A Merry Little Christmas (10 page)

“Dad! Hey, Dad! Did you hear the news?” The voice grew louder, and then Benjamin was standing in the living room staring at the two adults. He halted, took in the scene, assessed it.

Jeremiah blinked and squinted against the morning light. “Huh? What’s going on?”

“They canceled school.” Benjamin stepped closer. “I ate breakfast and made my lunch and got my backpack ready. Then I looked outside and saw the ice. So I turned on the radio, and every school is closed for the day. I figured you were probably…you’re usually up before me but…Uh, hello, Dr. Crane…how’s the baby?”

Jeremiah leaned forward until the recliner’s leg rest folded in. He rubbed his face with both hands for a moment. Then he smiled at Lara.

“Dr. Crane and I were up late feeding Tobias and changing his diaper,” he told his son. “Then the roads iced over. So here we are.”

Benjamin eyed her. Then he nodded. “Okay. Listen, I’m heading back to bed, Dad. I don’t think you should go to your office. The weatherman said this is the worst ice storm to hit Missouri in years. Maybe ever. Whole trees are cracking in half. Branches have fallen all over the streets. The snowplows can’t even get out.”

“Then I’ll stay home,” Jeremiah said.

“Really? You never stay home.” Again Benjamin looked at Lara.

Uncomfortable, she concentrated on the baby, who was stirring now and beginning to fuss. If he were a good father, Jeremiah couldn’t ignore his sons. Benjamin would want an explanation, and Daniel would demand it. Surely it wasn’t every morning they awoke to find a woman sleeping beside their dad—double recliners or not.

“I guess we’ll be here together today,” Jeremiah said. “All five of us.”

“Four,” Lara corrected. “I have to get home. I need to call the hospital and find out about Tabitha’s condition and get the number where Peter and the boys are staying. Then I’ve got to contact the president of the university and see if we can pull together the funds to bring the family back together.”

“Dr. Crane, you can’t go anywhere today,” Benjamin told her. “You’re stuck with us.”

“And we have telephones at our house, too.” Jeremiah handed her a cell phone.

“I can walk home,” she protested. “I need clean clothes, and there’s probably not enough food—”

Jeremiah cut her off by holding up one hand. “We’ve got plenty to eat. With teenagers in the house, we stay well stocked. We could make it through a nuclear winter, let alone an ice storm.”

Lara could see she wasn’t making headway. “I need to not be here,” she said finally. “Just not
here.
”

With that, Tobias let out a wail and there was nothing to do but focus on the baby. “I’ll teach you three wise guys how to do milk, diapers and mashed bananas,” she said over the din. “Then I’m walking home. Here, Ben, you get the first round of Tobias duty.”

Lara held out the squirming tot.

Benjamin backed up. “I’m not changing his diapers.”

“Come on, big guy. He won’t bite.”

“You stink,” Benjamin told Tobias as he lifted the baby into his arms. “If you think I’m looking at what you deposited in your diaper, fella, you’re wrong.”

Feeling as if she had been pounded with a large hammer, Lara edged forward to climb out of her recliner. Before she could get up, Jeremiah pressed the footrest in and took her hands to help her. She stood, realized he was much too close and tried to move away. Impossible. He reached out and brushed a curl from her cheek.

“She looks beautiful in the morning, doesn’t she, Ben?” he asked.

Benjamin glanced at them and grinned. “Yeah. No getting around that, Dr. Crane. My dad has a good eye when it comes to women.”

“I’m not one of your father’s women,” Lara said, pushing past Jeremiah. “I’m here in an official capacity, as a representative of the university. And I hope you have orange juice. I always start the day with a full glass. Now, let’s get some milk down that baby. Wow, what a pair of lungs.”

She hurried toward the kitchen, praying neither man could read her face. She didn’t want to be just another woman in Jeremiah Maddox’s life. If she ever dared to let a man into her heart again, she intended to be the
only
woman. The difficult night had made her grumpy, and she ached for a hot shower, a change of clothes and a long nap.

But Tobias wasn’t about to let anyone forget him. He bellowed with rage, his single white tooth gleaming in his open mouth. As Lara took a bag of milk from the freezer, Daniel emerged from the hallway into the kitchen.

He scowled. “What’s all the racket? Dr. Crane, is that you? What’s that smell?”

“Your turn to change his diaper,” Benjamin said, pushing Tobias into his older brother’s arms. “Dr. Crane is teaching me how to heat the milk.”

“I’m not changing anybody’s diaper.” Daniel turned to his father. “You do it, Dad. And why is everyone at home? I thought you had school, Ben.”

“Canceled. I bet we’ll be out tomorrow, too, and that’s the last day before Christmas break. It’s pure ice outside.”

As if to emphasize his point, a loud cracking sound reverberated through the house. Everyone turned to the window just in time to see an enormous limb fall from the oak tree in the backyard. Daniel handed Tobias to his father and the two boys raced to the back door. Jeremiah held up the howling baby.

“Young Mr. Muraya, why do I always get stuck with you?” he asked. “Every time I’m anywhere near, someone dumps you into my arms. Well, come on, kiddo. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Lara smiled tiredly as she set the microwave to heat the milk. Everything inside her screamed along with Tobias—let me go, get me home, somebody help me! But at the same time, she couldn’t deny the pleasure of padding around a warm kitchen floor in her stocking feet, pouring herself and Jeremiah glasses of orange juice and listening to the two boys exclaim over the crystalline wonderland that was their yard.

“There. Done,” Jeremiah said. Lara watched him lift the baby into his arms as she approached. He took the bottle and tipped it up for Tobias. “See, I can be taught, Dr. Crane. Can you?”

“What do I have to learn? I’m the one who figured out the milk and diapers.”

He glanced at his sons, then he leaned close to Lara’s ear. “You have to learn how to let me in.”

“Nobody gets in to see the wizard,” she murmured back.

“You’re wrong. I’m coming in.”

“Don’t even try.”

“I’m already halfway there.”

Lara focused on his mouth, so close to her own. Diapers and popping tree limbs and the taste of orange juice on her tongue vanished in an instant. Yes, he was. Halfway there, she thought. And if she wasn’t careful, every reason to keep him out would evaporate. Then he would be all the way in, and her heart would hurt, and her mind would get tangled and all the things she didn’t want would come roaring back.

No getting around it, Lara was stuck. One step out onto the front porch of the Maddox house, and her feet nearly shot out from under her. Jeremiah would not be driving her home, she realized, and she certainly would not be walking.

Jeremiah sat in the recliner with a peaceful Tobias in his arms as he listened to the weather reporter drone on with bad news. Lara keyed the number of the hospital into her cell phone. The storm hadn’t been confined to Springfield. As it turned out, ice coated every highway, street and road in a perfect arc that swung downward from Missouri through northern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma and ended just south of Dallas, Texas. Snow blanketed the states to the north and rain fell in the south. But in exactly the worst possible place, temperatures continued to plummet, and the ice settled in for a visit.

“I need to speak to a patient by the name of Tabitha Muraya,” Lara said when someone picked up at the hospital. The phone had rung a long time before anyone answered, and then the breathless receptionist told her that very few workers had been able to make it in that morning. The whole place was understaffed, people who had tried to walk to their cars or drive the icy streets to work were pouring into the E.R. and everything was a mess.

All the same, in moments Lara was connected to the unit where Tabitha was being kept in isolation. “Are you a member of the immediate family?” the nurse asked briskly.

“No, I’m—”

“I’m sorry but government regulations prevent me from giving out any information about our patients. You’ll have to contact a family member, ma’am.”

“I’m caring for the only immediate family member in Springfield,” Lara said. “I have Mrs. Muraya’s five-month-old baby. I’m not able to reach her husband, because he went to Texas. I need to speak to Tabitha.”

“That’s not possible, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“Can you give her a message?”

“Umm…I can give it to her, but I can’t promise a response.”

“Okay.” Lara flashed Jeremiah a look of frustration. “Tell her that Mr. Maddox needs the telephone number where her husband is staying in Texas. We need it as soon as possible, so we can tell him about the situation and get him back here.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Jeremiah held out his hand. “Mind if I intervene?” he asked Lara.

She gave him the phone.

“Yes, ma’am, this is Jeremiah Maddox,” he told the nurse. “Yes,
that
Jeremiah Maddox. I’m on the hospital’s board of directors, and we’ve got a very difficult situation here. As you know, the board places top priority on doing what’s best for the patient. May I speak to someone in administration please?”

Lara gaped as he continued talking.
The board of directors?
All her life, she had placed money and power at the bottom of the list of admirable qualities for a man. Rock bottom. Jeremiah had both, and she hadn’t trusted him for a second. His big house, fancy car and eye for women had relegated him instantly to her dishonor roll of scumbags. Only his genuinely wonderful sons, his efforts to accept change and his determination to help Miss Ethel had edged Jeremiah out of the muck. She had begun to like him. Admire him. Even respect him.

But she had still held his wealth and position against him. Now, he spoke on the phone, gently but firmly using his place on the hospital board to come to the aid of the Muraya family. And for the first time in her life, Lara began to appreciate the value of influence.

Sinking into the recliner beside Jeremiah, she observed him as he went about the business of manipulation. It was a fascinating process. A person had to own a profitable enterprise in order to make money, Lara acknowledged. Money had led Jeremiah to a valuable social position on the hospital board. A feather in his cap. A vanity role for a wealthy man—unless it could be put to use. Position brought power, Lara realized, and power wielded by a godly man could be a good thing. A very good thing.

Before Lara had time to fully absorb this revelation, Jeremiah was speaking to the president of the hospital. It was a complicated situation, he reiterated. A baby was involved. No immediate family in the state.

“So exactly how serious is Tabitha Muraya’s medical condition?” Jeremiah asked. Leaning back in the recliner, he flipped up the footrest. “I see. Well, that’s a concern. No, the baby is going to be fine—don’t worry about that. I’ve got that under control. Absolutely. Thank you, then. We’ll be in touch.”

He set the phone on a nearby table and looked at Lara. “Malaria,” he said.

“M
alaria is the wrong diagnosis,” Daniel announced as he stepped into the living room. He pulled a chair up to the fire where Jeremiah and Lara had set up camp for the day.

Setting a sheaf of papers on his knees, he began to explain. “The doctor said Tabitha was having a relapse of malaria, right? So, I did some research. There are three kinds of malaria in Africa.
Plasmodium falciparum
produces severe symptoms and is responsible for most malaria deaths.
Plasmodium malariae
causes typical symptoms, but it can remain in the bloodstream for years without producing symptoms. Neither one relapses.”

Jeremiah studied Lara for a moment. She was feeding Tobias again. To everyone’s consternation, the baby had turned out to have a voracious appetite. They were down to the last couple of bags of their frozen milk supply, and no one knew what to do next. Only a few streets had been cleared, the weather reporters were warning people to stay home, and nightfall was closing in.

Jeremiah focused on his son again. “The doctor definitely told me Tabitha’s having a relapse, Daniel. What’s the third kind of malaria?”

“
Plasmodium ovale.
It can relapse, but it’s found in West Africa. The fourth strain is only in Asia.” Daniel tapped on the paper. “Tabitha is from East Africa. She can’t have
P. ovale,
and she can’t have the Asian strain. So this is not a malarial relapse, Dad. I think you should call the hospital and tell them.”

“Who am I to tell an infectious diseases specialist that he’s wrong? This doctor must have information we don’t.”

“Got something new!” Benjamin crowed as he hurried into the room with paper in his hand. “I’ve got you beat, Dan-the-Man. In Africa, malarial relapse is seen exclusively in
P. ovale,
and represents a reseeding of the bloodstream by dormant parasites in the liver.”

“That’s exactly what I just said,” Daniel protested. “It’s in West Africa, and Tabitha is from East Africa.”

“Aha, but that’s a
relapse.
As it turns out
Plasmodium malariae
can recrudesce!”

“Recrudesce?” Lara frowned. “What on earth does that mean?”

“The malaria can renew or become active again.
Plasmodium malariae
can continue to cause clinical malarial attacks even twenty years after the original infection. And get this. There’s now drug-resistant malaria all over Africa.”

“Let me see that,” Daniel demanded. He snatched Benjamin’s research.

Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Nothing worse than the younger brother trumping the older. In the recliner beside him, Lara looked as though she were about to fall asleep with Tobias in her arms. The preceding hours had been long and stressful for everyone—including the baby, who was clearly feeling the absence of his mother and family.

With a great deal of effort and a lot of string pulling, Jeremiah had managed to establish contact with the doctor treating Tabitha. The man was less than optimistic. Her fever continued to spike, and she had been very nauseous. He had diagnosed her with a relapse of malaria and was treating her with chloroquine.

At midmorning, Daniel and Benjamin braved the ice and gingerly made several trips to the guest cottage. They brought the crib and carrier over to the main house, along with every diaper, wipe, lotion and jar of baby food they could find. They also located an address book, which turned out to have many wrong numbers, erasures and illegible names.

Typical of an international family in transition, Lara had explained. Finally, in the late afternoon, she got through to Peter. Deeply upset on learning of his wife’s condition, he decided to set off immediately on the long drive home.

A few hours later, Peter had called the Maddox house to say that his car had broken down several miles north of Dallas. He and his boys were back at his brother’s house, and there was no telling when they would be able to repair the car, let alone drive it back to Springfield.

Jeremiah blamed himself. If he had listened to his son, he would have loaned Peter the BMW. So what if the kids played in the backseat and the dog chewed a hole in the upholstery? It would have been better than this predicament.

Lara’s call to the president of Reynolds University went unanswered. He must have left town for the Christmas holiday. Her hope of finding funds to pay for the Murayas to fly home went down the drain. Feeling guilty and wanting to do more to help, Jeremiah offered to take care of the tickets himself. He had enough frequent flyer miles for all three Murayas, and he could send a cab to pick them up at the house where they were staying.

That hope was dashed when word came that the Springfield airport had shut down and few flights were arriving at or leaving DFW. So, they were stuck with a hungry baby, a desperately ill Tabitha, and no Peter, Wisdom or Justice. Jeremiah could only pray for a heaping helping of heavenly mercy.

“Did you say the doctor is treating Tabitha with chloroquine?” Daniel asked. “The new malaria is resistant to that drug.”

Benjamin stood to challenge him. “She’s got the old malaria. It’s just recrudescing.”

“I’m gonna recrudesce
you!
” Daniel started for his brother. “How much you wanna bet he’s treating her with the wrong drug?”

“Two large pizzas and a movie!”

Benjamin neatly evaded his brother’s lunge, and both boys raced out of the room, their feet pounding on the wooden staircase as they went back up to continue their investigations.

“Sometimes I think they’re still a couple of kids,” Jeremiah said.

“They are. Smart ones.” Lara repositioned the sleeping baby. “They may be on to something. I’ve heard about drug-resistant malaria. I hope the doctor knows what he’s doing.”

“What are
we
doing, Lara?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking about those last two bags of milk and a long night ahead. Do you suppose one of us should venture out to the store for some formula? I need to get home anyway, and if you could drive me there—”

“Don’t go.” The words were out before he could think.

She looked at him in surprise. “Jeremiah, I haven’t changed clothes for two days. I’m a mess, and I’m worried that my water pipes may have frozen. Besides, I need a shower and a good night’s sleep.”

“Stay here. With us.” He turned to the fire, fumbling to find the right way to tell her what was in his heart. “Lara, I’ll take care of you. I’ll go out and buy the formula, a toothbrush for you, new clothes, whatever you need. Just stay here.”

“But you and the boys are managing Tobias very well.”

“It’s not about the baby. It’s Christmas.”

“Jeremiah, I’m not some present Santa dropped down your chimney.”

“No, you’re a gift from God.” He met her green eyes. “You’ve changed my life, Lara. If you hadn’t come along, I would have kept going the same way forever. Just doing the basic requirements. Taking care of the boys and myself. Never stepping outside my boundaries. I’m so grateful for what you’ve done for us. For me.”

She fell silent for a moment. “You’ve done things for me, too. But, Jeremiah, I don’t exactly like them. You shouldn’t ask me to stay here. You can’t expect me to be a part of your family at Christmas. I have another life.”

“What are you so afraid of, Lara?” Leaning forward, he took her hand. “What is the problem? Do you dislike me?”

“I like you, okay?” Her eyes flashed. “I like the boys. I like everything here. But I don’t want this…the havoc inside me. It’s your fault. You keep saying things…and touching me.” She drew her hand from his. “I’m too mature and stable for all this. What it comes down to is, I don’t want to deal with a bunch of chaotic feelings.”

She pushed herself up from the chair. “The temperature is falling. You’d better go get the formula before the streets get really treacherous. Tobias is awake. I’ll change his diaper and play with him for a while. We’ll put off feeding him as long as possible, and then when you get back, we can try the formula. I don’t know if he’ll take it, but we can see.”

Jeremiah stood. “Why wouldn’t he drink formula?”

“Because he’s used to his mother’s milk,” she said, a note of sudden desperation in her voice. “He’s accustomed to life the way it always was. He won’t want anything different or new. He might be frightened. You can’t expect someone to change just like that, don’t you see?”

“Lara.” He stepped to her and slipped his hands around her shoulders. “Lara, don’t be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you.”

“What if I hurt you? Have you thought of that? I might walk out on you the way your wife did. I might be just like her.”

“You’re nothing like her.”

“You should be skeptical of me, Jeremiah. That would be prudent.”

“You stayed engaged for six years. You don’t walk out on people, Lara. You told me that, and I believe it.”

She looked up at him, her eyes brimming. “I don’t want to go anywhere near that memory. Please. Doubt me the way I doubt you. And let me go.”

“I can’t.” He pulled her into his arms, drawing her as close as he could with a chunky, wiggling baby between them. “Lara, I’ve thought it through. Life is short, and God brought you into mine when it was almost too late. Please stay.”

He bent his head and kissed her lips as tears spilled down her cheeks. “Jeremiah, oh, this is not good,” she breathed. But even as she spoke the words, she moved against him, lifting her chin and seeking his kiss.

“Give me one more day,” he said. “If you still feel the same tomorrow, then go home.”

“I
am
going home tomorrow—no matter what.”

“Maybe the ice will stay and keep you here.” He kissed her again, drinking in the sweetness of her lips and the warmth of her skin against his. “Maybe we can freeze time. Freeze everything. Leave it this way forever.”

At the sound of male feet pounding down the staircase, he drew back. She hung in the moment, her eyes closed and her lips moist. And then the boys burst into the room.

“Hey, Dad, Dad!” Benjamin cried out. “Three of the guys are out driving around in their cars, and they said the streets aren’t too bad yet. They want to bring some of the girls over here. What do you think? We could all keep an eye on the Tobester.”

Daniel nodded. “And they’ll bring pizzas and chicken and whatever we want.”

“Yeah, we need to finish our crocheting, Dad. Everybody’s yarn and hooks are over here, and those are our Christmas presents. Please!”

“What about school tomorrow?”

“Canceled!” Benjamin high-fived his brother. “It’s Christmas!”

Jeremiah forced himself to face the pair of hooligans in his living room. Where had these aberrations of nature come from? Why was their hair so long? Why did their shoes always smell so bad? And how could they be so blind as to miss the fact that their father was falling in love?

He looked at the woman across from him. Then he focused on the pair of bright brown eyes between them. At least one person in the room hadn’t missed a thing.

Lara and Jeremiah stayed up most of the night keeping a watchful eye on the throng of young people who were crocheting, laughing, eating popcorn and pizza and watching movies. She ferried empty pizza boxes to the upstairs trash. He toted sodas to the basement. And in between, they struggled to manage a baby boy who definitely did
not
like store-bought formula.

Tobias, as everyone discovered, had the healthiest lungs in the neighborhood. His array of vocal emanations ranged from whimpering to sobbing to wailing to all-out screaming. The kids in the basement took turns walking him around, up and down the various staircases in the Maddox house. But to no avail. Tobias had evidently decided he’d had enough.

Jeremiah thought jiggling perhaps might ease his misery. This resulted in the last of the good milk erupting from the baby’s mouth and spilling down the master of the house’s back. Lara—so exhausted she felt half-delirious—could hardly keep from dissolving into maniacal laughter.

She tried one way after another to get Tobias to drink formula. He spat it out. He let it dribble from the side of his mouth. He shook his head with such vigor that the liquid sprayed the kitchen wall from ceiling to floor.

And the later the hour, the louder the baby. At one point in the night, someone suggested taking him to the hospital to see his mother. But a rushed call to the ward resulted in the information that even though Tabitha’s condition was improving, Tobias was absolutely not allowed on the floor.

Countless diaper changes and repeated efforts to feed, rock, walk and otherwise comfort the baby had little effect.

As the sun rose over the icy wonderland outside the Maddox house, Tobias suddenly went silent in Lara’s arms. She called Jeremiah to her side and they stared down at the baby in alarm. Tobias looked at the two of them for more than a minute without blinking. Then, as if abruptly resigned to his destiny, he shut his eyes and fell sound asleep.

Lara drifted off in the recliner beside the fire, and Jeremiah sprawled on a couch nearby. Their respite wasn’t long. Cell phones began ringing, kids came tromping up the stairs, car engines roared to life in the driveway. Word came that the airports in Springfield and Dallas were both open, and the Murayas had found a flight home. Eventually, Jeremiah and his sons left the house for the short drive to the Springfield airport.