Christmas Treasures (9781101558720) Read online

  Then he did something he had rarely done in his entire tenure. He took off his suit jacket and stretched out on the couch in his office. He’d rested on this couch from time to time to let his mind wander while he wrote or sorted out some sticky problem. But never on a Sunday morning before a service.

  He suddenly felt so depleted, his arms and legs weak, almost limp. There seemed to be no other choice but to rest. Just a few minutes, Ben told himself, before I put on the cassock and get out there.

  He closed his eyes but felt unable to take a deep, calming breath. His chest felt tight again, that squeezing feeling. He was definitely coming down with something. What a bother. He didn’t have time to get sick right now.

  There was a meeting of the Christmas Fair committee after the coffee hour. The women who ran it, like Sophie Potter and Vera Plante, knew exactly what to do, but he was still obliged to sit in, at least at the start. After that, another short meeting with the parents and children involved in the annual Christmas pageant. An exercise much like herding cats. But somehow the children always learned their parts and songs on time, and everything came out just lovely.

  After those obligations, he promised himself, he would go home, put his feet up, and watch a football game. He wouldn’t even pick up the phone unless it was an emergency.

  Ben closed his eyes and drifted off for a few minutes, but he was too uncomfortable to fall asleep completely. He still felt a bit short of breath, though he had finished shoveling nearly an hour ago.

  He rose slowly and put on his white robes and scarf. The color of his scarf this Sunday was a blue-purple, marking the start of Advent. He checked his appearance in the full-length mirror on the back of his office door, then smoothed his beard and hair—what was left of it, he noted wryly—with a comb.

  Out in the hallway, he heard the familiar sounds of Sunday morning activity: the choir rehearsing, children laughing and chasing one another, friends greeting each other as they entered the building, commenting on the snow, of course. Was that Carolyn’s voice he heard? Possibly. She was going to play some special music during the offertory, part of a piano concerto by Mozart.

  The voices on the other side of the door beckoned, tugging him into the flow of this sacred day, but he held himself back a moment. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, sending up a silent prayer, the prayer he said every Sunday morning before he left his office.

  “Lord, please bless all who gather to worship and hear your word this morning. I thank you for allowing me to be your instrument and humbly ask that you let your wisdom and love speak through me, so that I may bless and comfort the troubled, seeking hearts here today. Please help me to lift the spirits of the faithful and spread your message of peace and love. I ask this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  Then Ben opened his office door and stepped out into the hall. The snow had stopped and bright sunlight streamed through the corridor windows. He squinted and smiled at familiar faces.

  “Some snow, huh, Reverend? They said two or three inches, not two feet.” Sam Morgan was walking by with his family, his older son, Darrell, and younger son, Tyler, by his side. His wife, Jessica, was not far behind with their little girl, Lily Rose.

  “A few people at our house were begging me to take them sledding,” Sam reported, glancing at his two boys. “But I managed to hold them off until this afternoon.”

  “I was tempted myself,” Ben replied with a smile.

  “I was, too. The sleds are already in the trunk,” Sam admitted.

  Sam had grown up in the church and had raised his own family here as well. His wife Jessica’s mother and sister were also longtime members of the congregation, though Jessica and Sam had spent their childhoods on very different sides of town. But all had turned out well, unlike the original Romeo and Juliet, Ben reflected as he watched Jessica gathering her Sunday school class.

  A little girl, about six years old, Ben guessed, was seated on a bench, tugging off her large, red snow boots. She looked up as Ben approached and tugged on Jessica’s sleeve. “Would you ask him, Mrs. Morgan? You said that you would,” she whispered.

  Jessica bent to help with the boots. “You can ask Reverend Ben, Christie. It’s your question,” she said gently.

  Christie shook her head, the braids on either side flipping around like rotary blades.

  “All right, I’ll ask,” Jessica said. “Christie has a question for you, Reverend. I didn’t know the answer.”

  “Really?” Reverend Ben smiled and readied himself. Children came up with some very provocative theological queries. Some real stumpers had come his way through the years, ranging from “Does God eat and sleep?” to “Does He have any pets?”

  “Some older kids were talking about making snow angels,” Jessica explained. “Christie thought that meant that there are angels who fly around when it snows and help people. She says you can’t see them because they’re all white and glimmery and have lacy dresses. Like the snowflakes. She said we should ask you. You’d know.”

  Reverend Ben considered the theory. “Snow angels, huh?”

  Christie nodded. She stared straight ahead, afraid to meet his eyes.

  “I’ve never heard of those kind of snow angels, Christie. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” he hurried to add. “The Bible tells us that angels are messengers, sent to do God’s work here on earth. God is watching over us all the time and sending helpers. You never know who they might be or how they might look. Old or young, rich or poor, some might be snow angels. I can’t say that’s impossible.”

  Christie looked pleased by his answer. Jessica did, too. “Thanks, Reverend. I’m sure she’ll bring it up in class this morning. Now I have an answer for the other children.”

  “Sounds like the makings of a lively discussion. Let me know how it goes,” Ben said lightly.

  Maybe the snow angels will help me this morning, he thought as he headed for the sanctuary. He could use a little extra spirit to help him through the service. He just didn’t feel like himself today.

  But ministers couldn’t call in sick. Especially not on Sunday. In all his years at this church, he had never once missed a service due to illness. Why, he’d stood up at the pulpit with toothaches and backaches and a fever of 103°. One summer, covered with blackfly bites after a camping trip; another time with poison ivy. He’d even preached wearing a cast on one leg after a fall down the stairs, and with a patch over one eye after an unfortunate poke with the end of a fishing pole.

  No, sir, this minister did not call in sick, and he was not about to start this morning.

  Once I get up there and hit my stride, I’ll be fine, Ben coached himself as he followed the choir down the main aisle of the sanctuary. They were singing “My Heart Sings Out with Joyful Praise,” and he sang along, forcing a smile.

  Carolyn was seated in her usual spot, in the second row on the right side of the pews, not far from the pulpit. He caught her eye and smiled. She smiled back, and he felt better. They would sit together in the family room this afternoon, reading the paper and watching a football game, and she would make a fuss over him. He looked forward to it.

  But it was not too long after Ben stepped up to the pulpit and was delivering the day’s reading from the New Testament that the symptoms returned. Full force this time.

  “This morning’s Scripture reading is from Mark 13, verses 35–37,” he announced.

  Then he began to read from the Bible, the words swimming in and out of focus. He read very slowly and carefully, hoping no one noticed how he faltered.

  “‘Therefore, keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: Watch . . .’”

  Ben’s words broke off. He swayed on his feet as a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him. He clung to the pulpit, his chin dropping down to his chest.
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  But worst of all, a fierce, sharp pain pierced his chest, as if a spear had been driven straight through his heart.

  Ben grimaced and gasped, unable to get his breath.

  What was happening? He felt awful; he could barely hold himself upright. He couldn’t breathe. The pain in his chest was horrific. He grabbed at his chest as he felt himself swaying. He made a fumbling grasp at the pulpit, but only succeeded in pulling down a microphone stand, a jagged edge of metal scraping against his face as he fell to the floor.

  “Ben? Oh, dear God!” Carolyn was the first to stand. She shouted his name as Tucker, Sam, and Emily all ran toward the pulpit.

  Tucker and Sam reached him first and gently rolled him over, so that he was staring up at them. “He cut his face. He’s bleeding,” he heard Emily say. She took a soft white handkerchief and pressed it to Ben’s cheek. “Just stay still, Ben. You’ll be okay,” Emily whispered.

  Ben met her glance. Emily—always calm and in control—looked very worried. Ben was about to reply but felt another sharp pain in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut. The pain was so excruciating, he could barely breathe.

  Tucker stood on his other side, speaking into his cell phone. “It’s Tulley. We need an ambulance at the church. Right now. Looks like a heart attack . . .”

  A heart attack? Ben heard the words and stared at Tucker. His old friend smiled back grimly. “An ambulance is on the way, Ben. Hang in there.”

  “Ben, can you hear me? Do you have pain in your chest? Is that what it is?” Carolyn crouched down next to him and gripped his hand. She stared at him, her expression pale and panicked.

  He met her gaze, willing himself to answer. But he couldn’t speak. His vision blurred, the stained-glass windows spinning in his sight like the colored bits of glass inside a kaleidoscope.

  He heard his wife gasp and everything went black.

  “HERE IT IS, TWENTY-THREE.” RICHARD ROWAN POINTED TO THE NUMBER on the snow-covered mailbox. It tilted on its post at an odd angle, Regina noticed. As if it were tired of standing and longed to fall down.

  He parked the car and they both stared through the brush at the old house, set back from the road behind a gap-toothed picket fence. “Not much to look at, is it.”

  “No, but that’s pretty much what I expected,” Regina replied evenly. “And it’s all ours,” she reminded him. “No landlord, no mortgage. At least we have a roof over our heads.”

  “What’s left of it. I’m surprised it hasn’t caved in under all that snow,” Richard said, squinting out at the house that was the very definition of disrepair. “How did you say this uncle was related to you again?”

  “Not my uncle. My father’s cousin. Or second cousin? Something like that.”

  She had told Richard about Francis Porter several times, but he never seemed to remember the details. He didn’t listen to her that closely anymore, always distracted, his mind focused on something else. Distracted and impatient. Lately, anyway.

  Regina had never met Francis Porter. The letter announcing that she had inherited this distant relation’s property was the first she had ever heard of him. Warren Oakes, the lawyer handling the estate, had told her that Mr. Porter had been an old man who spent his last days studying his heritage. Obsessed, really, with his family tree, he had tracked down all of his ancestors using a website and discovered that Regina was his only living relation on the Porter side of the family. Which he obviously favored.

  Porter was her maiden name. She and Richard had been married for nearly fifteen years, and she had grown used to the name Regina Rowan, especially after their children came and it was “Mrs. Rowan this,” and “Mrs. Rowan that.” Lately she wondered if she would be returning to the surname Porter soon. Perhaps sooner than she had ever imagined.

  “He must have been some kind of nut, living alone out here in this falling-down wreck.” Richard stared out at the house and shook his head.

  “Maybe it’s not so bad inside,” Regina said, though she guessed the interior was even worse. The fresh snow hid a lot of the outside of the house and made it look a bit better. “We’ll probably have to do some cleaning before we bring the kids over.”

  Their two children were waiting back at the motel, instructed not to open the door for anyone, not even housekeeping. Madeline was twelve, a little young for babysitting, but Regina had little choice at times but to rely on her to watch her brother, Brian, who was six.

  Warren Oakes would be here any minute, she reminded herself, and he’d promised it wouldn’t take long at all to sign the final papers and give her the keys.

  “If we can bring the kids back here,” Richard said, cutting into her thoughts. “What if it’s not livable? Then what?”

  Paying for even one more night in the motel would be a stretch. If it were just the two of them, they could sleep in the car. But they couldn’t ask that of the children.

  They couldn’t go into a shelter, either, Regina thought. That would be too much. Richard would never recover. Not after that.

  Dear God, please don’t let it come to that. Please?

  “Mr. Oakes said he thought we could move in today—if we didn’t mind roughing it.”

  “‘Roughing it’? Is that what he calls it? I’d call it being flat-out broke. He really thinks we can fix this place and sell it? He must be crazy, too.” Richard turned away and gave a sad, defeated laugh. It was a characteristic he’d developed only recently. He’d never sounded like that when she first met him. She would never have married a man who laughed like that.

  Regina didn’t answer. She didn’t answer him a lot lately.

  It was the only way she could manage. It did little good to try to stay positive, to be encouraging and hope their situation would improve. Richard would manage to poke holes in those thin flags of hope as well. She was better off keeping those thoughts to herself.

  But hopeful or not, the plain truth was that they had no other place to go. Besides, they had agreed to this plan. They’d been on the verge of splitting up. They were fighting all the time, arguing over every little thing. It was awful for them and even worse for the kids. Then, less than a month ago, she got the letter from Warren Oakes telling her that she had inherited the house. So they’d made a truce to stop fighting, come up to this house, and live here, just until it was fixed up. Then they would sell it, split the profits, and go their separate ways. At least they would stay together for one last Christmas as a family.

  Regina stared at the small, snow-covered house. They had a place to rest for a while, rent-free. That was enough for her. She just wanted a place to catch her breath and get her bearings. To get the kids settled down a bit. Their lives had been so unsettled lately, a living nightmare.

  Now the holidays were coming, and they would spend them here, in this house. Regina silently vowed she would make it as comfortable and cheerful as she could manage. She would give the children a good holiday. And after that, well . . . She wondered if she could manage to hold this family together much longer. She really wondered about that.

  She heard the sound of a car approaching on the snowy road. A black Camry pulled up just behind their car, a mild-looking, middle-aged man at the wheel, bundled up against the cold in a coat, scarf, and flat cap. A woman sat next to him, just her eyes peering out from between her woolen hat and the high neck of her down coat.

  “That must be the lawyer,” Richard said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Yes, that must be him.” Regina unfastened her seat belt and pulled on her gloves.

  She was surprised to see that Mr. Oakes brought his wife. Maybe they were on their way someplace. The attorney got out of his car and came toward them, moving slowly in the high snow. He carried a briefcase in one hand and waved with the other.

  “Good morning. Mrs. Rowan, I presume?” He shook her hand and officially introduced himself and his wife. “I hope we didn’t keep you waiting. These back roads are still full of snow. It was slow going.”

  “That’s a
ll right. We didn’t wait long,” Regina replied. Mrs. Oakes had gone back to their car and opened the trunk. Regina saw her pull out a large brown carton and start back toward them, her long down coat dragging in the snow.

  “You’d better get the snow shovel from the backseat, Warren. There’s a lot to carry.”

  Regina watched, puzzled. She had no idea what Mrs. Oakes was carrying, and there was more of it, besides. Had the attorney taken items out of the house for safekeeping? It was deserted out here, the houses long distances apart. Maybe he had been concerned about break-ins. As the executor, he was responsible for the property.

  “Can I help you with that, Mrs. Oakes?” Regina offered.

  “I’m fine, dear.” Mrs. Oakes marched toward her with the carton. “And call me Marion, please.”

  Regina peered inside, expecting to see old lamps and perhaps some books or dishes. Instead, she saw that it was filled with groceries. Filled to the brim. She hadn’t bought that much at the store at one time in months . . . years, maybe.

  “There are a few more boxes. Just some staples we thought you might need to get going.”

  A few more boxes? Did they expect to be paid for all this food? Regina swallowed hard. She hoped not. They hardly had any cash left and needed every penny.

  “It’s a housewarming present,” Mrs. Oakes added, as if guessing Regina’s thoughts. Perhaps her expression had given her away, Regina realized. She could rarely hide her feelings.

  “Thank you . . . That was very thoughtful.”

  “We know you have children, and the supermarket is a bit of a ride. You have a lot to organize today without running out to the store to shop, too, right?”

  Regina nodded. “Yes, there’s a lot to do. I really appreciate your help.”

  “It’s nothing. We hope you feel welcome here,” the older woman said. She turned and headed up to the house. Her husband had gone back to his car and taken out a snow shovel.

  “I can do that,” Richard said, offering to take the shovel.

  “Why don’t you help your wife with the boxes? I’d prefer the snow detail,” he said honestly.