrifice. About families and friends and people who look out for each other. There's a lot of that kind of caring here in Goodwill." Her shoulders lifted on a deep breath,
and she crossed the remaining distance between herself and her dad. "This Christm
as Eve feels like the right time to put those lessons into practice. I'm sorry, too, Dad. Could we start over?"
"Caitlyn," he said, in a strangled voice. And then, awkwardly, he drew her into a hug.
Ben went back into the house. Cait hadn't needed him after all. Was that the problem with their relationship?
Or the answer?
Gradually the crowd thinned, the rooms emptied. By nine o'clock, only the Shepherds, the Tremaines and the Gregorys were left behind, sharing eggnog and cookies with their hosts.
David came into the living room. "I called the hospital." He spoke to Anna directly, but the others stopped talking to hear what he said. "Christopher's doing fine. No breathing troubles since they took out the tube this morning."
Anna's smile was bright. "I think he's turned a corner," she told Cait.
"That's fantastic." Cait gave her sister a hug. "I bet you get to bring him home by the New Year."
"Oh, I hope so. Dad, can you stay that long? It would be wonderful to have both of you here at the same time."
"Both—" Cait stopped before she could make a mistake. Anna didn't mean her, because she knew Cait would be flying out late on Christmas afternoon. "The two of you" had to mean Christopher and his granddad.
"I believe I can," Allan Gregory said. "I want as much time with that little boy as possible." He smiled at Anna.| "Not to mention my daughters."
Why did everyone here seem to be confused about what
;
was happening? Or, Cait thought, am I the one who's confused?
Harry got to his feet. "Speaking of time, I think we'd better let you folks get some rest. I know a jolly old elf who can't make his stops in Goodwill until all the children are asleep."
"Santa Claus!" Maddie scrambled to her feet. "We have to put out cookies for Santa."
Cait stood when the others did, but stayed a little separate from the general bustle for coats. Her dad, she'd discovered, had been staying with Harry and Peggy since he arrived yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow, of course, he could move into the guest room of Anna's house.
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