It Really IS a Wonderful Life: The Snowflake Falls but Hearts in Love Keep a Home Warm All Year Long (14 page)

She hadn’t searched for gems, but she’d found gold. A friend and a job.

***

Mom smiled like a new mother. “Good first day?” She got out the car and walked to the passenger side. “Might as well drive.”

Emma squealed when Dorie got in. “Grandpa took me to a car hospital.”

“A what?”

“That’s a garage, Emma,” Mom said. “That’s how your father explained it to the kids. The car needed a new starter too. Dad paid for everything and said to tell you ‘Merry Christmas.’”

Daddy shouldn’t have to support a grown daughter. “I insist on paying him back.”

“It’s his Christmas present to you. He wants to do it, so don’t hurt his feelings and ruin his gift.”

“We’ll see.”

Dorie turned to Emma. “Do you know where we’re going now?”

“To my school.” Her glow would have burst through the most stubborn cloud. A new phase of her young life was beginning. Something to celebrate. Right?

***

“You must be Emma.” A woman wearing a yellow smiley name tag led them to the lunch area. “I’m Jessica Brighton. The students call me Miss Jessica.” She motioned to a table where fidgety children feasted on chicken nuggets, carrot sticks, orange gelatin, and milk. “I like our candidates to sample lunch. You’d be surprised at what a teacher can learn about a child by watching her with the other children.”

With Dorie’s approval, Miss Jessica set Emma up with a lunch tray. At least Emma didn’t do the chicken dance, her favorite antic at home. When she had devoured the last of her lunch, Miss Jessica handed Emma a napkin. “Ready for a walkabout?”

“’Kay.” Emma swished the napkin over her fingers and followed Miss Jessica around the room. When they came to the books, Emma picked up
Where the Wild Things Are
. “This one is Mommy’s fa … vor … ite.” She carried the book with her as Miss Jessica led her into an adjoining room, out of Dorie’s sight. When they returned, Emma skipped while Miss Jessica held her hand. “Can I stay here today?”

Dorie helped Emma put on her coat. “You’ll be back tomorrow morning, sweetie.”

“’Kay.” Her face shifted into a pout. “Can I bring Mr. Bear?”

Miss Jessica nodded. “Of course. Bears are welcome to visit anytime.”

Dorie nudged Emma toward her grandmother. “Why don’t you show Grandma all the things you like here while Mommy signs the papers?”

“’Kay. Come on, Grandma.”

Flashing a sympathetic smile, Miss Jessica handed Dorie a folder of forms. “Emma will do fine. She’s bright and friendly—”

My Emma? Friendly? Since when
? “Well, she’s often a little shy. I’ve never seen her warm up to a stranger so quickly.”

“I already know Emma. Your mother and I have lunch on Saturdays, and sometimes she brings Emma with her. I adore her chicken dance.”

Reality dawned. Dorie was not in control of every aspect of her children’s lives and was about to lose more of the control she did have.
Lord, will you be there when I can’t?

Of course.

Dorie choked back the tears and signed the papers.

***

Details were falling into place, and she pulled into her mother’s driveway with more confidence than she’d had when she woke up this morning.

“Want to come in for tea?” Mom asked.

Dorie’s muscles ached as if she’d been put through Grandma Perkins’s old wringer washing machine. But Mom seemed to want to talk. “Sure. I’ve got an hour before I have to pick up Josh.”

Before Mom put the water on, her cell played
Eloise.
She glanced at the ID panel. “That’s funny, I don’t recognize this phone number. The caller ID says it’s somebody named Natasha somebody, whoever that is.” She answered with a hesitant edge, but still friendly. She listened to whoever had called, then plopped into the kitchen chair, her face as white as the stuffing coming out of Mr. Bear’s leg.

“Oh, no! I don’t believe it. Is he okay?”

“Is who okay? Is it Dad?”

Mom covered the mouthpiece. “It’s about your brother.”

“What trouble has JJ gotten into now? Leave it to him to get into a bind and ask you to bail him out.”

“Shush, Dorie. Don’t speak ill of your brother. Especially not now.” She returned her attention to the caller. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Then she grabbed a notepad from the kitchen drawer and scribbled a phone number and address.

“Mom! What’s going on?”

She clicked off the phone, set it on the counter and buried her face in her hands. “JJ’s been in a car accident.”

Dorie could barely breathe. Her renegade brother whom she loved in spite of his careless living. “How badly is he hurt?”

“He’s not critical, but he has multiple fractures in both legs. I have to go to him, Dorie. He’s my child.”

“Who called?”

“His girlfriend, Natasha something or other. Sounds Russian.”

“I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”

“Well, apparently he does.” She grabbed the phone again. “I’m calling your father’s cell. We need to leave as soon as we can arrange a flight to San Diego. I’m sorry to desert you like this.”

“I understand.”

“Even if I’m not here, God is.”

If God were in her corner, why had the world caved in just as the pieces finally fit together?

Chapter Twenty

Dorie bit her lip as she pulled into the airport passenger drop off.

Unlike yesterday’s bitter wind, a gentle snow fell with warming temperatures. Daddy lifted the suitcases from the trunk to the airport curbside check-in as Mom, Dorie, and the kids got out of the car. “This kind of snow is great for making snowballs,” Daddy said.

“Can we, Mom?”

“We’ll see when we get home.” Dorie waved goodbye to her parents and turned around for the trip back home, the motor like a lullaby. She missed her parents already. The children soon fell asleep, leaving her free to listen to music and re-examine her next steps.

Hours later, when she pulled into her driveway, the kids roused. She sent them upstairs to play in their rooms while she called Jamey. He’d been understanding about why she hadn’t come in today, but with pre-school only three days a week, she had no one to care for Emma the other days. How could she ever keep this job?

His confident tones crushed her ready-made excuses to dust. “Be patient. You’ll figure it all out. Don’t give up yet.”

But if I quit now, I can’t fail
. “The children need me at home.” Almost the truth. JJ’s accident had to be a sign from God. Maybe she should home-school Josh so she could keep better tabs on him during the day.

Jamey blasted through her resistance. “The Little Red Hen Preschool has an after-school program as well as a five-day preschool program.”

Sending Emma to preschool only three days a week had been a difficult enough decision. Dorie finally accepted that the experience would be beneficial for Emma’s education, something a good mother should be concerned about. An after-school program seemed something else entirely. Why couldn’t Jamey admit hiring her had been a mistake?

“All you need to do is send a note to Josh’s school, then the bus will drop him off at the Little Red Hen. If it helps, we’ll arrange flexible hours for you. Don’t give up. Our company needs you.”

So do my children
. “Well, I’ll think about it and call you later tonight, after I hear from my mother.”

“I’ll wait.”

She punched
end
and set the phone on the table. An unspoken emotion seemed piggy-backed on Jamey’s last two words, unrelated to employment. He wouldn’t be interested in a relationship outside of work, would he? Not likely, since he and Susan were involved. Whatever his motivation, his concern warmed her heart like a piping-hot slice of pizza.

She suddenly craved pizza and dialed Pizza Barn, requesting delivery of a large meat lovers with extra cheese. She had at least thirty minutes to fill while she waited. “Good packing weather,” Daddy had said.

“Who wants to make a snowman?”

Josh and Emma raced to the closet with Boomer in hot pursuit. He dragged everything not on a hanger to the middle of the living room. Racing around Boomer’s heap, the children dug out their boots, mittens, and scarves. Boomer ran back and forth, yipping his enthusiasm.

Before he could make a shambles of the house, Dorie let him outside. She came back into the living room to find Josh’s face buried underneath his new black scarf. “Mom, I can’t see to put my mittens on.”

“Let me help.”

Emma sat on the floor. She’d put her snow pants over her coat and struggled to snap the straps.

Dorie swallowed the urge to laugh. “Try again and this time put your snow pants on first, then your coat.”

“’Kay.”

Josh danced around the living room chanting a refrain of “Em—ma’s a ba—by.”

“Josh, why don’t you go outside and play with Boomer until Emma and I are ready?”

“Yeppers.”

“Josh, the word is—”

“Yes, Mom.”

While Josh looked a lot like Devon, even mimicked him in some ways, her son’s antics reminded her of JJ, whom she named Josh after. Like most big brothers, Joshua John Perkins never missed an opportunity to tease. But when Iggy Nason had pulled Dorie’s hair at school, JJ pushed him down and made him eat dirt. Iggy never bothered her again after that. Sometimes JJ could be the best brother ever. What if he never walked again?

Lord, please make him okay.

On her second attempt, Emma mastered her snow pants and coat and clapped her self-adulation. Barely able to walk in so much warmth, she clomped her way outdoors.

Dorie hurriedly put on her own snow clothes, anticipating fun with the kids, glad she had a supply of thermal underwear.

Once outside, Josh struggled with a snowball half his size, soon becoming too big for him to manage. He huffed, dug his feet deep into the snow, and heaved with his backside. How much she wanted to help him. Instinct told her he needed to decide for himself if the task was more than he could handle. Finally, Josh surrendered to the impossible. “You take this for his bottom, Mom, and I’ll start another one for his middle.”

Emma’s interest leaned more toward throwing Boomer’s ball around than shaping the snowman.

“Emma, do you want to make the head?” Dorie asked.

“’Kay.” She set to her task and soon turned out a head more flat than round. Then she dropped to the ground and decorated the backyard with a series of snow angels. Boomer interrupted now and again to lick her face.

Within fifteen minutes, the snowman resembled a segmented human. Dorie surveyed their creation. “How should we dress him up?”

Josh stepped back and studied him. “I think he should be a soldier.”

“Yeah,” Emma squealed. “A soldier snowman.”

They went back into the house with Boomer trailing behind. Dorie grabbed Devon’s hat, the one Josh had worn for Halloween, while Boomer pulled a drab-green scarf from the pile in the living room. Dorie assumed his selection a lucky guess, but one couldn’t be quite sure about his psychic ability.

“He needs two arms. See?” Emma held out her own.

“I have old curtain rods in the kitchen closet.”

Emma dug out the rods while Dorie rummaged through the refrigerator for facial features. No carrots. Ah, the cucumber in the crisper drawer. A cucumber nose would distinguish their snowman from all the others on the block. She snatched a handful of buttons from her sewing box then searched for duct tape.

Leaving clumps of snow in his wake, Josh headed for the steps. “I’ll get my toy rifle. The snow soldier needs a gun.”

The crew reassembled outside. After taping the rifle to the soldier’s curtain-rod arms, Dorie played drill sergeant. “Fall in!” she commanded. Boomer sat at attention while the rest honored their soldier with a salute.

Josh cocked his head to one side. “I think he should be a captain, like Daddy.”

Dorie wept. When Devon died, she didn’t believe she could go on. Somehow she did. But not a day passed without him in her thoughts. Though he’d never lived in this house, his memories were constant, especially every time she looked into Josh’s eyes.

Josh cried too. “I miss Daddy.”

Emma hugged them both.

And Boomer added his whines.

A voice yelled to them from the driveway. “Did you order a pizza, ma’am?”

Pizza and hot chocolate warmed their bellies and bedtime came all too soon. When baths were finished, tired, pajama-clad children climbed into bed. Dorie pulled back Emma’s sheets and handed over Mr. Bear.

Emma bit her lip. “I think he should stay in my chair tonight.” When her head hit the pillow, she rubbed her eyes. “I’m not scared of the dark anymore, Mommy. But Mr. Bear is, so we’d better leave the light on for him.”

Dorie kissed Emma goodnight, turned on her bedside lamp, and clicked off the overhead light.

When she checked in on Josh, she found him on his knees next to his bed, the way Devon prayed—hands folded and chin touching his chest. “Dear God, Mom is really sad. She doesn’t think she should work. Could You help her know Emma and me will be okay if she does? She’s sad all the time. And she said a job would make her happy. Amen.”

It’s time.

Dorie rushed to her room, then brought Devon’s Bible to Josh. “This is your daddy’s. I think you should have it.” Josh sat on his bed and thumbed through its pages, a portrait of blended maturity and vulnerability.

“Can I look at it for a little while?”

“Sure.”

“Did Daddy have a favorite story?”

Devon never mentioned any particular passage as being a favorite. He had highlighted meaningful verses and written notes while he studied Scripture. Dorie read a few of those passages to Josh. He pulled at an envelope that had stuck to one of the pages. “What’s this, Mom?”

She eased the military envelope from the page, taking care not to rip either. Then she sniffed it and caught a hint of Devon’s cologne.

She opened the envelope and pulled out a letter dated the day before he died. Like most of his letters, he began with how much he missed Dorie and the children and how he looked forward to coming home soon. Her heart pounded as she read on with tear-dimmed eyes: