The Twins' Family Christmas Read online

  “It’s about that.” She stepped in front of him as he headed for the driver’s seat. “Long John told me what happened. If being at the hospital will upset the girls, I’d be glad to watch them up here.”

  He forked fingers through his hair. “I’d love that, except that the girls overheard some details, and they’re insisting on going. It’s their friend’s mom, you see. And they...well, because of Pam, they tend to get sort of anxious in any kind of family emergency, and they don’t like to be away from me. I just...” He threw up his hands, looking frazzled. “I just think it’s better I take them.”

  “Then let me come,” Lily said impulsively. “I can watch out for them, feed them, whatever you need.” She owed Pam’s family any help she could offer.

  His eyebrows lifted. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Of course.”

  A little bit of the tension eased from his shoulders. “That would be great.”

  So they headed to town, Carson driving smoothly and safely, but fast. He allowed the girls to watch a movie in the back of the vehicle, apparently a rare treat, and they both wore headphones and were soon rapt.

  “So, can you tell me what happened?” she asked after ascertaining that the girls were engrossed and not listening.

  He shook his head. “This is a family that’s been having some hard times,” he said. “She lost her job, and she’s been separated from her husband for a while. Money was tight this Christmas and...well, for some people, the holidays aren’t happy.” He sighed. “Honestly, I don’t understand it myself. But I’ll provide what comfort I can.”

  “That must be hard,” she said while her mind raced. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s going to be. But it’s hard for her family,” Carson said. “I’ve only been in this situation a few times before, but I know people tend to blame themselves.”

  “They do.” She felt like Carson was talking to her directly.

  He swerved to avoid a branch lying on the road and then turned the car away from Esperanza Springs. “This is a regional hospital that serves several communities here. I’m not too familiar with it, but hopefully, they’ll have a playroom or something for the kids to do.”

  Once out of the car, the twins clung to Carson, and Lily saw what he’d meant about unusual situations scaring them. Gone were the confident little girls who’d run all over the ranch. In their place were scared, nervous, teary kids.

  Carson located the family in the waiting room and then turned to the twins. “I’m going to need to talk with the grown-ups for a little while,” he said. “You can say hello, and then Miss Lily will help you and Gavin find somewhere to play quietly.”

  The little girls nodded, eyes wide.

  Inside the small, dim waiting room, a gray-haired couple who must be the poor woman’s parents, and a distraught-looking man—her estranged husband, maybe?—stood talking while a little boy hunched over a phone game in the corner.

  Lily watched as Carson waded in. With his quiet questions and a hug for the older couple, he changed the atmosphere in the room.

  Lily’s heart squeezed, watching him. He’d confided to her that he didn’t know what to do, and yet he was acting sure of himself, just what people needed in a pastor.

  But while the adults’ tension noticeably decreased with Carson’s words, the children’s didn’t. The little boy abandoned the phone he’d been playing with and ran to bury his head in the man’s leg, confirming Lily’s impression that this was the boy’s father. Sunny and Skye clung to Carson’s hands.

  Time to take action. She stopped a passing aide. “Is there a play area for children who are visiting?”

  He shook his head. “The only thing we’ve got is an area for the siblings of patients in our children’s ward.”

  “Could the kids play there for a little while?”

  “You’ll have to ask the nurses in that area.”

  Lily thought about it. Lots of the hospitalized kids were most likely home for Christmas, along with their siblings. And this situation was unusual, an emergency. A little boy desperately needed a distraction.

  She went back into the waiting room and sat on the edge of a chair, gesturing to the twins. “Skye, Sunny,” she said. “Would you like to go exploring? We can stop and get some hot chocolate in the cafeteria.” She didn’t want to promise them a play area if one wasn’t forthcoming.

  “Okay.” Both girls nodded, but they also seemed reluctant to let go of Carson.

  She beckoned them in, as if to listen to a secret. “Go talk to Gavin and ask him to come,” she said, “while I speak to his daddy.”

  They nodded and hurried over to the little boy while Lily introduced herself to Gavin’s father. She explained what she was doing and where they’d be, so intent on helping that she forgot that she was a stranger in this community and inexperienced with kids.

  The distraught father looked down at his son, who was now asking if he could go along. He lifted his hands, palms up. “Okay, um, sure, if Sunny and Skye are going.”

  As she turned to shepherd the children out of the room, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Carson. Heat rose in her face as she turned. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes crinkling as they looked directly into hers. “That’s just what they need.”

  Okay. She officially had a crush on this man. “You have my cell number, right?”

  “Give it to me,” he said, and she typed it into his phone.

  He squeezed her hand briefly as he took the phone back, and Lily’s heart rate accelerated.

  They found the playroom, and when Lily explained the situation to a passing nurse, she readily opened it. Soon the children were oohing and aahing over the new-to-them toys, and Lily had a chance to think.

  She really, really liked Carson. She had to acknowledge it now. But that just made things more complicated.

  Because what if the unexpected happened, and he wanted a relationship with her? What if they got involved?

  She’d have to tell him the truth about Pam and what had happened. Even she, who wasn’t especially experienced with or good at relationships, knew that having a secret like that at the center would destroy anything they attempted to build.

  But telling him would hurt him terribly. Even worse than she’d initially thought, given that Pam had been pregnant.

  Lily watched the twins help their friend put together a racetrack for some little plastic cars.

  Pam should have tried harder.

  As soon as she had the judgmental thought, she pushed it away. Pam must have been going through so much pain. And yes, she’d masked it with lots of partying—partying that, Lily realized now, had put her unborn child in jeopardy—but pain was pain, and Lily knew from her father that drinking was more of a symptom than a base problem. It was a way to self-medicate.

  Poor, poor Pam.

  If only Lily had paid more attention, tried to find ways to help her.

  Pushing away her own dark thoughts, Lily focused on the children playing at her feet and realized that little Gavin was running over a small plastic figure with his race car, over and over.

  “Gavin, stop!” Skye put out a hand to protect the battered figurine.

  “No!” Gavin pushed her hand away and ran over the doll again.

  “You’re hurting her!” Skye started to cry.

  That got Sunny’s attention away from her own race car. “Gavin, quit it!”

  Lily sank to the floor in the midst of the children. “Hey. Let’s play nice with the cars.”

  “This lady doesn’t want to be alive,” Gavin insisted, running his car into the doll again.

  Out of my depth here. Why had Lily thought she’d be able to help this poor child? “Hey, Gavin,” she said, “let’s go see what we can cook on the stove. What’s your favorite food?” She waved an arm to the plastic kitchen set.

  �
�Don’t wanna cook,” Gavin said, turning his back to all of them.

  Skye and Sunny looked more distressed.

  “Girls,” Lily said, “I’m going to give you a job. Please cook a pretend meal for all four of us and set the table. Gavin and I are going to talk a little, and then we’ll come eat whatever you’ve fixed for Christmas dinner.”

  “Okay,” Sunny said doubtfully. “Come on, Skye.”

  “He was hurting my doll,” Skye said, hands on hips.

  Lily gave her a stern look and pointed at the stove. To her amazement, it worked.

  The girls occupied, she turned back to Gavin, who was still banging his car into the doll. She was no psychologist, but she’d had some bad Christmases and some childhood struggles. “Christmas wasn’t much fun this year, huh?” she said, picking up a car and running it aimlessly along the track.

  “No!” He banged the doll hard with his car.

  “I guess that makes you mad,” she said.

  “Mommy didn’t get me any presents,” he said, his lower lip out. And then suddenly, big tears welled up in his eyes. “I yelled at her and she almost died!”

  Her heart constricted as she realized that he was blaming himself. Should she hug him, pull him into her arms? But she barely knew him. She reached out and patted his arm instead. “Sometimes grown-ups do things that are hard to understand,” she said, “but what happened to your mom isn’t your fault.”

  “I yelled at her a lot,” he confessed, more tears rolling down his cheeks. “And then she went into her room and shut the door and then the amb’lance came and took her to the hospital.”

  Hard to argue with a six-year-old’s concept of cause and effect, but she had to. “I yelled at my mother sometimes,” she said. It was no exaggeration; she’d been awful as a teenager. “I feel really sorry about it, but parents understand. Kids are allowed to get mad.”

  There was a rustle beside her, and Skye came and knelt beside Gavin, patting his back. “I yelled at my daddy two days ago,” she said. “And Sunny yells at him all the time.”

  “Did he die from it?” Gavin asked, gulping through tears.

  “No. He’s strong.”

  “Kids yelling never makes adults die,” Lily said firmly. “And your mommy is going to be okay. There are good doctors here who will help her feel better.”

  “Aunt Biddy said I might have to go away,” he whispered, looking anxiously at Lily.

  Lily felt like throttling Aunt Biddy. “Do you ever stay with your daddy?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Wednesdays and Saturdays,” he said.

  “Hmm. Do you ever stay longer with him, like if your mom is sick?”

  He nodded. “When Mommy was going to have a baby, I stayed with him a lot. But then she didn’t have a baby after all.”

  Oh.

  A miscarriage. Hormonal fluctuations. Christmas. Her heart went out to the poor woman who’d been in enough pain to overdose on pills.

  “Maybe you’d stay with your daddy again for a while,” she said, thinking of the man who’d agreed for her to bring Gavin down here. He’d seemed kind and concerned. But she didn’t want to promise Gavin anything. You didn’t make promises to kids unless you could keep them.

  “When our mommy was gone at Christmas,” Skye volunteered, “we made her cards.”

  Bless the child. “Let’s go eat our pretend Christmas dinner,” Lily said, “and then we’ll make cards for your mom. I bet that will cheer her up a lot.”

  “Okay,” Gavin agreed, and went gamely over to the table to partake of the plastic food Sunny had arranged.

  A short time later, she heard the sound of a throat clearing at the half door, and Lily looked over and saw Carson. Since the children were occupied at the little table, she went over to stand by him. “How are things going?”

  He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it. “Not great. She’s stable, but the rest of the family is struggling to understand what happened.” He nodded toward the children. “Looks like you did a better job with them than I did with the adults.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I have a hard time with this particular issue,” he said. “Especially talking to the survivors. Even the attempt is such a slap in the face to them.”

  Lily’s stomach turned over. “Sometimes,” she said, because she felt like she needed to say something, “people think their families will be better off without them.”

  Carson gestured at the children. “How could any mother think her child would be better off without her? How could Hannah—” He gestured toward the other wing of the hospital. “How could she plan to leave her son alone in the world?”

  Lily let her head drop and stared at the floor. “I don’t know, Carson,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

  * * *

  He hadn’t done enough, Carson berated himself as he exited the hospital behind Lily and the girls.

  The three of them swung their linked hands, and Carson was torn between enjoying the fun they were having, worrying about the girls’ attachment to Lily and wishing he were better at helping people dealing with such an incomprehensible situation.

  A group of carolers approached the nursing home next door, and Carson recognized several of them from his church. So did the girls. “Can we go see Renee and Jackson?” Sunny asked, poised to run.

  “If you walk on the sidewalk,” he said.

  The girls took off, walking rapidly, and he watched until he could see that Jackson’s mother had greeted the girls and waved at him.

  Lily stood beside him. “You okay?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Wish I’d done a better job in there,” he said. “I had a hard time finding the right words, either for Hannah or her family. Like I said, it just doesn’t make sense to me. How could a young mother with everything to live for try to take her own life?”

  Lily’s throat worked as she looked at him, distress obvious on her face. He wasn’t impressing her, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from confiding. She was such a good listener.

  “The truth is, ministers are just people,” he continued on, because it helped to talk about it all. “Good at some things and not at others. Some are great preachers but can’t do counseling. Some do beautiful funerals. Some are great with the sick, others with kids.”

  “You seem like you’re good at most things.”

  That she thought so made him happier than it should, so he pulled himself back to earth. “Not what went down in there.”

  “How’d you leave the situation with them?” she asked.

  He reflected. “Actually, her husband, who’s been estranged, seems to want to help her, maybe even try to save their marriage. I think the potential loss of her hit him hard. As well, the impact it would have on his son.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “And I’ll bet you set up counseling for the woman, right?”

  He nodded. “Not just now, but into the future awhile.”

  “Then those are some good outcomes,” she said. “Maybe their marriage will pull through.” She thought a minute, then added, “My parents had a whole lot of ups and downs, but they stayed together until the end. Marriage isn’t easy.”

  “True,” he said. He paused, then added, “Pam and I... I don’t know if she told you, but we had our share of problems.”

  She opened her mouth and shut it again.

  He was about to say more when the carolers started yelling for his attention.

  “Hey, Pastor C!” Jessie Malton called. “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Yeah, come sing!” another added.

  Carson glanced over at her, then lifted his hands, palms up. Truthfully, he’d welcome the chance to be in a situation where he felt more comfortable and competent. He walked over toward the carolers, Lily trailing beside him. “What are you guys doing? Where are yo
u headed?”

  “Singing at the nursing home,” Vance Richards said. “We could use your baritone.”

  “Can we go, Daddy?” Skye tugged at one of his hands, making puppy-dog eyes up at him.

  “Please?” Sunny did the same.

  He glanced over at Lily. “Do you mind staying in town a little longer? It might be fun for the girls.”

  And help them forget the sadness of the hospital.

  She nodded, smiling her understanding. “It’s fine, just as long as I’m not expected to carry a tune.”

  They followed the group inside, and as everyone got organized and lined up the kids, he found himself off to one side with Lily. He touched her arm. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry I’ve been talking so much about Pam. I didn’t mean to push you to tell me every detail of your friendship. I feel like I haven’t been much of a pastor to you.”

  She waved a hand. “You have no obligation to me.”

  Conveniently ignoring his comment about Pam, but he wasn’t going to focus on that anymore tonight. He did wonder, though, why she was so dismissive of her own needs and concerns. If he got the chance, he’d follow up with her.

  For now, they followed the carolers into the rec room, where a large Christmas tree stood in the corner. Residents, some in wheelchairs, others helping to decorate the tree, looked up and waved. One man who was slumped in a chair, apparently asleep, lifted his head at the excited voices of the children.

  The staff wore Santa hats and reindeer antlers, and several of the residents sported Christmas sweaters. Above the sound of a woman’s rattling coughs, Carson heard violin music and looked toward the corner of the room where a frail, elderly man played with beauty and grace.

  There were the usual nursing home smells, and he watched his girls to see that they were doing okay, weren’t going to blurt out something rude. But they seemed a bit in awe of the new environment, and the scent of pine branches predominated as they moved farther into the room, near the large live Christmas tree.

  They sang several carols, and the elders and some of the staff joined in. Carson glanced over at Lily and was pleased to guess from her gentle smile that she was enjoying the moment as much as he was.