The Christmas Sisters

by Annie Jones

  Big, innocent brown eyes that in no more than a flash filled with an apprehension beyond her tender years. A caged, helpless look of someone who knew too well that she was at the world’s mercy. The look of someone who had everything to lose, no power to choose, and only a heartbeat to decide where to lay her trust.

  “I was only teasing you, honey.” He capped the top of her head with his cupped hand. “If you say your birdie is in this box, I'm sure it is.”

  She relaxed a little, but her hands continued to flail.

  Did she want him to hand her the box? Was that the best thing to do? Sam considered calling for Petie or someone, fearing the wrong move might worsen the child's anxiety. He'd dealt with a lot of anxiety in his life and ministry, a lot of fear and desperation and people feeling helpless. He had reached out to so many with love and assurance. How could one child fluster him so?

  Because she was different? How different did a person have to be not to want what we all want? Love, support, a friend. Slowly, Sam lifted his open hand to Willa's then gently slid his fingers into hers as he whispered, “It's okay, sweetheart. Your birdie is safe. You're safe. It's okay.”

  She sighed, and with that breath the last bit of tension seemed to leave her body. She took his hand and met his gaze and held it a moment. Then she smiled.

  Sam had known few rewards in life he would cherish more than that one, totally trusting, sincere smile.

  “Big Hyde carved my birdie for me.” She touched the lid of the box with her free hand as she made herself quite comfortable on Sam's lap.

  “Big Hyde?” Sam let her settle in, wrapped one arm around her to make sure she was secure then dared at last to give the box a shake. Something heavy rustled in a nest of tissue paper. “Carved, you say?”

  “Out of wood.”

  “Oh, wood? Not out of soap? Or butter? Because, you see, the only things I've ever carved have been out of soap or butter. Unless you count carving my initials on trees and, um, the occasional school desk or church basement floorboard.”

  She gaped up at him. Her mouth hung open like she didn't know what to make of what he'd just said. Either that or like she had just noticed this vantage point gave her a decidedly unpleasant view right up his nose.

  Sam cleared his throat. “Well, now, what kind of birdie did Big Hyde make you? You want to open it up and show me?”

  She nodded vigorously, but even as her fingers worked to fit between the lid and the lower half of the box, she announced with unabashed pride and dignity, “It's a snowbird.”

  “A...?”

  “A snowbird.” Nic's voice sank straight into his bones, warm but husky, like silk rasping over a rough patch.

  He looked up, unsure of how she would react to seeing the man who had hurt her so badly, the man she wanted out of her home, befriending her only child.

  Nic smiled. Not a sudden burst of a smile. A slow one that seemed to have traveled from someplace deep within her, arriving in fragments until they finally added to one precarious, halting smile.

  “A snowbird,” she said again. “I suppose you don't have those in Albuquerque.”

  “Actually we do. They come in by the droves to escape the northern winters.”

  “They do?” Nic stepped into the room.

  Willa tore through one of the pieces of tape holding the box closed.

  “You can tell them by their distinct plumage,” Sam went on, delighted in how his words and her own curiosity seemed to draw Nic closer. “You can spot the males by their bold Bermuda shorts and black socks with sandals. The females sport lavish headgear and have been known to carry purses that require their own luggage rack on the back of a luxury RV.”

  “Oh, you.” Nic snatched up a handful of tinsel and tossed it at his head.

  It made a graceful arc in the air, then plummeted only inches away from her, drifting down to decorate the toe of his shoe.

  “We're talking about the real snowbirds.” She tapped the sole of his boot with the toe of her shoe. “Surely you remember those. Little birds with heads and backs the color of slate and a snow-white underside?”

  “Like this.” Willa tugged an intricately carved wooden bird from a nest of wrinkled tissue paper in the box. It dangled from her slender fingers by a gleaming golden cord.

  “Very pretty, Willa.” Sam stroked one finger along the plump underbelly as carefully as he would had it been a live creature suspended there before his eyes. Truth to tell, he half expected to feel the downiness of feathers, the warmth of a living body, and the rapid beat of a bird’s heart beneath his touch. The work was that real. “Did you paint this?” he asked Nic as he nudged the snowbird to twirl it a quarter turn so he could examine the dark black eyes, reddish beak, and the painstaking layering in shades of gray and charcoal that defined the wings and tail.

  “Yes, it took me a while to get it right.”

  “You did. It looks real enough to eat seed out of my hand. I remember you always had an artistic flare. Good to see you didn't let that go to waste.”

  Her back went straight. Her gaze dipped. She wet her lips and twisted her hair around one finger. When she raised her eyes, she focused first on Willa then on him. “So, you remember these birds now?

  “I think so. You'd see them in flocks around old ladies' houses?”

  “Old ladies' houses?” Nic smiled.

  “Probably had the best bird feeders, and they know how to rig up tinfoil pie pans to keep the squirrels away.”

  “Snowbirds are ground feeders,” Nic said, a wistfulness in her tone that seemed ill matched to the subject.

  “Big Hyde says they blow in on the first storm of autumn.” Willa lifted the ornament away from Sam's touch and began picking her way through the disarray on the floor.

  Nic watched her child navigate the chaos with the unusual treasure swaying above one open palm. “He said when he'd look out the window and see the snowbirds huddled under a bush in the yard, it was the Lord's way of telling him to take in the porch swing and get out the lost-and-found box for all the stray hats and gloves that kids would leave on the bus.”

  “I've been around town a while now, and I don't think I've seen a single one of them, though.” It was small talk and he knew it. He did not care. Small talk, big talk, no talk at all, he was in favor of anything that kept Nic close to him, that gave him a chance to make a connection that he could someday build on.

  “Big Hyde has a theory on that as well.” Nic tucked her hair behind her ear. “He says even the snowbirds have given up on Persuasion.”

  “My first day in town he called you and your sisters snowbirds.”

  “Did he?”

  Sam nodded. “So that begs the question, doesn't it? Have the Dorsey sisters given up on Persuasion as well?”

  “Willa, careful with your birdie now.” She never gave him so much as a sidelong glance in reply to his question. “Carry it on in to show The Duets and your aunts, then bring it back to the box, you hear?”

  “Nic? You didn't answer me.”

  “Maybe I should go with her.”

  “Will you not run away if I promise to mind my own business?

  “I'm not running away from you, Sam. I never have and I never will.”

  He deserved that and had the decency to wince at the reference to the selfish cruelty of his past. But he did not let it make him turn loose of the conversation or of Nic's presence. “Good. If you're not running away, then you can sit down and tell me how you came to know so much about the snowbirds.”

  “I suspect you could care less about birds, snow or otherwise.” She smiled.

  '“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”'

  “What?”

  “The Bible makes a lot of references to birds: how God cares for them, how they carry messages.” He scowled and rubbed his knuckle over his jaw.

  She nodded as if the verse made perfect sense to her. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Dark-eyed juncos.”<
br />
  “Beg your pardon?”

  “The snowbirds. At least what we called snowbirds. They're dark-eyed juncos.”

  “Ah. And why the fascination with them?”

  “Why not?” She tipped her head to peer out of the open doorway in the direction that Willa had disappeared moments earlier.

  “Isn't there more to it than that? Don't feel you can't tell it to me because it's a long story. I'm not going anywhere.”

  She whipped her head around so fast that Sam wondered that he didn't hear a swish and a crack.

  He did not back down. He held her gaze.

  She narrowed those almost painfully earnest brown eyes at him. “Why do you care if my daughter likes snowbirds?”

  “I'm not the self-involved, scared, wounded young man you knew nine years ago, Nic. Give me some credit.” He wanted to reach out to take her hand but settled for picking up the empty box that Willa's ornament had been in and offered it to her.

  She accepted the undersized shoebox in one hand. The room grew intensely quiet as she stared at the crisp white paper with the small hollow in it where the bird had nestled all summer.

  For a minute he thought she would break down and pour her heart out to him. He braced himself for whatever would come.

  She dropped the infant Jesus from the nativity inside, where it fell deep into the crumpled paper, sighed, shook her head, and pulled her shoulders back. “Maybe we can talk about snowbirds and...and Willa another time.”

  “Time? I thought I'd run out of time where you're concerned.”

  She put the lid on the shoebox. “You were very sweet with Willa.”

  “How could anyone be otherwise?”

  “Oh, trust me, they can.”

  He clenched his jaw and gave that short, sympathetic nod again. He pushed himself up from his seat on the floor, and this time he did offer his hand to Nic.

  She took it without meeting his eyes and stood. They started to walk from the room without touching or speaking. But just before they got to the door, Sam put his hand on her shoulder to hold her back only long enough to say, “Nic, if my being here causes you any pain or creates even the slightest problem, just say so and I'll be out so fast—”

  “No.” She pressed her lips closed, then shut her eyes. “No.”

  “No? No what? What do you want me to do, Nic? Just say it and I'll do everything in my power to comply.”

  “I want...” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. Doubt and anger and a weariness that weighed down on Sam’s heart like lead filled her expression only to slowly be pushed aside by resolve. “I want you to stay.”

  “Stay? Are you sure?”

  “I'm not sure of anything right now, but I am willing to give it a try on a temporary basis.”

  “Even a bird needs a place to nest, huh?”

  “And a fox has his hole.”

  “So, I'm still the fox in the henhouse here, is that what you're saying?”

  “I'm saying that I'll give it a try. That despite what some people around this town might think, this is the kind of home where love abides and there will be peace. Unless of course—”

  “Yes?”

  “You cross the line, Sam Moss. Then don't think for one minute I won't snatch you by your collar and toss you to the curb like a dried-up, old Christmas tree in January.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  Seven

  Nic’s heart raced. She moved stiffly through the living room, her skin prickling with the awareness of Sam at her side.

  Willa was across the room, spinning awkwardly on tiptoe while holding a plastic angel over her head. Reaching higher and higher still, oblivious to the chattering of the women around her, the child made long—and surprisingly graceful—loops and arcs with the oversized figure. The angel's slightly bent wings didn't move, but the crocheted dress one of the sisters had dressed it in years ago swished over its bell-shaped lower body. The thing had not been a part of the original nativity set but had kept watch over the family nativity for as long as Nic could recall. It seemed as oddly out of place and yet as natural as Willa herself, twirling lazily in the midst of the quiet, old home and the discord of the vibrant women of their family.

  While Willa whooshed and whirled, Collier stood nearby with her hands on her hips and a smart-aleck look on her face. “If we had some tape we could stick the angel to the long pull cord on the ceiling fan, and she'd look just like she was flying over the manger.”

  “Collier, that is not funny.” Petie shot the giggling Duets a warning glare.

  “Why not?” Collier trained her gaze on Nic's daughter. “Willa thinks it's a great idea, don't you, honey?”

  She might as well have spoken in Latin. The question seemed to have so little effect on the child.

  Nic did not have to check over her shoulder to feel Sam studying the little girl lost in her own world. Her stomach knotted. All of Willa's life she'd felt this protectiveness, this need to stand between her often helpless child and a world too quick to judge those who did not fit the easy expectations. While her defenses twitched just below the surface even now, she did not feel that urge to turn on Sam, outrage at the ready.

  The image of Willa in Sam's lap, of the two of them admiring the snowbird Big Hyde had given her overwhelmed Nic's thoughts. That was why, she assured herself, she trusted him not to make some hurtful remark about her daughter. She refused to entertain any other possible explanation for her ease around him and about Willa.

  “We're not going to tape an angel to the pull cord and that's that, Collier. It just smacks of disrespect or...or something.” Petie looked mad enough to pinch their baby sister, but she didn't do anything more threatening than shake her finger.

  Collier laughed.

  The Duets laughed and said things that sounded cute coming from the over sixty set like, “You go, girl.”

  “No, you go, girls.” Petie clucked her tongue at her aunts. “Y'all go find a nice tall vase or something we can set that angel on top of to keep things tasteful around here. I know the four of you came over here and rearranged everything to your liking as soon as we left last year.”

  Aunt Bert grunted.

  Lula hopped right up and helped her twin get up off the couch. “We know what you are up to, Miss Patricia.”

  “And far be it from us...” Fran gathered Nan's coffee cup up with her own. “To stay.

  “Where we're not wanted,” Nan finished for her identical twin.

  “Uh-huh.” Petie shooed them off with both hands, her face a mix of tenderness and exasperation. “Then why don't you just stand off to the edge of ‘where you're not wanted’, like say in the kitchen. That way you can talk about us while still keeping an eye on what we're up to.”

  Their aunts said not one word to that. Though Bert did chuckle under her breath and Nan did a little thing with her head that conveyed a “what do I care about keeping an eye on you” attitude as she passed by. In short order the parade of elderly aunts had passed by.

  Sam cleared his throat, which hardly covered his amusement over it all.

  Collier did an imitation of the dispatched biddy brigade, got caught, and winced apologetically at Aunt Bert who just shook her head and tipped up her nose.

  Nic captured the blond-haired, pink-lipped angel as Willa whisked past, scooping it up in both hands the way she'd seen magicians hold doves before releasing them into an awed crowd.

  Willa hardly even seemed to notice. She simply spread her tiny fingers and adapted, swooping around like an angel or a bird set free all on her own.

  “Well, it's about time the two of you came out of that room.” Petie dropped onto Grandmother's love seat and kicked her feet up onto the footstool Nic had made in summer camp by covering a circle of juice cans with padding and fabric.

  Nic thought of kicking those cans right out from under her sister, or worse. She clutched the angel in her hands so tight that the silver thread in the yarn dress scratched her palms.

  Sam stepped up behind he
r, and as if he knew how badly Nic wanted to throw that innocent little angel right at her smart- mouthed sister's big head, he took the thing from Nic's hands. “So, Petie, what do you plan to do about this potential murder-by-tuna situation back home?”

  Nic thanked him with a sidelong glance for turning the spotlight onto her sister, the troublemaker.

  “I'll thank you not to make light of my likely impending widowhood, Reverend Moss.” She looked like anything but an impending widow. In fact, she went positively petulant and pouty like she was still seventeen and captain of the cheerleading squad. “It's unbecoming of a man of the cloth.”

  “Do you got a cloth, too?” Willa came out of a spin perfectly positioned to tilt her head back and look straight up at Sam.

  “Too?” Sam bent at the knees and cocked his head. “Do you have a cloth, Miss Willa?”

  “My mommy does. She has a garage full of them, and every week a big smelly truck takes the dirty ones away and brings clean ones all wrapped up like presents.”

  “Is that right?” he said like he found it fascinating, not like he doubted her for one second.

  “Willa, darling, a man of the cloth means he's a minister.” Collier nudged Petie's feet from the footstool and sat down on it.

  Willa reached up for Nic's hand, which still held the angel. The child wound her fingers in the hem of her mother's shirt instead. “My mom is a minister.”

  “Is that right?” Sam smiled up at Nic.

  The sight warmed her more than she wished it would.

  “A mommy and sister. A minister.” Willa beamed. Her sweet smile and innocent remark made everyone laugh.

  Then Petie doused the subtle mood like water on coals. “Actually, Nicolette cleans other people's houses for a living, Sam.”

  “I own my own business.” Nic spoke to Sam as if her sister were not even in the room.

  “A housecleaning business,” Petie interjected like it just galled her to let Nic have the last word on it.

  “What's so bad about a housecleaning business? “ Nic crossed her arms and aimed her cocked eyebrow at Petie. “If a certain someone I could mention would have done a more thorough job cleaning her own house, maybe she wouldn't be worried her husband had done himself in eating something she should have thrown out a week ago.”