Anne’s face softened. “Really?”
“I was just a kid.” He drew back so he could see her better. “But, yeah, that was my dream.”
“Well … ” The moonlight reflected in her eyes, and Earl could see the depth of her soul. “My daddy used to tell me the best thing about dreams was this.”
He waited, wanting to kiss her again.
Her voice fell to a whisper. “Every once in a while they come true.”
In many ways that night marked the beginning. Because after that there was no turning back for either of them. By the time Anne was a senior in high school and Earl into his second year as an electrician, no one doubted Earl’s intentions.
Two years later, he proposed.
Anne happily accepted and they were married that summer.
Earl blinked as the images faded from his mind. His eyes met D. J.’s again. “Being married to Anne was … it was like all my dreams had finally come true.”
“Yes.” The mission director shot an understanding smile at Earl. “Marriage is like that.”
“I didn’t think I could be happier.” Earl held his breath. “Until two years later when Molly was born.”
Earl settled back into his story. At first, Anne had struggled to get pregnant. For that reason, they were thrilled beyond hope that fall when Anne delivered a healthy baby girl. Earl spent hours standing over their daughter’s crib, staring at her. The perfect features and scant feathering of dark hair. Her precious lips. Even as an infant she was the mirror image of Anne, and Earl used to fall asleep feeling like the luckiest man in the world.
In the following years Anne lost two babies and then began having severe bouts of abdominal pain. The doctors found her uterus scarred and diseased; a hysterectomy was her only option. The day after Molly’s fifth birthday, Anne underwent the surgery. Molly didn’t understand the implications, so Anne and Earl did their grieving in private.
“I’m so sorry, Earl.” Anne buried her face against Earl’s shoulder that night in the hospital room. “I wanted to give you a houseful of babies.”
Earl silenced her with a kiss. “No, sweetheart, don’t ever say that. It isn’t your fault. And besides, I’d rather have Molly than a dozen other children. With her, our family is complete.”
It was true, and after Anne’s surgery it became even more so. The three of them were together constantly. They shared meals and conversation and storytime when Molly was little. As she grew, they took weekend drives to Medford and Grant’s Pass.
They were only apart on Sunday mornings. Anne would take Molly to service, but she never pushed the idea on Earl. Never even asked him to come. Except on Christmas Eve. Earl was adamant about not attending.
A decision he would regret until he drew his last breath.
Molly was blessed with a voice that moved people to tears. From an early age she sang at church arid took piano lessons. As she got older, she spent many evenings entertaining her parents.
Sometime after Molly reached middle school, Anne took a job teaching first grade. It was the perfect supplement to Earl’s modest living and it allowed them to spend a week each summer traveling to exotic places—the south of France, the Caribbean, or Bermuda.
But though they cherished their summer vacations, Christmas was easily the family’s favorite time of year.
From early on, Earl and Anne and Molly had enjoyed a tradition. The three of them would each exchange one homemade present. A card or a poem or sometimes a framed piece of artwork. Something Anne had knit or sewn, or a special craft. One year Molly even sang her parents a song she’d written. Each Christmas these were the gifts they looked forward to most. The gifts they remembered.
That was true even up until their last year together.
That spring Earl was laid off and times were rougher than they’d ever been. In June, instead of traveling, they sold their house and furniture and moved in with Earl’s parents. Anne’s folks had sold their house by then, but Earl’s still lived right where he’d grown up. It was a sprawling place with six bedrooms and three baths. Plenty of room for Earl and his family.
But Earl was discouraged.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you, Anne,” he told her as they turned in that first night in his parents’ house. “This is only temporary.”
“Silly man.” Anne leaned over and gave him a lingering kiss. Her smile shimmered in the muted moonlight. “It doesn’t matter where we live. You’ll get work again. And when you do, I’m sure we’ll have another house.” She brushed her nose against his. “All that matters is that we have each other. Me and you and Molly.”
They settled into a routine. That fall, Earl found a job. Despite their housing situation, it was one of the happiest Thanksgivings Earl could remember. They shared warm conversations with his parents and ate pumpkin pie late into the night.
None of them could wait for Christmas.
Earl’s story stopped short. He blinked and his gaze fell to his weathered hands. This was the hard part, the part that didn’t make sense. Earl and his family had been halfway to forever, enjoying the kind of life and love most people only dreamed of.
Bad times weren’t supposed to fall on people like Earl and Anne and Molly.
Across from him, D.J. inhaled sharply. “Something happened to them?”
“Yes.” Slowly, painfully, Earl allowed a handful of stubborn layers to join the others in a heap on the floor beside him. If he was going to tell the story, he couldn’t stop now. “Yes, something happened to them.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Earl hadn’t talked about this to anyone. Not ever. But there, with the kindly mission director listening, it was time. He drew a slow breath and let the details come.
On December 22 that year, most of their gifts had been wrapped and placed beneath the tree. Anne and Earl still had shopping to do, but Molly was adamant about going out to dinner and taking a drive to see Christmas lights. Usually the three of them waited until after Christmas to check out local displays.
Earl cast Anne a questioning glance and shrugged.
“Why not?” She grinned at their daughter. “Shopping can wait. Maybe your grandpa and grandma would like to come.”
“That’s okay.” Earl’s father grinned at them. “You young people go and have a good time.”
At six o’clock that evening they set out. The night was cool and clear; a million stars fanned out across the winter sky. They were two blocks away from home when it happened.
One moment Earl was driving his family through an intersection. They were all talking at once, pointing at lights and laughing about something Molly had said. When suddenly, in the blink of an eye, Earl saw a truck the size of a freight train barreling toward them.
“Noooo!” Earl’s piercing shout stilled the laughter just as the truck made impact. For what felt like minutes, they were surrounded by the deafening sound of twisting metal and breaking glass. Their car was spinning, flying through the air. Then, finally, it jolted to a stop, leaving a bone-chilling silence.
Earl’s legs were pinned beneath the dash. His breathing was shallow and choppy and at first he couldn’t find the wind to speak.
“Anne … Molly … ” His words were the dimmest of whispers. Inch by inch, he forced himself to turn until he could see Anne beside him. Her head was hanging strangely to one side. Blood trickled from her mouth and ear. “Anne!” This time his voice shook the car. “Anne, honey, wake up!”
There was a moaning in the backseat and Earl fought the pain to twist around. “Molly? Sweetheart, are you okay?”
She was silent. Then Earl noticed something that turned his stomach. Her head wasn’t right. The entire right side was flatter than before. “Somebody, help us! Please!”
Sirens sounded in the distance and Earl heard people running toward them. A man’s voice shouted at him. “Hang on, in there. Help’ll be here any minute. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Earl wanted to shout at the man that no, it wasn’t ok
ay. His girls were hurt. He needed to check on Anne, make sure she was breathing. But black dots clouded his vision. The man outside the car began to fade and Earl realized he was fainting.
No, he ordered himself. Not now. The girls need me. Then with a final burst of strength he reached out and took hold of Anne’s fingers. “Anne … ”
It was the last word he said before blacking out. When he woke up the next day he was in a hospital, desperate to find his family. Within an hour he knew the awful truth.
Anne had died on impact, and Molly was on life support. Her brain waves were completely gone, but doctors wanted to wait. In case Earl woke up in time to say good-bye.
His own injuries were life threatening, but he insisted they wheel him in to see his daughter. He was holding her hand when her heart stopped beating, and with it, every reason Earl had to live …
Again the memories lifted.
Tears spilled from Earl’s eyes onto his old parka as he searched D.J.’s face. “I buried them the day after Christmas.”
The mission director placed his hand on Earl’s shoulder and said nothing. For a long while they stayed that way, while Earl quietly cried. “I’m sorry. It still hurts like it was yesterday.”
“Take your time.”
Earl closed his eyes and finished the story.
The night after the funeral, despite his breaking heart, Earl had opened his presents. He did so in the quiet of the night, long after his parents were asleep. Among the practical store-bought things were two gifts wrapped in white tissue paper—the symbol he and the girls had used over the years to designate the gifts that were homemade. He opened the one from Molly first.
It was a framed painting she’d worked on at school, a picture of the manger scene that was eerily similar to the one Gideon had drawn for him. Above it was scribbled this message: “Daddy … you make every Christmas beautiful.”
Earl had stared at it, run his fingers over the glassed drawing, and wept as he hadn’t since the accident. All of his hopes and dreams for the future had been caught up in that one girl. How was he supposed to live without her?
Finally, he opened the package from Anne.
Inside were the red gloves—lovingly knit with heavy wool and tiny stitches. They were lined for warmth, and Earl held them like they were made of glass. How had she found time? Another wave of tears filled his eyes and he ached for her, ached for one last chance to tell her he loved her. One last day together.
When he could summon the strength, Earl lifted the gloves and studied her handiwork and attention to detail. Sweet Anne. How careful she’d been to keep them a secret. Slowly, carefully, he buried his face in the red softness, and deep within the fibers of the wool he could smell her. Smell the woman he’d loved since he was a boy.
The woman he had lost forever.
Earl had hidden the gloves beneath his pillow. Every night after that he nestled his face against them as he fell asleep. Breathing in the smell of her, dreaming she was still there beside him.
In the weeks after the accident details began to surface. The truck had experienced brake failure. The driver had done everything he could to keep from hitting Earl’s car, but the accident was inevitable. A week later an attorney contacted Earl about a class-action lawsuit.
“The truck was owned by a multimillion-dollar company. This is the tenth accident where one of their fleet lost its brakes. Each time the brass has looked the other way and done nothing.” The man hesitated. “The company deserves to be punished.”
Earl agreed, but he was hardly interested. Over the next four months the attorney built his case against the company, carefully contacting each of the other victims and their families. Earl paid no attention; he was hurting too badly, caught up in a pain he had never experienced before. Each morning he would shower, dress, and look for work. But every step, each breath, was an effort. The tragedy of what had happened to Anne and Molly was so agonizing that at times Earl came back to his parents’ house after lunch, unable to last another hour.
Finally, in June, the suit against the truck company wrapped up. A verdict was handed down: The corporation was guilty as sin. It was ordered not to operate until a brake inspection and all necessary repairs had been performed on the entire fleet.
“What this company allowed was an abhorrent act of negligence,” the judge said at the verdict.
The judgment was more than the attorney hoped for. After everything had been divided between the plaintiffs, Earl received two million dollars for the unnecessary deaths of Anne and Molly.
With the legal victory, Earl had expected to feel relief from the constant hurt of missing his girls. Their deaths were not in vain, after all—no one else’s mother or daughter or wife would die as a result of that company’s negligence.
But there was no relief whatsoever.
When the check for Earl’s money arrived in the mail, he drove to the bank, opened a savings account, and deposited the entire amount. He wanted nothing to do with it. The check was blood money—money bought and paid for with the lives of Anne and Molly.
That night back at his parents’ house he knew it was over.
He could no longer play the game, no longer get up each morning pretending there was a reason to live, a reason to come home at the end of the day. If not for his parents he would have bought a gun and ended his life. Certainly he wanted to die. Wanted it more than anything. But he was afraid to kill himself, afraid such a move might hurt his chances at getting into heaven.
And getting into heaven was his only hope of seeing Anne and Molly again.
But if he couldn’t kill himself, at least he could stop living. Stop pretending.
As his parents slept that night he reached under his pillow and pulled out the red gloves. He still slept with them near his face, pretending he could smell Anne within the fibers, though her gentle scent had long since faded. In the closet he found an old duffel bag and filled it with a few jeans and T-shirts, a raincoat, a pair of boots, and the red gloves. Then he opened his wallet, slipped a photograph of Anne and Molly inside, and shoved it in his pocket.
For the next hour he took a final look at the house he’d grown up in, the box of artwork Molly had made for him, the photographs that lined the walls. It was over, all of it. Earl’s injuries had healed by then, but the man he’d been had died right there on the street beside Anne and Molly.
He scribbled a note to his parents telling them not to look for him. “I can’t do this anymore,” he wrote them. “Forgive me. I love you both.”
An hour later he was at the train station and by the next morning he was halfway to Portland.
“I had planned to find a quiet place where no one knew me, sit down, and wait for death.” Earl stared out the window of the mission. “But it didn’t work that way.”
D. J.’s voice was kind. “It usually doesn’t.”
“It took me a while to get smart about the streets. They stole my wallet, my clothes, my sack. Over time I lost just about everything from my old life. But not the red gloves. Never them.” Earl shifted his gaze back to the mission director. “Until this past November. Someone found me under a tarp and took them off my hands while I slept.”
“Ah, Earl. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
Earl fumbled in his pockets, his eyes locked on D.J.’s. Then he pulled out the red gloves and held them up. “These are the gloves. At least I think they are. They look … exactly the same.”
The mission director stared at them for a moment. “I don’t understand.”
“Me, either.” Earl lifted the gloves higher. “This is the gift I got from Gideon.”
Confusion spread across D.J.’s face. “The gloves your wife made?”
“I think so. They don’t have her initials, but they’re the same in every other way.” Earl let the gloves fall slowly to his lap. “That child couldn’t have possibly known what they would mean to me. I still can’t imagine where she found them. But I know this: Her gift saved my life. She made me
want to live again.”
“And now? Now you want to help Gideon? Is that right?”
Earl could feel the sorrow lining his face. “That little girl loved me. For no reason at all she loved me.” He swallowed, searching for the right words. “The gift she gave— I can’t explain it but it was a miracle.”
D.J. nodded. “I have no doubt.”
“You know what she said?” Earl’s tone was filled with awe. “She told me Christmas miracles happen to those who believe.”
A smile eased the sadness in D.J.’s eyes.
“She told me about her perfect Christmas, and then she said none of that would matter if she could get a Christmas miracle.”
“That’s Gideon.”
“Well.” Earl drew a deep breath. “Sounds like Gideon could use a miracle about now.”
The mission director was choked up, touched by Earl’s story. “Your money—is it still in the bank?”
“All of it.” Earl reached down, untied his boot, and lifted the insole. From underneath he pulled out a worn bankbook and tossed it onto the desk. “I haven’t looked at it since I left home.” He leaned back. “I couldn’t bear to spend it. Not when it was Anne and Molly’s blood money. Not for anything in the world.” Earl shrugged, the pain in his soul deeper than the ocean. “Besides, what good was money with my family gone?”
“Unbelievable. I never would have guessed.”
“The point is, now I know how I can use it.”
For the next two hours the men worked out a plan. When they were finished, D.J. helped Earl find clean clothes and shoes. Before lunchtime they set out with two activities in mind.
Banking. And shopping.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gideon wasn’t getting better.
Brian hated to admit it, but the truth was obvious. Gideon was pale and weak and it seemed she grew worse by the hour. It was the day before Christmas and they were gathered in her hospital room, searching desperately for a way to make the moment feel happy.