Chapter Nine
Noah meets me just inside the nursing home doors, a guitar case in his hand. “Hey there.”
“Hey yourself. I didn’t know you played guitar.”
“Yes, ma’am. You?”
“No.” I shake my head. “A little piano, but no guitar.”
Noah sets the case down, takes my coat, and hangs it on a nearby rack.
In one corner of the nursing home’s large front living room, a group of residents clusters around a television, watching Wheel of Fortune.
In another corner, a pair of men gaze at a battered checkerboard while several white-haired women sit at a card table, working yarn through plastic mesh squares.
Noah picks up his guitar case. “Are you ready?”
He leads me through the maze of walkers, wheelchairs, and workers in the front room and down the hall where he pauses, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Well, maybe nothing. I should probably warn you that there might be a few people who, um, stare at us.”
“Oh, that. No worries. I volunteered here when I was in middle school. It doesn’t bug me.” I start forward again, but Noah stops me with a touch on my arm.
“No, I don’t mean the residents. I mean people from my church.”
“What? Why?”
“Well . . .” Noah licks his lips. “When I told the music director I was bringing a friend, some of the guys in the band overheard and asked, ‘Bass, baritone, or tenor?’”
“None of the above.” I laugh.
“Right. When I said, ‘alto,’ well . . .” He shrugs. “I warned the guys to be on their best behavior, but you know how guys are.”
“Gotcha. Thanks for the warning.”
As Noah predicted, the men in the group, especially the older guys, participate in a good bit of elbow-ribbing when we arrive.
Even Pastor Jack, the music minister, laughingly accuses Noah of being too cheap to take a girl out on a real date.
The guys’ teasing continues off and on throughout the evening, but it’s friendly, and in the end, I feel more flattered than uncomfortable.
The older women smile, but while most of the girls near my age seem friendly, there’s a weird vibe coming from a few.
It puts a tang of awkward in the air that has nothing—or maybe everything—to do with the guys’ teasing.
We make the rounds, singing through every hall of the nursing home before ending up back in the front living room. After small gifts are handed out to the residents, the carolers find places to sit on the floor while Pastor Jack reads the Christmas story and gives a short message.
“Why don’t you grab the hand of the person next to you, and we’ll pray.”
One of my hands is already clasped in Noah’s, but for the life of me, I can’t recall how or when it got there.
From the look on his face, Noah is as surprised as I am to find our fingers entwined.
With a half-smile and a little shrug, he takes the hand of the resident on his other side.
I reach for the frail, wax-paper-skinned hand of the sweet woman in the wheelchair beside me. A hush moves through the room.
At the conclusion of his prayer, Pastor Jack looks our way. “Noah, would you lead us in ‘Silent Night’?”
With a nod, Noah begins, soon joined by the rest of the carolers, as well as many of the residents.
In the adjoining hall, beyond the circle, a lone woman stretches her legs and pulls her feet against the floor, but the brakes must be set on her wheelchair, because it’s not moving her forward. She stops, leans back in the chair, and sighs. A tear glistens on her cheek.
I look around to see if anyone else has noticed her plight, but all the workers and residents—even the choir members—are watching Noah.
Not that I blame them, but . . . she looks so alone.
I rise, careful not to disturb anyone more than necessary, and cross the main room into the hall.
“Do you need some help?”
Her eyes well. “I wanted to hear the singing, but I fell asleep in my chair. I thought they’d wake me.”
“I can push you in, if you’d like.”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“It’s no bother. I’m glad to do it.” I release the wheel brakes. “I’m Faith. What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Harvey Welch. Gloria. I’m a widow.”
I push the wheelchair forward. “Can I call you Gloria?”
“Sure, honey. That’d be fine.”
I settle her into a spot as close as I can get to direct line-of-sight to Noah, the main attraction, at least in my opinion, and set the brakes.
I sit cross-legged on the floor beside her, and as I reach for her hand, I find Pastor Jack watching me. He gives me a slow nod as the song ends.
“Noah,” Pastor Jack says, his gaze swiveling that direction, “how about a couple more songs?”
“Sure.” Noah stands. “Does anyone have any requests?”
The residents pipe up with suggestions as if they’ve been waiting for the opportunity to hear their favorite Christmas carol.
Noah leads us in “Away in a Manger,” “Deck the Halls,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” and “Angels We Have Heard on High”—all songs we sang earlier—before I follow his gaze to a nurse who’s looking at him with a sour expression and tapping her watch.
Wow. Scrooge much?
“Okay, one more request,” he says, sending a million watts of warmth around the room with that smile, “and then we’ll finish up.”
“Amazing Grace!” Gloria’s near-shout makes me jump.
“Excellent choice.” Noah lowers his chin toward his chest and takes a deep breath. When he lifts his face again, his eyes are closed. He sings a few words, and everyone joins in.
At the end of the first verse, I’m forced to bow out because I don’t know the rest of the song.
But as I listen to the words and watch the emotion of the lyric play across the wizened faces of the nursing home’s residents, I determine to learn the rest. It’s beautiful.
I see why Gloria wanted to hear this song along with the Christmas carols.
This isn’t just a song. Not to them. When they talk about grace leading them home, they know the journey’s not that far away.
Christmas has always seemed like an ending point to me, probably due to its positioning on the calendar.
But tonight, in the words of that song and the faces of those so close to realizing eternity, I recognize my error.
Christmas is not the end at all, but the beginning of something beautiful and sacred. This is hope, revealed. Renewed.
Gloria’s eyes are closed, but there’s a fresh shiny path on one cheek. I’m moved by the confident awe giving depth to her time-shaken voice as she sings the second-to-last verse. Tears well, but somehow I manage to hold it together. Barely.
“Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace.”
By the end of the sixth and final verse, my throat is tight with the beauty of the song’s lyric as a whole, as well as how I’ve heard and seen it sung here tonight.
Tears sting my eyes. It’s almost a relief when Pastor Jack takes a seat at the piano and plays the opening bars of “Joy to the World,” signifying the program’s close.
I wheel Gloria back to her room myself, visiting with her a little bit and thanking her for requesting that song before returning to the main room where Noah waits for me.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Noah says as we make our way to the parking lot.
“Just thinking. Thanks for asking me to come. It was really nice.”
“Thanks for bringing that lady in. That was nice.” At my look, he says, “I wondered where you were going when you got up, but I couldn’t ask. Then I saw you wheel her in. Pastor Jack told me the rest. That was very cool of you.”
I shrug. “She seemed so lonely.”
When we arrive at Fellowship Community Church, Noah takes my coat to hang it up. As soon as he’s out of sight, two of the younger carolers approach me.
“Hi, I’m Kaitlyn Roscoe. This is Bailee Stevens.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Faith.”
“You’re Gretchen Prescott’s little sister?”
I nod. “You played volleyball with her, right?”
Kaitlyn nudges her friend. “I told you.”
“Yes,” Bailee answers. “We both did. We were a grade ahead of your sister.”
“Faith,” Kaitlyn says, frowning in a way that sets off warning bells in my mind, “you do know that Noah is a good Christian guy, right?”
“The best,” Bailee adds.
“Yes. I know.”
They exchange a look. “We, uh, don’t want to see him get hurt.”
It takes a moment for the implication to make sense.
Oh. They assume I’m like my sister.
Bailee nudges Kaitlyn, whispering, “Here he comes.”
“You have a beautiful voice, Faith.” Kaitlyn’s voice is louder now, friendlier, and it’s certainly not for my benefit. Her smile is twenty kinds of fake. “Thanks for singing with us tonight.”
So that’s how you’re going to play it. “Thanks for having me.” I smile stiffly. “It was fun.”
“Pastor Jack is setting up Pictionary,” she addresses Noah, who has arrived at my side. “Do you guys want to play with us?”
“I already told Kev and Darren we’d play Guesstures, but . . .” He looks at me. “What do you want to do?”
“Guesstures,” I concur, maybe a little too quickly to be polite.
Kaitlyn and Bailee go their merry way, not a moment too soon for my taste.
“Faith?” Noah’s expression is one giant question mark of concern. “Did I miss something? What happened here?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” I force a smile. “So, where do we find this Guesstures game?”
Noah puts his thumb under my chin and gently turns my face up. “What did they say to you?”
I sigh. “I guess they’re worried about your reputation.”
Noah wrinkles his nose. “Why?”
“Because they know my sister.”
His lips round. “I’m sorry. They shouldn’t judge you by—”
A low chuckle sounds, and Noah takes a step back as one of the older choir members approaches. “Hey, Al.”
The large-bellied, gray-bearded man laughs and then grabs one of my hands and one of Noah’s hands and sticks them together.
“That’s better. Don’t get embarrassed, kids.
We’ve all been there. And everybody knows,” he clears his throat and sings an improvised melody, “Christmastime is the perfect time for fall-ing in love.”
Every head turns our direction.
“Now, you keep an eye on this rascal, Miss Faith. And focus a wary glance upward now and then. You never know where that pesky mistletoe might show up this time of year!” Al winks at me, and then, with a slap to Noah’s back that almost takes him off his feet, Al moves toward a cluster of people closer to his own generation.
“Uh, sorry about that.” Noah squeezes my hand but doesn’t let go. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m good.” Al’s just messing around. But Kaitlyn and Bailee were not, and I feel a little smaller, and the evening is a little soiled now, knowing that Gretchen’s shadow lurks over me even within the walls of a church.