A Little Christmas Magic

by Sylvie Kurtz

  "Let me give it one more shot. The tarp got blown off the woodpile and all the logs are icy. Every winter I promise myself I'll build a woodshed and every summer I forget—till the next winter. Ordering a cord or two of wood should be something you put on your fall to-do list."

  He crouched beside her and swallowed a chuckle when she crossed the fingers of one hand, then touched the flame to the balled-up newspapers with the other. The whole thing smoked and fizzled out in less than five minutes. "Do you have any kindling?"

  "Just this little bit." She handed him three sticks, a strip of birch bark and a fresh match.

  He reached for the newspaper on the coffee table.

  "No, that's this week's Rockville Register. I haven't read it yet. Here."

  She leaned across him to a pile of yellowing newspaper on the other side of the hearth. When she straightened, he almost reached for her, almost succumbed to the sudden yearning to kiss her, taste the sweetness of her mouth once again.

  He concentrated on the task of lighting the wet logs while she chattered about the storm damage, about Eve, about the postponed Holiday Fair. She bustled as she spoke, straightening, getting out hurricane lamps and placing them in strategic spots around the room. Then she turned on a battery-operated radio and tuned in the news.

  "...lines are down from Concord to Nashua. Public Service of New Hampshire estimates it may take up to three days to get service back to every affected household. Crews are working twenty-four hours a day, and they've put out a plea for patience.

  "Sunshine, where's the sunshine is the question on everyone's mind this morning. According to our meteorologist, Joe Luckhardt, it's a day away. Folks, if you don't have to go out, stay home! That's the word from the state police who've seen more accidents than they care to. We'll be back in a minute with the complete list of closings, the traffic report and the latest news."

  She turned down the volume. "I'll bet you don't have any bottled water or candles or batteries or food. You have an electric stove, too. Mine's gas. So unless you have a camp stove or a barbecue, I don't see how you're going to eat. That settles it. After you get that fire started, you can go get Max and spend the day."

  The thought pleased him more than it should.

  * * *

  Beth made a game out of retrieving Max. She dressed Jamie in layers, then they headed out the door, slipping and sliding down the drive, pretending to skate. Ice pellets pelted them and pinged on the crust of ice covering the snow.

  Jamie spun circles around her and Logan, calling shots as if he were an announcer at a hockey game. "He shoots! He scores! The crowd goes crazy!" Arms raised, brandishing an imaginary stick, he cheered at his phantom hat trick. "See, Mom, I'm ready for real hockey."

  "You sure are. A couple more years and that Mite league is all yours."

  "Aw, Mom."

  They didn't have to invite Max twice to join into the games. With all their zigzagging, Max and Jamie covered twice the territory she and Logan did.

  Logan kept a unerring eye on Jamie, frowning as deeply as the Grinch Jamie had once compared him to. On impulse, she reached through the crusty layer and scooped a handful of soggy snow. She launched it at the middle of Logan's black ski jacket and hit her target dead-on.

  He stopped in his tracks and glared at her over his shoulder. He cocked his head sideways. A grin crooked one side of his mouth. "You shouldn't have done that."

  She dipped for more ammunition but wasn't fast enough. His missile hit her on the shoulder. Jamie howled with laughter. She screeched and launched another shot of her own. Jamie joined the melee, and soon slushy snowballs and laughter flew all around. She thought she even heard a few rusty chuckles coming from Logan.

  They were soaking wet by the time they reached the house.

  She sent Jamie upstairs. "Off with your wet clothes and into dry ones. Then we'll have hot chocolate."

  With the towel she handed him, Logan dried Max by the fire. Then she offered him a pair of Jim's sweatpants.

  Upstairs, as she reached for the handle to slide the closet door open, her throat went dry, her hand shook. How long had it been since she'd opened Jim's closet?

  Five years. The last time had been the day she'd picked out his newly cleaned uniform for his funeral. The tears that had choked her then threatened to rise again. Pain, broken-bone sharp, sliced at her.

  "Don't cry for me, Beth," Jim had said. "I want you to laugh, always laugh. Your smile, that's what I like best about you. Smile for me, love, please." She'd tried because he'd asked. How could you refuse a dying man anything? But the trying had almost killed her. "When you think of me, smile. Promise me, Beth. Promise me you'll smile. Always."

  A hand went to her lips. They trembled beneath her fingers. Tears burned her eyes, but she fought them. She forced a smile, felt it wobble and fall. "I'm trying, Jim, I'm trying."

  She closed her eyes and slid the closet door open. Beneath the staleness of dust and years, she could still discern the wind-fresh scent that was Jim's. His favorite gray sweatshirt found its way into her hands. She buried her face in the soft material and inhaled the past.

  When she opened her eyes, the closet's contents seemed to rush at her, each piece of clothing blossoming into memories. The red sweater he'd worn the day Jamie was born so she could focus on him and not the pain. His favorite jeans, white at the knees from so many wearings. The plaid shirt he'd worn while showing her how to use the new wood stove. And when the fire had burned hot, he'd taken it off and shown her the real pleasure of making love by the fireplace.

  "Beth?"

  Crushing the gray sweatshirt against her chest, she looked up to find Logan. "I miss him."

  Worry creased his forehead, but he didn't say anything.

  "Here." She blindly handed him the sweatshirt and searched the upper shelf for the matching pants. A pile of sweaters tumbled onto her. With a strangled cry, she tried to stop the avalanche, but could do no better than to snag a sweater or two from the fall. The sleeve of one, the hem of another caught in her fists. The garments unfurled and hung lifeless from her hands.

  She tried to picture Jim wearing the black sweater with the gray flecks, the moss-colored one, and could conjure only a misty photograph, blurred at the edges, devoid of color. She swallowed convulsively, staying the tears.

  "Mom? Where do you want this stuff?"

  She couldn't take her gaze off the sweaters, couldn't stop the frantic search for details.

  "Mom. Are you okay?"

  She tried to talk, tried to reassure her son, but nothing could squeak past the knot in her chest, past the tightness in her throat.

  "Your mom's fine, sport. She just dropped all those sweaters. Hey, why don't you go check on Max for me? She's all alone in the living room, and I don't want her to get in trouble. I'll help your mom with the sweaters."

  "Okay."

  Jamie's footsteps pounded down the stairs.

  "Beth?"

  Firm hands turned her around. He crushed her in a gentle hug, sweaters and all. "It's okay."

  She looked up at those dark-gray eyes, at the concern and the discomfort etched in his face. Shaking her head, she tried to explain, but all that came out was a throttled sob. And once that sob had worked its way into existence, it seemed to break a path for all the others.

  Gently he pressed her head against his chest, murmured soft words with no meaning into her ear. Her chest heaved. Her throat rasped with anguish. Hot, salty tears gushed. Sobs tore from her like sheets being rent into rags.

  "I promised."

  "Promised what?" Logan's voice whispered against her ear, his body stood strong against her sorrow, his arms protected her open wound.

  "Not to cry."

  He brushed a kiss against the top of her head. "Some promises have to be broken."

  Trying to stop the flood of tears, she sniffed. "He's fading. Every day it's a little harder to remember what he looked liked, how he laughed, the sound of his voice."

  Logan's b
ody stilled. His breaths rasped against her ear.

  "I thought it was just me." He tightened his hug. His throat convulsed against the side of her head. One hand slid up to her ponytail, still wet from their outing. He raked his fingers through the tangled mass. "I braided Sam's hair every morning, and I can't quite remember how soft her hair was or just what shade of brown it was. Even when I look at pictures, it's like there are pieces of her missing."

  "I'm so afraid to forget."

  "Most of the time, I'm afraid to remember. What if..."

  A note of understanding chimed through her. Sometimes remembering was as hard as thinking you were forgetting. "The picture in your wallet. The one where you're smiling at the little girl. I just wanted to make you smile like that. I never meant to hurt you."

  She could feel him moving away, receding like the tide, dragging a reluctant half pull at the shore. Dropping the sweaters still clenched in her fist, she hung on to his hands. He closed his eyes. The lines of pain, scored into his face, deepened. "My daughter. Samantha. She died two years ago."

  She felt no triumph in her intuition that he was a man grieving down to his soul. "How?"

  He turned away, raked a hand through his hair, then faced her once more. "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Okay." She wanted to hold him the way he'd held her, help dampen his sorrow, but sensed he wouldn't welcome the sentimentality. So she tucked back her own grief and sought to regain the fragile balance and lightness of their morning snowball fight.

  "We make quite a pair, don't we?" She wiped the drying tracks of tears with the back of her hands. "You want to cry and you can't. I promised I never would, and I spend half my time trying to figure out ways to keep that promise."

  She bent down and picked up the sweaters, piling them in her arms without refolding them. She stuffed them back on the top shelf, found the sweatpants and slid the closet door closed.

  "Here." She handed him the pants. He accepted them awkwardly. "You can change in here if you like. Hang your wet things in the bathroom. I'd better go check on Jamie. It's way too quiet down there. How does soup sound for lunch?"

  A hush fraught with static crackled between them. Soon the intensity of his unwavering gaze had her blushing.

  "Soup sounds perfect."

  "Good."

  At least he wasn't running away this time. That was progress.

  Halfway down the stairs she stopped and looked up. On the wall at the head of the stairs hung a family portrait. Jim, her and Jamie. Their first as a family. Jamie was only a few months old.

  Jim's voice came to her. "We had a good run, didn't we, love?"

  "The best."

  "I loved you with all my heart."

  "I love you, too."

  "It's time to let go."

  A surge of panic prickled her chest. "I can't. What if you disappear completely?"

  "I'll still be there in your heart. Always."

  "What if I forget?"

  "You won't."

  As she watched the photograph, it blurred in a pool of fresh tears. Heart heavy, she made her way down the stairs wishing she could truly believe she could move on and that love would survive.

  * * *

  While Logan had held Beth as she'd cried, he'd felt close to her, closer than he'd ever felt to anyone. If anyone could understand what he was going through, it was her. Yet when she'd asked about Samantha, he couldn't bring himself to tell her the whole ugly truth.

  He'd pushed her away, felt her hang on and breathed a silent sigh of relief when she'd transformed into her usual cheery self—today a green-and-white elf with dangling mistletoe earrings.

  He couldn't sit still, couldn't confront the thoughts spinning around his mind. So while Beth heated soup, he oiled the squeaky drawer in her kitchen. While she played board games with Jamie, he split firewood into kindling. While she played Go Fish and Crazy Eights with Jamie, he filled the inside wood box and stacked logs in her garage.

  After dinner Jamie brought out a 3-D puzzle of a medieval castle and asked Logan for help. He could think of no polite way to push the boy away, so he took a position on the opposite side of the coffee table. Jamie separated the pieces into piles. Snuggled against the boy, Max watched the operation with interest.

  "Knights protect the castle." Jamie snapped portions of a wall together. The pieces were fat and squishy, easy for small fingers to handle. "See these holes here. They shoot arrows from those."

  "You don't say."

  "It takes a long time for a boy to be a knight. First he has to be a page, then a squire. He's got to learn all about the armor and the weapons and the horses. And how to fight."

  Growing a boy into a man still took a long time. In those rebel teenage years, he'd needed the influence of a good man in his life. If his mother hadn't chosen to ship him to his grandfather's for school vacations, Logan often wondered how differently his life would have turned out.

  Dallas Ward had given him hope when the world had sought to take it away. Dallas had made him believe in the system, in the wisdom of the law. Because of Dallas he'd believed he could make a difference in the world. At least for a while.

  Would Jamie find a Dallas of his own? Would Beth allow herself to welcome another man in her life to play that role? He pushed too hard on a piece and crumbled part of the tower he was building. The answers to those questions were none of his business.

  "How come you know so much about knights?" Logan squared off the watch tower.

  "I watch Dragon Knights."

  "What's that?"

  "A show on TV. They got knights and dragons and bad guys and wicked good fights. I like the red knight the best."

  "How come?"

  "His horse is the fastest. He looks like a streak of fire when he runs. I'm going to have a red horse, too."

  Jamie handed him the entrance tower he'd completed, then tried to fit the cardboard peak to the top of the tower. The tabs refused to go into the slots. "You hold this end, and I'll hold that end."

  Working together, finger against finger, they got the tower cap on. Jamie's giggle of pleasure, his smile, tugged a string of regret. Sam had loved building things, too. Her room had been filled with popsicle stick houses of all sorts—for crickets and frogs, and the imaginary fairies and pixies that visited her in the night.

  "I thought you were into hockey."

  "That's for winter. In summer I'm going to ride."

  A little speed demon heading for sure trouble. Did Beth know about these daredevil yearnings? Did she know they could take away her child in a second?

  He glanced toward the stairs. She was up there, rounding up sleeping bags and pillows, turning the adult inconvenience of a power outage into an adventure for a child. With a mother like her, no matter what circumstances brought, Jamie would turn out all right.

  "Can I put a log on the fire?" Jamie asked, eyes dancing with excitement.

  Logan's first instinct was to say no, but the memory of his grandfather and all he'd taught him still walked the edges of his mind. How old had he been when Dallas had taught him to light the Franklin stove? Six? Seven? Dallas had no patience for fools, but he'd had an ocean of it for the awkward boy Logan had been. Learning that simple skill had instilled him with a confidence he couldn't explain—even today. "Only if you listen real carefully when I tell you how."

  Eyes rounded with anticipation, Jamie nodded.

  "The number-one rule is the stove is hot so you only touch the handle. Got that?"

  Jamie fiddled with Max's ear as he nodded again.

  "What's the number-one rule?"

  "Touch only the handle."

  "Number-two rule is nice and easy."

  "Nice and easy."

  Logan parked Max out of the way. The dog had a knack for getting right in the middle of things. He picked out a small log, handed it to Jamie, accordioned the safety screen away, then positioned himself at Jamie's side ready to guide and shield.

  "Open the door how?"

 
"Nice and easy." Tongue sticking out, Jamie turned the handle and opened the door. A wave of heat blasted at them. "Wow, that's hot."

  "Sure is. Fire isn't a toy. You've got to be real careful." Taking Jamie's hands in his, he guided the boy's actions, placing his own arms close to the danger of the stove's hot sides. Coals greedily sparked the fresh wood, shooting flames all around it.

  "I did it! I did it!"

  Jamie's hands shot out with the excitement of the moment. Heart hammering, Logan foresaw the path the small hand would take. "No!"

  He grabbed Jamie's hand in his fist. His knuckles singed against the door. He drew the hand trapped in his fist away from the heat, crushed the boy against his chest. Jamie let out a frightened squeak.

  Heart thundered against heart.

  Stupid, stupid to have let a child get so close to the fire. What was he thinking? That he could be Jamie's Dallas? Stupid. Irresponsible. Slowly he loosened his hold on Jamie. "What's the number-two rule, sport?"

  "Nice and easy."

  "That's right. You almost got burned. Now close the door, how?"

  "Nice and easy."

  "You got it, sport. Good job."

  Jamie glowed with pride. His arms snaked around Logan's neck and he gave him a hug. "Thanks, Mr. Ward!"

  Arms loaded with bed fixings, Beth returned to the living room. "What's going on here?"

  Would her smile be so bright if she knew he'd almost caused her son a third-degree burn?

  "Mr. Ward showed me how to put a log on the fire."

  "Wow. Guess what? Time for bed, young man."

  "Aw, do I have to?"

  "It's late. The more you whine, the less time I'll have for storytelling. Come on, let's go get your pj's and pick out a book."

  Ten minutes later they came back, Jamie in his pajamas clutching a panda, Beth armed with half a dozen books. After she'd read him stories about a Christmas bear, Greek heroes, green eggs and ham, a dragon or two and a round of knock-knock jokes, Jamie finally nodded off.

  Logan itched to leave, to return to the cold grimness of his house, but he couldn't seem to make himself get up. He reached for the small pad and the pen by the telephone on the end table and started sketching ideas and notes of his plans for the house.