Colors of Christmas

by Olivia Newport

  A snap made her freeze. Blitzen?

  It wasn’t his doing. He was safely and obediently behind her.

  “Simon?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  He popped up from the back end of the wagon. “Axle cracked.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  He brushed his hands against his jeans. “It’s not.”

  Angela’s shoulders sank. “Can it be fixed?”

  “I wouldn’t want to promise. At least not in time. I’d have to special order the axle, and frankly, I’m not sure the wagon is worth the bother.”

  Angela pulled her hat and gloves off and ran her hands through her hair. Suddenly being cold was not her biggest problem.

  CHAPTER 7

  Angela closed the organist’s oversized edition of the hymnal and centered it in the rack in front of her. The final Sunday service before Christmas Eve was complete. On one side of the hymnal were copies of the prelude, offertory, and postlude music she’d selected for next Sunday morning and for the late-night Christmas Eve service on the same day. She knew the pieces well, having used them many times over the years and practiced them in recent weeks. On the other side of the hymnal were the choir pieces for next Sunday. Wednesday would bring the final choir practice. They would sing as usual in the morning, as well as several pieces during the candlelight service. If she hadn’t had A Christmas to Remember dropped in her lap two days ago, she could have gone on autopilot at this point, punctuating the final week before Christmas only with that one last choir practice.

  That had been the plan. It was all out the window now. Angela’s yellow legal pad got filled in more and more. When she left her house the day before, she was determined to keep her notes to one page. Or two, maximum. Since then she’d scribbled on the pages so much that twice she had started over with fresh effort to keep her notes orderly and legible.

  The demise of the sleigh wagon was unfortunate. She had no clear solution to that dilemma, and frankly, she wasn’t sure how hard she would even try. If she planted the information in the ears of the right shopkeepers along Main Street, by the night of the event everyone in town would know that the axle had broken and no one could blame her for not waving a magic wand and coming up with another one, especially if there was no snow. Or maybe it would be better to say nothing in advance and avoid having people bend her ear about it.

  The more pressing issue of the day was the matter of the decorating options. When they cleaned out Carole’s house last spring, Christmas items were boxed up without any particular system beyond what space there was in a box for the item in a person’s hand. Even Angela had woefully underestimated how much Carole had at home, and there was more at the church. But everyone involved in boxing things up agreed it made sense to wait until after this Christmas for final sorting. They would have to get everything out again anyway. At the time, Angela nodded, barely registering the group decisions. Certainly she hadn’t imagined this day, when she would be the one going through those boxes. That could take days she didn’t have, unless they were more organized than she remembered.

  For now she just needed help getting them out of the awkward storage room in the basement, where the property committee stuck old paint cans, ladders tall enough to change the light bulbs in the sanctuary, and file cabinets of old membership records.

  She felt the presence of someone behind her and swiveled on her bench.

  “Hello, Brian.”

  “My grandpa said he’s ready to go to the basement. I’m going to help him get everything out. He said I should ask you what to do with it.”

  Brian’s grandfather had a pickup truck that could carry far more boxes than her small SUV, but she didn’t want any more of the boxes in her house than necessary, especially when they’d have to be lugged back to Main Street anyway.

  “Let’s just put them out in the big youth room,” she said. The youth activities were suspended for the Christmas break. No one would be inconvenienced if Angela borrowed the space. She could run down the street to Buford’s Diner to pick up a sandwich and come back to sort the boxes.

  “I’ll tell Grandpa.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right down to help.”

  Brian hesitated.

  “Brian?”

  “Do you give organ lessons?”

  She couldn’t help but soften. “Where would you practice?”

  “My grandma has an organ. It’s not as big as this one. More of a starter organ.”

  Angela smiled. “Let’s get through Christmas first. Then perhaps we’ll talk about it in the new year.”

  Brian grinned and skedaddled.

  Angela slid off the bench, slipped out of her organ shoes, and found her comfortable brown flats in the same spot where she’d been leaving street shoes during services for two decades. Clusters of murmuring conversation spattered the sanctuary as the last of the morning worshippers moseyed toward the foyer with its array of coffee, muffins, and fruit. The laugh Angela heard as she debated grabbing a cup of coffee before going downstairs to survey the Christmas boxes was Lea Sabatelli’s. Even when she spoke, she emitted the lilt of a song, and when she spoke of the impending arrival of her first grandchild, she might have been one of the Christmas angels heralding joy to the world. New Year’s Eve would find her winging west to California just in time for her daughter’s due date, to greet her grandson. In a few weeks, when she tore herself away from her daughter’s home to return to Spruce Valley, her phone would be full of photos of newborn snugglies and smiles.

  Angela decided on the coffee. She might be here all afternoon. It couldn’t hurt to bolster for the task. Her favorite squat white cup was available, and she arranged it under the spigot of the ubiquitous forty-cup coffee urn that every church seemed to have in triplicate, double-checking she was not getting decaf by mistake.

  “Mrs. Carter! Mrs. Carter!”

  It was not often she heard Brian Bergstrom’s voice at this level, especially in the church foyer.

  “Grandpa says you’d better come right down.”

  “Yes, I was just going to bring some coffee with me.”

  “Right now, he said to tell you.”

  Angela shut off the spigot and set the mug aside. Brian was already shooting through the coffee minglers at a faster speed than Angela would be able to match. Two people who seemed to want her attention had to settle for a smile and the touch of an elbow that might pass for a promise to connect later. The farther she got from the coffeepots and muffins, the thinner the crowd became. Nevertheless, by the time she got to the top of the stairs leading downward, Brian was out of sight. She readjusted her grip on her purse and scampered down the steps. As soon as she turned the corner at the bottom, she gasped.

  Allen Bergstrom plopped a soggy cardboard box against the wall in the large room, where it nearly splatted open alongside another that had.

  “What happened?” Angela shoved her purse onto a counter and tried to keep her jaw from dropping.

  “Water leak,” Allen said.

  “These are Christmas boxes?” Angela approached the one that had helplessly spilled its guts.

  “Yep.”

  She shrugged, squinting at disintegrating silk garland. “There are so many boxes. We were going to sort them anyway.”

  Brian backed into the room dragging another box longer than he was tall. Trying to hold its sides together was as impossible as putting the fall leaves back on a tree after they’d dropped into an unexpected early snow.

  “Maybe you should just let that be,” Allen said to his grandson.

  “It’s a mess in there, Grandpa,” Brian said.

  “I know.” Allen turned to Angela. “You should probably come have a look.”

  “At what?” Angela’s stomach soured.

  “Just come.”

  She followed Allen and Brian to the other end of the large room and into the storage space, stopping just inside the open door and wrinkling her nose at the stench of mildew.

  “Allen,
” she said.

  “Like I said, water leak.”

  “A rather big one, by my guess.”

  “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

  Angela glanced around the room. Stacks of cardboard boxes that she had arranged herself a few months ago now weighed down on one another in lopsided bulges. At the base of each tower, what had once been cardboard was long compromised, as water wicked through the fibers from one carton to another. She made herself take another step in. Crates hammered together from wooden pallets scavenged from behind the hardware store lined one wall, sheltering Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus with the shepherds and the barn animal figures, and behind them an impressive set of life-sized carved carolers that Carole had surprised the town with fifteen years ago. Angela could hardly imagine the street corners without these adornments of the season.

  “This must have been going for weeks,” she said.

  Allen nodded. “We had that cold snap a couple of months back.”

  “I remember. Everyone said how unusual it was to be so cold so early.”

  “Took us all by surprise.” Allen gestured toward a closet across the room. “There are pipes in there.”

  “But the path is blocked,” Angela said.

  “I’ll get some help, and we’ll move everything,” Allen said. “Probably tomorrow. My guess is once we get that door open we’ll find our damaged pipe.”

  Angela slowly moistened her lips and tried to make her vision focus on the boxes she had stacked. Carole’s things. Carole’s Christmas things. As much as Angela resented the manner in which A Christmas to Remember was thrust upon her, and as much as she dreaded a final sorting of Carole’s belongings, losing them to these circumstances was a stab in the gut.

  “The Nativity?” she said.

  Allen shook his head.

  “The carved carolers?”

  “A little green around the gills, if you get my drift.”

  So many of the traditional pieces were wooden. That was part of the charm of A Christmas to Remember—and the reason nothing would have survived water damage.

  “Nothing is salvageable,” she muttered.

  “I’m afraid not,” Allen said. “Even the boxes on top have been damp long enough to be growing a good grunge by now.”

  Angela winced. “What about lights? Were there lights?”

  Allen scratched the back of his head. “I doubt you’d want to have to clean them up only to discover they wouldn’t work, after all.”

  She sighed. He was right. She only had a few days.

  “You have lights, don’t you, Grandpa?” Brian said. “The ones in your attic.”

  Allen chuckled. “The ones your grandma has been threatening to throw out an attic window?”

  Brian nodded.

  Allen looked at Angela. “They’re about twenty years old, but Brian and I plugged them in just the other day. I know they work. You’re welcome to them.”

  “How many?”

  “I never counted.”

  “Lots,” Brian said. “Lots and lots.”

  Angela considered the boy’s expectant wide brown eyes.

  “I guess we could at least look at them,” she said, “and see if we think they’re enough.”

  “Grandpa knows how to put them up,” Brian said. “He always helped Miss Freedholm. Every year. He has all the right ladders and everything.”

  “That’s right. He did.” Angela looked at Allen. “I hope you’ll help me, too.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Allen said. “I have to warn you. If you reject the lights, Millie won’t want to take them back. Once they’re out of the attic, that’s it.”

  “I want to help put them up,” Brian said.

  “Sure, buddy.” Allen tousled the boy’s hair. He nodded at Angela. “We’ll bring the lights by as soon as we get them down and untangled.”

  “Thank you.”

  An undetermined number of lights and a couple of old horses. Not exactly the progress Angela had hoped for that weekend. No sleigh, makeshift or otherwise. No outdoor garlands. No Nativity figures. No carved and painted holiday carolers with cherry cheeks and mittened hands holding their hymnals to spread good news among the street corners.

  CHAPTER 8

  The afternoon turned sharply toward darkness. It was barely four o’clock when Angela drew living room curtains closed, wondering why she’d bothered to open them after church. The day hadn’t been bright in any manner, so all she’d let in was dreary gray. The daylight hours came and went so quickly in the week before Christmas that it hardly seemed worth the bother to go through the motions of welcoming the day only to close the curtains on it before she’d even had her supper. Four more days. Every year she watched the calendar. Once it got past December 21, the days would begin lengthening again.

  This year she wanted to be on the other side of Christmas as well.

  After walking Blitzen, she was in soft jeans and an old sweatshirt. Thick socks slid slightly on the polished wood floor as Angela crossed to her favorite overstuffed side chair and picked up her yellow legal pad. Blitzen circled a couple of times before centering his weight on her feet and settling in.

  Nothing on the yellow pad made sense anymore. Angela chewed on the end of her pen trying not to fling the whole mess against a wall. She’d used two whole days of her eight and had almost nothing to show for it. Was she supposed to string lights around a pair of horses and march them down Main Street? Children singing “Away in a Manger” might redeem the pathetic scene.

  Angela flipped to a fresh sheet of paper. Given the revelations of the last two days, she needed a fresh angle on her planning.

  Blitzen’s head popped up.

  “What is it?” Angela’s gaze followed the dog’s. She heard steps on the porch.

  Blitzen’s barking frenzy started in the same instant as the pounding on the front door. Angela tossed her pad aside, grabbed Blitzen’s collar, and opened the front door.

  “Brian!”

  His chest heaved.

  “Brian, what’s wrong?”

  He gulped air and said, “Grandma sent me. I’m staying with them. My parents are away overnight at my dad’s company Christmas party, and Grandma doesn’t drive at night, especially if she’s nervous. It’s her eyes.”

  “Does she need to go somewhere?” Allen and Millie Bergstrom were only in their sixties, but Millie was planning to have cataract surgery in the new year. Allen was an able driver, though.

  “To the hospital,” Brian said. “You’re the closest person we could think of that I could run to.”

  “Hospital?”

  “Grandpa and I were getting the lights, just like we said we would. There’s no rail on the attic stairs.”

  Angela’s heart lurched. “Did he fall?”

  Brian nodded. “He says he’s all right, but Grandma doesn’t think so. He can’t even stand up.”

  Angela blew out her breath, hoping that what Allen really needed wasn’t an ambulance.

  “Come inside,” she said. “Let me find my shoes and get my keys.”

  As Brian stepped inside, Blitzen began a fresh round of barking, and Angela looked past him to see Nora from next door.

  “Blitzen, shush,” Angela said.

  “I couldn’t help noticing the commotion,” Nora said, coming up the porch steps. “Your dog seems easily excitable. Are you sure you don’t want the name of my friend who is a dog trainer?”

  This was not the time to debate the realities of canine behavior. Angela tried to remember where she’d kicked off her shoes.

  Nora eyed Brian.

  “This is one of my students,” Angela said. “I’m going to run over to see his grandparents.”

  “You won’t leave the dog barking the whole time, will you?”

  For a moment Angela imagined releasing her grip on Blitzen’s collar. His tail wagging rapidly, his size, and his enthusiasm in greeting guests were more threat than evil intent. But the front door was still standing wide open.

  �
��He’ll be in the kitchen as usual,” Angela said.

  “My grandma said to ask you to hurry,” Brian said.

  “Yes,” Angela said, her free hand on the heavy front door. “Have a nice evening, Nora. Perhaps we’ll catch each other tomorrow.”

  She closed the door and released Blitzen. “I think my wallet is upstairs,” she said to Brian. “I’ll be right back. Why don’t you use the phone in the kitchen and call your grandmother to let her know we’re on our way.”

  Having donned appropriate footwear and double-checked her purse for her driving glasses, Angela raced back down the stairs, pulled a warm jacket from the closet, and headed toward the kitchen. Blitzen was at her heels, ever hopeful.

  Brian hung up the phone. “I told her.”

  “Good.”

  “She said she got him down the stairs to the kitchen. She thinks it’s broken.”

  “What’s broken?”

  “Can a person’s back break?”

  “There are a lot of bones in the back.” Angela drew a measured breath and latched the gate that would confine Blitzen. A back injury was nothing to take lightly. She might have to quietly insist that Millie call an ambulance, after all.

  She let Brian go ahead of her out the back door before tossing doggy treats across the room to keep Blitzen from begging to come along.

  “It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?” Angela pressed the button on her key fob to unlock all the doors of her car. “Give me a second. I’ll have to clear off the seat for you.”

  Brian waited patiently while she gathered up the odds and ends of music that seemed to follow her everywhere and tossed the stack into the backseat. Reaching for his seat belt, he offered a sluggish smile.

  “You’re worried,” she said as she started the car.

  He looked at his hands in his lap.

  “You did well. You did just what your grandmother needed you to do. We’re going to get your grandpa the help he needs.”

  “Thank you.”

  His voice was faint, but he was a quiet child. Who knew? Maybe he would someday find his musical voice in a saxophone or an organ.

  She put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway. “You’ll have to remind me of the way.”