Chapter Ten
Christmas Eve arrives. The stockings are hung. I’m all dressed up, ready to attend First Church of Kanton with my family, as is tradition.
Noah:
Wish you were here.
Faith:
Me too.
Noah:
But I’m sure your service will be good.
Faith:
Still…I’d rather be at yours.
Noah:
Variety is the spice of life, or so they say.
Faith:
The Prescotts prefer life blandly seasoned.
Noah:
Says she with the cinnamon hair… and eyes. Have I mentioned that your hair and eyes are the same lovely shade of cinnamon?
Faith:
Once or twice. Or 50 times. Whichever.
Noah:
Well, it’s true.
With my brown leather boots under my arm, I take a chair in the breakfast room where Mom and Dad are waiting with their wool dress coats slung over the backs of their chairs.
They’re sipping coffee—it’s decaf, so what’s the point?
—until it’s time to leave for the service.
As I slip my foot into the boot and pull up the side zipper, a swish of slippers crosses the breakfast room’s slate floor.
My sister’s golden hair is tousled, as if she’s just gotten up from a nightmarish nap. She’s wearing an oversized U of I sweatshirt and black fleece pants.
“Gretchen! What in the world are you wearing?”
“My pajamas, duh.”
“But we’re leaving for the Christmas Eve service in ten minutes!”
“I’m not going.”
“Of course you’re going.”
“I told you, Mom. I don’t feel good. I’m staying home.”
Dad makes a sound in his throat, somewhere between a huff and a grunt.
Mom stands up and presses her lips to Gretchen’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”
“My stomach hurts. And I’ve got a really bad headache.”
I can’t stop the snort that escapes through my nose. I was still awake when Gretchen, smelling like the dumpster behind a smoky bar, stumbled into my bedroom by mistake at two-thirty this morning.
“How long will it take you to be presentable?” Dad glowers over the top of his paper. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes, or we’ll be stuck sitting in the front row.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’m sick. I cannot sit through two hours of off-key Christmas carols while some snot-nosed brat pretends to be the Virgin Mary.”
“Poor Gretchen,” I say. “And here you thought you’d already met your church quota for the season, what with all that time you spent worshipping at the porcelain altar this morning.”
“Shut up, Faith. Seriously, Mom.” Gretchen plops down in a chair. “I really don’t feel well.”
Dad’s eyebrows draw together. “Were you out drinking last night, Gretchen?”
“I was at a Christmas party. We had a few toasts. Nothing big.”
“You’re underage.”
Gretchen waves off Dad’s concerns. “I heard there’s a stomach bug going around. I think maybe I caught it.”
Mom’s lips press together. “Maybe we should stay home.”
“No,” Gretchen is quick to say. “I don’t want to ruin Christmas Eve for you guys. I’ll stay home. You three go.”
Mom moves to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Why don’t you go back upstairs, honey? I’ll bring you a glass of ginger ale and some soda crackers, okay?”
“Thanks, Mom.” But as soon as Mom turns her back, Gretchen gives me a feigned-innocence, eye-batting smile.
“Oh, right.” I roll my eyes. “There’s that mature college girl again.”
“Girls, please. It’s Christmas Eve.” Dad snatches his coffee cup and follows Mom into the kitchen. “So are we going to church tonight or not?” His voice is tense.
“You and Faith can go if you want, I guess.” Mom sounds resigned. Sad, even. “I’d better stay here with Gretchen. Make sure she’s okay.” A new soda bottle hisses open. “You could call your mother. Maybe she’d like to go with you.”
Did I hear that right? Did Mom just suggest we take Grandma Maddie to church in her place? I meet my sister’s eyes. “Whoa. Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” Gretchen whispers back. “Whoa.”
We both lean in to better hear what’s going on in the kitchen.
“Gretchen is hung over. She doesn’t need a nursemaid.”
Score one for Dad.
“There is a stomach virus going around, and you know how contagious those are. What if she gets dehydrated?”
Score two for Mom.
“Dehydration is just as likely, if not more so, from over-indulgence of alcohol. If she can walk down here, she can get a glass of water and manage two hours without us.”
Yay, Dad!
“And risk spreading a virus to the whole church? That’s not right.
She should stay home, but . . . I don’t want my little girl home alone on Christmas Eve.
Especially if she’s under the weather.” Mom pauses.
Her voice drops into a sadder pitch. “Families should be together on Christmas. Why should we be in a sanctuary filled with people we barely even like when someone we love is at home, not only sick but alone?”
That’s it, then. We have a winner. Mom doesn’t want to go to Christmas Eve service any more than Gretchen does, but she doesn’t want us to go without her either. And she certainly doesn’t want us to pick spending the evening with Grandma Maddie over her.
I glance at my sister, who’s biting her lip, probably wondering the same thing I am: Will Dad pick up on Mom’s cues, or will he call Grandma and guarantee himself—all of us, really—an icy Christmas morning?
But for the quiet glug of soda crossing ice into a glass, the kitchen is silent.
My shoulders tense, and I share another wince with my sister.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “But even if I wanted to go, there’s not enough time to get ready now.”
Too bad she didn’t think about that before she went out and got hammered last night.
“You’re right,” Dad says, finally. “Families should be together on Christmas Eve. If you and Gretchen are staying home, we all stay home.”
And that nixes my backup plan of asking if I can go to the service at Fellowship Community, too.
“Aww,” Mom coos in a tone that sounds so much like Gretchen it turns my stomach. “That is so sweet. Thanks, honey.” I don’t need to hear the little smack to know she kissed him, but I do.
Gross.
Not the kiss, the manipulation. Okay, the my-parents-are-kissing part, too. But the manipulation more.
Not that I’ve ever wondered where Gretchen learned to manipulate people, but seriously? Mom may be more subtle about it, but her motives are as transparent as a freshly cleaned window.
Dad’s wingtip shoes move across the kitchen, toward the hall and his study. Obviously, Dad’s definition of “together” means under the same roof, no interaction necessary.
Gretchen heads upstairs. Mom soon follows.
Silent night, indeed.
Faith:
My sister is “sick.” We’re staying home.
Noah:
Come here! You can still make it in time.
Faith:
I wish. Parental veto.
His next text is a pic of him, sad-faced, with a finger under one eye as if wiping a tear. I laugh but quickly snap a matching pic and send it to him.
With a sigh, I unzip my boots. Once back in my room, I change out of my dressy clothes and into comfy sweats. As I’m hanging my wool skirt up in my closet, my phone chimes, alerting me to a new text.
Noah:
SERVICE STARTING. C U SOON. LUKE 2.
I do a double-take, wondering if I’ve accidentally received a text from someone named Luke.
But no. It’s Noah, sending a Bible reference, which is far from unusual.
He often ends our nightly texting marathons with a Bible reference, but he must have been in a hurry with this text, because he generally reserves the caps lock for emphasis—and he almost always texts complete words, if not complete sentences—which puts him in the “keeper” column in my book.
I know he’s really busy tonight and texting me between things, which is sweet, so I don’t mind.
Also, he’s Noah, and the fact that he texts me at all still kind of blows me away if I stop and think about it.
I reach for the little pink Bible I was given by my third-grade Sunday School teacher. Though it was sadly neglected in the intervening years, the past few weeks have often found it open on my desk instead of shelved in my bookcase.
I think back to my childhood, to the summer weeks spent at Vacation Bible School. Along with the other kids, I learned a song to help me memorize the books of the Bible. Matthew, Mark . . . Luke! I turn to chapter two and begin to read.
The Christmas Story. But a different telling than what Pastor Jack read at the nursing home. I smile. It’s pretty cool Noah found a way to ensure that my Christmas Eve wouldn’t be totally ruined by my sister’s—and my mother’s—selfishness.
But once he actually meets my family, will he even want to stick around?