"Out on I-44, the girl checked her
fuel gauge. It read one-eighth a gallon until it hit empty, that pretty much
fit her emotional tank as well. “Well, Kandy…you’ve sure done it by now,” she
snapped at the rearview mirror for about the twenty-first time on this trip. Or
she would have snapped, if she’d had the energy to. “Denver kicked you out,
can’t get a job anyplace. Next to no cash, and all you’ve got is packed in this
car.” She checked on Tiffany in the backseat, still sleeping soundly in her car
seat.
Hmm. We’re in Missouri now,
somewhere past Joplin and I don’t think quite to Springfield…wonder how much
longer to Cincinnati? Will Mom and Dad even want
me back, or will they kill me? And…everybody else?
Replaying the journey of the long,
hard nineteen months kept her distracted, and the little red Kia shot off an
icy patch of asphalt, sending them into what was once a ditch, now mostly
covered in snowdrift, except for the part trampled on by the wayward vehicle.
They now had a very badly crumpled front end, a crushed front quarter panel,
and who knows what wrong under the hood. She checked again to make sure she was
still alive and unhurt, then looked at Tiffany. The baby was still asleep, with
no idea how close they might have come to dying. Seeing that, the shock finally
overcame the pent-up anxiety and frustration, and the young mother broke down,
bowing her head on the steering wheel, her frame shaking with sobs as the salty
tears coursed down her cheeks.
Colton and Tim set down a couple
armfuls of wet, cold firewood on the floor to dry off near the woodstove, then
sat down to listen to the others talking. Amanda, Hailey, Tony and Sunny were
conversing about something; Grace was wandering in and out of the living room,
Nate was in the kitchen, working on a batch of his famous brownies, and Becky
and Lizzie were upstairs somewhere.
“So, what should we sing next?”
Hailey asked the group. “How about ‘Silent Night?” somebody suggested.
“That sounds good,” Sunny agreed.
“Do you guys know the story behind
it?” Tony asked curiously.
“Yes, honey.” Amanda stated in a
tone of restrained warning.
“Yeah.” “We know it, Dad.” Colton
noticed Tim frowned and Hailey winced on Tony’s question.
“I don’t, would you mind telling
it?” Sunny asked politely. That didn’t help the Snows’ pained expressions.
“Of course!” Tony said happily,
ignoring the hopeless looks of his wife and offspring.
“It was December 23 in the small
village of Obendorf, Austria, in 1818,” he began. “and a very hungry little
grayish-brown mouse started chewing anything edible, including the old worn-out
leather bellows of the organ. He chewed a hole right through it, and it wasn’t
discovered until the next morning, when the organist, Franz Gruber, and the
temporary priest, Joseph Mohr, discovered a problem. They unhappily found the
hole, rendering the organ useless, and right before Christmas Mass, too.
“‘What do we do now?’ Gruber asked
hopelessly. ‘Well, um…I wrote some words for a song awhile back…’
“’A song acceptable for church?’
Franz asked his friend, smiling. Joseph liked to occasionally listen to the
so-called “sinful” secular music of the taverns and folk festivals, which some
people in his congregation didn’t like too much,” Tony pause to rekindle the
fire.
“Anyway, Franz looked at the
scribblings the priest had written, and he felt an odd excitement running
through him. ‘I just thought, since the organ won’t play, maybe you could write
some sort of tune for this that we could play on our guitars, so that the
children will have something to sing for the service?” Joseph asked his friend
apologetically. ‘Yes, I think I can do something with this…”
“Franz worked on it all night, and
magically the tune locked into place with the lyrics. He and Mohr taught it to
the kids the next afternoon. They sang to the accompaniment of the two guitars,
much to the annoyance of certain people, who didn’t think it holy enough.”
“So then what happened after that?”
asked Colton.
“Well, it caused a big ruckus for
about a month, because of the small-town gossip, but eventually everybody
forgot about it, and it would have been lost forever if the organ repairman
hadn’t heard about it when he came the next spring. He asked Gruber what they’d
done for music at Christmas, since Mohr had already moved on somewhere else,
and Franz told him about the improvised song.
“‘It wasn’t much, I don’t even know
where it is now. Wait –‘ They hunted through some old papers on a little-used
shelf and eventually found it. ‘Can I keep this?’ the repairman asked after
reading it over. ‘Sure, I don’t need it.’
“And so it spread from the tiny
village to the small city, and from there it spread across the country, and
then made its way all over the globe. All because of a mouse.” Tony finished.
They’d just gotten into the third
verse, Tony playing mandolin, Hailey guitar and Sunny piano, when the doorbell
interrupted. Tony went to answer it.
“Jim, Gail! Good to see ya. Power
out at your-all’s place?”
“Yep,” Jim nodded.
“Could we maybe stay here for a bit
until it comes back on?”
“’Course you can, Gail. You’re
family, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know, thanks to Amanda.
But with the holidays coming up, and then you all helping out that poor family
who’s house burned out, we weren’t sure.” They stepped inside, setting their
coats on the large pile that was sprawled all over the entryway.
“Hollidays, these are our neighbors
Jim and Gail Bell. Snows, looks like we’ll be having some more company for a
couple days,” Tony announced to everyone within earshot.
They could have been the model for
ideal grandparents. Jim was balding, slightly Santa-like in the stomach, and
looked good to talk to. Gail was shorter, with happy laugh wrinkles all over
her face. Tim and Jim immediately picked up where they left off a previous
conversation on photography, and Gail soon found a fellow dog lover in Becky.
Slightly crazy, yet good days
followed.
Not but about two hours later, the
doorbell rang yet again. “Never rains but it pours,” Tony muttered, opening the
door. Whoever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. A young lady in her early
twenties stood there almost frostbitten, covered with snow and holding a car
seat with a baby inside it in one hand.
“Can I – I’m sorry. My car broke
down. Can I use y’all’s phone?” she asked.
Tony looked at her. “Just a second,
please.” Quick glance-conversation with Amanda. “Sure…uh, won’t you come in?
Phone gets better reception in here.”
“He means, ‘Come on in from that
cold weather!” his wife called loudly from inside.
The girl bit her lip, then nodded
reluctantly.
Curious stares from around corners,
though everyone of too polite to ask. She took the phone, dialed a number, then
after a minute almost slammed it into the wall, things were just too much to
deal with. And it was busy.
“Damn it!” she whisper/cried in despondency, tears welling up -
again unwillingly – in her eyes.
“Cute baby you’ve got there,” Jim
commented, getting a glass of eggnog.
“Thanks, her name’s Tiffany.” the
girl responded.
“Jim Bell,” he introduced himself.
The girl snorted, something like a
laugh. “My name’s Kandy, Kandy Kane. Gets old, but this time of year, it’s
kinda fun.”
“Isn’t that something? This house
belongs to the Snows, my wife and I live next door, and their friends the
Hollidays are visiting.”
“Get out of here…seriously?”
“That’s right, kiddo.”
Tony walked back into the dining
room. “Um…sir?”
“Yes?”
“My folks didn’t answer…would it be
all right if I stayed here just until I could get a hold of them?”
“Don’t see why not. I’m Tony.” he
said, offering his hand to shake.
“Call me Kandy.”
“Another potato, Kandy?” Amanda
asked at dinner the next night.
“No, thanks, Mrs. Snow, I’m
stuffed.”
“I’ve told you already, it’s
Amanda!”
:”Okay…Amanda.”
“It was strange for us to get used
to, too.” Colton said.
“It’d be weird for us…” Tim picked
up the train of thought.
His mom just gave him that “You are
so grounded” look.
“You’re not too full for brownies,
are you?” Jim asked.
“I don’t think so, that sounds
really good.”
“They are. Thanks for makin’ ‘em,
Nate!” Hailey hollered from the living room. She walked back into the kitchen
to refill her cup of water. “So, um…what exactly happened? If you don’t mind my
asking,” she added quickly.
“Have you got a hold of your folks
yet?” Gail asked.
”One question at a time! Let her
finish chewing!” Nate hushed them.
Kandy swallowed, then said, “No,
not yet, and no; I don’t mind telling. I was driving to my parents’ in
Cincinnati, like I’ve said before, since it was so close to Christmastime.
Tiffany was in her car seat in the back, we’d been going nonstop since about
Sand Springs. I was a little tired. And I’ve had…a lot to think about. It
hasn’t exactly been the easiest year for me.” She took a drink of her Pepsi.
“Anyway, I wasn’t paying close enough attention, didn’t see a patch of ice in
the road. We slid off into the ditch, car’s pretty much totaled, and my cell
phone was dead. So I walked over to the nearest friendly-looking house, which
was your-all’s. And that’s pretty much it.” Her tone said clearly there was
much more, but this wasn’t the time to let everything go just yet.
Grace started tapping her fork against
the counter, causing a loud clatter. “Grace, stop that,” Amanda admonished.
“OK, Mom, just a minute.” She tapped several more times, then quit. “Well…okay,
thank you.”
Later,
Becky, Colton, Lizzie and Tim were playing rummy. Tim wanted to take a break,
having lost three times in a row by one card, and Becky went to get a snack.
Their siblings began a game of Speed until they returned.
“So why was Grace making all that
noise?” Colton asked.
Lizzie laughed. “Morse code. She
tapped STAY, like ‘Mom, Kandy can stay here for a while, right?”
“Oh, I see…that’s pretty cool.
“Yup. I win!”
“How-? HEY! No telling stories
during games of Speed!”
“Well, you shouldn’t ask questions
if you don’t want to lose,” Lizzie shot back. Although it was said with a
smile, it was true that she played anything to win, a trait that she and most
of her siblings inherited from their dad. It drove Amanda nuts.
“True,” Tim acknowledged, coming
back into the room.
“Yeah…I guess you’re right,” Colton
conceded grouchily.
“I brought some Doritos, anybody up
for some five-card poker?” Becky surveyed the others.
“For what?” Gail asked suspiciously
from the doorway, overhearing the last part of the previous sentence.
“Doritos, Spicy Nacho and Cool
Ranch.” answered Tim placidly.
“Well, then…deal me in!” Gail said
happily.
Lizzie shrugged and shuffled the
cards.
Christmas dawned, and with it,
joyful snippets of conversation.
“Wow. You really shouldn’t have
done that.”
“Well! Thanks, Tony!”
“Awesome, a new Mizzou hat!”
“Course, I had to get ya a Tigers
hat.” Nate grinned. “And here’s a box of Frosted Flakes.” Sunny added. Tony
just laughed and gave Nate a high five.
Hailey motioned Colton over. “Hey,
follow me a sec.”
“Uh, okay…” he replied, unsure of
why.
They went to her room, where one of
her guitars, the flaming orange one, lay on the bed. Hailey sat down and picked
it up, Colton found himself a chair at the desk.
“Thanks for staying here,” she
began. “I know it probably wasn’t easy, with…losing your house and everything.
And then having to stay in a house full of girls.” “You got that right.” There
was a pause.
“Seriously, though, you aren’t a
bad musician.”
“You think?”
“Yep. You should sing at the talent
share at camp next summer. You are coming,
right?”
“Probably. Becky’s talked about it
a lot, and now that I know some people, I think I might, yeah.”
“Glad to hear it. Might be easier
to play something, though, if you had something to play.”
Colton sighed. “Yeah…I’ll get a new
guitar sometime.”
“Here.” She held the guitar out to
him, only to be met with a blank stare.
“You don’t take a hint easy, do
you?” she smiled.
“I don’t think I quite follow…”
“I’m saying, try out your new
guitar.”
Tim raised his camera in the
doorway, making sure the settings were right, the flash was off. He got
Colton’s confused expression.
“No, that’s yours. Mine burned,
remember? Wait…Did you say -?” Tim snapped more as Hailey nodded. “Hailey, I
can’t take that. It was your grandpa’s.”
“Please, do. I want you to have
it.”
He was silent a minute.
“…Why?”
It was a small, insignificant word,
carrying an extremely wide range of questions, from “Why are you giving me
this?” to “Why did you all help us when the only one you knew was Becky?”
Hailey understood.
“Well…we’ve been thinking a lot
about those verses in Hebrews, 13:1-2, I think it is. You know the ones, ‘Keep
on loving each other as brothers, and do not forget to entertain strangers, for
by doing so some people have entertained angels unawares.’? It’s sorta like
that. And also like in Matthew, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these, you
did it for Me.’ It’s just…well, you guys needed help. So…” she shrugged.
“And besides…he would’ve liked you,
I think. He wanted me to play, and so I do. It…it’s not always easy. There’s
been spells when I can’t play at all. But he’s the reason why I play, to honor
his memory, I guess. An’ so…just…” Her thoughts trailed off, too much going on
for words to express themselves. She hugged her pillow tightly. Tim came in and
hugged his big sister a little awkwardly, unsure of what to do.
“Thanks, bro.”
“Well, hmm…Hey, Hailey?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you,” Colton whispered,
trying not to cry.
No comments:
Post a Comment