Johnny Mackey at the Mackey Funeral Home had been planning Sam Gardner’s funeral since he’d first learned of Sam’s impending death two weeks before, when Frank had phoned to tell him.
“We’re hopin’ he’ll make it through to Christmas. Probably lookin’ at a funeral on the twenty-ninth or thirtieth,” Frank told him, his voice catching.
Johnny was beside himself with worry, fretting how best to accommodate the flood of mourners who would mark Sam’s passing. It was a week from Christmas, and he’d spent an entire morning rearranging the chairs for the anticipated crowds. He’d rolled the caskets out of their display room and into the garage to make room for additional grievers.
The Wednesday before Christmas, in the late afternoon, he drove his truck to the meetinghouse to borrow a hundred folding chairs, a delicate undertaking since he wasn’t supposed to know of Sam’s illness. He hoped Sam wouldn’t pry, but had no such luck.
“What in the world do you need a hundred chairs for?” Sam asked.
“Uh, well, Sam, it’s like this. We’re having a family reunion, and it’s going to be at the funeral home.”
“I thought you had your family reunions in the summer at the park.”
“Just wanted to do things a little different this year,” Johnny Mackey said.
“Well then, help yourself.”
Johnny hesitated in the doorway, looking slightly embarrassed. He cleared his throat. “Say, Sam, could you give me a hand carrying ’em out to the truck?” He felt guilty asking Sam to carry chairs for his own funeral, but when a man is pushing eighty and his knees are shot with arthritis, he doesn’t have the luxury of pride.
Sam carried the chairs up from the basement four at a time, while Johnny counted them off and fiddled with his pipe.
“Eighty down, twenty to go,” Johnny said, an aromatic swirl of pipe smoke whirling around his head.
On the last haul, a chair slipped from Sam’s grasp and when he moved quickly to grab it, he felt something give in his back, deep in his bones, and down he went, doubled over in pain.
“Think you can get ’em the rest of the way up the stairs?” Johnny asked, looking on.
Sam dragged them up, one by one, then hobbled home past the town’s citizenry, all of whom were now shocked by his precipitous decline—bald and bent and moving like Pa Kettle.
“I can’t bear to look at that man,” Kathy at the Kut ’n’ Kurl said while coloring Karen Grant’s hair. “It just breaks my heart.”
“I was the one who diagnosed him,” Karen said. “The exact same thing happened to a man in Dubuque. I read about it in Midwest Romance, and I told Barbara he was dying.”
“I shook hands with him last Sunday at church, and his hands were all red and raw and they had patches of skin gone,” Opal Majors volunteered from underneath the hair dryer.
“Dale said the exact same thing,” Dolores Hinshaw said. “He thinks he has leprosy.”
Opal unconsciously wiped her hand on her dress.
“I guess he’s been getting treatments every Wednesday,” Karen noted.
“For all the good it’s doing, he might as well stay home and spend his last days with his family,” Opal said.
Spurred on by this human tragedy, they recalled other grisly deaths they had encountered over the course of their lives and left the Kut ’n’ Kurl immensely cheered by their own good health, except for Opal Majors, who rushed home and phoned Dr. Neely to see whether or not leprosy was contagious.
By the time Sam reached home, the pain had abated somewhat, though he still couldn’t walk upright. He staggered in the kitchen door and bellowed for his wife. He lurched into the living room and collapsed on the couch just as she entered the room.
She sat on the floor beside him, stroking his stubbled head, barely able to speak.
“It’s my back. I was helping Johnny Mackey carry chairs and I got twisted around and my back gave out.”
It would be like this, she knew that now. Just the other day, in the produce aisle at the Kroger, Karen Grant had, with an uncanny prescience, described his last days. “Barbara, he’ll get brittle on you and start snapping bones. That’s how it always ends. By the time they die, they’re like a lump of Jell-O.”
“Do you want me to call Dr. Neely and get him over here?” she asked.
“Naw, it’ll work its way out. It always has before.”
He rolled off the couch and made his way across the room to the doorway, raising himself up along the doorjamb, hand over hand, until he could grasp the top of the door frame. He raised his legs and dangled in the doorway, twisting this way and that until his backbone realigned itself with a satisfying pop!
“Whew! Much better.”
But Barbara was not consoled and knew that Sam’s relief was temporary at best, a brief respite from the pain that would eventually reduce him to a vestige of his former self.
He swung his arms back and forth, then stretched. “Glad to be done with that,” he said.
“Why don’t you stay home for the rest of the day?” Barbara pleaded.
“Wish I could, honey, but I’ve got to get some things done.”
Christmas was a scant five days away, and he and Frank were only half finished with the scrapbook.
“Will you be home for supper?”
“Probably not. I’ll be going to my Wednesday night men’s group. I’ll just grab something on the way. Mind if I take the car?”
“Of course not.”
He kissed her good-bye. She clung to him, her hold on him a lingering one. He hugged her back.
“I love you. You know that, don’t you?” she asked him.
“I love you too, honey.”
“I’ll be thinking of you tonight. I’ll wait up for you.”
Women sure are funny, Sam thought, driving back to the meetinghouse. A month ago she was so mad she’d hardly speak to him, and now she was fawning all over him. Oh well, might as well enjoy it.
Frank was waiting for him at the office.
They spent the next five hours, until nine o’clock, affixing pictures onto the scrapbook sheets, arranging the letters, and applying a variety of stickers and borders.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” Sam said.
“It sure is nice. Wish I could be there to see her face when she gets it,” Frank said wistfully.
“No reason you can’t be,” Sam said.
“You mean it?”
“Sure, come on by. I’ll wait until you’re there before I give it to her.”
Sam paused and thought for a moment, then grinned. “Hey, I got an idea. The boys get us up pretty early and we exchange gifts around seven, then have a nice breakfast around nine. Why don’t I run over to Kivett’s and get her some pot holders and wrap them up and give them to her first thing in the morning and she’ll think that’s her present. Then you come for breakfast and I’ll give her the scrapbook after we’ve eaten.”
“You sure I wouldn’t be in the way?”
“Not at all,” Sam assured him. “It’ll be fun. Besides, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even have had a scrapbook to give her.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. You’d have figured it out eventually,” Frank said, now in an expansive mood.
Sam glanced at his watch. “Say, I better get going. Barbara’s waiting up for me.”
“Think she has any idea?”
Sam pondered Frank’s question. “I haven’t told anybody. Have you?”
“Not a soul,” Frank promised, raising his right hand.
“This is the best gift I’ve ever given her,” Sam said. “I only wish I had thought of it sooner. I hope she likes it.”
It was all Frank could do not to break down. Here Sam was, dying by the inches, facing his last Christmas, and uppermost in his mind was his wife’s happiness. He stood and embraced Sam, patting him on the back. “She’s gonna love it, buddy. Don’t you worry about that. She’ll treasure it forever.” His eyes filled with tears, and he wiped them away hastily before Sam could notice.
On his way home, Sam stopped by Kivett’s Five and Dime just as Ned Kivett was locking the front door.
“What can I do for you, Sam?”
“Oh, just wanted to pick up a little something for Barbara. But I can see you’re closing up shop. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
Sam’s back was starting to ache again. A slight spike of pain caused him to wince. Ned’s heart sank. He’d known Sam since he was a child, and now this. At this rate, Sam probably won’t even be around tomorrow, Ned thought. He unlocked the door. “Sam, I’m never closed for you. You take all the time you need.”
I love Christmas, Sam thought happily. Everybody’s so nice to each other.
“Thank you, Ned. I’ll only be a minute.” Sam walked back to the notions department, where the pot holders and dish towels were kept. On the shelf above the pot holders were the pelican sponge holders, one of which he’d purchased the year before. Next to them were a flock of pink porcelain flamingos. Sam picked one up and studied it.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, that’s real nice. It’s a ring holder. A lot of the ladies take their rings off when they’re washing dishes. See, they can just slide their rings right over the flamingo’s head and down its neck. The pelican and the flamingo are a set.”
“I got her the pelican last year.”
“The flamingo would make a nice addition,” Ned suggested. “The white and the pink look real good together.”
“I’ll get it,” Sam said.
“Got a real nice flamingo pot holder and dish towel set to go with it,” Ned said.
“Why not,” Sam said. “It’s Christmas only once a year.”
“Want me to have Racine gift-wrap that for you? No charge. She can deliver it to the meetinghouse. Save you a little trouble.”
“Sure, Ned. Thanks a bunch. I appreciate it.”
Ned reached out and grasped Sam’s hand. “I think you made a nice choice, Sam. Every time Barbara washes the dishes, she’ll think of you.” Ned struggled to keep his composure.
Sam tried to pay for the items, but Ned wouldn’t let him. “You just take care of yourself. That’s the only pay I need.”
He walked Sam to the door, patting his back, then hugged him, squeezing him extra hard until he remembered Sam’s feeble condition and loosened his grip.
When Sam arrived home, the boys were in bed and Barbara was asleep on the couch. There was a note on the kitchen table. Sam, I made you a pie. It’s in the refrigerator. Help yourself. It was coconut cream, Sam’s favorite, and he ate two pieces, thoroughly pleased with the affectionate turn in Barbara’s disposition. Coconut cream pie! He washed his plate and fork and then nudged Barbara awake. They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, and fell into bed. Sam fell asleep promptly.
Barbara lay beside him, watching him, already starting to feel the ache of loneliness when he’d be gone. She rubbed her hand tenderly over his nubby head. Maybe it was her imagination, but he appeared to be losing weight. I’ll make him another pie tomorrow, she vowed.
The next morning, he rose early, fed the boys their breakfast, and walked them to school, stopping by his parents’ house afterward for a cup of coffee. They were seated at the kitchen table, discussing their Christmas plans and making small talk.
“Say, been meaning to ask you something,” Sam’s father said. “I was down at the hardware store last week, and Uly Grant starts talking about you and all of a sudden he starts tearing up. Did you and him have a falling-out or something?”
“No, not that I know of.”
Of course, Sam’s parents knew nothing of his looming departure, since people were reluctant to bring up this painful matter in their presence.
“It’s the holidays, I think,” Sam’s mom said. “Everyone seems more emotional. Yesterday at the Kroger, Miriam Hodge hugged me right in front of the bacon.”
“Yeah, and Asa Peacock told me this past Saturday if I needed any help with anything, to let him know,” Sam’s father said. “Then he starts rubbin’ me on the back. Right there in the Co-op, in front of all the guys.”
“It’s the holidays,” Sam agreed. “Yesterday, Ned Kivett wouldn’t let me pay for the Christmas presents I got for Barbara.”
“What’d you get her?” Sam’s mother asked.
“A flamingo ring holder, with a matching dish towel and pot holder.”
His father whistled. “Pretty nice.”
“Got her something else too,” Sam said. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure,” they said in unison, then leaned forward. Sam knew for a fact they couldn’t keep a secret better than anyone else in town.
“So can I,” he said, with a laugh.
His father frowned. “That’s a terrible way to treat your parents.”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough. Why don’t you come over to the house for breakfast on Christmas morning? Around nine or so.”
“Anything to keep from cooking,” his mother said. “We’ll be there.”
Sam drank the last bit of his coffee, then set the cup in the sink. “Well, better go earn my keep.”
It was a pleasant morning, and in Sam Gardner’s little corner of the world, life was nearly perfect. The sun was up and shining, the television station was predicting six inches of snow on Christmas Eve, and after seventeen Christmases together, Sam was finally giving Barbara something she might actually like.
Preoccupied with thoughts of the Yuletide, he didn’t notice the sidewalk curb, and his foot rolled over the edge. He felt a fantastic bolt of pain flare in his foot, and he toppled to the pavement, coming to rest against the wheels of Kathy’s car. Kathy just the day before at the Kut ’n’ Kurl had been lamenting Sam’s deterioration.
She helped him to his feet and offered, over his strenuous objections, to drive him to the hospital.
“I’ll be all right. Just a little banged up, that’s all. I’ll be fine.”
It was all she could do not to cry. Twenty years in the haircutting business had acquainted her with human suffering, but this was too much. “Let me at least take you home.”
“No need. Besides, I’ve got to get my work done. If you could drop me off at the office, that’ll be fine.”
Against her better judgment, she delivered him to the meetinghouse, helped him inside, and turned him over to Frank, then hurried to the Kut ’n’ Kurl to inform her customers of Sam’s worsening condition. “I tell you, seeing him laying on the street, his head up against my car tire, it was all I could do not to break down right then and there.”
Even Bea Majors, who’d never really cared for Sam and was in that morning to have her eyebrows plucked for Christmas, felt a rare pang of sympathy. “I just don’t understand why the Lord doesn’t go ahead and take him,” she said, shaking her head and pondering anew the vagaries of divine mercy.