You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 29th, 2008.
For a week, Willow left the letters on the kitchen table, open, and easily perused. She mucked barn stalls and prayed. She cleaned the chicken coop and prayed. She cooked, knitted, hooked her rug, and prayed. She milked the new goat whom Chad christened, ‘Ditto’ and prayed. Then, she prayed some more.
For hours, she worked on the foundation site for her forthcoming greenhouse. Her original plans had been scrapped for a lean-to design kit that she’d found in one of her mother’s stacks of catalogs. It was more expensive and larger than she’d planned but the added advantage of putting it next to the barn and close to the house was enough incentive to move fences and arrange plans for a larger scale operation than ever. She’d have lettuce in January just like Mr. Tesdall’s big grocery store. Oh, and she prayed with every shovel, every moved wire, and every nail.
Saturday, a week after the letters arrived, was December first. She awoke with a child-like delight that not even the loss of her mother’s help and camaraderie tempered. Chad was coming to spend the day, the goat was giving milk like nothing she’d ever had, and she’d gotten a call from the greenhouse company that her kit was on its way.
After breakfast, she cleaned the kitchen and left a pile of pancakes on the stove warming for whenever Chad arrived. With a girlish giggle, she hurried upstairs into the attic and pulled down the box of artificial greenery. Chad found her tying ‘pine’ swags across the front porch, wrapping the posts, and adding large deep red bows to the pivotal places.
“Hey, looks great! What do I do?” he called as he jumped from the truck.
“I’ve got pancakes on the stove if you’re hungry first.”
“Be back to help you when they’re gone,” he promised.
By the time Chad returned, the front porch looked like a Thomas Kincaide Christmas painting. “Can you go up into the attic and get the box in the middle of the floor marked, ‘Porch tree’?”
“You have a tree for your porch?”
“Humor me. I want my tree.”
He hurried upstairs and returned quickly with the large box. Amazed, he watched as she screwed a long pole into a traditional tree stand. “It’s leaning to the left.”
“Straighten it will you?”
As he held the pole straight, he asked the obvious question. “Is there a reason you are putting your tree out here?”
“It’s for the birds.”
“Then why do it?” he asked missing the lack of sarcasm in her voice.
“For the birds. You need to clean your ears.”
“Sooooo,” Chad asked once more, “Why do the birds need their own tree?”
“They don’t. It just gets them to come close enough to the house that I can watch them from the couch. The chickadees are quite friendly and entertaining when the jays aren’t around.”
“Ahh. I see you still have the letters out.”
Willow seemed to wilt before his eyes making Chad feel like a heel. “I know. I keep praying and praying about it and I don’t know what to do. At times like this, I really miss Mother’s confidence. She’d know what to do and she’d just do it.”
“I think your indecision is because you know your mother’s judgment was clouded by fear and you don’t want to repeat that. While it’s understandable for her, it isn’t for you and you’re wise enough to know that.”
They worked together assembling her unusual tree. Branches slid into carefully drilled holes in the ‘trunk’. When she didn’t like something, she pulled it out, tried a different one, and stood back to see the result. “Where’d you get this tree?”
“Mother bought several the first few years trying to find one that didn’t get mangled in storage and finally cut them apart to make two perfect trees. This one used to be in the spare room during December. I’d wake up Christmas morning and the tree would be all set up and decorated for me as a surprise.”
“You didn’t decorate with your mother?” He found that idea horrifying.
“I helped with the downstairs tree but you know how little hands are. They don’t make for an attractive look when the top third or half is almost bare. This way I got to help and Mother got to have a perfect tree too.”
“So how did it end up out front?”
Willow smiled remembering. “I decorated the living room tree one year when mother was sick and she liked it so she told me to take the other one back to the attic and confessed why she’d always done that.” She stood back from the tree and nodded satisfied. “That’s perfect. I’ll make the ornaments later. I want to get started inside and I’m cold!”
Inside, Chad helped her carry down boxes of decorations from the attic. With her guidance, Chad wrapped the banisters carefully in imitation evergreen commenting all the while that he’d expected live trees and décor. “I can’t believe you have all this fake stuff.”
“We live where we heat by fire and don’t have electricity. We needed something that could handle nearby candles and dry heat. Mother said these trees were flame resistant or something like that.”
The logic couldn’t be denied so Chad wrapped, humming The Holly and the Ivy as he retraced his steps tying ribbons to regular intervals. His festive mood heightened Willow’s enjoyment and she hurried into the library several minutes later, he heard the scratchy sound of an old 78 Victrola playing and Bing Crosby’s voice crooning about a White Christmas.
He clambered down the stairs and leaned against the doorjamb as she sorted albums. “You have a Victrola. I should have guessed. Come on.”
He grabbed her hand and twirled her into the living room half-waltzing- half two stepping as he did. “Come on, it’s Christmas!”
“Not yet it isn’t.”
“So,” he continued as though she hadn’t argued the point. “Are you up for company on Christmas?”
“Why?” The song ended and she put on another before going back to decorate the windows again.
“Because I have to work from ten till six Christmas eve/morning and then again from two until ten.”
Her eyes sought his from across the room looking miserable. “That is terrible. Why-”
“They let me have it off last year even though it was my first year. A lot of stations would have made the rookie work Christmas but Fairbury doesn’t work that way. I knew I’d have to work both days so I went ahead and took the small break so that Martinez could go to Rockland to be with his family longer.”
“You’re a good man Chad.”
“Well,” he teased, “It’s about time you figured that out. I’ve been telling you for months-”
“There is a box labeled popcorn strings, can you get it and start hanging them?”
“You saved popcorn strings?”
Willow’s laughter blended with Up On the Housetop perfectly. “No silly, they’re crocheted. We worked on them all summer one year. They were fast but you know there just isn’t much time in summer for extra stuff.”
The strings were amazing. From just a few feet away, you’d never know the ‘popcorn’ was crochet thread and the ‘cranberries’ were wooden beads. Chad looped and draped expertly thanks to a Christmas fanatic of a mother and a perfectionist sister.
“Stairs are done. Next?”
“Doorways,” she replied without looking at his handiwork. He felt a little miffed that she didn’t care to even glance at the work but a question from her interrupted his thoughts.
“So the ladies Bible study is having a gift drawing. I have someone I’m supposed to buy for. We can’t spend any more than twenty dollars but I’m confused.”
“Sounds pretty straight forward. What’s the problem?”
“Well, is that twenty dollars for the gift, for materials to make a gift, and for people who buy everything, what about their wrapping paper and their card? Do they count that as part of the twenty-”
Chad dropped the length of evergreen and went to switch out the album as she chattered. There was something else to this question and he wasn’t sure how to get to the bottom of it because he knew if Willow knew the real question she would have just asked it. “Willow, are you concerned about the gift itself, the limits, or who you got as a name?”
“All of it. I’m not supposed to tell who it is but I guess that’s so the girls can’t do a process of elimination so I could tell you, right?”
“Right. Who’d you get?”
“Lee,” she admitted ruefully. “I already made her a skirt but I don’t know exactly how much I spent making it. I’ve never paid much attention to that.”
“Lee loves your tote bags. I’ve heard her talk about swiping one of yours when you’re no looking. Maybe you could make one to match the skirt.”
“I can’t give her both, it’d be over that limit-”
“So give her the tote for the exchange and give her the skirt because you were going to do it anyway.” Chad didn’t quite see the difficulty but he listened and decorated doorways like a pro.
“That might work.”
“Now what?” he queried looking around the room and loving the already festive air. Christmas was his favorite time of the year.
“Can you take that table by the window and carry it up to the spare room?”
Chad emptied the table of its vase of dried flowers, hand embroidered doily, and hefted it over his head carefully avoiding the ceiling. He shook his head in disbelief as he saw a pile of old blankets protecting the floor and the wall and a woodpile against one wall. Only Willow Finley had a woodpile inside and outside her house.”
Once the living room was slightly rearranged, Willow called for tree number two and began assembling it to the sounds of Deanna Durbin singing Silent Night. “Hey, would you put the branches in? I’ll set up candles if you can get the branches in for me.”
For the next hour, they worked silently but in a harmony even Chad couldn’t deny. Wordlessly, they passed each other things they needed, often before the other realized it, and a feeling of familiarity stirred in Chad’s heart. It reminded him of his parents. They often worked for hours on a project, never speaking, always complimenting one another in their actions, until finally as they completed the job, they stepped back, arms around each other, and admired the final product. Maybe dad and Luke-
“Chad? If you have to work Christmas, how will you get any rest? You go to bed after six and have to be up and at work by two- I don’t see how-”
“I have a plan if you want to hear it.”
“Well obviously,” she teased, “Or I wouldn’t have asked.”
“Mom and Dad are going to do Christmas on New Year’s Eve so I can be there- you’re invited by the way. I thought if you felt like company, they could come spend the day with you. I’d come here after work, take a nap, spend a couple of hours with you guys, and then go to work again. We could have dinner during my lunch hour- mom would help.”
“I love it. I’ll write your mother a letter today!”
Setting down her ornaments, Willow hurried upstairs and returned with a box of hand embellished stationary. Curled on the couch and surrounded by evidence of Christmas, Willow wrote a letter of invitation to Chad’s parents and handed it to him for approval.
Mr. and Mrs. Tesdall,
Chad has told me of his work schedule and I thought perhaps that you might like to come to my house for the day. Chad is planning to have dinner with me and your company would bless him as well, I am sure.
I am hoping to hear you’ll come,
Willow Anne Finley
While he read, she worked on another letter. He waited rather impatiently for Willow to finish and exchanged the letters eagerly. As he read the second letter, Willow folded the first letter carefully and addressed it waiting patiently for Chad to finish reading her second one.
Dear Grandmother Finley,
I was pleased to receive your letter last week. I’ve been praying over your suggestion for a week now and I think a trip to the city might be fun and a good way to meet you. I know you were here for Mother’s funeral but I confess, I don’t remember much of anything about that day.
If it would be convenient for you, I could come into Rockland next Friday, December 7, and meet you wherever you’d like to meet if you contact me in time. I can’t leave before seven in the morning and can’t get home after seven at night but otherwise, I can adjust my schedule to yours.
Respectfully,
Willow Anne Finley
“You could add your phone number in a post script so she can just call and you don’t have to worry about mail problems.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed delightedly, “I’ll do that. Is there anything else you’d change or add?”
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell her you didn’t give that sensationalist reporter the interview she thinks you did.”
Willow fidgeted with her letter for a minute. “I didn’t see how it would help them with the pain of anything so why bring it up again?”
***
After dinner, when all of the boxes and containers were safely stored back in the attic closet, Willow made hot chocolate, brought out the sugar cookies she’d made the night before, and handed them to Chad. Reaching for her Bible, she handed it to Chad. “Would you read Luke?”
Chad took the Bible awkwardly. He’d always hated reading aloud. “Well-”
“Please?”
The pleading in her tone and the eagerness of her expression was impossible to deny. He took the Bible and turned absently to Luke as he watched her walk around the room lighting the dozens of tiny candles everywhere. Almost instantly, it transformed a homey living room into a fairyland.
She sat at his feet and grabbed a box he hadn’t noticed from under the table smiling as he noticed hand drawn holly and berries decorating the box. The Finley women even decorated boxes! “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”
As he read, his voice halting and faltering at times, Willow arranged her tree blocks, tea light candles, and fairies into an arrangement on the table. “… While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
Log upon log she designed her house, occasionally changing this section or that based upon her opinion of the stability of the ‘floor’. “…‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.’“
Once each floor was carefully planned, she added tiny trees, stars, and snowflakes creating a winter wonderland on her coffee table. “…‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.‘”
Tea light candles came next, her hand carefully measuring the heat from each candle to ensure it didn’t overheat any portion of the structure. “… And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”
Finally, once she arranged everything exactly how she wanted, she nestled each fairy in a special place in the house. Satisfied with her work, Willow leaned against Chad’s legs and the couch and listened as he finished reading the passage. “… ‘Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.’“
Only the occasional crackle of wood in the woodstove broke the absolute silence and stillness around them. Candle light flickered sending delightful shadows dancing across the room but still they sat, each alone in their thoughts. Each pondered, like Mary, the thoughts in their hearts.
Willow tried to imagine a Christmas without her mother. She remembered the singing as they made cookies, the secrets, and fun in choosing the perfect gift, and the anticipation of almost their favorite day of the year. A tear splashed onto her cheek, then another one. Her heart heavy at the finality of yet another chapter in her life, she finally turned her head into Chad’s knee, rested her arm across it, and laid her head on it weeping softly.
Unaware of Willow’s distress, Chad’s eyes roamed over the room. He couldn’t help but marvel at the childhood Willow had stored in her heart. The tree was bedecked with ornaments that were priceless in both their artistic intricacy and the love and time invested to create them. Her toys were a part of her adult world and yet no one could accuse Willow of immaturity or childishness. Child-like at times? Definitely.
What a life her children would have! His mind’s eye saw her sitting at that very coffee table and helping a little girl with pigtails build the perfect structure to house new fairies, angels, and, of course, candles. He pictured them writing and illustrating their own stories and wondering if Willow had books in her library that had never been seen or read by anyone but she and her mother. “Every child should live like this,” he thought to himself. Then as an afterthought, he allowed one other idea to cross his mind. “Or at least, I want mine to.”
About the same time he felt a damp spot on his knee, Chad heard her sniffle. “Aww Willow, I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. I just cry over everything these days. I’m getting used to it. It used to hurt more to cry but now it’s like washing a burn- it’s soothing but you know it can’t last forever.”
Chad’s hand smoothed her hair but he said nothing. Neither of them knew how long they sat there, not talking, but enjoying the sights surrounding them. “Merry Christmas Willow,” Chad whispered.
