Angela went through the motions of rehearsing the individual parts, asking if there were particular measures people wanted to hear again, and then putting it all together. Altogether there were four anthems. With each one the soprano section grew more timid, one by one their voices dropping out before the highest notes—except for the one singer who was least able to hit the high notes but also least able to admit this reality. The descant that should have been the most dramatic stanza of the service was headed for disaster. Without Lea, the confidence of seven other sopranos whooshed out of the room.
The choir was the one part of Christmas Angela thought she had under control.
Things couldn’t get much worse.
CHAPTER 15
There’s his truck now. Looks like you can relax.”
Angela didn’t appreciate the tone behind Pete Nicholson’s half smile. Condescension wouldn’t solve practical issues, and the clock was ticking for the event only two days away. But she swallowed the urge to set Pete straight. She needed his help. Only four men had agreed to string lights, and only three of them had promised to stay on task past lunchtime. Pete lounged against a light post. The others had ducked inside Buford’s for some coffee. Angela had expected they’d get it to go and come back outside. How they planned to juggle hot coffee with climbing ladders and hanging lights, she didn’t know. But they hadn’t come back. The only explanation was that they’d sat down inside and were probably on their second refills.
Ned Bergstrom pulled his pickup to the curb beside Angela and Pete, outside Main Street Church, and hustled out of the driver’s side.
“Sorry.” Ned let down the gate at the back of the truck’s bed. “Had to stop by my parents’.”
“How is your dad?” Angela asked.
“Not well. In a lot of pain, and Mom’s not managing well. I’ve got to get decent beds downstairs for both of them—today. The doctor is talking about surgery. At this rate, he won’t be able to get upstairs for weeks, and she can’t be running up and down to see what he needs at night.”
“That will exhaust her.”
“Wish I could help with the lights,” Ned said, “but I can’t stay. You understand.”
“I do understand,” Angela said. “And Brian was right when he said Allen had all the right ladders.”
“My mother may never let Dad go up on a ladder again.” Ned pulled one ladder out of the truck, and Pete took another.
Angela gasped. “Brian.”
“What about him?”
“He wanted to help with the lights. He made sure I knew he wasn’t afraid of heights.”
Ned slapped his forehead. “He told me, too. My mother called so early, I left the house before he was even up.”
“He’ll be very disappointed if we do this without him.”
“I can’t stay to help, though,” Ned said.
Angela spun toward Pete.
“What?” Pete said, leaning a ladder against the light pole. “You want me to babysit?”
“It’s not babysitting,” Angela said. “He’s a good kid, and he wants to help.”
“You know my boy,” Ned said. “He tags along with my dad every chance he gets. If you don’t want him up on the ladders, he can at least hand you tools.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Sure. Why not? But I’m gonna tell him the rules, and if he gets out of line, you can expect your cell phone to ring.”
“And I’ll answer it,” Ned said. “I’ll go get him right now.”
“No,” Angela said. “Go take care of your dad. I’ll call Brian and run out to pick him up.”
“Thank you,” Ned said. “And thanks for remembering him. I would never have heard the end of that.”
Ned pulled away, leaving Pete with the pile of ladders.
“So where are these lights?” Pete said.
“Right inside the front doors of the church,” Angela said. “Start with the six blue tubs. The doors are unlocked.”
She looked down the street toward Buford’s.
“They’re coming,” Pete said. “I already sent them a text message. Get the boy, and then you can skedaddle.”
“Skedaddle?”
“We don’t need supervising.”
“You’ll call me if you have questions?”
“We won’t have questions. We do this every year. Just get the boy.”
When Angela returned twenty minutes later, with an ebullient Brian, Pete remained in charge of the crew. They were still drinking coffee, which made her nervous considering the limited time they had committed to the task.
But also on the sidewalk was Gabe, holding two large steaming coffees. He handed one to her as the other men, with Brian in tow, carried tubs and ladders down the street.
“I hope they know what they’re doing,” she said.
“I might just happen along Main Street a little later this morning,” Gabe said. “Shopping. Enjoying the season.”
“I would be incredibly appreciative if you would!”
“I have another idea as well,” Gabe said.
“Yes?”
“I’ll sing gentle falsetto with the sopranos on a couple of pieces. You don’t have many tenors, but they seem to know what they’re doing. Most of the time, they just have to find G and stay right around it, and they do just fine.”
Angela laughed. “Tenor parts are like that sometimes. But singing with the sopranos?”
“Just a little support, especially on the descant. They’re used to having someone to reassure them they’re on the right track.”
Angela sipped coffee. “It might work.”
“It’s settled. Now one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I have my rental car right over here. I’d like you to take a short drive with me.”
“A drive? I don’t have much time.”
“It’s not far. It’s important.”
She met his eyes. He’d asked nothing of her in the last few days, and he’d done so much for her. She nodded. The time had come.
They didn’t speak as he drove. Down Main Street. Right on a side street. Over a few blocks. Cutting over on an angling street across the back of town that Angela didn’t allow herself to traverse anymore. The edge of the oldest homes in Spruce Valley.
Angela’s throat thickened.
He parked in front of Carole’s house.
Angela had only been past it a few times since helping to clear it out months ago. She’d forced herself to create new mental ruts to follow as she navigated to all her usual locations around town, routes that didn’t take her past the home of her deceased friend. Other people lived there now.
They sat in silence. Angela finally heaved a heavy breath.
“She saved my life, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Gabe said. “When my grandmother moved away, I don’t think she ever knew she’d spend the rest of her life living in New Zealand. But even when I was a pip-squeak, she brightened at Great-Aunt Carole’s letters and the news about her friend Angela.”
“It was a highlight of Carole’s life when your parents brought you to meet her. I’d just moved here with my husband. Carole had us over to meet you. I think you were four, maybe five.”
“I barely remember,” Gabe said. “Sometimes I think it’s my parents’ stories I remember more than actually being here.”
“I hadn’t been married long when I moved to Spruce Valley,” Angela said. “Carole took me under her wing. Not long after your visit, my husband died. It was Carole who sat with me and never once suggested it was time to move on. Even without saying so, she managed to make me believe I could still go on to have a happy life.”
“And you have, haven’t you?”
Angela nodded. “I have. I really have.”
Most of Spruce Valley had long forgotten Carole had a sister who moved to New Zealand and never returned. But Angela still had the photo albums of Carole’s only nephew and his only son—Gabe. She hadn’t known what to do with them when they c
leared out the house.
“I loved your great-aunt very much,” she said. “Losing her … well, it’s stirred up every other loss I’ve ever had. My father who abandoned us. My mother who died when I was thirteen. My husband. The children we never got to have. She loved Christmas, and she made sure I did, too. But not this year. It’s been too dismal—until you came along.”
Angela was still nursing the large coffee he’d handed her on Main Street, though now she was twisting the cup around in her hands more than she was drinking the liquid.
“I’ve always wanted to come back to the States,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I’m her only heir. Her will seemed to give me a good excuse. I wanted to see the house before selling it, see if I truly remember that visit when I was little or anything else about Spruce Valley. The bank accounts and life insurance aren’t complex, but they still have to be dealt with.”
“But have you even been inside?” Angela asked. “There are renters.”
“Not yet. The lawyer will arrange a time after Christmas. I don’t want to upset anyone’s holiday.”
“Will you give the renters a chance to buy the house?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll live in it.”
Angela turned her head to look at him. “Live in it?”
“I have to live somewhere.”
“You’re thinking of staying?”
“I hear the choir director could use another tenor in the long term.”
Angela laughed and wiped tears from her eyes.
“We have a busy day ahead of us,” Gabe said, “but I want to take you somewhere tonight.”
“There’s so much to do.”
“And I’m going to help you with all of it. I am at your disposal. I’ll flock the lanterns. I’ll make sure the lights are being hung properly, and I’ll introduce myself to Mr. Masters to see if he needs help with the horses. I’ll check with Elinor to make sure the candles have arrived.”
“Blue candles.”
“Blue candles. Tomorrow I’ll deal with the blue garland. That’s all for the town. Tonight is for you. For your spirit. This is the longest night of the year in your neck of the woods—though not in mine—and I’ve discovered a lovely tradition called Blue Christmas.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not! It’s a church service. There’s one in Marksbury. Come with me.”
CHAPTER 16
The church in Marksbury was unpretentious. Tending toward a boxy shape, it was nothing like Main Street Church in Spruce Valley that had occupied its corner for more than a hundred years. Angela had never even noticed this building before.
“How did you find out about this?” Angela asked.
“I’m a soft touch for the local ‘Things to Do’ flyers.” Gabe put the car in gear and removed the key from the ignition.
Angela knew the flyer he was talking about. All the shops on Main Street had them on their counters. She hadn’t perused one in years, but the stacks seemed to disappear every month before the new issue came out. Obviously people did pick them up.
They got out of the car, and Angela tucked her hands into the pockets of the long woolen coat she’d chosen that night, an extravagant gift from Carole several years ago. Darkness had come hours ago and would hover long after everyone in Spruce Valley and surrounding towns was up and moving tomorrow. At this time of year, some people rarely saw daylight on workdays.
It was indeed the longest night of the year.
Inside, in a foyer lit only by several arrangements of candles, someone handed them each a bulletin and a blue votive candle. Electric lights in the sanctuary were turned on but dimmed to a level to accommodate reading the bulletin while inviting a pensive mood. Angela chose a pew two-thirds of the way back before Gabe could get ideas about sitting down front in a strange church. She was there. That was hard enough. The sanctuary did not fill up, but she hadn’t expected it would. Three days before Christmas Eve, most people were still in the malls, or home wrapping packages, or driving around the neighborhoods with their children to ooh and aah at the lights on this longest night of the year. In Spruce Valley, perhaps they were arranging logs and kindling in their fireplaces and talking about where they would stroll during A Christmas to Remember. Those who gathered in church on this night were those whose hearts clenched at the thought of Christmas, just as Angela’s did.
Not even a week had passed since the committee had been unceremonious about laying the success of the event in Angela’s lap. Only Gabe’s presence, and Carole’s memory, kept her moving with her tasks. She would just have to steel herself for all the questions that would come about why everything was so different this year.
A blue Christmas. It wasn’t what she wanted for the town, and her gut told her this service, with its blue title and blue candles and blue bulletin, would rub salt into the wound. Sitting back in the pew, she took several deep breaths and let them out slowly.
The leaders who stepped forward from the first pew were soft spoken with a genuineness in their voices that surprised Angela. There was no cheery “Merry Christmas” greeting, no grand music of the season, no processional with its pomp. She heard only warmth and acknowledgment of pain. The leaders stood side by side in front of a table draped in a blue cloth that puddled on the floor.
“We all need comfort at points in our lives, for seasons or for long stretches,” one leader said. “You have done the brave work of coming tonight in search of comfort and hope. God’s people yearned for the consolation of the long-awaited Messiah, and the writings of Isaiah to disconsolate hearts gave hope-filled images of God’s redeeming presence. Christmas can be a time when many are in need of that reassurance and comfort, and that is why we have gathered tonight.”
He gestured for his coleader to continue the welcome.
“Tonight is the longest night of the year,” she said. “Outside these walls, the world awaits Christmas only four days away. Voices ring with excitement and plans and the passing of favorite recipes from one generation to the next. Music plays from the stereos. Tables are set for festive meals. Yet inside these walls are the truths of depression and sadness, mourning and struggling. Like the long-ago people of Israel, we yearn to know hope once again. Some have come in reluctance and anxiety. Some have come because they have been here before and yet still find grief in these days. Some have come because they have tried everything else and are on the brink of believing hope no longer exists.”
The two leaders stepped apart and took up new positions on the sides of the tables.
“My name is Rich,” the first leader said, “and this is Lucy. Our service will be brief. After it concludes, we invite you to remain in the sanctuary until you are ready to depart. We are not on a schedule. Lucy and I will be here to speak with you if that’s what you’d like.”
“If you feel blue tonight,” Lucy said, “make no apology. We do not ask you to put a smile on your face if there is no smile in your spirit. We do not ask you to sing with your voice if there is no song in your heart. We see no shame in tears. Tonight we gather from our individual isolation to be companions in the seasons of life that have brought us here.”
The lump in Angela’s throat thickened even as her spine curved in growing surrender. It was as if these two strangers, leading a type of service she had never heard of before, were looking right into her. What surprised her most was that she didn’t want them to look away.
Rich turned to the table and lit a large white pillar candle.
“Beginning tomorrow, we will see daylight more and more each day. It will be measured in moments at first. Gradually we will realize that the moments have gathered into an hour, then two, then three. Hope begins anew in that flicker of a moment. We turn toward God now, no matter how tiny the flicker in our hearts, to ask God to burn the flame of hope when we cannot do it on our own. Pray with me.”
Angela’s breath caught as she closed her eyes and listened to the words of the prayer, which didn’t shy away from pain or soli
tude or discouragement. Neither did they shy away from promise or redemption or restoration.
“The fortieth chapter of Isaiah tells us, ‘Comfort, comfort my people,’” Lucy said. “‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling.’”
Rich’s voice continued the passage. “‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.’”
“‘And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,’” Lucy read, “‘and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’”
Prayers.
Readings.
Carols of love and light.
Four blue pillar candles lit to remember those loved and lost, the pain of loss, those gathered in loss, the gift of hope even in loss.
The invitation to carry votive candles forward and light them to remember particular individuals. Angela gripped her candle and stepped out of the pew. Gabe rose and walked behind her up the main aisle toward the table at the front. They set their votives down together, took small white taper candles, dipped them into the strong flame of one of the blue pillars, and lit the votives. Standing side by side, they waited until their flames burned certain. The line continued moving forward as they receded. Soon the table shown with the brilliance of grief and gratitude magnified.
And the final words of the evening, once again from Isaiah: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”
Angela sat quietly while others trickled out of the sanctuary, as reluctant as she was to leave this place of solace.
She knew the words of scripture well.
When she left this place, would she also know the dawn of new light?
CHAPTER 17
Colors of Christmas Page 23