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The 13th Gift: Part Two
Joanne Huist Smith
A true Christmas story of a family suffering their darkest moments finding strength and love from a surprise Christmas miracle.December 1999: It was the Christmas season, but Joanne Smith was numb. She wished she could just go to sleep and wake up on December 26. No singing. No laughter. No shopping. She typically enjoyed the holidays, but this year she couldn’t celebrate. Her beloved husband of almost twenty years had died two months previously. What had once been a happy home was now devastated, leaving her and her three children drowning in grief.Until they were thrown a lifeline. Twelve days before Christmas, Jo was in the midst of rushing her kids to school, when she discovered a poinsettia sitting on her doorstep with a card, signed cryptically by her “true friends.” That seemingly small gift was the turning point for the Smith family, as over the course of the twelve days of Christmas, a new gift arrived daily. The mystery of the Christmas presents – specifically, the generosity and kindness behind them – worked its magic on the Smiths as the family knitted back together. They rose out of their grief and latched onto the hope they suddenly felt again: that with love, with community, and with family, even the most broken hearts can be mended.
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Copyright (#uc9def141-15fb-5f66-821d-8a6963f7b6f1)
HarperTrueLife
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First published by HarperTrueLife 2014
FIRST EDITION
Text © Joanne Smith 2014
Cover photo © Ttatty/Shutterstock, pkline/iStock,
Tsekhmister/iStock, claudio.arnese/iStock
Cover layout © Nupoor Gordon and HarperCollinsPublishers
A catalog record of this book is available from the British Library
Joanne Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008118112
Ebook Edition © December 2014 ISBN: 9780008118143
Version: 2014-11-24
Contents
Cover (#u0107fe18-86eb-5500-9ae8-3031ef7a2a6e)
Title Page (#u8d7ecd4a-0a16-56c0-93ff-3cc5476046f3)
Copyright (#ulink_db1b8c0f-206d-5d81-a54f-2896773285ad)
Chapter 7: The Seventh Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8: The Eighth Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9: The Ninth Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10: The Tenth Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11: The Eleventh Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12: The Twelfth Day of Christmas (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13: The 13th Gift (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
If you liked this, why not try …? (#litres_trial_promo)
Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)
Write for Us (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#uc9def141-15fb-5f66-821d-8a6963f7b6f1)
The Seventh Day of Christmas (#uc9def141-15fb-5f66-821d-8a6963f7b6f1)
The clock on the mantel chimes twice: two a.m. I stand at the window watching the darkened street, praying every time I see headlights creeping toward the house that they will be Ben’s. I have been worried ever since I saw the red car speeding through the intersection on the way home from Tom’s house.
There have been too many nights like this, with me waiting at the window, enforcing no consequences when Ben comes home way later than his midnight curfew. I’m so afraid of driving him further away from me that I stay mute, not giving my son what I know he needs—parenting and love.
Shame on me.
Since Rick’s death, I have been emotionally absent from our children, blind to Nick’s nightmares, unable to fill Megan’s need for Christmas. Ben is drifting, walking alone with his grief.
If someone had asked me how we were getting along a week ago, I would have said fine, under the circumstances. I work. Pay bills. The kids attend school. Most days, someone remembers to feed the dog and cat.
But we weren’t fine, and our true friends knew it.
Now I do, too.
I have been sleepwalking for more than two months, hardly conscious of a family falling apart. It wasn’t until I nearly stumbled over that poinsettia that I began to see how much my kids needed me.
My eyes are open now.
Thanks to our true friends, Momma Bear is back. My gusto for Christmas may not be the same as in years past, but my kids will know they are not on their own. We’ll order a pizza. I’ll buy a few presents, and we will decorate our tree, provided it thaws out.
I flip the porch light on and off to make sure it is working, then patrol the house, careful not to wake Megan and Nick, who went to bed hours ago. When I reach my own closed bedroom door, I hesitate. I haven’t been in there for weeks. My clothes hang on a rack in the laundry room. I sleep on the couch. I shower in the guest bathroom. Though I tell myself there is nothing to be afraid of, the room frightens me. I have not dusted in there or vacuumed since before October 8.
Placing my hand on the doorknob, I find myself wishing one of those true friends were here beside me now. The thought surprises me, and I don’t feel so alone. I was angry when we received that first gift, now I am curious about who they are and grateful for their attention.
This room is another demon they will help me conquer.
The hinges of the door squeak as I push it open. I peek inside from the safety of the hallway, where the chill of the room is already starting to creep.
I force myself to see what my children see every time I send one of them in here to fetch a blouse from the closet, or a necklace from my jewelry box. I always have an excuse not to go myself; tonight, as I wait for my son to come home, there are no more excuses.
A thick layer of dust covers the pine frame of our king-sized waterbed. The fitted sheet Rick died on is still tucked around the mattress. His too-small slippers, with the smashed-down heels, sit next to the bathroom door. The gym bag my husband planned to pack for his hospital stay stands empty in the corner.
It is as if the room is waiting.
I tug the sheet off the bed, the pillowcases, the blankets, and stuff them into the gym bag. They will go, unwashed, to Goodwill. I fetch one of the boxes Megan emptied of Christmas decorations from the family room and carry it upstairs. The old slippers go in first, then I thin out Rick’s closet of everything except his favorite sweaters. Those I leave hidden among my own clothes. Rick’s watch, Swiss Army knife, key chain, and wedding ring go into the bottom of my jewelry box, keepsakes I will give to our kids someday. I find something else that needs to go; flushing the contents of four bottles of Rick’s heart medication down the toilet seems an appropriate end. I toss the containers in the trash.
In less than half an hour, I have erased Rick’s presence from the room. I have no idea what to do with the waterbed. I will never sleep on it again. I draw a heart in the dust with my finger on the top of its wooden frame and print Rick’s initials inside it along with mine, then I wipe away the past with lemon furniture polish.
Tomorrow, I will ask Nick to help me drain the mattress. It’s just a piece of plastic, but even it holds Christmas memories.
I can still see Ben, Nick, and Meg rushing in here on Christmas mornings to join their dad and me on this bed. After a late night of assembling trains or bikes or remote-control cars, Rick and I were usually still dozing when our Smith herd charged into the room. Pumping our water-filled mattress with their hands and knees, our kids would create a tsunami that forced us from slumber.
Small gifts stuffed into their Christmas stockings—candy, comic books, hair ribbons, maybe a wristwatch or baseball cards—got opened on our bed, while Rick waited for his coffee to brew and I for the tea kettle to boil.
Everyone would be wearing new pajamas, a tradition I started when the kids were small and began begging to open one gift on Christmas Eve. Rick always demanded the kids put on warm socks and brush their teeth, before visiting Santa land downstairs in the family room, building their anticipation.
When I hear the front door open, I go downstairs to talk with my Ben. I leave the bedroom door open, hoping life will spill back into the room.
Ben stands in the entryway, leaning his back against the door. A car drives by, and its headlights cast a ray of light around the room. I see tears glistening on my child’s face. Mama Bear wants to step aside and let Mother Hen do the talking, but I think we each could use a dose of both.
“I’m glad you’re home.”
Ben jumps, startled. He wipes at his face with the sleeve of his coat.
“What are you doing up?”
“Waiting for you.”
“I’m tired. I need to go to bed.”
Ben walks toward the steps. His intent, I’m sure, is to escape to the basement.
I block his path and give him a hug.
“Neither one of us can go on like this, Ben.”
He tries to shake free, but I don’t let him.
“Not tonight, Mom. Please, not tonight.”
I pull back enough to look at his face, though he turns to avoid my gaze.
“I went to your uncle Tom’s this evening. I was stopped at Little Sugarcreek when a red car flew through the intersection.”
Ben doesn’t admit he was the driver, but guilt flashes like a neon sign from the muscles in his jaw.
“Hand over your car keys.”
“Mom …”
“Give them to me.”
Ben holds the keys in his fist, debating, and then drops them into my open palm. He will never know my fear at that moment, while I waited to see whether he would comply or defy me. His acquiescence gives me grit to keep going.
“Now sit,” I say. “You’re going to tell me what you’ve been up to tonight.”
We sit down on the couch. He says nothing.
“We can sit here all night,” I say, nudging his shoulder with mine.
The words spill out, slow at first and then building speed as if he were still driving the car.
“I had to get out of here,” he says. “I needed to drive. Robert came with me.”
“Where’d you go?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“You’re probably right.”
Ben tells me he kept a close eye on the speedometer as he cruised residential streets toward the hills on Little Sugarcreek Road. Out in the country, the hum of the car engine turned into a roar.
“I could drive that road with my eyes closed,” he says. “I must have driven it one hundred times with Dad.”
Ben tells me that he and Robert rolled down their windows and let blasts of wet December wind smack their faces.
“When the car jumped over the first hill, I felt like I was flying,” he says. “We were screaming this song.”
“Pantera. Great Southern Trendkill,” I say.
“Yeah, from that album. How’d you know?”
“I heard it.”
