The Red Gloves Collection (33 page)

The secret only Sarah could share.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE ELEVENTH ORNAMENT
read
Embrace,
and again Beth hung it on the tree for Sarah. Only one envelope remained now. When the newest ornament was in its proper place, Sarah drew a slow breath and began.

Sam arrived in Greer on Monday, December 22, and immediately took a cab to Sarah’s house. Her parents were thrilled to see him, but they explained that Sarah wasn’t there. She was writing again, something she liked to do at Greer Park, on the far bench near the big grassy field.

Sam knew the place; he and Sarah had met there before. He hugged Sarah’s parents and headed for the park.

“Actually, I wasn’t writing a song that day,” Sarah smiled, her eyes suddenly watery. “I was writing in my journal, asking God about Sam. I looked up and—” Her mouth hung open, but she couldn’t speak. The soft folds of her chin trembled and a tear made its way down her leathery cheek. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. This is my favorite part.” She gazed out the window. “I looked up and there he was. Sam Lindeman, walking toward me. I thought… I thought I was seeing things until he walked right up and held out his hands.”

Sarah closed her eyes and a smile worked its way up her cheeks. More tears splashed onto her face, but the smile remained. “I can hear him now, see him. Standing there, arms outstretched. I went to him and the feel of his arms … ” She opened her eyes and looked at Beth. “Has stayed with me a lifetime. I don’t need the twelve days or the ornaments to feel his arms around me. I was born for that moment, and the memory of that embrace will stay until I draw my last breath.”

Beth swallowed hard and realized there were tears on her own cheeks.

“I’ll finish the story tomorrow.” Sarah folded her hands, simple and demure.

Reluctantly, Beth bent over and kissed Sarah on the forehead. “I’ll be here.”

That night, again, Beth’s heart felt softer than before. She caught herself making conversation with Bobby, even laughing at something he said. But the morning couldn’t come soon enough, and when it did, she hurried to Sarah’s room, desperately hoping the woman was still alive.

It was Christmas Eve, the twenty-fourth of December. The Twelfth Day of Christmas. Sarah was awake, gray and tired, but her eyes sparkled. “Are you ready for the rest of the story, Beth?”

She dropped to the chair, and gave Sarah’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Yes. Please … go ahead.”

“Today, the ornament comes last.”

“Okay.”

Sarah breathed in and coughed several times. Then—in a way that even her failing health couldn’t stop—the story came.

That day at the park, Sam held onto her for what felt like forever. When he pulled back he asked her nothing about the past or Nashville or what had happened to bring her home again.

Instead he held out a ring and asked her to be his wife.

“We sat on that park bench,” Sarah stared out the window, “the rest of the afternoon. Kissing, talking … amazed we’d found each other. Until he died we returned to that bench again and again and again.” She closed her eyes and when she opened them, her lashes were damp. “I feel him there, with me, every time I see that old bench. Even now that he’s been gone so many years.”

Beth nodded. If only Sarah could make it over to the window one more time. Maybe when the story was finished.

Sarah went on, explaining how she and Sam told her parents about their engagement and how her mother pulled her aside. She paused, weary from the effort, but clearly determined to press on.

“My mother gave me something that night. Look under my bed, Beth. Please.”

Beth hesitated, but only for a moment. She didn’t want to look under the bed; she wanted the story. But Sarah’s expression pleaded with her, and Beth nodded. She dropped to her knees and there, under the bed, was a small white box. “This?” She pulled it out and held it up for Sarah to see.

“Yes.” Sarah looked at the box as if it were a long lost friend. “Open it. I don’t bring it out until the twelfth day.”

Beth sat back in her chair and lifted the top from the box, her movements slow and reverent. Inside lay a pair of red gloves, worn and slightly faded. She looked up at Sarah, puzzled. “Your mother gave you gloves?”

“Red gloves.” Sarah’s eyes sharpened, and a knowing look filled her expression. “I’m giving them to you, Beth. Put them on.”

Beth was overcome with a sense of awe. Sarah had obviously cherished the gloves for sixty years, but now … now she was giving them away. “Sarah, I can’t take—” She stopped when she saw the certainty in Sarah’s eyes. “You really want me to have them?”

“Yes.” Sarah’s eyes glistened.

Beth hesitated, looking down at the gloves. With great care she slid them on, first one hand, then the other.

Only then did she see the white stitching, the embroidery that made a pattern across the palms of both gloves. She was about to ask what it meant when she realized it wasn’t a pattern at all, but words.

Her eyes found Sarah. “There’s … a message here, isn’t there?”

“There is.” Sarah was teary again. “Hold your hands up toward heaven. That’s the only way to read it.”

Beth did as she was told, holding her outstretched hands heavenward. As she did, the words sprang to life. The palm of the left red glove read,
“Above all else
” And the palm of the right glove read,
“guard your heart.”

Above all else, guard your heart.

Sarah smiled through her tears and made a small shrug with her tired shoulders. “There it is, Beth. The secret of love. Above all else, guard your heart. It’s a Bible verse, Proverbs 4:23.”

Beth stared at the words and felt them penetrating her soul, probing about and challenging her in a way nothing ever had. “I … I’ve never heard that before.”

“You see,” Sarah sniffed and adjusted the oxygen tubes in her nose. “If I would’ve guarded my heart, Beth, I never would’ve given myself to Mitch Mullins. I would have realized Sam’s worth long before I ever left Greer.”

Beth stared at the gloves for a long time. “Sarah … I can’t take these. They’re … they’re too precious. Your children should have them.”

“No.” Sarah’s eyes shone. “God wants you to have them, dear. He told me you need that message this Christmas.”

The gloves were soft on her fingers, and Beth held them to her face. They smelled of old love and days gone by, and they were warm. Not so much against her cheeks as they were warm against her heart. “Thank you, Sarah. I’ll treasure them.”

Eventually she let her hands fall to her lap and she looked at Sarah. “What happened then, with you and Sam?”

“We didn’t want to wait, so we got married.” She looked toward the window again, lost once more to the past.

The couple gathered their closest friends and family and the preacher from Greer Community married them on Christmas Eve at the park, right in front of the bench where Sarah had written the song, the place where Sam had found her when he returned to Greer.

“You can open the last envelope now, Beth.”

The gloves remained as Beth reached for the envelope and pulled out the final ornament. The word read
Still,
and Beth felt the sting of tears as she placed it on the plastic tree.

“We married on Christmas Eve.” Sarah’s eyes were dreamy, her smile that of a girl sixty years younger. “I wore a white dress and the red gloves. The ceremony was short, and halfway through it started to snow. Our preacher pronounced us husband and wife and then Sam turned to me and started to sing.” She hesitated, still amazed. “He knew all the words.”

And then, the way Sam had sung to her that magical Christmas Eve, Sarah began to sing.

“ ‘It’s not too late for faith to find us … Not too late for right to win.’ ” The words came crisp, clear despite Sarah’s struggle to breathe. “ ‘Not too late, let love remind us. Not too late to try again.’ ”

Sarah closed her eyes, squeezing out two small streams of tears. “I took over from there, singing the entire song to him, all three verses. When I finished, the pastor said he had just one prayer for the two of us. That fifty years from then, we would still know the words to the song, still make time to sing it the way we were singing it that night.”

Still.

The word on the twelfth ornament. Beth looked at the tree, at the words scattered amidst the branches. It was the greatest love story Beth had ever heard, but the best part of all was the lesson in the red gloves.
Above all else, guard your heart.

Sarah lifted her tired hands and pulled them across her cheeks. “I still love him, Beth.” Their eyes met. “I still love him, and I still remember the song. Just the way the pastor prayed that Christmas Eve.” Sarah settled back some, her eyes never leaving Beth’s. “You know why I only remember the details of our story once a year?”

“No.” The question had come up several times, but Beth had never voiced it. “How come?”

“Because going back makes me miss him, and—” Her voice cracked, and for the first time since the story’s beginning Sarah was overcome with emotion. Sobs shook her, stopping her from speaking and causing her shoulders to shake. The pain in the old woman’s face was so gut-wrenching Beth considered calling for help. But then gradually, it began to ease. Her weathered hands came up and covered her face and the sounds of her soft cries filled the room. “God, how I miss him.”

Beth stared at her hands, at the red gloves and the message written across the palms. After a while, Sarah stopped crying. She sat a little straighter and exhaled long and slow. “I’ll be going home soon; I’m ready now.” She smiled through her tears. “Sam’s been waiting a long time for me to join him.”

There were a hundred things Beth wanted to say, things she wanted to ask. What happened next, and how long before they had children. How did they keep their love alive and how—after more than six decades—did she still feel the same way about Sam Lindeman.

But Sarah’s eyes were closing. “I … I’m finished, Beth.”

“Sarah, wait … ” Beth leaned forward and gave Sarah’s arm a light shake.

Sarah opened her eyes. Her gaze was so direct, so sincere it took her breath away. “I believe you have something to do, Beth.” She hesitated. “It’s Christmas Eve. Do it now; before it’s too late.”

Before Beth could respond, Sarah nodded and fell asleep.

But that was okay, because Sarah was right. Beth had something to do, and nothing was going to stop her. Tucking her gloved hands into her pockets, she slipped downstairs and outside and crossed the street to the park.

She found the bench instantly and the moment she sat down, she started to cry. Her tears came with an intensity similar to Sarah’s, but for different reasons. She didn’t miss a man long dead, but she’d very nearly missed the truth. If not for Sarah’s story, her song, Beth would’ve walked out on the man God Himself had given her, a love she was suddenly desperate to fight for.

The words embroidered across the palms of the red gloves shouted at her now. She didn’t need to talk to Sarah about how she and Sam had kept their love alive. The secret was right there, plain as day.

Above all else, guard your heart.

It was five o’clock when Beth finally got home that evening.

The red gloves still on her hands, she took the bulky package from the back seat of her car and was halfway up the walkway when Bobby opened the door. “Beth, I … ” He stopped, his mouth open, eyes wide.

In her hands were four dozen yellow roses.

The tears blurred her vision, and she blinked so she could see his reaction. She stopped walking, stood there in the glow of the Christmas Eve moon, and before he could say another word, she started to sing.

“It’s not too late for faith to find us. Not too late for right to win.” Tears came but she sang anyway. Never mind the freezing night air or the fact that her voice was not smooth and rich like Sarah’s. It was sincere. And the words came straight from her heart as she sang them to the man she still loved, the man she almost lost.

“It’s not too late, let love remind us. Not too late to try again.”

She began walking toward him, her eyes locked on his. “I’m sorry, Bobby.” Before she reached the front porch she saw that he, too, was holding something. The smell hit her just as she realized what it was.

A fresh-baked key lime pie.

“Merry Christmas, Beth.” His eyes were red and wet as he led her into the house.

A sweet, tart smell warmed the air, and suddenly Beth realized what she was seeing. There, on every available surface in the kitchen, were key lime pies. She stared at them, and slowly, in a way that would’ve made old Sarah proud, she set the flowers down and melted into her husband’s embrace.

“Don’t ever let go, Beth.” He whispered the words against her hair, trembling from desire and desperation and the decision they’d almost made to end it all. “Please, don’t let go.”

Brianna came running into the kitchen, her eyes dancing. “Mommy, guess what? Me and Daddy baked you a hundred pies!” She joined the hug, her little arms tight around both of them.

Beth smiled at their daughter, the feel of Bobby’s embrace still warming her from the inside out.

“Ten, to be exact.” Bobby met her gaze and looked straight to the center of her heart. “I stopped trying, Beth. I’m sorry.” He kissed her, ignoring Brianna’s giggles. “I’ll never stop again.”

For a moment, Beth looked down at the red gloves. Bobby did the same and he made a curious face. “Are those new?”

Beth lifted her hands and framed his face with the furry red wool. “Yes. They’re from a good friend.”

“It’s going to be the bestest Christmas.” Brianna jumped up and down as she trailed away from them across the living room. “We have enough pie for a million weeks. Plus tomorrow is Christmas and … ”

Their daughter’s happy voice faded as Beth kissed Bobby, long and slow and with a lifetime of feeling. The way she hadn’t kissed him in years.

“I guess … ” He came up for air and grinned at her. “I guess this means you’re not moving out.”

Beth worked her gloved fingers through his hair and buried her head into his shoulder. “Not now or ever.” She thought about Sarah. “Wait till I tell you what happened.”