by Lexi Eddings
“Come in quick. It’s cold out there,” she said as she shooed the girl in.
“I know. It’s supposed to snow, Ms. H. Won’t that be cool?”
No, it’ll be cold. Very, very cold, Angie thought, but couldn’t bring herself to dampen the girl’s enthusiasm. It had been a while since she’d seen Emma this happy. “Can I get you some hot chocolate?”
“No. I can’t stay. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve made some decisions.”
“Good,” Angie said cautiously. She’d been praying more of late, so it felt only natural to launch a silent arrow prayer skyward that one of Emma’s decisions wasn’t to end her pregnancy.
“Tad asked me to marry him.”
Color me surprised! “He did?”
“Yeah. Guess he’s got a job lined up with Mr. Parker’s company and everything. Tad wants to take care of us.” Emma put a protective hand on her belly.
Angie was waiting for the gush of excitement that was sure to follow, but it didn’t come.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t think it was a good idea. I mean, a couple of months ago I’d have jumped at the chance, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I don’t see it ending well for Tad and me,” Emma said. “He might be okay with giving up his scholarship now, but he’d be bound to resent it later.”
Angie nodded. “That’s very possible.”
“Anyway, we’re not . . . we’re just not as grown up as I thought we were. We can’t raise a child. We’re still kids ourselves.”
“Have you decided to terminate the pregnancy?” There was such a hard knot in her throat, Angie was surprised the words came out.
Emma shook her head. “I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right. Every time I thought about it, I was so sad. I can’t. Even if it seems like it would be the easy way out right now, I don’t think it would be easy in the long run.”
“I’m glad you see that.”
“But I also don’t want to keep going to Coldwater High with my belly hanging out,” the girl said.
“No, Emma, you need to finish school. I’ll make sure you’re not bullied and—”
“I’m going to finish,” Emma interrupted. “Just not here. There’s an alternative high school in the city where my grandparents live. It’s for kids who have special challenges, so at least I won’t be the only pregnant student there. My grandma said I can stay with them till I graduate, so I’m transferring for the spring semester.”
Angie wished Emma would stay in Coldwater Cove, but she understood the girl’s urge to leave. “And once the baby is born?”
Emma sighed. “I’m really glad you cast me as Mary in the pageant, Ms. H., because I’ve been thinking about her a lot. She had a baby that she had to keep safe until it was time for Him to belong to the world. I have a baby I need to keep safe, too.”
She rubbed her belly again, even though no bump showed yet. “But the best way I can keep him safe isn’t to keep him myself. I have to give him to a family that will love him and bring him up like I wish I could. So I’ve already been in contact with a private adoption agency. My baby is going to a really sweet couple in South Carolina who can’t have kids of their own. They’re coming out so I can meet them once I get settled with my grandparents next month.”
Tears trembled on Emma’s lashes. “I wish I could do better. I mean, I thought about putting him in foster care until I graduate. Then I was thinking I could take care of him myself.”
Angie sucked in a quick breath. That would mean consigning the child to the limbo of the system.
“But then I decided it wouldn’t be right to let a baby get used to one set of folks and then have me yank him away from them,” Emma said. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re doing the right thing. You made a very loving choice,” Angie said with relief. “What does your mother say?”
“She’s on board. Tad’s folks took a little convincing. You know, I really thought they’d be angry and claim that I was just a bit of white trash. I mean, like they’d think I was trying to sleep my way into the Van Hook family, but as it turns out, they’ve been . . . unexpectedly nice about it. They were all for me and Tad getting married. They were ready to be part of the baby’s life.”
Angie was too surprised for a response.
“But when I said no, Tad’s folks helped with the private adoption thing. Turns out, they know the parents of the wife in that couple from South Carolina. And they promised to set up a college fund for the baby.”
The Van Hooks could have taken Emma to court to force the child from her. Angie was grateful for their restraint. Everyone involved seemed to be putting the baby’s welfare first.
Emma’s chin trembled. “It’s just so hard to think about giving the baby up.”
“And it’ll be even harder to do, but for what it’s worth, you’re making a good decision in a very tough situation,” Angie said. “I’m proud of you, Emma.”
The girl unexpectedly threw her arms around Angie. “Thanks, Ms. H. That means a lot.”
Angie patted her student’s back. “And I’m sorry you won’t get a chance to be Mary in the pageant. You’d have been wonderful.”
Emma pulled away, dried her eyes, and smiled. “Well, as it turns out, I do get to be Mary. Come with me.” She took Angie’s hand. “You’ll need your coat. It’s cold out there.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the dress rehearsal. The pageant is going forward.”
“How is that possible?”
“Oh, we had a little help from some angels,” Emma said with a wink. “And your Mr. Parker.”
* * *
Emma and Angie walked the two blocks from the Square down to the park that stretched along the lakefront and sloped upward to greet the stately two-story homes that lined Maple Street. The mock sets were gone and in their place, substantial-looking stages with incredibly detailed backdrops dotted the wide expanse of winter-brown grass.
“No, this can’t be right. We can’t use the park for the same reason we can’t have the pageant on the Square,” Angie said before she realized that Emma had already left her to join the rest of the cast assembled in the middle of the park.
“The park isn’t public property,” came a dearly familiar voice from behind her.
She turned to find Seth, with his thumbs tucked in his pockets and a big grin across his ruggedly handsome face.
“It turns out the park belongs to the Founder’s Club—you know, the one made up of the Sweaseys, Addleberrys, Van Hooks, and Bradens—all the first families in the county,” Seth explained. “They’ve tried to donate the park to the town over the years, but the council always says no. If they accepted it, the city would have to maintain the park. This way, the Founders Club is on the hook for mowing and upkeep and insurance.”
“But what if the Founders decided to develop the park and build something here?”
“I guess they could, but they’d all have to agree to it, and when have you known those families to agree about anything?” Seth said with a laugh. “Plus, the town council would have to okay a zoning change.”
“What’s it zoned for now?”
“A landfill. Can you imagine what would happen if the Founders Club tried to actually dump garbage in the middle of town? By the lake, no less. Every soul in Coldwater Cove would boycott their businesses and ride them out of town on a rail. No, I think we can count on the park being here till the Second Coming. So once we got the okay to hold the pageant at the park, we had our perfectly legal, nonpublic owned location.”
“So the Founders Club families did agree on something.”
“Hey! It’s Christmas. Peace and goodwill and all that,” Seth said. “And as to the other specific objection in the lawsuit, you are no longer the director, so the town’s off the hook on that count, too.”
“And what a group of private citizens agree to do on privately held land doesn’t fall under the injunction!”
Seth put two fingers be
tween his teeth and whistled loudly enough to be heard in the next county. “Places everybody. Take it from the top.”
* * *
“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
Angie’s gaze jerked to the nearest oak, where a speaker was wedged into the lowest crotch of the tree. Mrs. Chisholm’s voice had come from it. Seth must have had the old librarian record the narration Angie had written. Her voice came again.
“That’s what my friend Luke wrote in his gospel.What he couldn’t capture with his words was the longing I felt as we waited for the Messiah to come. The whole world groaned under the weight of Rome.”
The wheelchair bound retired librarian might be the poster girl for curmudgeons everywhere, but after years of countless read alouds, Mrs. Chisholm’s voice was still full and expressive. She was perfect as an elderly Mary, giving her remembered account of the Christ Child’s birth. Seth had done well casting her.
“We were taught that all things would be set to rights when the Messiah came. He would reign, the rabbis promised us, in the spirit of David and his kingdom would cover the earth with righteousness.”
Hand in hand, Angie and Seth wandered toward the stage located farthest from the lake, where Emma, dressed as Mary, was sweeping a humble, first-century-type house. Then the girl stopped sweeping and bowed her head.
“So we prayed. We hoped. We waited.”
Mrs. Chisholm’s voice was coming from another speaker located near this stage. Angie realized that with only one narrator to amplify, Deek had been able to set up a sound system that played throughout the park simultaneously.
“And God answered our prayers . . . in a way I never could have expected.”
A group of people had gathered around Mary’s stage and at the end of Mrs. Chisholm’s words, they began to softly hum “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Then Angie’s ears pricked to the soft chug of a generator powering a fog machine. Thick mist poured onto the stage.
“Anyone who has ever wished to see an angel has never met one. They are fierce and terrible . . . and beautiful beyond belief.”
Suddenly a strobe light pulsed, making Angie blink in surprise, and then Jadis Chu, in full angelic regalia, appeared in the mist. Her wings were diaphanous fronds, accented with glitter swirls and shards of reflective metal. Her makeup was reminiscent of a Kabuki actor, stark white with shades of purple and vermillion accenting her strong features.
Emma fell to her knees. Jadis was so intensely striking, Angie almost felt as if she should, too. Mrs. Chisholm’s voice came again.
“Even more than Gabriel’s appearance, the angel’s words frightened me. I was favored, the angel said. All generations would call me blessed. For God intended to use me, the lowest of his handmaids, to bring His Son into the world.”
The humming throng around Angie turned out to be the pageant choir. From behind the stage, Mr. Mariano blew into a pitch pipe, and began directing the spread-out members of the choir in a haunting rendition of “See, Amid the Winter’s Snow.”
The group began to follow Emma as she left the first stage, and, singing as they went, walked across the park to the next platform, where Crystal, as Mary’s cousin Elisabeth, was waiting to greet her.
Mrs. Chisholm’s narration continued. The choir provided more a capella traveling music when Mary was joined by Joseph. Ian lifted Emma onto the back of a strange-looking little creature that could only be the zonkey Junior Bugtussle had promised to bring. Then, they continued their journey toward the stable situated near the lake.
Mrs. Chisholm’s recorded narration went on as Emma and Ian reached the stable, complete with a cow, calf, and an extra stall for the surprisingly sweet zonkey.
“Jesus was with God when the earth and the stars were called into existence from nothing. It is his voice in the thunder, his power in the rolling sea. He made the world and everything in it. Yet in all his creation there was found no room for him.”
Joseph and Mary disappeared behind the wooden structure for a moment and when Emma reappeared, she was carrying a lifelike doll, carefully swaddled, in her arms. She laid the doll in the manger and sat on a three-legged stool beside it, all her attention turned to the baby.
Seth must have rigged some lights under the straw because streams of illumination emanated from the manger bed.
“He ought to have been born in a palace, swaddled in silk, and warmed by a fire. But God’s ways are not ours. Instead he came into this world in a stable. Straw was his bed. The ox and ass lent their warmth and sweetened the air with their breath. I remember he cried softly that night. So I reached down . . .”
Emma did as Mrs. Chisholm said.
“. . . and held God . . . in my trembling hands.”
The choir began singing “Away in a Manger.” The carol was soft and sweet, but Angie almost wished for silence. Even though she’d written the script, the enormity of God becoming a helpless babe was so overwhelming, she couldn’t take in much more at the moment.
“I knew from the beginning that Jesus was no ordinary child. He belonged to the ages, to all peoples and races. He was chosen as our ransom, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world. Still, I hoped he would be just mine for a season.”
A tear slid down Emma’s face and Angie knew she was thinking of her own child, the one who would never be hers.
Not even for a season.
Then the focus of the play shifted to a different stage in another part of the park, up the hill from the stable. Jadis made another appearance as the angel on a platform raised above a spot on the dry grass where Junior Bugtussle and his son Aaron were keeping a flock of two wooly sheep with the help of their dog, Bruno. They looked suitably afraid of the angel despite Mrs. Chisholm’s reminder that the angel had told them not to fear.
The choir launched into “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Bruno tipped his nose to the sky and joined in on the “Glorias,” but other than that, it really did seem as if the host of heaven could not keep silent. The morning stars, who sang at creation, cried aloud that the salvation of God had come to earth.
Then when the song had ended and Jadis had disappeared back into the fog-machine’s mist, the shepherds bolted toward the manger in a rush, babbling about signs and wonders. Junior and his son seemed determined to see the Child, the Holy One, with their own eyes.
Once they reached the manger, Junior and Aaron bowed low to Emma and baby with so much reverence, Angie wouldn’t have guessed it was only a doll if she hadn’t known. When the gathered choir began singing “The First Noel,” she found herself singing along with them.
When the song ended, Mrs. Chisholm’s voice began again.
“Except for those months when I carried him beneath my heart, Jesus was never only mine. Others sought the true king as well. In a distant land, they studied the heavens. They pored over scraps of prophecy. And then a star led them as they traveled from far away.”
Angie turned to see Riley ensconced in the star harness. Her smile was almost brighter than the spotlight that lit her up and as she began her slow descent on the zipline toward the manger scene, snow began to fall. It shimmered in the light like diamond dust drifting to earth. The air was crisp and fresh, and Angie wished Riley’s moment of being a star could last forever.
Dressed in the outlandishly gorgeous costumes of the magi, Riley’s father, Noah, Dr. Gonncu, and Mr. Elkin followed her to the stable. Apparently, Seth had decided moving the Holy Family to another location, while scriptural, wasn’t necessarily good theater.
“Over sand dune and wadi, past ziggurat and temple, their caravan came.” Angie could hear Mrs. Chisholm’s voice coming from several speakers all around her. “Their horses and camels were swift to obey their desert-born masters and faithfully bore those seekers to worship at my son’s feet. Unlike the shepherds who came with full hearts, but empty hands, these visitors brought worthy gifts—gold, as befitted a king; frankincense, to honor Jesus as their high pri
est; and—”
Noah opened a cast of fragrant spice at Emma’s feet. The scent washed over Angie, sweet as honey, sharp as a blade.
“A fist closed around my heart when they revealed their last gift. It was myrrh. The spice used to anoint the dead.”
The choir started singing again, but Angie didn’t hear much of them. When she’d wrote the words Mrs. Chisholm was reading, it really hadn’t sunk in to her that God did know something about loss. But Seth was right. He’d lost His Son. Jesus had come to die.
“He was my son. My heart. My beloved. He is that fragrant essence that lifts the heart of man in the cool of the evening. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the sweet perfume of grace.”
Seth put his arm around Angie as the choir began singing again. Angie leaned into him. Seth had taken the scattered pieces of the pageant and pulled them together into wonderful wholeness.
She figured he could do the same with her, if she’d just let him love her. And God, too. She knew now she’d never be able to push God into a far corner of her heart again.
“And so Jesus came.Against all expectation. Against all reason. He left heaven, forsaking that realm of perpetual light to take on our darkness. He gave up the power of God and clothed himself with our dust and weakness. He was willing to do whatever was necessary to redeem his poor, lost creation.”
“He couldn’t bear to see us banished from Eden again. He wants us to be with him, not only in this world, but in the one to come. And once death closes my eyes, I believe I will open them again to see only light.”
Mrs. Chisholm had never sounded so sure, so confident, and so much less like the fuss-budget Angie knew her to be. Could she have felt as changed by the pageant as Angie did?
“Jesus was born. Not only for Israel. Not simply for eager shepherds or wise seekers. He came for us all. And that means everyone.”
The choir launched into a spirited rendition of “For Unto Us a Child Is Born.”
When they were finished, Seth turned to her. “Well, what do you think?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you like it?”
“Yes. Yes, I like it. Yes, to you. Yes, to everything.” She threw her arms around him. “Yes, to taking a chance even if I lose because I can’t bear the thought of not being with you for the rest of my life.”