A Christmas Home: A Novel (23 page)

IT WAS
one of his favorite holiday chores. Early Christmas morning, George snuck down the staircase with a sack of toys and other gifts the adults had put together and wrapped the night before. As the designated Santa Claus, George placed all the gifts under the tree. After he took the obligatory bite out of the sugar cookie politely set out for Santa on the best white china, he left to do Hank’s chores in the still early hours before dawn.

When he got back, the children were anxiously waiting for their gifts. George continued in his role as Mr. Claus and distributed the brightly wrapped packages, one at a time, and at a snail’s pace. The children yelled, “Grandpa, you’re too slow!”

“Don’t you want it to last?”

Once the presents were opened, the adults started putting together Christmas brunch, and the house full of
family guests took turns in the bathroom lines. George took Todd aside and said, “I almost forgot about this. I thought you might like to have it.” George dug into a brown sack and pulled out the old cowbell he had polished up.

Todd looked over the cowbell and seemed strangely glum. “Don’t you like it?” George asked.

Todd felt as if the bell symbolized everything he was going to have to leave behind if he moved away, and the thought made him sad. “Yes, Dad. I like it a lot. You’re a good gift giver.” Todd gave his dad a big hug. “I love you and Mom very much. I have to go now.”

Todd went back to Thorne’s cabin to change out of his pajamas and get cleaned up for brunch with his family and Laura and her parents. Having invested a small fortune in his interview suit, he had proudly told Laura he was going to wear it again on Christmas Day. After he changed, he put together a bag of gifts and other special items he had assembled for the morning brunch.

Back at his parents’ house, Todd sat on the sofa and fidgeted nervously as he waited for Laura and her parents to arrive. In the kitchen, Mary Ann commented that Todd seemed jumpy, but Hannah only grinned. “Come on, Mom, think about it! It makes perfectly good sense to me!” Mary Ann wished she could be as lighthearted about it as
Hannah was, but Mary Ann was thinking about her youngest son, not a kid brother.

When Laura still had not arrived by 11:10, George tapped his watch and teased, “Do you think they forgot?”

Immediately he regretted his gentle joke when he saw that Todd seemed genuinely frightened by the prospect. Just then Hannah saved the day, calling out from the kitchen, “They’re here!”

It was now sunny outside and not particularly cold, so Laura took her coat off in the car. Gracie exited first and then backed up to Laura to help her from the backseat. She held the handle on Gracie’s vest as the two of them made their way to the back door.

Mr. and Mrs. Jordan would not have chosen to spend Christmas morning with the family of their daughter’s best friend, particularly when they had just been out to the McCray farm a few days earlier. That said, they liked Todd and they loved their daughter. Laura didn’t ask for much, and this seemed important to her, so they just said, “Of course, we’d love to go.”

Not all the McCray grandchildren had met Laura, so some of them were very curious, jockeying for a front-row seat at the dining room window facing west toward the driveway. They were having a hard time taking it all in and started whispering to each other. “Is that her? Is that Todd’s friend?” “Maybe she’s his girlfriend?” “She’s so beautiful!” “Why does the dog help her walk?” “I think she’s a princess.” “Maybe she’s a pixie or a fairy?” “Why
does she walk so slowly?” “Shhh! We’re not supposed to talk about it.…”

When the Jordans were inside, Todd took Laura aside and whispered to her, somewhat boldly, “You look so beautiful in your dress.”

Laura held Todd’s arm. “Not half as handsome as you.” She kissed him gently on the cheek. “Merry Christmas. Thanks for asking us over.”

The McCray grandchildren were drawn to Laura and Gracie, crowding around them as if they were the ice-cream truck on a hot August evening. Todd introduced each one to Laura and then helped her take a seat in the living room. As soon as the remaining introductions were completed, the smallest children began crawling up onto the sofa for a closer look at the princess who wore a dark blue dress and her hair tied back with a red bow. Gracie sat patiently beside her. One grandchild had his arms wrapped around the white dog’s neck and did not plan to let go anytime soon.

Todd noticed that the fire was fading and asked his eldest brother, Jonathan, “Can you put another log on the fire?”

Jonathan looked at Todd decked out in his new suit. As if that was not enough, now he was worrying about the fireplace ambience. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Kinda,” Todd said with a curious little smile. He went back to the sofa to sit with Laura, though he couldn’t get too
close because of the crowd of nieces and nephews scattered around her.

“Everyone to the table!” Mary Ann called from the kitchen.

The children all clamored for the seat next to Laura and Gracie. Todd took the chair to her left and, after putting the last remaining steaming dishes on the table, Mary Ann evicted a squatter who had claimed the seat at the head of the table, which happened to be on Laura’s right. “Honey, please move to another chair,” she said to the grandchild. “I need to be close to the kitchen.”

Once seated, they all joined hands, and George expressed his gratitude for their coming together on that Christmas morning.

The food was passed and the sound of talking was replaced with the clinking of cutlery and glasses. Apparently everyone was hungry, because for a while there was very little conversation. Todd, never afraid to speak his mind, looked at Laura and all the people he loved most in the world and seized the moment. “I want to say something important.”

George looked at Mary Ann curiously. She widened her eyes and shrugged as if to say, Don’t ask me.

Todd’s eyes were red. He was tearing up. Not big sobs, just moisture forming at the edges of his bloodshot eyes. He had spent the last few nights tossing and turning, thinking about his choices. It was hard for Todd to sort out
all the joy he was holding while still feeling the weight of fear and sadness.

He removed and unfolded a sheet of paper from the breast pocket of his suit, an e-mail he had printed out earlier that morning. “I want to read you something.” He swallowed hard and began:

Laura leaned closer and took Todd’s hand. “It’s alright, Todd, just say it.”

Todd continued, “I’m going to miss you all very much. I’m going to take the job, and I’ll be moving to Washington, Kansas, at the first of the year.”

Mary Ann gripped one of the table legs as if that was all that would prevent her from being sucked up into the sky by a cyclone that had descended from a seemingly blue sky. Her heart raced and she could feel herself flushing red. She whispered to herself, “No!”

Just at that moment, as if he could sense that his presence
was required, Christmas calmly walked in from the living room and plopped himself down beside Todd. The sight of him prompted Todd to add, “They are going to let me take Christmas with me, so I won’t be alone. I’m going to buy a better truck with my savings account money, too, so I can come home some weekends.”

George, as blindsided as Mary Ann but a better actor, and wanting to encourage Todd to choose his own path, felt the need to set the mood for an appropriate response. He stood up and walked over to Todd. “Let me be the first to shake your hand.” Todd took it. George beamed, though he too, like Todd, was trying to reconcile fear and hope. “We love you very much, Todd, and if this is what you want, then you should do it. Of course, you’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do before we’re letting you out of our sight!”

As the table buzzed with congratulations, laughter, and excitement, Mary Ann leaned over and hugged Laura. She whispered into Laura’s ear the words she honestly felt, “I don’t want him to go.”

Laura hugged her back. “Me either, but this is what’s best for him. He is so excited to do this.”

Mary Ann knew the little Cessna was changing directions and she needed to either get on board or risk being left behind. “I know. It’s just … He’s still my baby.”

AFTER BRUNCH
was finished and the crowd around Todd had thinned, Mary Ann and George got him alone—or almost, because Laura refused to leave his side. Although George was less emotional than Mary Ann, he too had a laundry list of questions for his youngest son, wondering how well Todd had thought through all the ramifications of his decision.

Settling into a relatively quiet spot in the living room, he and Mary Ann fired an array of logical considerations at him. Laura sat beside Todd as he calmly assured them that he and Laura and the Heartland School were fully capable of dealing with each of the issues. In fact, they had discussed them at length. The school had student housing for their interns—usually young vet students who came from Kansas State in late May or early June. Until the interns arrived that summer, Todd could live in the student
housing for free. That would give him plenty of time to find a place of his own. His pay was generous for an entry-level position. Slowly, Mary Ann relaxed. At the end of the grilling session, there were only a handful of obstacles that still demanded her attention. She knew she could deal with cell phones, address changes, dentists, and doctors later.

Without any warning, without their consent, and without their direction, Todd had gone and grown up on George and Mary Ann. He was his own person now. It was fitting that on Christmas Day they gave him the best and most important gift any parent can give a child. As difficult as it was, they let go. They had to trust that Todd would find solid footing as he stepped out on his own into the world.

After a few hours, Laura’s parents announced they were ready to go. They gathered up their things, and while they thanked their hosts, Todd walked Gracie and Laura out to the car. Laura was summoning up her courage, trying to be as brave as Todd. There was something she wanted to do very much. She felt like she was running out of time. It was something that would have been inconceivable to her only a few months earlier, but suddenly she felt she was in the grip of a fierce inevitability. She knew it was now or never.

She leaned against the car and said the words she had rehearsed. Her voice cracked, but still there was no hesitancy or reservation. “Todd, I need to say something.” She looked into his clear blue eyes, amazed at how much she cared for him. “I love you very much, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here for you.”

“I love you too, Laura. You’re my best fr—” Todd started to say, but then he changed course. He knew that was wrong. He put it all together—why he felt so good when Laura was with him and so sad when he thought about leaving her. He searched for the right words, because he no longer wondered if he was in love with Laura—he knew it. Still, he could not find the correct way to express how he felt.

Laura decided to make her meaning known in a more dramatic way. She wanted to leave him with no doubt as to where she stood. She wanted to communicate in a way that he would best understand, using her heart and not her words. She reached up and pulled his face down to her level and then she kissed him softly and gently on the mouth. Todd slowly pulled away, surprised. But then, realizing this was the response he had been searching for himself, he returned the favor and put his lips against hers.

From inside the house, looking out the dining room window, an eight-year-old girl announced for all to hear, “Todd kissed the princess!”