Merry's Christmas: Two Book Set (Amish) (2 page)

Arthur dished up an order of hash and scooted it up on the counter for Merry. “I’m just saying.”

Merry wiped something sticky off her hands. “And I appreciate it, Arthur, but—”

“Your point is that I ain’t ‘It’.”

Merry put her towel down, leaning closer in earnest. The last thing she ever wanted to do was to hurt Arthur, but she didn’t have an insincere bone in her body. “No, no, you’re undeniably It. Your Itness is legend. I mean, you’re fabulously It for somebody. And you’re way It as a friend for me, but—”

Arthur gestured toward the waiting order. “Hash ain’t getting any hotter.”

Merry grabbed the plate and delivered it to a man at the counter as fellow waitress Kiki Stone sidled up to her. African-American and in her early forties, Kiki had a winning way of diving straight for the bottom line. “How much you short?”

Merry waved her friend off. “Keep it, Kiki. You’re feeding your boys by yourself. I’ll figure it out.”

Undaunted, Kiki cheerily emptied the tips from her pockets. “Not gonna deprive me of my blessing. Nuh-uh. Mama always said, ‘Give and it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together, running all over the place.’ So, you best take what I got, get that whole Christmas ball rolling.”

Leaving no room for Merry to protest, Kiki picked up a pitcher of ice water and sashayed back out to the floor. Merry glanced at the pile of cash. Kiki had a knack for racking up tips and this particular morning had been no exception.

“Go on, there’s more where that come from,” Kiki waved, already across the diner. Gratefully, Merry collected Kiki’s earnings and stuffed them into her apron.

Later that day, Merry spun through the revolving door of Strong Bank & Trust. There was something about revolving doors that left her a little off balance, even after she’d escaped one’s orbit. Regaining her equilibrium, she scanned the vaulted ceilings and the elegantly appointed lobby, suddenly self-conscious about her uniform. Not far from the entrance, she saw a man, apparently in his late thirties, shaking the hand of an impeccably dressed elderly socialite. A uniformed driver stood at the woman’s side.

“I’m Daniel Bell,” the man said. “It’ll be my pleasure to handle your accounts, Mrs. Rockingham. Here’s my card.”

It’s not that Merry noticed every man who crossed her path, but for some reason there was something about this Daniel Bell that caught her attention. Maybe it was just overhearing his name, she thought. Maybe it was the pleasantness of his voice. It might have been how professional he looked in his perfectly tailored suit. Whatever it was, Merry reasoned, he seemed like someone who could help her.

As Merry waited, she glanced down at the coffee cup in her hand. She kicked herself for not throwing it away in the trashcan on the street corner. It’s not that it was empty. It’s just that a paper cup seemed incongruous in this place, so she checked around for a place to toss it. As Mrs. Rockingham grandly passed to exit, Merry turned to clear the woman’s path to the door.

There were times it seemed that Merry’s timing was impeccable. This wasn’t one of them. As it was, when she backed farther into the lobby, she smacked right into Daniel. Startled, she whirled and, to make matters worse, coffee from the aforementioned coffee cup sloshed onto Daniel’s charcoal suit.

“Oh!” Merry gasped. “Oh, no, I... Let me—” Flustered, Merry quickly used her napkin to blot Daniel’s jacket.

“It’s fine,” he assured. “Really. I’ve got it.”

As Daniel took over the wiping, Merry couldn’t help but notice how congenial he was being about her gaffe, or how very handsome he looked in his freshly stained jacket.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Could I get that cleaned?”

Daniel smiled, putting a hand up in polite refusal. “No, no. Needed it anyway. Is there something I can do for you?”

Chagrined, Merry piped up. “You wouldn’t know where I could get a loan application, would you?”

Night had long since fallen and, with it, the Downtown Diner had closed its doors for the evening. Skeeter cozied up to a heating vent just outside the front plate glass window.

Inside, Arthur put chairs up on tables while Merry sat, studying the paperwork from the bank. With all its blank lines gaping at her, the form was more than a little intimidating. Merry had always done her best to pay her bills on time. A time or two she’d cut it close. Never before, though, had she had a repossession that she would have to declare.

Not until that morning.

The voice Merry didn’t like to listen to sorely tempted her to leave the smudge off her application. It was a voice she’d heard more than once in her life, enough to recognize the grimy pit of its origins. It rationalized omitting the humiliating truth that, try as she might, she’d failed to make her November payment. It taunted her to worry what that nice man at the bank would think of her when he saw what a deadbeat she was.

Merry sat, motionless. She thought about the times she’d listened to that nagging voice. She pondered how empty she’d felt whenever she’d given into it. Finally, she shook her head
no
. She took a deep breath and put her pen to the paper. 

“I could help you with that loan app,” Arthur offered. “Best reference you’d find. That don’t change, just ‘cause you don’t go for what I got.”

Merry looked up with sheepish affection. “You’re like a big brother, Arthur.”

“Big as in too old? That it?”

Arthur always nailed it on the head. As much as Merry attempted to save his pride, he always saw through it. “Kinda hoping to stay in my decade,” she admitted. “Still love you, though.”

Arthur shrugged, and then flipped another chair over onto a table. “I’ll co-sign that if you need it.”

Merry felt awful. How could Arthur be so completely great to her even though she was rejecting him? “I couldn’t—”

Arthur stopped. “So, you love me like a brother. Whaddaya think brothers do?”

Daniel entered his high-toned kitchen, stopping a moment to take in the aroma of barbequed chicken. There was his mother, Joan—still fit at sixty—husking fresh corn on the cob. His fashion-forward fifteen year-old daughter, Tara, was in the process of making a salad, and her sardonic twin sister, Hayden, pecked insistently on a laptop. It was the new normal they’d found as a family since what they rarely talked about.

“You’re home early,” Joan slyly observed. “You must be terribly interested in this girl.”

“She’s a woman, Mother,” Daniel replied.

Joan brushed the correction off. “I’m as liberated as the next one, but honestly, Dear. What woman doesn’t appreciate the implication of youth?”

“I don’t,” Tara complained. “Not when I can’t car date.”

Joan gave her granddaughter a consoling squeeze. “Trust me. You’ll be older soon enough. Enjoy your youth for the two seconds it lasts.”

“And by all means,” Hayden goaded, “rub it in as often as possible that you have a boyfriend who wants to take you on a car date.”

Tara rolled her eyes, completely unamused.

Daniel scanned the faces of his girls. “I hope I can count on you to remember your manners tonight. You, too, Mother.”

Hayden simultaneously slumped and groaned. “Tell me we don’t have to like her.”

Daniel tried his best to be patient. He knew that their mother would be a hard act to follow by anyone’s standards, even his own. “You could be open,” he suggested. “I know she’ll never be your mom, but...I like her.”

Suddenly, Tara showed interest. “You mean you like her, like her?”

Daniel wasn’t one to blush, but he did take a second to compose himself. “Yes. For the record, I like her, like her. Run upstairs and change for dinner, will you?”

Already stylishly garbed, Tara flashed a playfully indignant glare. “Excuse me, Dad, but...please.”

With a nod, Daniel acknowledged Tara’s very suitable attire in contrast to her sister, Hayden’s. Hayden shook her head and rose compliantly.

“Silly me. I thought I’d just wow her with my witty repartee.”

“Which is always appreciated,” Daniel added.

“Yeah, in Geekville—” Hayden began, just as her nine year-old brother, Ollie, burst into the room.

Jubilantly filthy, Ollie ran straight to his father. “Dad, can I start a worm farm?”

“—population: two,” Hayden concluded as she disappeared up the kitchen stairs.

Daniel turned to his son. Ollie was always popping with ideas, a new one it seemed, every day. “I suppose that’s negotiable,” Daniel started. “But right now, how about you hit the shower? I have a date coming.”

Clearly, Ollie was unimpressed. “More girls?” he moaned. “We’re already surrounded.”

“Just one,” Daniel clarified, leading his son to the kitchen stairs.

Visibly engaged at the prospect, Joan probed. “Are you saying this thing is exclusive?”

Daniel turned back with a congenial sigh. “Try to contain yourself, Mother.”

two
 

F
ar across town—quite literally on the other side of the tracks in her single apartment—Merry strung lights around a tabletop Christmas tree. It didn’t matter to her that she was the only one who would ever see this tribute to the season. She was used to spending the holidays solo, except for her cat.

Rudy watched, batting a paw at the dangling light string. Merry swayed side to side as she worked out a tangle, while Christmas music scratched on her radio. There was something about trimming a tree and listening to carols that buoyed Merry’s spirit. It kept her hope astir that life wouldn’t always be this way. She wouldn’t always be working so hard, struggling just to barely make ends meet. She wouldn’t always have to accept Kiki’s hard-earned tips to keep Mr. Grabinski off her back about the rent. She wouldn’t always be alone.

“What do you say, Rudy old boy? Look good to you? Maybe a little higher here.” Merry picked Rudy up and stood back with him to admire her work. It wasn’t anything fancy. The ornaments weren’t store bought. They were pieced together with scraps of felt, loose buttons, shells, and colored glass beads, small treasures gathered by a girl who knew the true meaning of the Yuletide season, one who was quite sure that anything made with love was worth much more than all the store-bought Christmases in the world.

“Now, we’re set. Come here, baby. Okay, moment of truth.” Merry stepped over and, with a celebratory flourish, she flipped the light switch. Disappointingly, only about half of the bulbs lit. One sparked a few times before the whole string started to flicker, and then went completely dark.

“Perfect,” Merry sighed.

The clinking of lavish dinnerware did nothing but accentuate gaping pauses in the Bell dining room. No matter how much Catherine tried to tell herself that she wasn’t responsible for carrying the conversational ball, she couldn’t help feeling that she should. She smiled lightly at Tara. “That’s a pretty ensemble you’re wearing, Tara. You have an eye.”

Tara readily responded. “I’m thinking of going into fashion.”

Catherine caught Daniel’s reassuring glance. “Really?” she replied. “I have a friend who’s a buyer. Very chic, high end. Could mean contacts.”

“I already wear lenses, but thanks,” Tara replied cluelessly.

Daniel was quick to intervene. “I think Catherine might have meant the other kind of contacts. People in the fashion business.”

Tara darkened sheepishly. “Oh.” 

Again, silence reigned. Catherine counted the seconds that passed. It seemed an eternity.
Where were the witticisms that usually came so easily?
She searched her mind for something to say, anything to ease the awkwardness.

Finally, Daniel piped up. “Hayden is quite the computer aficionado, you know.”

Hayden grimaced. “Yeah, I’m a real techno marvel.”

“Designed and built her own website,” Daniel continued. “Maybe she’ll show you.”

Hayden was expressionless. “Yeah, I can help you with your Facebook page.”

As collected as Catherine was among adults, she felt herself faltering. “Yes, well... I’m afraid I don’t actually—” She caught herself, finally getting Hayden’s cynical drift. “You were being facetious, weren’t you?”

“Attempting it,” Hayden droned.

Ollie twirled spaghetti on his fork. “I’ll show you my worm farm. If Dad lets me have one.”

Grateful for the interaction, Catherine turned to the boy. “Oh, thank you. Is that what you want for Christmas?”

It seemed an innocent enough question to Catherine. In fact, she reassured herself it was. But Catherine quickly realized that somehow she’d managed to step in it once again.
But how?
All she knew was that, as soon as she’d mentioned the holiday, uncomfortable glances had darted amongst the family. She saw Joan shake a discreet head at her, warding her off the subject.

Catherine flushed with embarrassment. She’d never tried so hard to fit in or found herself failing so miserably. “I’m sorry. I seem to keep saying the wrong thing,” she said.

“We don’t ever have Christmas,” Ollie blurted.

“Not anymore,” Tara muttered.

Even Hayden chimed in. “Not since what we never talk about. More to the point,
who
we never talk about.”

Joan tried to intervene. “Honey, maybe your father would rather—”

Daniel respectfully silenced his mother. “Actually,” he began. “I... You know, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, now. Since last year, and it seems to me like it’s about time we brought Christmas back again. That is, if that’s okay with everybody.”

Ollie lit up immediately at his father’s suggestion. “With presents and everything?”

Catherine breathed a sigh of relief.

“All the trimmings. And don’t worry, Mother,” Daniel assured. “Lord knows, you do enough already. I’ll take care of it. It’ll be good. For all of us.” Then taking her hand in his, he added, “Catherine, too.”

Abruptly, Hayden got up from the table. “Imagine my joy.”

Joan reached for Hayden as she skulked by toward the stairs. “Hayden—”

Daniel quietly turned to Catherine. “You okay if I...?”

Catherine promptly acquiesced. “Of course. Please.”

Quickly, Daniel followed Hayden up the stairs.

No one said anything at the table. They just picked at their dinners, the silence more conspicuous than ever.

Catherine resolved not to take the floor again. She blotted her lips, then picked up her fork and began to eat, if for no other reasons than to fill the aching void. Within the privacy of her thoughts, Catherine did what she could to bolster her flagging confidence. She told herself that, in time, the children would get used to the idea of a new woman in their father’s life. Surely, they’d come to know and love her, just as Daniel had.

Across town, Merry paced about, on the phone in her apartment, a maxed-out credit card in hand. Holiday muzak lilted through the line. Rudy brushed against her leg, hinting that he wanted attention. She gathered him up into her arms and sat down on her bed. She scratched between his ears, just the way he liked it.

How long have I been on hold
?

Merry checked her watch. Seven full minutes had passed since she’d been asked if she could wait just a moment and the never-ending loop of muzak had begun.
What is the definition of a moment?
She wondered if she’d been forgotten, if her call was nothing more than a blinking light on some abandoned who-knows-where switchboard that no one would ever notice again.

Merry was used to being cast aside. Her mind drifted back to her childhood, to the orphanages and foster homes of her youth, to the time or two when it had seemed that a couple might actually adopt her. How was it that so many years had passed and yet it seemed like yesterday?

The thought of how she’d once been chosen for a home visit floated into her head. She remembered it all, how she’d gotten up before the birds to scrub herself clean. She’d brushed her teeth for two whole minutes and combed every last snarl out of her unruly curls.

A social worker had driven her all the way out to the country, to a little white farmhouse with a dark red door and a sprawling apple orchard in the back. The people who lived there had seemed so nice. They’d had plenty of questions and she’d answered them as politely as she could. She’d played with their little boy and been shown the room that she would have gotten to share with their daughter. There had been a macaroni and cheese lunch with homegrown tomatoes and snap beans they’d just picked fresh from their garden. When the time had come to say goodbye, the lady had hugged her what seemed like a very long while. She remembered how they’d kept waving at each other, till the van pulled out of sight.

For weeks afterward, Merry had kept her heart on hold. She had waited and hoped for a reply that never came.

The social worker had explained things as well as anyone could. It wasn’t Merry’s fault, she said. People wanted babies, little children with no memory of a time when they weren’t part of a family.

Merry switched the phone to her left ear and sighed. Yes, she was well accustomed to being abandoned, but the fact that it was the story of her life didn’t make it any easier in the financial crunch of her here and now.

Abruptly, the muzak on Merry’s phone line clicked off. The disembodied voice returned, mechanically quoting the company line. 

“Yes, I understand your policy,” Merry tried, “but I’m in a little pinch now and...I know I’m at my limit. I can’t tell you how acutely aware of that I am, but I was wondering, praying actually, that you could up my limit. Just a few hundred dollars to get me...No, I don’t have anybody I can...Okay, thank you.”

Merry hung up. She spoke to the phone in sheer frustration. “Why am I thanking you?”

Outside in the driveway, Daniel opened the door of Catherine’s silver Mercedes, stealing a glance at the living room window from which his entire family monitored his not-so-private goodnight.

“We seem to have an audience,” Catherine observed with a bemused grin.

“Apparently,” Daniel agreed.

Catherine apologized again for her faux pas in mentioning Christmas. She explained that she’d hadn’t realized that the topic was off limits.

Daniel felt for her. He knew the evening couldn’t have been easy. He just hadn’t realized it would be quite as hard as it had been. “No, it’s fine,” he reassured, not entirely believing it. “It’s a fair assumption after three years.”