Emily corrected, “They aren’t really made from dogs.”
“That’s what I said.”
Ida Mae served them in the sunroom again, though it was shady out there in the afternoon. Tuna salad sandwiches on toasted bread triangles with the crusts removed and homemade chicken noodle soup.
It was so good Emily wondered if she would ever want to cook for herself again. Ida Mae was an artist. She told her so before the happy innkeeper headed back inside and gave them their space.
Emily watched her daughter eat, and even managed to eat her own meal. She wasn’t sick with worry about telling Tilda that Joey was her father. It felt like the right thing. She wasn’t worried that Joey would try to take Tilda away. Not anymore. She believed him when he said he wanted to put the past behind them and focus on Tilda, and on giving her a wonderful Christmas and on finding a cure that would ensure many more. It felt right to tell her little girl the truth.
What felt wrong was the time she had let pass before doing so. But it hadn’t felt wrong, not until the past two days. Now that she was in Big Falls, though, she was starting to think she had made a terrible mistake all those years ago.
“I have a surprise for you, Tilda.”
She widened her eyes, clapped her hands, and quickly looked all around the table, then under it. “I don’t see it!”
“Well, it’s not that kind of surprise. It’s…something I have to tell you.”
Tilda pouted. “That’s not a very good s’prise.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Sighing heavily, crossing her arms and tipping her head, she said, “Okay. Tell me.” Her voice dripped as much doubt as a three-year-old’s voice could carry.
“You have a daddy.”
Tilda’s little eyebrows rose as high as they could go. “I do?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Is he here?” She looked through the open doors into the main part of the house.
“No, but you’ve met him. It’s Joey.”
“Joey? Is my daddy?” She clapped her little hands over her mouth, like she was trying to hold in the squeal that erupted anyway. Then she was off the chair and running around the sunroom, singing “Joey’s my dad, Joey’s my dad, I have a dad and Joey’s my dad!”
The double doors swung open and Ida Mae stood there with a plate of apple pie in each hand. She sort of smiled, or maybe it was a grimace, met Emily’s eyes, and said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right, Ida Mae. Joey’s family knows and I’m sure it’ll be all over town within a few days anyway.”
“Actually, dear, it already is.” She set the pie on the table.
“Why din’t he tell me?” Tilda asked.
“He wanted to. I asked him to let me tell you myself.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought it would be better for you.”
“Can he come over?”
It hadn’t fazed her. She wasn’t upset. Eventually, when she got old enough to think of such things, she would have questions. Where had Joey been all this time? Why hadn’t he been with her? Why hadn’t Emily told her sooner?
Emily wasn’t going to come out looking very good when she answered those questions. Her little girl might not like her very much for a while, once she learned the truth. God, she’d dug herself into a pit there was no getting out of, hadn’t she?
And yet Joey wasn’t without blame.
Unless he was.
“Can he, Mommy?”
“We’re going to spend the whole day together tomorrow.”
“Do we have to wait that long?”
Em sighed, recognizing the longing in her baby’s eyes. It wasn’t in her to refuse Tilda anything. “I’ll find out,” she said, and picked up her phone. She dialed his number.
He picked up before the first ring finished. “Emily?”
She tapped a button. “You’re on speaker. I just told Tilda the news, and she wants to talk to you.”
She held out the phone, nodded at her daughter.
“Hi, Daddy,” Tilda said, smiling ear to ear.
“Hello—” his voice caught, broke, he cleared his throat. “Hello, Tilda.”
She giggled. “Can you come over?”
“I could. Can I talk to your mom for a minute?”
“Okay.” She pushed the phone away, and Emily tapped the icon again and brought it to her ear.
“Go ahead, you’re not on speaker.”
“She sounds okay with it so far,” he said.
“She’s kind of delighted with it so far. And she doesn’t want to wait for tomorrow to see you.” She took a deep breath. “I was wrong, Joey,” she said very softly. “I should have let you be here. We should have told her together.” She wondered then how many other times she’d been wrong in the decisions she’d made about Tilda and her father.
“You don’t know how good that makes me feel,” he said. “That she’s happy and wants to see me, not that you admitted you were wrong.”
“A little bit that I admitted I was wrong,” she said.
“Maybe a little bit. Listen, we have a thing going on here tonight that she might enjoy.”
“At the Long Branch?”
“Yeah. We’re decorating the tree. New tradition, inspired by the way the town decorates the one in the park. Everyone brings an ornament to hang. At seven we turn on the lights and sing carols for an hour. Done by eight. We don’t serve alcohol until after that. It’s a family thing. Do you want to bring her?”
She found herself nodding. “Yeah, I do. It sounds beautiful, Joey.”
“It is. I’m glad you’re coming.”
“Me too. Here, you can tell her yourself.” She put the phone back on speaker. “Go ahead.”
“Hey, Tilda?”
“What?”
“I’ll see you real soon, okay? Put on your most Christmassy dress. You and your mom are coming over for a Christmas Tree decorating party.”
“Yay!” She dove out of the chair. It rocked, and Emily dropped the phone to grab it before it could fall. Tilda was halfway up the stairs yelling, “I need a Christmassy dress!” while Joey was yelling, “What happened? You girls okay?” from the phone.
Shaking her head, Emily recovered the phone, and said, “Fine, fine. She shot off like a rocket to find a dress. I’ve gotta go.”
“That made her happy, then?”
“It made her very happy. Thank you, Joey.”
“Anytime. If you want to come early, dinner’s on me.”
“Tell me you have hot dogs.”
“I guarantee you, I will have.”
Chapter Six
The community room at Vidalia’s church was decked in white lights and garland, with an artificial tree near one wall and a five-foot-long framed replica of The Last Supper on another. Already, gifts, donated by locals, were piled under the tree and more dangled from its needled boughs. On Christmas Eve, they’d be delivered to the less fortunate residents of Big Falls and outlying communities.
Tonight, the room was also filled with a couple dozen women and a handful of men. Vidalia wondered, and not for the first time, why women always seemed to be so far ahead of the curve, spiritually speaking.
There were cafeteria-style tables and folding chairs. One table, by the wall, held the church’s coffee urn (she’d brought her own coffee) and slices of her homemade peach upside down cake with hand-whipped cream on top. She could give Sunny a run for her money, she thought.
Vidalia moved to the front of the room with a mug of coffee in her hand and a smile on her face, despite the deep ache in her heart.
“I just love you all so much for coming out tonight,” she said, looking around the room. Her daughters weren’t there. They were busy young women, all of them. The prayer group was made up of the more mature segment of Big Falls. The elder-women, and a couple of men, who formed the core members of the congregation. Those old enough to have learned the miraculous power of prayer and who knew ho
w to wield it.
A wave of mutters, a few words rising above the rest, then they settled again. Forks scraped china—Vidalia Brand McIntyre did not serve on paper plates—but aside from that, the room was silent.
“You’ve probably heard I have a new grandchild, Matilda Louise. New to me, at least.”
“Pretty little thing,” Rosie called. She ran the diner. “Those eyes of hers could melt a glacier.”
“Smart as a whip, too,” Ida Mae put in.
Vidalia nodded. “Thank you. She’s a blessing, a gift to us.” She lowered her eyes, tried to find words. She didn’t want pity. She wanted action. “She’s sick, friends.” Everyone gasped or exclaimed as she gave her words time to sink in. “It’s the same ailment that nearly took her grandpa, my darlin’ Bobby Joe, two Christmases ago. She needs a bone marrow transplant. And so far, her doctors are having a hard time finding a match. So…I think it’s time we call on a higher authority to step in.”
“Amen!” Betty Lou Jennings shouted. She had a voice that always surprised folks, it was so high pitched and childlike. “And after that, we’ll do a donor drive. We’ll get everyone in town tested!”
“Great idea!”
“I’ll get tested!”
“I’ll put the word out at Sunday’s service,” Pastor Jackson said.
Vidalia nodded, her heart filling. She loved her church, its members, and her town. “You can get tested over at the clinic. If we get more than my sweet niece Sophie can handle, she’ll make arrangements with Tucker Lake General to take the overflow.”
Everyone nodded, and Vidalia caught the pastor’s eye. “Would you lead us in prayer for Matilda Louise, Pastor Jackson?”
He got to his feet, plate in hand, and said, “Only if I can have another piece of this cake afterwards.”
Everyone laughed softly, and the pastor took to the front of the room. They bowed their heads, and he led them in prayer. His words were simple and heartfelt and powerful because of that.
Vidalia felt her eyes start to burn as he spoke to the Lord on little Tilda’s behalf, and her breath hitched in her lungs a bit. But she felt more than that. She felt the power of God filling that room and bathing everyone in its light. It started out as just a subtle sensation, but then that sensation got bigger. She felt it grow, as if faith was beaming from everyone whose head was bent in prayer. In her mind's eye, Vidalia imagined those smaller beams blending into a greater glow, and with every addition, the light of God’s love became bigger and brighter and stronger. If she opened her eyes, she knew she would see it. But she wasn’t going to open her eyes, because this was about faith. This was about believing what couldn’t be seen.
Pastor Jackson said amen, and everyone repeated the word. “Amen,” Vidalia whispered, and she opened her eyes.
For the briefest of instants, a millionth of a millionth of a second, that stunning glow she’d sensed was visible. And then the room looked normal again, only somehow…lighter. And every face in it seemed lighter as well.
She took in a deep breath, then let it all out, every bit of it. It was going to be okay. Somehow it was going to be okay.
#
Tilda wore her Christmas dress. It had a red velvet skirt and white lace sleeves, and glitter made its white bodice sparkle like snow. With her softly falling curls and huge brown eyes, she looked just like a Christmas angel.
She smoothed her skirt nervously as they stood just outside the entrance to the Long Branch Saloon. It had a big, garland-trimmed exterior door with a giant wreath covering its glass entirely. They walked through it and into an entry hall with benches along the walls and pegs for hanging up coats. At the far end of that area, a set of batwing doors led into the dim interior of the barroom. Emily could see strings of multicolored lights and lots of human silhouettes. There were myriad muttering voices.
Then a piano started to play a familiar riff, and voices rose in a happily off-pitch version of “Deck the Halls.”
Matilda looked up at her mom with a smile. Emily smiled back, and took off Tilda’s coat to hang it up beside her own. “Ready?” She held out her hand.
Her little girl clutched it, nodded, and they walked on through. People parted to let them pass, and it felt to Emily like every last one of them knew who she was, who Matilda was.
Joey shouldered his way through the throng to meet them, scooped Matilda right up in one arm, and put the other one around Emily’s shoulders. “Glad you made it,” he said. “Sorry it’s so crowded. It’s a big night around here.” He talked as he steered her back the way he’d come, until they crossed the wide threshold into the dining room half of the place.
“They started the caroling early?” Emily asked.
“Spontaneous eruptions of holiday spirit cannot be scheduled,” he replied.
The whole time, she was trying to figure out if she should object to his arm around her shoulders. But before she could decide, he’d lowered it to his side again and was looking at Tilda’s face. “There’s our tree, Tilda. What do you think?”
Emily glanced at the pine tree on the far side of the room, taking up two stories of the place. It had to be twenty feet tall. She’d seen it her first time here, but she’d been too distracted by other things to pay it much attention. She looked back at Tilda and saw her wide-eyed wonder.
“Woooooow,” she said.
“We’re gonna decorate it and then turn on the lights.”
Tangles and webs of lights were tucked into, over, under and around every bough. But not yet glowing.
“I brought a declaration,” Tilda said.
“Decoration, hon,” Em corrected.
“That’s what I said.” Tilda looked over at Emily, and so did Joey.
Emily got stuck like a skipping record for a second, her gaze jumping back and forth between Joey’s eyes and Tilda’s. Something whispered through her. A memory, maybe. And fear, as it hit her yet again, maybe even more deeply than before, that Matilda Louise was as much his as hers, physically, genetically, not just legally.
“Did you forget it, Mommy?”
“Oh! Um, no, of course not.” Joey was still gazing at her, though, his head tipped to one side, kind of a speculative look in his eyes and one gorgeous eyebrow cocked up just slightly higher than the other. Inquisitive and cute as hell. That look had always got to her.
She snapped out of it and yanked her bag off her shoulder, bending over it to dig around inside. And she found what she was looking for. A carefully wrapped bundle, which she pulled out and unwrapped.
Two pine cones dangled from loops of red yarn, each one decorated to within an inch of its life. They sparkled under layers of red and green glitter. Individual dried cranberries had been hot glued here and there, along with plastic holly leaves trimmed in frosty white.
“Hoo-boy. Did you make those?” Joey asked, staring at the pine cones Emily was holding up and inadvertently past them and into her eyes. She wanted to look away and couldn’t.
“I made that one.” Tilda poked one of the pinecones, and it swung right into Emily’s nose, breaking the hold Joey’s eyes had on hers.
“Hey!” Em said, rubbing her nose and giving her kid a fake scowl.
Tilda giggled “Sorry, Mommy,” but the words got lost in her laughter.
Someone tapped Joey on the shoulder, and Em saw Vidalia behind him.
“This way,” she said. “We saved you a seat.” She smiled a hello to Em, then beamed one at Matilda before turning to lead the way back to the huge section of pushed-together tables. Em recognized Maya and Kara, and their children. She knew Kiley and Rob and Doc Sophie and her son Max. There were others—the rest of Vidalia’s daughters. She wondered which was Selene, the half sister.
Then she looked straight into the eyes of Bobby Joe McIntyre, and she stopped. Everything in her went cold.
She had known Joey’s father would be there. She had been dreading the moment she would have to see that man again. And now it had arrived, and she was nowhere near ready.
Everyone said hello and his father added, “You look wonderful, Emily. It’s so good to see you again.”
The liar.
And this,” Joey said, bouncing Tilda a little, “is Matilda Louise. My daughter.”
“Me first, me first.” Vidalia was closest, but not too close. She stood in front of him and Tilda and nodded at him. “Go on, tell her who I am.” She was so excited she was bouncing in place. Vidalia, not Tilda.
“I already know you,” Tilda said. “You’re Dahlia’s gramma.”
“And your gramma, too, Tilda.”
“What?” She looked at Vidalia and rounded her eyes dramatically, like she must have seen someone do on TV. She just picked up everything. “I have a gramma!?”
“And a grandpa,” Vidalia said, waving across the table to the far end where Bobby Joe was still standing. He didn’t come around the table, and Vidalia frowned at him a little.
Emily knew why, though. He’d seen the look in her eyes a second ago, telling him if he laid a finger on her daughter, she would rip it off.
She didn’t know if anyone else had noticed it, and she didn’t particularly care. Pasting a smile back onto her face, she moved to one of the empty seats that flanked a tall wooden booster chair, and slid onto it. Joey started to put Tilda into her seat, and she twisted, and said, “I’m a big girl! I don’t need a high chair!”
He stopped moving and said, “Okay, sure. I’ll sit there if you want.” Then he put her in his own seat.
She looked extremely pleased with herself. Emily could almost see her brilliant little brain computing this newfound knowledge. This one is completely in my control. She could take over the world with information like that.
She opened her mouth to say something, but Joey was pulling out the high chair so he could step around it. It didn’t have a tray like a baby’s high chair. It was just a slightly taller, skinnier seat than the others. He backed his rear end up to it. Of course, he wouldn’t fit. The chair’s arms were too close together. But he kept moving all the same, trying again and again to shove his butt into the too-small opening, and Tilda was laughing so hard little squeals were squeaking out in between. Her face was turning red and her giggles were infectious.
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