The morning of Christmas Eve found Sam Gardner asleep in his living room recliner unable to negotiate the stairs to his bedroom. After two days of seeing Sam hobble around, Barbara had insisted he visit Dr. Neely, who’d referred him to Dr. Osborn, the town veterinarian and owner of the only X-ray machine in town.
“Congratulations, Mr. Gardner,” Dr. Osborn told him, while studying the X-ray film. “There are twenty-six bones in the human foot, and you’ve broken three of them. But it could be worse.”
“What could be worse than this?” Sam asked glumly.
“Just last week I had a horse with a similar break, and we had to put him down.”
“Guess there’s a bright side to everything,” Sam said.
He shipped Sam back over to Dr. Neely’s office, where his foot was put in a cast.
“I want you off your feet until after Christmas,” Dr. Neely ordered. “Avoid stairs if at all possible. Don’t want you falling and breaking your neck. I want you back here the first week of February and we’ll take another look at it. If we can, we’ll remove the cast then. If not, you’ll need to wear it a few more weeks.”
It was Sam’s fourth day in the recliner, and he was crazy with boredom.
“The worst thing is, I won’t get to see the progressive Nativity scene,” he grumbled on Christmas Eve morning.
“I thought you said it was stupid and you wished Dale wouldn’t do it,” Barbara pointed out.
“I still like seeing everyone,” Sam said. “And I’ll miss the hot chocolate and cookies.”
He spent the day watching television, which didn’t improve his mood. Barbara made him his favorite lunch, tomato soup and grilled cheese, then gave him a back rub until he fell asleep with a slight, whiffling snore.
When he woke at six o’clock, a light snow was beginning to fall. It was dark outside and he could see the snowflakes fall against the ligh of the streetlamp in front of their home.
His suffering cast a pall over their home; his sons were avoiding him as if he were week-old roadkill, so foul was his mood.
At six thirty, their doorbell rang. “Go away,” Sam yelled from his chair.
There was a loud clatter of activity in the front hallway. Sam could hear Frank the secretary laughing and his sons pleading for a ride.
“What’s going on in there?” Sam yelled.
“Come on, Sam. We’re going to see the progressive Nativity scene,” Frank said, pushing a wheelchair into the living room. “Look what Johnny Mackey loaned me.”
Barbara was standing in the doorway, verging on tears, contemplating what she suspicioned would be her husband’s last Christmas.
Frank eased Sam from his recliner and steadied him as he hopped to the wheelchair. Barbara arranged his jacket around him, pulled a stocking cap over his pale head, then draped a blanket over his legs to protect the cast from the snow.
“Now all I need is to be hooked up to an IV so I’ll look completely like an invalid,” he muttered under his breath.
The boys ran to the front closet to retrieve their coats. Frank led the way, pushing the wheelchair, with one son on Sam’s lap and the other holding the door open. They rolled out onto the front porch, bumped down the three steps and wheeled their way up the sidewalk, toward Uly Grant’s house, the first stop of the progressive Nativity scene.
“This sure is nice of you, Frank,” Sam said, slightly cheered by the change of scenery.
“Remember that when it comes time for my annual review,” Frank said.
There was a crowd of Harmonians gathered on the sidewalk in front of Uly Grant’s home, peering at the Baby Jesus, who was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger.
The crowd parted as Sam approached, and Frank wheeled him to the front. People clucked their tongues sympathetically, then turned away, unable to bear the sight of their beloved pastor in what appeared to be his last days.
“What’s that sign say?” Frank asked, squinting, pointing at a sign hanging directly over the Blessed Infant.
Sam peered at the sign. Mattress Compliments of Bud’s Mattress City! Mattresses Fit for a King! And the King of Kings!
Sam groaned.
“Pretty sweet deal,” Dale Hinshaw exclaimed, coming up behind him. “Got a free mattress, plus Bud donated all the hot chocolate, in exchange for putting up his sign.”
Dale leaned closer to Sam. “What’s Dr. Neely saying?”
“First week of February at the earliest. Maybe a few weeks past that, but no later.”
Dale gasped. Though he’d never been an ardent supporter of Sam’s, he certainly didn’t wish him ill. He hurried home to inform his wife, pausing along the way to confirm everyone’s deepest fear, that Sam was not long for this world. “Middle of February, tops,” he announced to clusters of people, drawing his finger across his throat.
After viewing the Christ child, Frank and the Gardners made their way to Bea Majors’s driveway to see Mary and Joseph, from there to Mabel Morrison’s home to observe the wise men, then on to Dale’s to view the shepherds abiding with their flocks.
Everywhere they went, they were greeted with kindly gestures and muffled sobs. They pushed on toward the meetinghouse, leaving a crowd of weeping citizens in their wake.
The hot chocolate was superb. Fern Hampton poured a mug for Sam, while Miriam Hodge presented him with a plate of chocolate chip cookies, warm from the oven. A strand of melted chocolate draped over his lower lip. He licked at it contentedly.
Sitting in the church basement, surrounded by his family and friends, Sam was as happy as he had been in months, which made everyone else all the more miserable as they marveled at his bravery in the face of certain death.
They stayed another hour, then Frank wheeled him home through the falling snow.
“What a perfect Christmas Eve,” Sam announced as they drew close to home. “Can’t thank you enough, Frank.”
Frank patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t mention it, little buddy. I’m glad I could do it.”
He pushed Sam inside and deposited him in his recliner. “Johnny Mackey said you can use the wheelchair for as long as you need it.”
“Tell him I appreciate it,” Sam said. “I shouldn’t need it very long.”
Frank bit his hand to keep from crying.
Sam arranged himself in the recliner for a night’s sleep. Barbara fussed over him, adjusting his blankets and plumping his pillow, then retired to their bed upstairs. She didn’t sleep for worrying about Sam and finally rolled out of bed at six to begin cooking. By seven the boys were up and ripping through their presents, and by seven fifteen they were sprawled on the living-room floor in a gift-induced haze.
Sam watched on from his recliner, happy and amused by his sons. Barbara presented him with a genuine mother-of-pearl pocketknife. “I got it from the hardware store. Uly had to special order it.” Sam loved pocketknives and was exceedingly pleased.
He reached underneath his blankets, pulled out a gift-wrapped package, and presented it to her. She smiled. “You did a wonderful job wrapping it.”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling modestly, forgetting to mention Racine Kivett had wrapped it.
She pulled the pink porcelain flamingo from its box and studied it curiously.
“It’s a ring holder. The rings go over its head and down its neck,” he explained. “It goes with the pelican sponge holder I gave you last year.”
“So it does. And look, a matching pot holder and dish towel,” she said, pulling them from the box.
Sam beamed from his recliner.
“Thank you, honey.” She stood and leaned over him, kissing the top of his bristly head.
Frank and Sam’s parents arrived a little before nine and even though Sam had forgotten to tell Barbara he’d invited them, she took it in good stride, it being Sam’s last Christmas and all.
By ten thirty they had finished eating and had washed the dishes, threw away the wrapping paper, and were stretched out in the living room, as bloated as ticks.
Sam could hardly stand it. Four months of hard work and sacrifice—glue in his hair, his hands scrubbed red and raw, the utter humiliation visited upon him by Mrs. Hilda Gruber, the scorn heaped on by his fellow scrapbookers. But it had all been worth it. And now his moment in the sun had arrived, his fifteen minutes of gift-giving fame.
“Say, Levi,” he said to his older son, “I think I forgot to give your mommy one of her presents. Is there something under the couch?”
Levi lifted the skirt of upholstery at the bottom of the couch and fished a substantial box out from underneath it.
“Well, would you look at that,” Sam said. “I nearly forgot it.”
Frank looked on, on the verge of rupturing he was so excited.
“This is for me?” Barbara said, holding it in her lap and raising it up and down to judge the weight of it.
“Yours and no one else’s,” Sam said proudly.
She untied the ribbon and peeled off the tape. Sam was a big believer in tape, and it took her a while. She pulled back the wrapping and studied the scrapbook, a bit puzzled. She opened the first page and gasped, then turned the page. She began to cry. “Oh, Sam. This is wonderful. Just beautiful. Who did this for you?”
“What do you mean who did it? I did it,” Sam said, with no small amount of pride.
“I helped some too,” Frank said, unable to contain himself.
She continued turning the pages. “Oh, here are the boys. And here I am, just a little kid. Where’d you get that picture?”
“Your mom sent some up.”
“Oh, Sam. This is the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten. This was so thoughtful.”
“He’s a chip off the old block, that’s for sure,” Sam’s dad said.
“Yep, it took lots of Wednesday nights, but I finally got it done,” Sam said.
It took a moment for Sam’s comment to register with Barbara. She looked up from her scrapbook. “What did you say?”
“I said it took a lot of Wednesday nights, but I finally got it done,” Sam repeated.
“You weren’t going to a men’s group?”
“No, sorry, honey. Didn’t like lying to you, but I had to keep it secret. I was taking a scrapbooking class in Cartersburg.” He paused, weighing whether he should reveal the sordid details, then decided to make a clean sweep of things. “But I had a small accident with some glue, got it stuck in my hair. That’s why I had to get my hair cut. And Hilda Gruber, she was the teacher, she threw me out, so Frank helped me finish.”
“I learned how to scrapbook from my daughter and granddaughters,” Frank volunteered. “They’re taking a class in it.”
“You weren’t in a men’s group?” Barbara asked again.
“Nope.”
“Do you have cancer?” she asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Sam answered, genuinely puzzled by her questions.
“Are you sick at all?”
“My foot hurts a bit, but I’ll be okay.”
“You feel perfectly fine?” she asked.
“If I was any better, I’d be twins,” Sam said, smiling.
“Sam Gardner, I could throttle you.” She spoke each word clearly and distinctly, in a way eerily reminiscent of Mrs. Hilda Gruber. Then she began to cry. “Sam, I thought you were dying. I thought you were going to the hospital for treatments on Wednesday nights.”
Sam’s father began to cackle. His wife cuffed him upside the head. “Shame on you. Barbara’s been worried sick. That’s not funny.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Sam’s father said, composing himself. “Sam, you oughta be ashamed of yourself. Worrying your wife like that.”
Frank stared at Sam, dumbfounded. “You mean I’ve been waiting on you hand and foot, fetching you hamburgers and coffee and aspirin, and here you are, healthy as a horse?”
“Don’t think I didn’t appreciate it,” Sam said. “It was awfully kind of you.”
“I should have stayed on strike,” Frank said glumly.
To his dismay, Sam’s declaration of health was received like a bucket of cold water in the face. The rest of the day passed slowly, with Sam in his recliner and Barbara sticking her head in the doorway every now and again to glare at him.
“Mommy’s really mad at you,” their son Addison reported midway through the day.
“Certain people around here wouldn’t be happy unless I were dying,” Sam yelled in Barbara’s general direction.
She chose not to dignify his comment with a response.
She went to bed at nine o’clock without telling him goodnight. A half hour later, he dragged himself up the stairs to their bedroom, letting his cast bump loudly against each step in hopes of waking her up. He dropped into bed beside her and lay still, except for an occasional exaggerated sigh.
He was determined not to be the first one to speak. Several minutes passed before he realized she was still asleep. He nudged her awake, then pretended to be sleeping.
“Sam, did you wake me up?”
“What?” He blinked his eyes and feigned confusion. “Were you talking to me?”
After seventeen years of marriage, she knew all his tricks. She punched him on the arm.
They lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling. Then she turned toward him, settling into the crook of his arm. She thumped him lightly on the chest. “You knucklehead. I thought you were dying.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Next time you think I’m dying, I’ll try to accommodate you.”
She flipped on the light beside her bed, reclined against the headboard, retrieved her scrapbook from the nightstand, and began thumbing through it with Sam.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she said.
“It was pure genius, if I do say so myself,” Sam said, fighting to be modest, but losing the battle.
He pulled her closer as she turned another page.
“Why did you put this picture in here?”
“Hey, not everybody gets crowned the Lawrence County Tenderloin Queen. I think you looked cute.”
“You don’t think I looked fat?” she asked.
“Not at all.”
“I wished I still looked like that,” Barbara said, studying the picture.
“Not me,” Sam said. “You were cute then. You’re beautiful now.”
“Oh, Sam.”
“So who else thinks I’m dying?” Sam asked. “Did you tell anyone?”
“Just Frank. He promised to keep it a secret.”
Sam sighed.
She pulled him to her and kissed him flush on the lips, which Sam assumed, correctly in this instance, indicated an appetite for more serious snuggling, which he endeavored, crippled as he was, to satisfy.
“So you liked your present?” he asked afterward.
“Yes, the flamingo was lovely.”
“I mean the scrapbook.”
“It’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten.” But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. The best gift was having him beside her.
“I knew you’d like it,” he said, smiling in the dark.
He fell asleep that way, in the trough of their double bed, the quilts stacked deep upon them, the wind rattling like death through the skeletal trees. Barbara laid her head against Sam’s chest, consoled by the sturdy thump-ka-thump of his heart.
She was too preoccupied to sleep. She pulled a quilt off their bed and, wrapping it around herself, sat in the rocker beside the window. Outside the snow began to fall again, the wind picked up, painting swirls of snow on the street and reshaping them a few seconds later with another gust, which Barbara thought somehow symbolized life. The winds of Providence blow where they will, and it’s wise to enjoy the loveliness while one can.