Christmas Jars Reunion

by Jason F. Wright

  If Marianne had been happy when she and Hope first had their tearful reunion, she was electrically ecstatic now. Marianne had easily persuaded Nick to move closer, and he’d come up with the idea to finance a small salon so Marianne could take control over her new career as a hairstylist. Those who knew them suspected Nick opened the salon so he and Marianne could sleep in longer and set their own hours without permission from Marianne’s manager at the old salon where she’d learned the trade. Hope didn’t care why; she simply loved having Marianne in her life. And after a failed first marriage to Hope’s biological, deadbeat father, Marianne deserved all the happiness she and Nick could create.

  As long planned, Hannah and Dustin had taken over the Maxwell family furniture restoration business. But Restored wasn’t the same without Adam’s energy and passion, and though it wasn’t yet public knowledge, Hope was sure Hannah and Dustin wouldn’t continue the struggle much longer.

  What she wasn’t as sure of was exactly how she felt about the prospect of Clark Maxwell taking over. Hannah had hinted that Clark, a semipro baseball player and one of Adam’s nephews, was considering moving to town to try his hand at keeping the business afloat and in the family.

  Hope knew Clark very well. They’d met two years earlier at Sing for a Wing night at Chuck’s. Clark and his dad—Adam’s brother JJ—were in town visiting Lauren for the first time since Adam’s funeral and Clark had created sparks with Hope—both good and bad—during that eight-day visit.

  Subsequent visits were no different. Clark would swoop into town for a few days here, a week there, and the chemistry would pop, bubble, and boil over the edge until Clark vanished for a tryout for some minor league baseball team in a town no one but Clark had ever heard of.

  He was rumored to arrive for a trial run as the future owner of Restored any day now.

  Hope didn’t sit down until all that was left to deal with was the empty rented tent, a few chairs that belonged to Chuck’s and not the funeral home, and the table and podium Preacher Longhurst had used. She pulled two chairs together, sat in one and propped her feet on the other.

  “Hope, you coming to the cemetery?” Clara and Julie, the Maxwell twins, appeared under the tent. “Some of us that stayed back to help with lunch are going over now to pay our respects.”

  “I think I’ll stay for now, thanks though. I’ll go later.”

  “You sure?” Clara asked.

  “Yeah—” Hope started.

  “Come on.” Julie took Hope’s right hand and tried to pull her to her feet. “Come with us. There’s nothing more to clean up and they’re coming soon to take this thing down anyway.”

  Hope resisted the pull and remained planted firmly in the chair.

  In the three years since their father’s death, the Maxwell twins had met and married Braden and Tyson Wright, two brothers who had swept into town selling home security systems and never left. The twins were happily married to the Wright brothers and wanted the same joy for Hope. So when they weren’t creating trouble or on a double date with their husbands, they were playing matchmaker. They’d set her up on at least a dozen blind dates just that year. Half of them ended awkwardly at the front door, a few ended between dinner and the planned movie, and one infamous date ended after a thirty-seven-minute trip to and from Chick-fil-A. Second dates were unusual.

  Julie grabbed Hope’s left hand as well and tried again. “Come, come, come. Gayle’s gone home for a nap, the brothers are inside the restaurant talking, and most of the grandkids went with Hannah and Dustin to their place.”

  “Really, I appreciate it,” Hope said, “but I’ll wait here for the guys to take down the tent. I’m spent. My feet hurt. I’ll drive down to the cemetery with Marianne later tonight.”

  The twins relented, hugged her good-bye, and joined the small group in the parking lot waiting for their turn to visit Chuck’s grave.

  Hope looked around the empty tent and noticed for the first time how badly they’d trampled the early winter grass. She wondered if Chuck had ever imagined such a showing for his funeral. He would have approved, she decided, of every detail, including his gorgeous seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Lili, with her model-long legs directing funeral traffic while wearing a chicken costume. “Grandpa would want me to,” she’d told Gayle that morning. She was right.

  Hope stood and walked to the lone remaining table. She gingerly sat on it, holding her breath and testing its weight. Then she tried to slide the portable wooden pulpit away but noticed Preacher Longhurst had left his Bible behind it. She picked up the book, swung her legs around and laid flat on the table. Again she marveled at the warm spell that made December first feel like September first and she pulled at the sides of her black dress, straightening it across her legs. The dress was an expensive luxury she’d bought for herself in New York that summer with Marianne. I didn’t buy this for a funeral, she thought. Above her heart on the dress she’d pinned a broach Chuck had given her on her twelfth birthday, celebrated like so many of her other birthdays inside the diner.

  Staring at the underside of the tent’s dirty roof, Hope mentally counted how many people had taken jars. I think we labeled two hundred and twenty jars, she thought. Have we ever placed that many in one day? No chance. I wonder how many people will start filling a jar for this year. It’s kinda late, I guess. Still though, maybe a hundred start now? Sure they will. That’s less than half that took ’em. So a hundred start today and save . . . how much? Fifty dollars by Christmas? No, too much. That’s two dollars a day. No. Maybe a dollar. That’s twenty-five dollars in each jar. Twenty-five hundred dollars total saved in jars by Christmas Eve. Not bad at all. And next year? Two hundred jars times . . . hmmm, two hundred dollars maybe? What’s that, twenty grand? No . . .

  Hope was much too tired for math. Instead she opened the Bible and began reading from the first verse she saw. Romans 1:4. But the Bible, a warm afternoon, late nights, and grief were enough. By verse eighteen Hope had dozed into a light nap.

  Ten minutes later Clark Maxwell pulled into the parking lot at Chuck’s Chicken ’n’ Biscuits, walked into the funeral tent, and saw what certainly looked like a dead woman in a black dress, lying face up on a table, clutching a Bible with her eyes closed.

  ~~~

  What a surprise. Who would set money outside of our door, and why? We immediately put a sign on our door saying “THANK YOU—The gift will go on.” Thank you to our Christmas Angel.

  —Heidi

  Three

  ~~~

  Five years in Idaho Falls and Aaron still hated it. The wind blew eighteen hours a day, and during the quiet hours it was so cold you wouldn’t have known if it was blowing anyway. Your skin was too numb.

  Aaron Albert Allred had lived in six states and burned through twice that many jobs since being hired out of college at a commercial insurance agency. He thrived in his early twenties, always first in, last out, and always out-earning his colleagues. But after being laid off from a mid-level management position with California’s largest insurance company, “Al,” as his few friends called him, took every penny he’d ever earned—and much of what his second wife had earned—and invested in an Internet-based paintball store. It failed. And so did the marriage, in equally explosive fashion.

  Broke and single, Al took a position at a health benefits start-up company, but the CEO didn’t appreciate Al making moves on his secretary, who coincidentally happened to be the CEO’s wife. Al’s choice was simple: walk away or face a sexual harassment complaint with a fat wallet behind it.

  He blew the secretary a kiss and drove to the Santa Anita racetrack.

  His relationship resume consisted of mostly bad references. He’d been married to or lived with a string of women: once for three years, once for four, once for eight months, and once for just a week shy of five years. The last had been his best effort at an honest, trusting relationship, but his ex-wife met someone younger, richer, and with a smaller belt. Even Al had to recognize karma when she walked
out the door one morning carrying a suitcase and wearing a tennis skirt and red lipstick.

  Al’s temper mellowed through the years, but his penchant for women with a different last name did not. If nothing else I’ve always tried, he convinced himself. Some guys are just too afraid to take the plunge. Of course his exes probably would have preferred he never had.

  His latest job was in sales and account management, and the flexible schedule and lack of a traditional chain of command suited him. He told his neighbors he was trading in heads of cattle and representing some of the largest ranches in the Western U.S. The truth was that he sold Cowboy Craig’s Beef Jerky to convenience stores and gas stations along I-15. His territory stretched from the southern Idaho border north to Butte, Montana.

  Al’s responsibilities included restocking, invoicing, setting up new displays, and occasionally bartering for more floor or shelf space. What he really wanted to do, though—and he reminded Cowboy Craig at every opportunity—was to help take the highly profitable regional company national. His angle was consistent and relentless: “CC, there’s no reason something that works so well on a small scale wouldn’t work on a large one.”

  But Cowboy Craig resisted, insisting the company was exactly the size he wanted. Big enough to provide a nice living for everyone involved, but small enough he knew his clients’ names and why they mattered.

  Despite their differences of opinion, Al was undeniably good at his job. He had, after all, sold himself as a suitable marital prospect to three different women.

  In every other place Al had ever worked, December first meant winter was still weeks away, if coming at all. But in Idaho Falls, the same date meant it was time to write his third rent check of the winter. The area had already endured several snowstorms and there weren’t enough layers to battle a wind that whipped like gossip through the small town.

  Al woke up early that day. A few weeks earlier the Gas Shack in Pocatello had hired a young, blonde, attractive new morning manager and he was hoping to arrive in the closing moments of her shift to casually invite her to a nice lunch at Denny’s. He dressed in slacks and a tan polo with the Cowboy Craig logo embroidered on the breast. It was an upgrade she couldn’t help but notice.

  The company warehouse where he parked his cargo van every evening was ten minutes away on the other side of Idaho Falls. “I’m pushing my luck,” Al muttered, splashing on the same cologne he’d been wearing for a decade. He quickly put a sweater on over his polo, pulled a coat from the hall closet, put it on and zipped it up, and finished with a scarf around his neck.

  “Here we go,” he said as he pulled open the front door, twisted the inside door handle lock and slammed it shut before running down the stairs of his apartment complex to his car. The first flight of stairs, completely protected from the elements, was dry and clear. The second flight had small patches of ice leftover from a weekend storm. The third and final flight was more exposed, and he slowed his pace and stepped deliberately over slick patches of dangerous ice.

  He reached the sidewalk, well tended by the maintenance crew. “Not today,” he smirked as he arrived safely at his car. Then he felt both front pockets for his keys, checked his coat pockets that held the bulky gloves he hated wearing, patted his front pockets again, and cursed.

  Al ran back up the stairs, unlocked the door, and spent five minutes scavenging his two-bedroom apartment for his key ring before he remembered. “Pants,” he grumbled and fetched his keys from the pocket of yesterday’s jeans on the bedroom floor.

  He raced back down the stairwell and flew—literally—down the final flight of stairs. Al didn’t need a doctor to tell him his left leg was broken.

  It could have been twenty below zero and he wouldn’t have felt any more pain.

  He lay face first on the sidewalk with his palms badly cut and stinging from the salt pellets that had embedded in his skin upon impact. They didn’t hurt nearly as much as his lower leg, and the blood dripping into his right eye told him his forehead had been sliced open. He reached up and wiped just above his eyebrow. The blood warmed his fingertips enough to convince him he wasn’t dead.

  He rolled himself over and squinted into the white sun. The little girl standing beside him had long, brown curly hair and a loud, unafraid voice. She looked six or seven years old and Al thought he’d seen her around the complex.

  “Are you OK? Sir?” The girl set down her retro Smurfs lunchbox and knelt beside him. “Sir? Hello? Are you there? Are you alright?”

  “My leg is broken, midget.” Al covered his face with both hands. “What do you think?”

  “Oh! And your hand is bleeding, too. Can I help you?”

  “Get your parents.”

  “I only have a mom.”

  “Who cares, kid, get her. Get anyone.”

  The little girl stood. “Wait here,” she said before racing toward her building. It felt like two hours to Al, but just moments later the little girl returned with her mother.

  “Oh, my goodness!” the woman said. “Are you OK, Mr. Allred?”

  “What is it with you two? I’m on the ground and my leg is on fire. Do you think I’m OK?”

  She ignored the question. “I’ve already called the ambulance. They’re coming.”

  “Fantastic.” He wondered if he should be embarrassed that she knew his name while he couldn’t have guessed hers if given ten thousand tries. He wasn’t.

  Al tilted his head to the side and saw the girl’s snow boots and her mother’s slippers. He closed his eyes. When he reopened them he saw a half-dozen pairs of shoes in his eye-line.

  “We’re going to load you on a backboard,” a male voice said.

  “My back is fine.”

  “It’s a precaution.”

  “My back is fine,” he repeated and tried to sit up.

  “Sir, it’s a mandatory precaution,” the EMT said much more firmly and motioned for two others to position the board on the ground next to Al.

  Al noticed there was a crowd in the parking lot as the EMTs carefully strapped him to the board and placed braces on his leg and neck.

  “This is ridiculous,” Al protested. “It’s my leg, you idiots.”

  The team lifted and loaded him into the ambulance and drove off.

  An Idaho Falls police officer approached the little girl and her mother. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “My real name?”

  The female officer smiled and looked at the mother. “Yes, sweetheart, your real name.”

  “Lara. L-a-r-a. There’s no u sound. But Mommy calls me Queen Lara. Or Queen. Or sometimes Lara Q. Or when she’s mad she—”

  “OK, Lara, that’s enough,” her mother said, rolling her eyes. “I’m Laura, too.” She extended her hand to the police officer. “Traditional spelling, including the U.”

  “Really?” the officer asked, puzzled.

  “Long story.”

  “So Lara, did you see what happened to the man?”

  “Yes, Officer, yes I did. I was coming to the car. I missed the bus because Mom overslept. . . . She works a lot,” she whispered. “I woke up, regular time, had Cheerios—Mom won’t let me have real cereal. Then I watched cartoons. Then Mom woke up, got a little mad that she slept so long, and we were going out to the car when—”

  “Sweetheart,” her mother interrupted, “just tell her what you saw.”

  Queen pointed with a short stiff arm at the sidewalk where her lunchbox still sat. “He fell right there by my lunchbox.”

  “Did he trip?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, he didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Neither woman could stifle their laughter.

  “Well. You were very brave to run and get your mother. Very well done, Lara.”

  “Queen.”

  “Very well done, Queen.” The officer bent down again to Queen’s level. “Have you ever had a ride in a police car?”

  “No, ma’am! Just ambulances. But those aren’t very fun.”

  “Alright then.”
The officer laughed awkwardly. “Would you like a ride to school in my police car?” Then she looked at Queen’s mother. “You can come too, of course. I’ll run you back here.”

  Queen looked up at her mother and asked with her wide blue eyes.

  “Sure,” Laura said, but Queen was already turning around to grab her lunchbox.

  Mother and daughter climbed into the back seat of the police cruiser and began their exciting journey to school just two miles away. Queen asked the officer a dozen questions about the car, the metal screen that kept the giddy little girl from climbing in the front seat, the siren and why they couldn’t turn it on, the radio, her hat, the lights and why they couldn’t turn them on either.

  Then Queen asked one final question as they turned into the parking lot of her elementary school.

  “Mom, can we give the man with the broken leg our Christmas Jar?”

  ~~~

  I know I will feel so glad when I give the jar. It won’t be one million dollars, but it’s some money they can use, and they can use it however they wish.

  —Montana

  Four

  ~~~

  Clark Maxwell stood beside Hope, who was flat on her back in her black dress with a Bible on her chest and still looking very much like the subject of a funeral and not simply a mourner. He noticed her hair was shorter than last time he’d buzzed through town, but still silky and shiny and styled in a no-nonsense, no-time-for-primping sort of way. She wore just enough makeup to remind people she probably didn’t need any. Her lipstick was so light and natural Clark couldn’t be completely sure she was wearing any.

  He put his ear next to Hope’s mouth to make sure she was breathing. He lingered a little longer to appreciate her perfume and accidentally bumped her shoulder with his.