Read It Really IS a Wonderful Life: The Snowflake Falls but Hearts in Love Keep a Home Warm All Year Long Online

Authors: Linda Wood Rondeau

Tags: #Christian Books & Bibles, #Christian Living, #Holidays, #Christmas, #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Military, #Romantic Comedy, #Religion & Spirituality, #Inspirational, #It Really is a Wonderful Life

It Really IS a Wonderful Life: The Snowflake Falls but Hearts in Love Keep a Home Warm All Year Long (7 page)

BOOK: It Really IS a Wonderful Life: The Snowflake Falls but Hearts in Love Keep a Home Warm All Year Long
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“I’ve got an elderly patient in bad shape. He came into the ER this morning with an infected gall bladder. I had to perform emergency surgery and I couldn’t do a laparoscopic.”

“Laparoscopic?”

“That’s the more usual procedure. Much less invasive and requires only a small incision, so healing is faster. I had to make a wider cut. It’s a lot harder on the patient. Given his poor condition going into the surgery …”

On impulse, Dorie reached for Gabe’s hand. “I know you care a lot for your patients.”

“I told the hospital to call me if there were any changes rather than leave it to the on-call physician.”

“I understand.” His obvious worry made him all the more attractive.

Helen returned, wielding a laden tray. “Here you go, Doc. By the way, thanks for helpin’ Dad today. ’Preciate it. Glad you was around.”

“Don’t mention it. All in a day’s work.”

“I know you done your best, Doc. The rest is up to the good Lord.” Helen set the plates down, twirled, and bolted toward another table.

Dorie gulped. “The man you operated on was Helen’s father?”

He rocked his head back and forth, a move Daddy used to do when he didn’t confirm or deny something. “Of course, you can’t say … confidentiality.”

He nodded.

Helen no longer seemed like a caricature, but rather a sister with hurts and bruises Dorie could relate to. “No wonder she feels old. It must be hard to hold down a job and care for a parent.”

The woman shouldn’t be working with her father so ill. If it were Daddy, wild horses couldn’t keep her or Mom from his side. “Why is she here, Gabe? Shouldn’t she be with her father, given his condition?”

“Helen works three jobs, all part-time and no benefits. Her father’s social security is little help.

She wanted to feel sorry for Helen, yet anger reared instead of the compassion. The woman had three jobs and Dorie couldn’t get one. She turned away from Gabe’s glance to hide her shallow sympathy. “From the looks of it, the West End Café could use more waiting staff. There’s too much business for a middle-aged woman and two teenagers to handle by themselves.”

“Those teenagers are the owner’s children. Helen is the only hired help they have besides the cook.” Gabe reached for Dorie’s hand. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy, if you don’t already. Would you mind if we did Helen’s job for a few hours, so she can sneak in to see her father?”

“Isn’t it past visiting hours?”

Gabe picked up his phone. “I can fix that.”

No way could she refuse. “What happens if your beeper goes off?”

“We’ll chance it.”

“Well, I could stay here until you come back.”

Gabe squeezed Dorie’s hand. “Now you’re talking! I’ll let the owner know.”

He went over to an older blonde woman. She nodded in Dorie’s direction, then handed him aprons and hairnets. He returned wearing his poster-boy smile. “Well, let’s get to work.”

He thrust himself into his role, welcoming each customer with a “
Bon jour!
Come wiz me.” Once Gabe seated them, he signaled Dorie to take their orders.

She’d never had a date quite like this one, especially a first date. If she’d been sixteen again, she’d have written every detail into her diary, including the fact that she and Gabe never got around to his bear claw and her éclair.

The crowd thinned around midnight. She counted her tip money with pride. Fifty dollars. Gabe came to the back and hauled a wad of bills from his pocket, then plunked them next to her offering. “These are my tips.”

He wrapped his arm around Dorie’s shoulders, all sportsmanlike, as if he’d bested her in a footrace. “People around here can be generous. I explained what we were doing and they all chipped in a little extra. I’ve got two hundred dollars here, and your fifty will sweeten the pot.”

“Like the folks helped George Bailey.”

“Midville’s a good place, Dorie.”

She said little as Gabe drove her to the Little Red Hen Preschool. He got out and came around to open her door. “Want me to follow you home?”

She could get used to this gentlemanly doting. “It’s late and you’ve got early rounds. Thanks for an unforgettable evening.”

He positioned himself between Dorie and her car door. “When will you be back for rehearsal?”

“Not until Monday. I’m doing cast interviews then.”

“Well, how about dinner Sunday? You can do my interview ahead of schedule. Bring the kids and give your mother a break.”

She wanted to. What held her back? Before she could answer, Gabe brushed his lips against hers. A nice kiss.

Nice? Shouldn’t there be fireworks, or at least a sizzle?

He leaned against the car, and Dorie took the opportunity to scoot behind the wheel.

“Sunday? I’ll pick you up around five.”

“Okay.”

He started his car and was off.

Mom’s warning wailed like a siren, but Dorie willed the clang out of her mind. She shook her head. Mom couldn’t be more wrong about Gabe Wellington.

***

 

Jamey tossed and turned the night away, his conflicting emotions working his heart like a vise. Why did rage reign when reason told him he had no right to be angry at either of them?

He knew Gabe had planned to take Dorie out after rehearsal. Jamey had hoped she’d refuse. Apparently she hadn’t. He paced the house, then downed two cups of hot chocolate. Nothing eased his sense of loss. He envisioned Gabe and Dorie in a kiss. The images tortured him like a splinter.

He should have warned her about Gabe in spite of their boyhood pledge of non-interference in the dating arena. Did a pledge outlive puberty? They hadn’t redefined their code to fit adult situations. Nothing in the rule book said a girl couldn’t date two guys at the same time. Which rule book, though? The one he wished existed or the one he knew he should follow?

Too late to ask her out now. What good would come of it if he did? He’d let caution rule his heart and waited too long. He’d have to wait in the wings while Gabe and Dorie’s one-act play unfolded. That was the right thing to do, wasn’t it?

***

 

When Dorie entered the house, she twirled through the living room like Cinderella after the ball, engrossed in the romance and momentarily indifferent to the rags that defined her life. When she stopped spinning to catch her breath, Lenny Michaels’s image danced in her head.

They’d gone steady for six months before the prom. The night had gone as well as a girl in love could expect. Lenny gave her no clue he liked anyone else, until Dorie came out of the girls’ bathroom and saw him lip-locked with Madison Goranski. Dorie threw her high heels at them and ran off in tears, their laughter trailing her all the way out the door.

Silly. That was years ago
.

Dorie forced herself into bed. She tossed and turned with her dreams.

In them Gabe and she danced. He was dressed in a white tuxedo; she wore the burgundy gown she’d put on Boomer. Josh stood by a punch table, wearing Devon’s field uniform. Dorie’s stomach bulged with Emma. They were all at a prom, and the band played
Always
.

A second later, Gabe turned into Lenny Michaels, and then Madison Goranski waltzed into the ballroom and danced away with Lenny. From nowhere, Devon appeared, dressed in formal greens. Dorie’s burgundy gown turned into a white-lace wedding dress. Devon swung her around and kissed her.

The morning light splintered Devon’s image, and Dorie held a tear-stained pillow.

Chapter Nine

  

She’d overslept again. She’d have to hurry to be on time for church.

Dorie showered, threw on a skirt and blouse, and peeked into Josh’s room. Dressed in his favorite Army tee, he played with his plastic soldiers while Emma sat next to him on her bunched-up unicorn bedspread, her corduroy dress on backward. She pretended to read to Mr. Bear from her children’s Bible
,
a gift from her Grandmother Fitzgerald. “Jesus loves the little children, Mr. Bear. It says so right here in this Bible.”

Emma closed her Bible and put Mr. Bear on her lap.

“And you know what else, Mr. Bear? Soon it’s going to be Jesus’s birthday. We call it Christmas. There are a lot of happy songs we sing at Christmas. My favorite is
Away in a Manger
.”

Dorie choked as Emma’s sweet voice, true and tender, echoed in the room.

A more conscientious mother might have hurried her child along rather than be deliberately late. Instead, Dorie remained out of sight and soaked in the innocence. Another presence, one long absent, a Holy Essence, enveloped the room with Emma’s worship.

All too soon, fear shooed away the blessed comfort. Would she poison her children’s tender spirits with her own confusion? Oh, for an uncomplicated faith like Emma’s. Dorie recalled a time she believed as solidly as Emma, a faith now lost somewhere between college and Devon’s funeral.

“Come on, Emma. It’s time to bring Mr. Bear to Grandma’s church.”

Dorie readjusted Emma’s clothes, shouted in to Josh to hurry up, picked up Mr. Bear, and waltzed downstairs with Emma.

“Can I wear my Christmas coat, Mommy, the one you bought yesterday?”

She’d thought to wait until closer to the holiday. Oh, well, November was close enough. “Of course.” How long before Emma outgrew this one? Already tall for her age, her body seemed to sprout inches overnight.

“Mommy?” Emma, coat sleeves on backward, tugged at Dorie’s skirts. “I’m all stuck again.”

Once righted, Emma stared blankly at the door. “Mommy, why don’t we have our own church?”

“Don’t you like Grandma’s church?”

“I like it, but it’s not our church.”

Never far from earshot, Josh jumped down the last three steps. “Yeah, Mom. We have our own car and our own house. Why don’t we have our own church?”

“That’s a good question, and a good question deserves a good answer. Right now, I have to put Boomer into the cellar.”

Boomer secured, Dorie opened the door. “Last one in the car has to sing—”

Josh glared.

“Never mind. Let’s just scoot, okay?

“Yeppers”

“’Kay.”

Emma won the race.

 

Mom waited in the church vestibule.

“Where’s Daddy?” Dorie asked.

“He’s already gone to class. If you want to go ahead, I’ll bring the children downstairs for Christmas program practice.” Mom tweaked Josh’s cheek. “You are going to make a great Amahl.”

“How’s that?” Dorie asked.

While Mom tugged off coats and mittens, she explained how Gillian Davidson had adapted the musical version of
Amahl and the Night Visitors
into a play for the children.

Mom took the kids downstairs. Alone in the vestibule, Dorie scanned the bricks and mortar for any sign that she belonged in this place. She thumbed through the directory on the visitors’ table, recognizing only a few names aside from her parents and their friends.

Then she went into the sanctuary. Daddy said he chose Midville Community Church because of its historical importance—the first church built after the Adirondack town’s settlement in 1807.

Dorie walked aimlessly through the empty sanctuary until finally resting her hand on the Perkins’s pew. Every Sunday Dorie and the children trailed behind Daddy’s big frame, sheltered from the tornados that upended her life.

She thanked God for nurturing parents who cared for their children more than life itself, a familial bond that became her retreat after Devon died. Then why separate herself from them now? Had the time come to cut the spiritual umbilical cord? Was hers a second-hand faith, handed down like Grandma Perkins’s quilt?

Sudden hunger ripped through her. Not for the breakfast she’d missed. She knelt beside Daddy’s pew and heaved a silent prayer through her tears.
I need to know You, God. I want to know who You really are, not what others say You are.

Her mother’s hurried steps interrupted her pleas.

“Dorie, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. A mother senses when her child is hurting. Not a day goes by without you and the kids in my prayers.”

“Is something wrong?”

Would Mom ever understand how difficult she made it to break away?

Chapter Ten

  

Dorie stacked the last of the dishes into the cupboard as the doorbell rang. She looked at the clock. Gabe must be the punctual sort, like Daddy, something Dorie had not inherited. Clocks should serve as reminders, not straightjackets.

Gabe would have to wait for her. She must be a sight with her still-soggy hair. It’d taken an hour and five shampoos to get all the fingerpaint out of Emma’s hair. “Josh, get the door. That’s probably Dr. Wellington.”

Gabe peeked into the kitchen as Dorie took off her apron. He eyed her like a man who’d been on a deserted island for five years. “Mission already accomplished. You look great.” He reached for her as if to draw her into a hug.

Dorie stepped aside and tilted her head in the children’s direction. “I need to change and do something with my wet hair. Josh and Emma are ready except for their coats.”

“Take your time, I’ll sit in the living room with the kids.” He winked at Emma. “I like cartoons. How about you?”

Emma picked up the television remote and brought it over to Gabe. “Mr. Bear likes cartoons too.”

The living room secured, Dorie hurried upstairs. She slipped on a dark brown skirt and off-white lace blouse, then made a quick check in the hall mirror. Since Gabe wore a tie and sports jacket, she was glad she’d dressed the kids in their best. Josh looked handsome in his belted Dockers, although he’d resisted changing out of his Army tee. And Emma would steal anyone’s heart in her pink chiffon dress.

Gabe probably would take them to a nice place—at least where they served coffee in a regular cup instead of styrofoam. At the worst, the dinner would be a boredom buster.

“Emma, Josh. Get your coats.”

Gabe laughed as he pointed at Dorie’s stocking-clad feet. “Better go back upstairs. I’d hate to see you catch a cold.”

“Although I know a real good doctor.” She retreated upstairs, gasping for breath. How did anyone forget to put shoes on? Flirting demanded too much energy. To flirt effectively, one must be clever, but her reservoir of clever had long been displaced by other skills, like mopping floors and changing diapers. When she came downstairs, the children stood at attention, fitted for winter with coats, mittens, and scarves. A broad grin crossed Gabe’s face.

BOOK: It Really IS a Wonderful Life: The Snowflake Falls but Hearts in Love Keep a Home Warm All Year Long
4.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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