Letters on the Table

by Pattie Howse-Duncan

  She merely clutched both of his hands in hers and said with genuine tenderness, “You know what the Bible tells us in Hebrews? Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Welcome, William, and may you never feel the need to leave again. But if you do, may you find your way back home to us.” She reached out for him, and their embrace lasted long enough to remind him how to hug back, leaving a little puddle of his tears on her right shoulder.

  It wasn’t until much later that Katherine learned William’s story, but she had sensed from the beginning a brokenness about him—that he had known the meaning of sadness for most of his days.

  Settle In

  It didn’t take William long to settle in. He was a regular around Katherine’s table for their Sunday night dinners.

  “It feels like we just added the last piece to the jigsaw puzzle, and now the picture is finally complete.” Katherine looked at Lily Mae, knowing full well she understood exactly what she meant.

  “Except this time, it’s not a jigsaw of a lighthouse or ships in a harbor. It’s a picture of our lives, you, me, Sam, Hollis, Clarence and now William.”

  “If only Murphy and Doc and Savannah . . .”

  “I know, Queenie, I know. But I haven’t stopped pestering the good Lord about that. I’m certain he’s got a plan for Savannah, just not sure what it is. But this I know to be true…it’s a mighty plan. You and I both know that.”

  Over dessert, Hollis broached the subject of William joining himself and Clarence in the day-to-day management of the farm. They both thought he would be a good fit since they weren’t as nimble as they used to be, and they readily admitted they could use a young buck. William was tempted. He liked the idea.

  It was Katherine’s turn. “That’s an excellent proposition, and I like it from all angles, but I have another idea. One that Lily Mae and I came up with together.”

  Clarence couldn’t contain a chuckle. “This one’s going to be good. You combine the gumption of those two old women, and you’ve got yourself something to be reckoned with. You have to remember, William, I’ve known Lily Mae my entire life, and Katherine has known her since she was seven. Yes sir, this one is really going to be good. Brace yourself, buddy, and now let’s hear it.”

  Katherine took the stage, smiling. “Well, I have no doubt William would be an asset on the farm, but I’m afraid as soon as you men realize how intelligent he is and how quick he is to catch on to things, you won’t want to share him with Lily Mae and me so we want to lay claim on him first.”

  “Queenie, why don’t you let me tell it, since it was really my idea to begin with?”

  “Well, of course, Lily Mae. You tell it then and be convincing because we don’t want William to turn us down.”

  In his entire life, he was certain no one had ever fought over him. It was a powerful awakening.

  Lily Mae began. “Hear me out. I’m trying to do my part and conserve America’s energy. Seems that’s what our politicians and conservationists keep preaching about these days.”

  Clarence chuckled again. “I told you this was going to be good. Lily Mae’s about to tell us how William here is going to be America’s answer to the energy crisis. Go ahead, Sister.”

  “Now you hush up and let me finish.” Lily Mae’s audience was eager to hear her bright idea, recognizing the mirth in her voice. “We’re hoping William might decide to work for us,” indicating with her head she meant just herself and Katherine. “We’ve reached the point we could use some help. We’ve been thinking I might give up my house and move to Cross Creek. That’s the saving energy part. He could help me get all settled and then he could manage us, take us here and there, driving us when we needed to go places. Katherine’s not too old to drive, but he’s spoiled us. We’ve been having a lot more fun sitting together in the back seat talking and carrying on than when she’s doing the driving all around town. Besides, we’re hoping we can work around his schedule cause we’re thinking he might start taking some college classes and get himself a degree in something. He’s got lots more gifts than just being a good driver. Not sure if he realizes it or not, but it’s plain as day to the rest of us.”

  All eyes shifted to William. He quietly studied Lily Mae’s face and then Katherine’s. “What exactly does manage you entail?”

  “There you go, son! That question alone lets me know you are a man of intelligence.” Clarence nodded as he laughed at his own announcement. “These two gals aren’t the kind to be managed, so you should know that up front. I think you better just take us up on the farm offer and forget these two. They’ll get you in a heap of trouble without you ever realizing it. I’ve been there and done that and I’m scared of these two.”

  It took a while for the laughter to subside around the table.

  “That’s just about enough out of you, Clarence.” Everyone detected the playfulness in Katherine’s voice. “Maybe just a trip to the library a couple of days a week, grocery shopping, the drug store now and then, Sam’s house every Friday for can redemption and any other day he wants to spend with us, and one other adventure we haven’t yet mentioned to you.”

  Hollis couldn’t resist. “And here it comes. You see how these two operate? Ole Doc Bishop used to call it the K Syndrome when he talked about how Katherine could hypnotize people, but I realized years ago she learned that magic trick from Lily Mae. These two have some spells up their sleeves. Don’t say we didn’t warn you, William.”

  “Hear me out now,” Katherine continued. “Every Monday afternoon I visit several friends who live over at Shady Valley on May Avenue. It’s an assisted living facility, not the nicest or best smelling one in town, but one filled with people who have run out of youth and luck years ago. There are a couple of people in particular I want you to meet. Both of them are veterans, and I know how you love American history. I think you’ll have quite a bit to talk about.”

  Sam finally entered the conversation, and everyone stopped to listened intently. “William’s new around here. Seems like he should have time to think ’bout what you’re saying to him. He might need some time, seems like.”

  William did need time but not a lot of it. He knew before his head rested on the pillow that night which option to choose. With one condition.

  The next morning he shared his thoughts with Katherine. “I’d like to take you up on your offer, but I think I’d like to get a place of my own. Maybe someplace half way between Cross Creek and Sam’s place. That way I can get to him quickly if he ever needs me, and the same applies for you. That idea came to me, and it feels right. What do you think?”

  Katherine’s hug carried with it every word of love known to man. And so, their journey began.

  He particularly connected with one of the veterans during their Monday visits at Shady Valley. Royce Thessing had almost no family who ventured his way. He was crusty and curt and had pushed away what little family still felt obligated to visit sporadically once or twice a year. But William was different. If he noticed Royce’s offensive odor or language, he never let on. The two men simply talked about the war—where Royce served, the outcome of the battles, his buddies in combat who were like brothers, and much more.

  Mr. Thessing didn’t realize it, but William gathered all the information he learned each Monday and began to investigate the names and dates. The internet had a wealth of WWII documentation, and as it turned out, Annabelle Curry, the young reference librarian, was more than eager to assist in his research.

  It was Annabelle who gave William access to the recently declassified government sites. Together they spent hours, days, and weeks searching, sorting data and compiling information. They became a research team of two, working arduously for Mr. Royce Thessing, without the old guy knowing a bit of it. An air of comfortableness enveloped them when they spoke, and William seemed to linger longer and longer each week at the refer
ence desk.

  But it never went farther than that. Just two people researching an old soldier’s career and accomplishments from a war that occurred decades before they were born.

  “Maybe that’s all it’s intended to be.” Katherine didn’t believe it even as the words came out of her mouth.

  “Now, I raised you better than that, Queenie. Have you not seen how she brings out the twinkle in his eyes? You watch. Something potent’s going to come out of all this research these two have going on. I can feel it.”

  Baby Jesus

  In the first week of Advent of the third year after the debut of St. Thomas’ life-size nativity scene, the unthinkable occurred. Someone stole baby Jesus. Right smack in the middle of Kingston. Father Drew called to break the news to Katherine.

  It was difficult news to deliver, and it was difficult news to grasp. “That just can’t be right. Who on earth in our town would take baby Jesus and why? Now you and I both know teenagers sometimes play silly pranks. Do you think someone just moved him to one of the other churches?”

  “I’ve already sent an email to the churches in the ministerial alliance, but so far nothing’s turned up.” Katherine heard a rawness in Father Drew’s voice she seldom heard. “When I talked to Father John at St. Joseph’s he reminded me it’s the Catholic tradition to wait until Christmas morning to place the Christ child in the manger, and he wondered if St. Thomas had decided to do the same.”

  “I wish it were that simple. I’m going to assume someone will call, laughing hysterically, to report that they found it laying in their front yard next to their mechanical reindeer or pink flamingos. I have a hunch this will end well.” It was the best Katherine could do. She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt.

  Katherine and William went in tandem to tell Sam, who took the news the hardest. Sam’s world was black and white, without a smidgen of gray. Things were right or they were wrong and, in his mind, stealing baby Jesus was very, very wrong. He didn’t take their word for it. He had to see it to believe it, so they all loaded up and William drove them to St. Thomas to see the vacancy in the manger for themselves.

  “That’s wrong what somebody did to Jesus.” Sam turned his head, avoiding a second look at the nativity. “Let’s go find ’em.”

  And by that he meant, literally, let’s go look for someone walking around Kingston carrying a life-size hand carved wooden infant Christ child. William never even glanced at Katherine for approval. He just put the car in gear and for the next two hours they followed Sam’s navigation as they slowly drove up and down any street he directed. William knew it was pointless. Katherine knew it was pointless. But they both knew it would help Sam understand that baby Jesus wasn’t just lying on some street corner waiting to be found.

  The Kingston Daily ran a front-page story the following morning, complete with a color photo of the empty manger. The article included quotes from several prominent Kingstonites expressing their disappointment that vandals would attempt something so blatantly sacrilegious in their peaceful town. The Kingston Chamber of Commerce offered a reward for the return of the missing baby.

  The disappearance was the talk of the town. Everyone had an opinion on whether the church should dismantle the Nativity until the missing member of the Holy Family could be replaced. The Kingston Daily seized the opportunity to boost sales by providing a daily update. Father Drew reminded the reporter it was ultimately up to St. Thomas’ vestry to decide how to handle the disappearance, and they were scheduled to vote on the issue the following week at their regularly scheduled meeting. Until then, the Nativity remained as it was, void and all.

  It was five days after the abduction that baby Jesus was discovered under a pile of fetid trash and Styrofoam peanuts in First Bank of Kingston’s dumpster. If it weren’t for Sam’s passion for rummaging in trash receptacles for aluminum cans, baby Jesus would have been flattened by the garbage truck and spent the rest of eternity disintegrating in the Kingston dump.

  It was still dark and quite cold, but Sam had a routine, and regardless of the weather he rarely deviated from his schedule of predawn dumpster searching. He almost didn’t see the carved body lying under the rubbish. He’d actually already walked away from the dumpster and was maneuvering his bike when he had the strong feeling that something was wrong, which pulled him back to the dumpster. It was a feeling so strong he couldn’t avoid it, like it was meant to be. It was Sam who found what Kingston had lost.

  He removed his coat and wrapped it gingerly around the wooden replica of the Christ child and then cradled him across his chest as he pedaled back home, just as dawn was breaking.

  “You better come see me and you better come now. Jesus ain’t lost no more. I got him here at my house. Got him wrapped up in my coat. I thought you’d want to know he’s not hurt.”

  “Oh, Sam.” Tearfully, Katherine told him she was on her way.

  Katherine and Lily Mae arrived only minutes before William, followed shortly by Father Drew. There he was, the wooden Christ child, lying on Sam’s worn Naugahyde couch wrapped in a man’s coat, his carved arms and legs outstretched as though he were reaching for Sam.

  En masse, they rode with Father Drew to return Jesus to the manger and the word spread throughout town like jam on warm toast. The same Kingston Daily reporter now begged to do a follow-up interview with Sam. The headline the next day read, “Baby Jesus Saved” and quoted Sam saying, “I couldn’t sleep right knowing somebody took Jesus.”

  No one witnessed the recovery, but it would be told and retold many times in the following days by Kingstonites who celebrated the righting of the wrong. Overnight Sam’s description went from being “the can guy who’s not all there” to “one of Kingston’s finest.”

  What Sam decided to do next was not discovered until about midnight several evenings later when Officer Keith Sims was working his night shift. Spotting someone lurking in a darkened doorway about a block from the town square, he parked his patrol car and approached the man positioned in the dim light directly across the street from, and in full view of, St. Thomas’ life-size outdoor nativity.

  “Hey, man. What are you doing standing out here in the cold?”

  “Just watching.” Sam shifted from one foot to the other, never turning his head to match eyes with the policeman. Officer Sims noticed the man’s tennis shoes, a poor selection of footwear on this night of below freezing temperatures.

  “What are you watching for?” He asked, turning his head to see the view his stranger was so deliberately studying.

  “Trying to make sure nobody steals the baby again. They did it already and I’m gonna’ watch over Jesus and make sure it don’t happen again.” Sam never once took his eyes off the crime scene.

  “Are you the one who found him? In the dumpster?” It all became clear to Officer Sims, and he was struck by the magnitude of this man’s commitment. “Tell you what, I’ll keep a good eye out to make sure they’re all safe and you can go on home and get out of the cold. I’ll make sure nothing else happens. It’s already below freezing and they’re predicting sleet before the night ends.”

  “Nope. What if you have to go help somebody else? Who’ll watch then?”

  “Well, you’re right, something could come up and I’d have to leave temporarily but then I’d return and stand watch again.”

  “Nope, I ain’t leavin’. Somebody in this town tried to do wrong to baby Jesus already and I ain’t going to let ’em do it again. I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong and I know God’s watching. I thought I might help a little.”

  And so that’s how it went for the next week. Sam slept during the day and stood watch by night. Word got out. Police officers told their spouses who went to work and told their colleagues. They told their neighbors, and it wasn’t long before the whole town knew. Everyone got in the spirit. Someone anonymously dropped off a collapsible canvas chair for Sam to sit in
while he was on his self-assigned watch. First Bank of Kingston took up a collection and presented Sam with three pairs of insulated socks, a down coat, and new neoprene boots. Katherine packed him a tall thermos of hot chocolate and snacks, and William kept him company several hours each evening.

  Some nights were wet and every night was cold, but nothing prevented Sam from standing guard, like a loyal sentry, watching over his sheep. Without fail. He set the kind of example that touched even the hard-hearted. Father Drew included it in an Advent sermon, reminding St. Thomas’ congregants that the way the town responded to Sam and his efforts was a touching example of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

  Downtown Kingston was always picturesque but especially so at Christmas. Wreaths hung from every storefront, white twinkling lights wrapped each streetlight, the entire roofline and all eight columns of the county courthouse were illuminated in white lights. Everyone anticipated the annual Christmas parade, a fifty-three-year-long tradition. Little about the dazzling event had changed over the years. It was comprised of a couple of school marching bands playing their small repertoire of Christmas music, at least twenty church floats in a variety of shapes and sizes, several beauty queens, and the ever-popular finale of Santa riding atop the city’s most impressive fire truck, throwing candy to all the kids while ho-ho-hoing all the way.

  Just days before the parade, Mayor Phillips asked Katherine to arrange for Sam to be present at the Kingston City Council meeting with a promise that it would be a memorable event.

  And so they gathered. Turns out it was quite a few friends who came to see what Mayor Phillips had in mind. Katherine and Lily Mae sat on one side of Sam while William and Father Drew and his wife, Mary-Claire, joined him on the other. The remainder of the front row was filled with smiling uniformed police officers and the reporter from the Kingston Daily.

  The city council meeting was called to order, and the secretary called roll. All eight members were present, including Wanda Sullivan-Langston.