Even at eighteen and fifteen, both kids were still excited to see what Santa brought. They were shaking Renee’s shoulder by 7:00 the next morning, just like they had done when they were eight and five. They could hear the rest of the cousins gathering outside their door in the upstairs hallway. Throwing on robes and grabbing glasses and a camera, they all thundered down the wooden staircase together.
After Renee grabbed a cup of coffee for reinforcement and the kids peeked into their stockings, together they headed to the empty sunroom to exchange their gifts.
Robbie gave Julie a CD of her all-time favorite songs. Julie was touched he remembered so many of the songs and surprised he took the time to pull it together.
Next, Robbie gave Renee a beautiful, leather-bound journal and matching pen. Looking a bit uncomfortable, he said, “Mom, you have some changes coming up, and I heard girls like to write in journals when they are trying to figure things out.”
Up until then, Robbie had said little to Renee about her job loss. His gift proved he thought about it more than he let on, and he wasn’t only worried about how this might impact him. Renee gave Robbie a squeeze, quickly blinked tears out of her eyes, and handed each of her kids an oversized box wrapped in shiny turquoise paper and tied with a big red bow.
Technically, Renee’s gifts to Julie and Robbie contained lots of goodies, but they didn’t complain about her stretching their rule of one gift per person. Each box included things they needed for their upcoming trip like underwater cameras, swimsuits, flip flops, snorkeling gear, and bottles of sunscreen. At the bottom of each of their boxes, Renee had pasted a photo of the three of them onto a stunning beach shot from a Fiji website. The kids finally knew where they were going, and their squeals filled the room. Also in their boxes were travel guides and little notebooks with pockets so they had a place to put any little brochures or ticket stubs they collected during their trip. They immediately started paging through the travel guides, both talking at once.
“Wait, wait, guys!” Julie finally shouted over the noise. “You still need to open my gifts to you!” she said, scooping the last two packages off the coffee table.
Robbie grabbed his out of her hands and ripped the paper off unceremoniously, grinning hugely at his sister.
“Oh, cool,” Robbie gasped. It was a big, 12”x12” scrapbook. As he started flipping through the pages, Renee could see Julie had made her brother a photo album of his school years, starting in kindergarten. His grinning, gap-toothed face filled the early pages. Grade school and middle school pages consisted mostly of sports shots, including baseball, basketball, and football. Sprinkled in were a few shots of first and last days of school and a teacher or two. Family shots of the three of them popped up, too. Julie sat back with a smile, watching her mom and brother enjoy their trips down memory lane.
Pictures filled half the book. The remaining pages were blank.
“You can put our vacation pictures in there after we get back and fill up the rest with your high school days,” Julie said. “Mom, I raided your boxes of pictures before I left for school; I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? No way,” Renee laughed. “I have always meant to get those pictures organized into books, but I never find the time. I am so glad you did that. This is something Robbie will always have. Who knows if I would have gotten around to making you books?”
“Well, good, I’m glad you feel that way, Mom . . . because I also made myself a book so I wouldn’t get so lonesome when I was at school,” Julie said. “It isn’t as fancy as Robbie’s, but I keep it in my dorm room. I have pictures in there from the time I was a baby through high school, and when I’m having a tough day, I pull it out and look through it.”
Renee knew if the book contained pictures of Julie from babyhood, the pages up until third grade would likely include pictures of Julie’s father as well. Renee’s heart ached as she pictured her daughter lying on the twin bed in her dorm room, staring at laughing pictures of the four of them. She found it interesting Robbie’s book started after their family numbered three rather than four.
Julie handed Renee a beautifully wrapped box and a card. Opening the card first, Renee read the words from her daughter.
Dear Mom,
Thank you for always standing so strong behind us, supporting us in all we do, and being there for us as we move forward. Please know how much I appreciate all you have done for both Robbie and me. You have worked hard and sacrificed to give us a great life. You also need to take time for yourself, though. Be sure you take the time right now to decide what is best for you going forward. I thought these books might help you think about your life and finding your own happiness.
All my love, Julie
Welling up again, Renee offered Julie a watery smile. Lifting the top off a fancy Christmas box, she pulled out three books. Renee was an avid reader but usually lost herself in romance or mystery novels. It was her way of escaping the demands of single motherhood and a busy career. She’d never spent too much time reading the kind of books in her hands now.
The books were all written by authors Renee knew of but had never read. The first was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. The second was Goals! by Brian Tracy. The third was The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz.
Julie gave Robbie something he could cherish forever . . . and she gave Renee permission to explore doing something different with her life.
Jumping up, she gathered both of her children in a hug. The hug didn’t last long, quickly dissolving into tickling and wrestling. Worried her two big teenagers might break something in the sunroom, Renee pulled them apart and sent them up to their shared room to put the gifts away.
She took a moment to reflect before joining the rest of the family. Her kids were growing up. She hadn’t been a total screw-up raising them, after all. She reflected on the care they each took to pick the right gifts for each other. Throwing up a quick note of thanks to God, she grabbed her cup of cold coffee and the garbage bag stuffed with shredded wrapping.
Lavonne called everyone to the table for eggs and rolls. As Renee walked by the window over the side yard, a blur of movement caught her eye. Intrigued, she stopped and looked more carefully at the snow-covered bushes, but saw nothing out of place.
Must have been a dog, or maybe a deer, she mused, heading out the door to join the rest of her family.
Chapter 14
Gift of Encouragement
After a big breakfast, everyone kept busy and the rest of the day passed quickly. A turkey roasted in the oven; there were card games inside, football and sledding outside, and lots of visiting.
Everyone talked about it, and Renee’s sisters and brother all agreed to hold on to their envelopes from Aunt Celia and keep them sealed for a little while yet before opening them on New Year’s Day—this would give them the proper time to open them in private, as per Celia’s request.
For their last night together, another enormous meal was laid out. Turkey dinner was a family tradition on Christmas Day. Even when Renee stayed home in Minneapolis with the kids, she always prepared one.
Two more cousins crammed around the kids’ tables this night: Ethan’s boys, who had joined them mid-day. Will still hadn’t made it—Jess would only say that he was on call. Renee started to wonder if something more was going on, but wasn’t about to bring it up in front of everyone. Jess seemed fine, and her two kids enjoyed hanging out with all the other cousins, most of all Robbie and Julie. Renee wondered if maybe something was bothering Julie, too. She seemed distracted. Maybe she was missing her college friends?
Determined to enjoy her dwindling time with everyone, Renee shook off her worries and joined the lively conversation around the table. At one point, it flowed back to the subject of Aunt Celia. Celia had lived twenty miles from George and Lavonne; her home was a point of pride for her—a full two stories, plus a basement and a walk-up attic.
When Celia died, Lavonne, Jess, and Val took care of things needing immediate attenti
on, like the food in the kitchen. They gave the place a thorough scrubbing and debated about what to do with Celia’s household goods, so George talked to Celia’s lawyer. The lawyer informed them things were to remain “as is” for the first few months following Celia’s death. That was when he gave all the sealed envelopes to George and asked him to hold them until the holidays, explaining only—and enigmatically—that more would become clear once the family read the correspondence.
George’s sister had always been eccentric, so he accepted her last wishes in stride. He dutifully readied the old house for winter, drained pipes, and cleared away leaves and sticks from the yard and gutters. The house had been shut tight ever since. The lawyer agreed to check it once a week. George hated to have the stately old home sit empty even for one winter. He kept the furnace on low to help prevent damage from the extreme cold.
“Celia was such an amazing lady, and her house was always full of surprises,” Val reminisced. “It wasn’t Great Grandma’s old recipe box or the antique icebox full of her china that seemed out of place in her kitchen—it was her laptop, where she saved all of her healthy new recipes. Now, that was unexpected.”
“I know,” Jess chimed in. “Remember the old bristly curlers, the blow dryer, and the flat iron we found in her bathroom vanity? She was always updating her hairstyle. There were three boxes of that auburn hair dye she loved so much, in the linen closet. Celia never believed in going gray. She fought the aging process tooth-and-nail the whole way. By eighty, the red hair began to accentuate the blue veins in Celia’s temples—but no one would have dared point that out to her!”
Conversation continued to flow around the table, everyone reminiscing. After the tables were cleared one last time, Lavonne remembered the box of photo albums she brought from Celia’s. They hadn’t wanted to leave the books in the empty house, she explained; they were irreplaceable.
Everyone moved to the living room, thumbing through the albums, the memories. Most were full of pictures, but some also contained wedding announcements, graduation programs, funeral cards, and all other manner of documents journaling major life events. The photos were either black-and-white or sepia or grainy color snapshots, fading now with age. There were a few pictures from when Celia, George, Gerry, and Beverly were children, snapshots of vacations and trips to the lake. Beverly had been sickly and died young.
There were laughs and there were tears as they enjoyed the old pictures. Older grandchildren stuck around to hear family stories, sometimes for the first time. Slowly, people drifted off to bed or headed back to their own homes until only Renee and her father remained.
“You know, honey, you still haven’t said why you decided to come home for Christmas this year,” George said, settling deeper into his old armchair. “Don’t get me wrong—it’s been wonderful. You just haven’t been able to make it home these past few years. Is everything all right?”
“Everything will be fine, Dad. I suddenly found myself with extra time on my hands this year. I was laid off from my job a couple weeks ago,” Renee finally told her father. “I guess I am still in denial. It hasn’t sunk in yet that I won’t be going back after the holidays.”
“I figured it was something like that,” said George. “You put on a brave front, honey, but I could tell something has been eating at both you and Julie. Robbie seems fine, but you girls have seemed a little out of sorts. Have you thought about what you want to do?”
“Dad, I didn’t want to brood about it during our visit. I need a little more time to process what happened before I start to think about what I want to do next. We’ll be all right financially, at least for now—I got a decent severance package. But I would like to get back to work so I can save some of that money for emergencies.”
“Those goddamn bastards,” George muttered. “How can they do this to you after all the good years you gave them? No loyalty anymore, is there? Used to be if you worked hard for a company, they’d do their part up until and through retirement. Now days, seems like they would rather get rid of people with experience earning more salary and bring in kids that don’t know much but come cheap. Maybe you want to explore other ways to make a living that don’t involve working for a thankless corporation, huh?”
“You know, Dad, I would have guessed you’d encourage me to get back out there and find another job right away. Honestly, that was my first inclination. Write up a resume, start scouring the want ads, and dust off an interview suit. But the thought of starting over somewhere turns my stomach. How does a person do that at forty-five? Pretty much all I have ever known has been working for this one company and raising my kids. If I go somewhere else, won’t I have to start again with barely any vacation? How am I going to get Robbie to all his games and go visit Julie at college? This could change my life.”
“Now don’t panic, Renee, you hear? You have shown you are a loyal, dependable employee. There will be other companies out there that would love to have you. Hell, maybe you don’t even want to go back to a traditional job. Maybe you want to try your hand at something different.”
“Jeez, Dad, what else could I do? I know I need to think harder about this. Remember when we used to play ‘What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up’? We all used to have such big dreams. Have we settled? Are we living up to our potential?”
“Renee, never doubt you have done what needed to be done for you and those wonderful kids of yours. But maybe this is a gift from God. Maybe he is giving you a wake-up call along with a safety net. It would have been too easy for you to drift along, doing what you’ve been doing, for years to come. Yes, you made a decent living. But there were also sacrifices. You seldom had time to come home. When was the last time you painted a picture or threw a pot? Remember how you loved your art classes in college? What about writing? You used to write in those journals of yours every day. Do you still do any of that?”
“You’re right, Dad, I was in a rut and I didn’t even know it. But hey, it’s getting late.” Renee hoisted herself off the couch, crossed over, and dropped a kiss on her dad’s head. “You’ve given me plenty to think about. You always give me solid advice. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I took the time to ask for it. You better turn in. I am going to head up too. I can’t remember the last time Robbie and Julie beat me to bed—they went up an hour ago already.”
“OK, honey, good night,” George said, squeezing her hand as she straightened. “I will go up in a minute.”
But George didn’t go up right away. He was concerned about his kids. It didn’t matter how old they were; he would always worry. Ethan was suffering through his divorce, trying to keep his kids on the straight and narrow and not lose everything to that selfish ex-wife of his. Renee finally opened up to him tonight, but he knew something was up as soon as she called to ask if they could come home for Christmas. Jess still hadn’t shared too much about Will, but George suspected their marriage was on the rocks too. Will didn’t bother to come for any part of the holiday and George wasn’t sure if he even called to wish a quick “Merry Christmas” to his own family. What kind of husband and father did that? Not a good one, in George’s book. Then there was his little Val . . . always the strong, loud one. They seemed to be doing fine, but George worried about her too. Four kids already and Luke didn’t make much money, and Val stayed home with the boys. Maybe once they were all in school she could go back to work.
George had some inkling about what each of the letters from Celia contained. If his instincts were right, he hoped each of them could do good things with Celia’s generosity.
But there were risks as well.
Chapter 15
Gift of Intuition
The only day Renee dreaded during their three-week adventure dawned with a biting cold wind and gray skies. She hoped it wasn’t a sign of what was to come. Today she would take Julie and Robbie to her in-laws for dinner. Do you still call them “in-laws” when you no longer have a husband?Renee wondered. Her eyes felt gritty and her head throbbed. Her talk wi
th her dad last night sent her mind racing again. It was well past 2:00 a.m. before she finally drifted off. Robbie must have taken Molly downstairs to go out, because his sleeping bag was empty on the floor. Julie was stirring next to her.
“Hey Mom,” Julie said with a yawn, pushing her white-blond hair out of her eyes. “What time is it?”
“A little after seven. I am going down for coffee. Are you going to get up, or sleep a little longer?”
“Sleep sounds good,” Julie said and rolled back on her side, pulling the warm quilt with her. Renee considered asking her daughter if anything was bothering her, but it didn’t feel like the right time. As she belted on her robe, she heard Julie’s phone vibrate on the dresser. Who would be texting Julie so early on the day after Christmas? She suspected most of Julie’s friends were also sleeping. Curious, Renee picked up the phone.
Renee always made it abundantly clear as long as she was paying the kids’ cell bills and they were living under her roof, it was her prerogative to check their phones. She hadn’t touched Julie’s phone since graduation, but Renee’s dad was right: Julie was distracted these days. Initially Renee thought her daughter was worried about her, but maybe it was something else. Maybe she was struggling with classes or her roommate. Renee opened Julie’s phone as she took it with her out of the room.
Thirteen new text messages? And all since late last night, it seemed. Snippets of the texts made little hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Someone was obviously trying to get Julie to respond. All the texts were from someone named Lincoln. Renee had no idea who this Lincoln was.
Feeling like she had trespassed enough into Julie’s business, Renee dropped the phone into the pocket of her robe and vowed to talk to her about it.
An empty kitchen met Renee when she got downstairs. Light snow was falling and Renee was surprised to see the back door open a sliver. She walked over to close it, glanced through the window in the door—and was met with another surprise: Molly was out back, playing with a bone in the snow. She didn’t see anyone out with Molly. Stepping onto the back step, she whistled. Molly ignored her at first, chewing intently on her bone. She turned toward Renee at the second whistle and came bounding to her, leaping up the steps.
Whispering Pines (Celia's Gifts Book 1) Page 7