by Annie Jones
“I got no daddy.”
“You mean your dad's not here?”
She shrugged and took the salt and pepper shakers in both hands and without a sound began making the pig figures dance around the table. “My mommy and I never had a daddy in our family.”
So many thoughts whizzed through his mind. No wonder Nic had avoided his questions about a husband. She never had one. But what was Willa's story? She looked maybe six or seven but with the wisdom of an old soul. Was she born that way, or had some accident or illness made her as she was? And just what was her situation? Cerebral Palsy? Autism? Neither seemed quite to fit.
He wanted to understand her for Nic's sake and for his own. He wanted to know how to help them both and how to minister to them. Though they had not asked it of him, he felt compelled to be ready if they should need him. This was Nic's little girl, after all, and despite the fact that he had forfeited all right to care about what happened to Nicolette or any children she might have, he did care.
Admitting that conjured up new questions about why it still mattered so much, where he expected his feelings to lead, and how he thought he was even entertaining those feelings.
Sam turned and flung open the door to the shelf where the brightly colored boxes of cereal stood. The clutter of choices did not distract him from the one question that nagged him most. Where was the man who fathered Willa, and why didn't he play a role in her life—and in Nics?
Glancing over his shoulder, he smiled at the child, who appeared totally absorbed in the imaginary life of the salt and pepper pigs. “Willa?”
She tapped the pigs together, seemingly unaware of his presence.
“Willa, honey? What do you want?”
She paused in her play and lifted her head but didn't turn toward him.
He cocked his head to one side, prepared to read off the names of the cereals for her.
Before he could rattle off a single brand name, she sighed like a lonely heart who had wanted all her life for someone to ask that simple question. “I want to stay here.”
“You want to stay in the kitchen?”
She shifted around in her chair and peered at him between the spokes of its back. “I want to stay in this house.” Her voice was subdued but strong. “I want to live here and be here for more than just Christmas.”
“Oh?”
“I want to string up the hammock in the summer like Mommy and Aunt Petie and Collier said they did and get orange sodas from Dewi's to cool off when it's hot 'nuff to fry an egg on the sidewalk.”
Sam nodded. He more than anyone understood that longing for the things he had never had but knew existed beyond his narrow, difficult life.
“I want to see the snowbirds come in on the storm.”
The power of her wistful tone made Sam ache to see those birds, too. The quiet conviction of her simple description of his hometown made him see it in a new light. Yes, it had its share of snobs and gossips and hypocrites, but where could he go that would not? His job, his very calling was to stand against those things wherever he found them and to try to make wherever he found himself a better place, not go looking for the place where things came ready-made to his liking.
“Don't you like where you live now, Willa?”
“I like it here.”
Sam glanced around at the simple surroundings and exhaled slowly. “So do I, honey. So do I.”
Finally she let go of a tentative but absolutely heart-melting smile.
Sam grinned. “You know you're pretty smart for a little kid.”
“I'm not so little. I'm just small for my age.”
“Oh? How old are—”
“How long have you been up, young lady?” Nic breezed into the room and swept her child up in a hug that ended any hope of Sam continuing the discussion.
He knew she had not planned it, but he felt a twinge of frustration aimed her way just the same. His conversation with Willa had only deepened the mystery about her, not given him any answers.
“I hope she hasn't bothered you too much.” Her cheek against her daughter's, Nic fixed her wonderful brown eyes on him.
“Not at all.” He picked the pot up off the burner and filled his cup with dark, steaming liquid. “We were just going to have a chat over coffee.”
“You didn't give her coffee!”
Willa giggled.
Sam laughed. “Give me some credit, Nic. I may not have any children of my own, but I have spent some time around them. I was even a child myself once, you know.”
“You were never a child, Sam. You had to grow up to soon.” All the kindness Sam would ever need in this cold old town he saw at that moment in Nic's warm eyes.
“Well, I can't argue with that.” He pulled out a chair and settled in at the table. “But even if I didn't have much firsthand experience with a real childhood, I do know a thing or two about kids, what they need and what they want.”
“Such as?”
Willa snapped her head up. Her fingers wound tightly around the ceramic pigs in each hand. With only her eyes, she begged him not to divulge what they had talked about, what she had said she wanted.
Sam brushed his hand over her head, then smiled at Nic. “Let's see, it's a Saturday morning in December.”
Nic scooted Willa over to share the kitchen chair with her child. “And that matters because—”
Sam stroked his chin. “And we've already unpacked the decorations.”
“And left them strewn all over the back bedroom.” She gave them each a warning glare.
“It’s way too early for wrapping presents.”
“Unless you want to wrap empty boxes.”
He looked around the kitchen. “Too soon to start baking cookies.”
Nic’s eyes glinted and she rubbed her hands together. “Oh, goodie, a man who bakes.”
“Given those circumstances, I don't have to be too bright to figure out what a kid wants.”
“Lucky for Reverend Moss, huh?” Nic winked at Willa. “So, tell us, given those circumstances, what is it that a kid wants, oh, not too bright one?”
“To go shopping for a Christmas tree.”
“Hooray!” Willa threw up her arms.
“Yes!” Sam pumped his fist in the air.
Nic opened her mouth, shut her mouth, then shut her eyes and groaned. “Okay, okay. I did agree that since we are here, we could have one last family Christmas celebration in the house. I guess a Christmas tree fits in with that just fine.”
Willa climbed to her feet on the edge of the chair and shouted. “Hooray!”
Sam shot his hand out to steady the child at the exact same moment Nic grabbed the girl by the waist. Their fingers brushed over each other. She lifted her gaze to his.
He grinned and echoed Willa’s words, only much more softly and for Nic alone to hear, “Hooray!”
“A small tree,” she said, tight lipped.
“Hooray.” He adapted his cheer accordingly but in his heart it felt as loud as a triumphant shout. With his new insight, courtesy of Miss Willa, and the pure delight of a day filled with holiday fun ahead, his usually gloomy Saturday had just taken a turn for the better.
Nine
A small tree. A small one” Nic warned Sam and Willa as they disappeared into a forest of trees of various shapes and sizes. Nic wound her arms around her body and hunched her shoulders against the chill of the brisk morning air. She drew in the scent of pine.
A row over and three trees down, Sam plucked up a perfectly acceptable ponderosa pine from where it lay on the barren ground. He held it upright and stepped back. It stood just tall enough for Willa to put the angel on top without climbing on a chair.
“That one will do nicely,” she called out.
He ran his hand upward over it. The branches rustled almost indignantly. Needles rained down on the toe of his tennis shoes.
Before Nic could make a comparison to the sad tree that only needed love in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, the pine toppled to the ground. Sa
m and Willa moved on.
How had she gotten roped into this? She had only made a small concession, allowing for one small tree. To go with a small celebration and the small delay in her plans to sell the house and get out of Persuasion forever. It went perfectly well with her small bit of backpedaling and the small amount of room she intended to open in her heart for any sentimentality over this with no room at all left over for Sam Moss.
Two rows over a six-foot blue spruce wobbled and swayed. Nic closed her eyes and clenched her teeth.
Willa giggled.
Sam muttered something.
The spruce went still.
Nic sighed but her relief was short lived. When the tip-top of an absolutely enormous fir trembled, then twirled, then toppled from its place towering above every other tree in the lot.
“Oh, no you don't!” She reached them in a few long, hurried strides.
“Why not? It's perfect. Just what I had in mind.” Sam stood back to admire the full, lush tree.
“It won't even fit through the door.”
“Then we'll just have to set it up outside.”
“Outside?”
“Outside! Outside!” Willa twirled and danced in the aisle made by the low swaying branches of the other trees.
“You can't have our family's Christmas tree outside; it's just—”
“This tree is for the church.”
“The church?”
“Yes. I thought it might be a community-building activity to come together to decorate it.”
She hated to admit it, but it was a good idea. A very good idea. This town and that struggling church did need something to unite it—something other than speculating over her personal business for a change. A tree might just do the trick.
“What about a tree for the house?”
“We've found the perfect one.” He pointed to the end of the lot to a cluster of long-needled trees, each resting in black plastic tubs. “It's a living tree. We can replant it after the holidays to enjoy all year round.”
“Enjoy all year round?” Talk of memories and even the hint of permanence had no place in her plans. “But we're selling the house. It won't be a memory for the new owners, and we'll be gone.”
“I'll still be here. I like the idea that whenever I drive by the old house, even though the Dorsey sisters won't be coming back anymore, something of them is there for me to see and cherish. My very own first Christmas tree.”
“You mean your first Christmas tree since moving back,” Nic corrected.
He met her gaze, his eyes intense and quiet as his tone as he said, “No, my first tree ever.”
Nic frowned. “You never had a Christmas tree?”
“My father didn't...let's just say he wasn't one for the Christmas spirit.” He put his hand in his pocket. “Later, well, it wasn't a priority.”
“You had a hard life.” She reached out toward him, her hand just above his wrist but she did not touch him. Anyone else she would have grasped to lend support but she couldn’t make herself, she could risk even that small level of intimacy with Sam Moss.
“I made a hard life for myself,” he admitted. “And for most everyone I loved.”
Loved. The word hurt and frightened her. Had he truly loved her once? She had believed he did just as she had believed she loved him. Then he left her. But that had been so long ago and so much had happened since then.
“You really never had a Christmas tree, Rev'end Moss?” Willa blinked up at him.
“Well, the church secretary always set one up, but I never had one in my home.” He brushed back Willa's hair with one hand, then raised his gaze to Nic. “The holiday season was always so busy for me. I never thought I'd get much pleasure from one. Besides, with no one to share it with—”
“This year you have lots of us to share it with.” Willa reached up to take hold of his jacket sleeve.
“Yes, I will. That's the kind of thing I'd like to remember.”
“All right, get the live tree. But on the twenty-sixth when I am putting up the For Sale sign in the yard, you'll be digging the hole to plant it, got that?”
“Got it.” He winked at Willa.
Willa attempted a wink back. Once, twice, on the third time, she did it!
Nic laughed. It wasn't a deep, robust laugh, but it was far more sincere than she would have guessed she could manage. And somewhere, deep inside, she did feel a little lighter. She dismissed it as the fleeting flicker of the joyous holiday mood. Because if she let herself suspect it might be anything else, she would have hightailed it out of there faster than eight fabled flying reindeer could carry her.
Sam hoped a hole for the live tree wasn't the only hole he found himself digging in this situation. But somehow, as he watched Nic hug Willa from behind, quietly enveloping the child's fluttering hands in her own, he knew he was getting in deep.
“Two trees? Mercy, y'all have jumped into the season's spirit with both feet now, haven't you?” Bert slid a stubby pencil—which Sam suspected she'd appropriated from the back of one of the church pews—from behind her ear and began marking on a fat receipt pad.
“Aunt Bert, what do you think you're doing working at Hyde Junior's Christmas tree lot?” Nic all but had to drag Willa away from the tree they'd singled out, but the effort did not lessen the volume of her voice or the sting of her reprimand.
“I'm helping a friend.” Bert didn't even look up at her niece. “Hyde Junior had to run his momma over to the doctor's. That's an all-day trip, time you factor in a hot meal and a trip to the druggist.”
“I hope everything's all right.” Sam put his hand on Bert's shoulder to draw her attention. Big Hyde Freeman and his family, along with The Duets and a couple families from the cottages, had been the backbone of his church so far. If anything were wrong with Theda Freeman, he would want to know so he could offer prayers and support.
“Aw, no, Theda's not feeling poorly. She's just not young anymore. Once you reach a certain age, can't hardly go to a doctor but he writes up a sack full of pills for you to take.” She bore down hard on the thin paper with the blunt pencil then glanced up, her tongue poked out between her oddly perfect false teeth. “So you're taking a ten footer and a live tree? Whooeee, where in the house are we going to put them both?”
“The big one is for the church,” Nic volunteered the information before Sam could think up a way to throw Bert off the question entirely.
“The church?” She sounded as surprised as if he'd announced he bought a beer keg for the fellowship hall.
“I...” He scratched the back of his neck and kicked at the ground with the toe of his shoe. “It's probably a crazy idea, but I thought it might help if we could gather people together to decorate it.”
“Pardon my saying so, Reverend, but a congregation our size could gather together around a twig.”
“I know.” That old Saturday dread jabbed at him low in his gut again. “But I thought we might draw in more people if we had something that they could enjoy as a community. I plan to ask everyone at the service tomorrow to invite their friends and neighbors to a town wide tree decorating party. What do you think?”
Bert nodded, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Used to be just about everyone turned out for the children's Christmas pageant.”
“We don't even have enough children in our Sunday school for a...well, for a Sunday school, much less a pageant. And no time to organize one if we did.”
“That's true. Well, then a tree it is.”
“You think it will work?”
“We'll make it work.”
“I like your attitude.”
“It's called faith, Reverend.” Bert slapped him on the back.
He laughed, though somewhere deep inside he did not find the humor. “Faith. That I have in abundance but when it concerns the people of Persuasion?”
“Can't separate the two. It's a package deal. You trust in the Lord and let him work on the folks around here.”
“It's a deal.�
�� He spoke with a confidence that was, indeed, more faith than certainty. “Now let's see how we can get these trees over to the church and the house.”
“If your sisters had come with you this morning, it would have been light work for Sam to tie the cut tree to one of their cars and carry the balled tree over to the house in his truck.”
They both waved as Sam and Willa drove off the lot to deliver the tree for the church. Nic had wanted to go with them, but the tree was so big they'd had to open the back window in the truck and poke the trunk into the cab, only leaving room for two to travel safely. Willa had wanted to go with Sam, and he had insisted she would be such a big help. What else could Nic do?
She had no doubt that Willa would fill her in—in minute detail—what went on when Sam returned to retrieve Nic and the live tree to take them all home again. “I know it would have been easier if Petie and Collier had come along, but when they found out I agreed to let Sam come with us and pick out a tree, they suddenly claimed a million things to do around the place.”
Bert's old eyes twinkled. “Pretty flimsy job of playing at matchmakers I'd say.”
“What?” Nic wadded her collar closed in one fist. “Me and Sam? That's...that's...”
“That's only natural, given the situation.” Bert began to stroll along the rows of trees, making a show of checking them over.
Nic followed, stomping along behind a bit too enthusiastically. “There is no situation!”
Bert could have called her on that. Could have dragged out who knew how many stories about how Nic had mooned over Sam Moss as a teenager. And, of course, the tale about the party and its repercussions. The old gal settled for giving her a stern look.
“They are not matchmaking.” Nic folded her coat tightly around her middle and gazed off in the direction of the church where Sam and Willa would be arriving any minute now. “They know better than that. It's just that, well, if you must know the truth, we are not getting along at all these days.”
“Y'all aren't getting along, or they aren't going along?”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“Like fire you don't, girl.” Bert clucked her tongue then turned to run her hand down one branch of a short needle pine. “Think I don't know how things go between sisters?”