Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“Even though you’re young, there are always things that you can do to help out.” Nelly Bushnell stood in front of her third-grade classroom after closing the book that she had just been reading.
Nothing made her happier than to hear her classroom completely and totally silent, despite the fact that they were wiggly, squirmy eight-year-olds who had more energy than should be legal, and listen raptly to her reading.
It was a book that she had enjoyed when she was young, and she loved reading it to her students. Not just because it was a great, entertaining story, although it was, but because there were so many lessons to be learned.
“Yes, Robert?” she said as Robert McBride raised his hand.
He had been making great strides since the beginning of the year, when he was still a little down about his mother’s death, and was so much better than last year, when he had been devastated.
She was thankful for Summer, who had walked into that family and been a blessing in every way, becoming the children’s stepmom not long ago.
“I help my Uncle Roland with the Christmas trees. He gives a lot away.”
“That’s very nice, Robert,” Nelly said, not making any other comment but calling on another student immediately and listening as they spoke.
The mention of Roland McBride made her want to curl her lip. She and Roland had been enemies ever since the valentine incident.
She supposed she was too old for such shenanigans, but he had been her sworn, lifetime enemy, and they had never reconciled.
Maybe part of her actually enjoyed having a sworn enemy, but most of her just thought that Roland was a selfish, immature brat who never grew up.
But she loved the rest of his family.
As always happened after she read the book, the classroom was abuzz with ideas and ways that the children could help, despite their age. They had a robust conversation before she quieted everyone down to take out their English books and began to teach about nouns and verbs.
She tried to make her lessons interesting and interactive as much as possible.
She had never had a problem sitting still in school, but she understood that some kids, especially boys, did.
And especially so in this age of digital stimulation where attention spans were about an eighth of a millimeter long.
It made teaching harder and harder, although she did use some electronics in her lesson plans. Just because that was the way the world was going.
She tried to teach the old-fashioned way as much as she possibly could, because she thought it was good for the students to learn to pay attention and listen to real, live, actual humans.
“Robert, would you like to read the sentence that you made up for your homework,” she said, calling on Robert McBride again.
“Sure. Uncle Roland helped me with this, and we came up with, ‘The Christmas tree fell down.’”
She asked him what the noun in the sentence was and then to name the verb. He actually had an action verb, which made her lesson easier to explain.
But the mention of Roland had her mind going back to the year she was in third grade, thinking of her eight-year-old self making a valentine for the school exchange.
She had a huge crush on Tommy Peterson that year and had made his extra special, with lots of hearts, and she even attempted to draw them herself.
She was such a romantic, even back then.
Unfortunately, instead of Tommy getting his card, somehow Roland ended up with it.
He had made a huge deal about it, showing it to everyone and laughing at her ridiculous romanticism.
She had been completely humiliated, and she had declared him her enemy for life. She had sworn that night at home in her bed with the covers over her head and tears streaming down her face that she would always beat Roland at everything.
And she had. From that moment on, whether it was a foot race—she was faster than he was—or a test score where she got a better grade, she made it her mission to always, always beat Roland.
Perhaps her childhood was still influencing her adult behavior, since, while she loved Robert, he was one of her favorite students—if a teacher could actually admit to having favorites—she absolutely hated every time he mentioned Roland’s name and had a physical reaction that she had to take pains to hide.
It was something she was working on, she assured herself as she walked into the house she shared with her grandmother that evening.
She set her bag down by the door, at the entrance to the living room.
She would sit in the living room later this evening after supper and grade the papers she brought home with her that she hadn’t gotten done during her planning period, because she spent most of it talking to Jillian and Cara about how they needed to bury the hatchet and get along.
The entire time, she had been thinking about her competition with Roland that lasted all through her elementary school, junior high, and high school years. If they had gone to the same college, she was sure it would have lasted through that as well.
Actually, she wasn’t sure Roland ever went to college.
As the youngest McBride, he was the one that was left to take care of the Christmas tree farm after his dad had died. She supposed she should have felt bad for him.
“I’ve been looking for my car keys all day, and I just cannot find them. I have a hair appointment, and I’m late,” her grandmother said as she wandered into the kitchen. She wore her nightgown and slippers.
“Grandma,” she said as she walked over. Her grandmother had been having more and more periods of confusion, which she supposed meant dementia at her age.
“Nelly, oh my goodness. Is it time for you to be home already? How was college today?”
“It was fine, Grandma,” she said, wondering whether she should correct her but knowing from experience that if she did, it usually just made things worse. Her grandma didn’t get upset per se, she just…got insistent that she was right.
Nelly supposed it was her stubborn streak coming out.
Grandma had always talked about her stubbornness and how she had worked to overcome it.
But maybe, as a person’s mind got older and dementia took over, they were no longer able to suppress some of the things that they had worked to overcome in their younger years.
That was the only thing that Nelly could figure out, since her grandma had always been sweet and an absolutely amazing person for her entire life. Someone she had been able to lean on.
In fact, Grandma was the one who had sat down beside her bed and petted her head and wiped away her tears when she cried over her valentine to Tommy Peterson.
Her grandmother was the one who had suggested that instead of being hurt and upset about it, she use it to make herself better, perhaps by challenging herself to rise to a higher standard.
She doubted that her grandma meant to inspire a lifelong competition between Nelly and Roland, although that’s what had happened.
“Grandma, you just got your hair done. I think you’re confused about what week it is,” she said, not mentioning that Grandma had had her keys taken away from her two years prior and that there was no hair appointment scheduled for at least six weeks.
“My goodness. Time flies, doesn’t it?” her grandma said, laughing softly.
“It sure does,” Nelly said, believing that with her whole heart. How was it that she was already thirty years old? Time flew so quickly, and she couldn’t believe that her twenties were over. When did that happen?
“I worry about you sometimes, my dear,” her grandma said as they moved to the counter where the food that she had put in the crockpot that morning gave the entire house a delicious aroma that made coming home a joy.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Grandma. I have you.”
“But you should have someone special. Someone who loves you for just who you are.” Her grandma smiled. “Someone like my Stuart.”
Her grandma’s love affair with Stuart was well known in Mistletoe Meadows.
Although it had been years since Grandpa died, Nelly still remembered him with fondness.
He always had a twinkle in his eye and a joke to tell, as well as a harmonica in his pocket, which he would pull out at random times to play a song and get a smile from someone.
She had loved that when she was younger, just enjoying the ability to pull a song out of one’s pocket.
And that ability to give a smile to anyone at any time.
She had learned a lot from her grandpa, even though she hadn’t had a lot of time with him.
He definitely instilled in her the desire to make people smile.
She went to the crockpot and reached above it to get plates out.
She remembered that she hadn’t run the dishwasher the day before because she had been thinking she would put the supper dishes in, and then she’d been too exhausted after grading papers all evening to come back to the kitchen and finish her work.
“Are you okay, honey?” Grandma said from behind her.
Nelly took a breath, straightening her shoulders.
She probably shouldn’t have taken on yet another responsibility, but jumping in as a Secret Saint had been too irresistible for her to pass up.
She was in a unique position, because of her classroom, and the children were at an age where they still told everything without realizing that some things maybe were a little bit more personal.
So she knew lots of people who could use help over the holidays, and she couldn’t resist.
Plus, her house was paid for, since she lived with her grandma, and she had plenty of money for herself, so why not spread smiles around? Just like her grandpa.
But it did leave her tired—teaching all day and taking care of her grandma in the evening.