Down Home Carolina Christmas (18 page)

“No, it's worse. Try the ginger tea I made yesterday.”

“Did. Upset stomach,” Carrie said. The word
stomach
came out in a whisper, as if her vocal cords had quit completely.

“Would you like more ice? More anything?”

“Ice,” Carrie croaked, wrapping herself in the thick duvet and burrowing down into the pillows. She didn't want to watch TV. She didn't want to read. She didn't want to talk. She still wanted to die.

“I'm sorry you'll miss the candlelight service tonight,” Dixie said.

Carrie nodded, imagining the congregation's faces lit by candle glow as the choir sang Christmas carols. She and Dixie usually picked up Memaw and took her with them, then returned her home afterward, their parting cries of “Merry Christmas!” ringing out across the neighboring fields in the cool night air.

“You're almost out of aspirin. I'll bring you a fresh bottle when I drive Memaw home after church,” Dixie said.

“Okay,” Carrie whispered. “Thanks. Have fun.”

“We'll miss you.” With that and a cheery wave, Dixie left.

Carrie turned on the radio beside her bed and rationed out the remaining aspirin. She slipped in and out of sleep, envying Glenda, who by now was probably afloat off the coast of Florida and flirting with an elder-hunk dance host.

She wondered where Luke was. If he'd arrived in town yet. If he was enjoying the birthday celebration with his parents. Who else would be there. Whether they'd go to church, and if she had gone, whether she'd have had to sit in his presence aching for him and remembering how much she'd loved him.

Did love him. But that didn't matter anymore.

L
UKE FLEW
into Yewville after dark, his plane circling above the town before gliding in for a smooth landing. His father met him at the airport, and his mother was there, too. She looked well, better than the last couple of times he'd seen her. With them was Shasta, well behaved at the end of her leash, though that didn't stop her from nosing his hand for a treat. He hadn't forgotten. He'd brought a whole bag of special biscuits from a bakery in Santa Barbara that catered only to dogs.

Luke had persuaded his parents to skip the birthday party, told them he wouldn't arrive until too late. Both Ruth and Howell had accepted this, and he was relieved that no false conviviality was expected of him. His acting skills would extend only so far in his personal life, and he couldn't be enthusiastic about celebrating the birth date he shared with Carrie.

After leaving the tiny airport, they drove through the darkened streets toward the Allentown highway, with his father behind the wheel. Christmas decorations consisting of red-and-white candy canes and glittery wreaths decorated each reproduction vintage lamppost. Memorial Park had a charming illuminated crèche scene positioned to one side of the entrance, and the gazebo near the pond was strung with tiny white lights. The weather was cold enough for snow, his father said.

“But nothing like in New Hampshire,” his mother cautioned. “We're expecting a few flurries and they don't expect them to stick.”

“That's more than I would have seen in L.A.,” Luke joked, and his mother smiled. There was a time when she wouldn't have.

Ruth and Howell insisted that the three of them attend candlelight services at their new church. “I've been to a couple of circle meetings with Frances Smith,” Ruth said. “I liked all the people real well, and I think I'll join.”

Luke's spirits lifted, not only because his mother was settling in but because his father seemed happy. Besides, at the candlelight service, Luke would see Carrie. She'd told him that she went every year.

“I suppose Carrie still drops by every once in a while?” Luke ventured as they passed Smitty's, closed and dark but with a big wreath of fresh pine boughs on the door.

“Not lately,” Howell said thoughtfully. “She's tapered off for some reason.”

“She went on a cruise,” his mother contributed. “With my hairdresser, Glenda. They're probably sipping mai tais on board the
Caribbean Queen
right now.”

“Oh,” Luke said, spirits taking a nosedive from which he doubted they'd recover during his whole Christmas vacation. “When is the cruise over?”

“I don't have an appointment with Glenda until January 10,” Ruth said. “She'll be back by then.”

Luke would be in Paris on that date, scheduled to meet with the director of his new movie, a guy who had won a couple of awards in Cannes at one time. This would have been an exciting prospect, but it wasn't now. He was silent the rest of the way to his parents' house.

There wasn't time for Howell to show Luke the birds he'd carved out of scraps of wood to pass the time, and Ruth would have liked him to partake of the Lane cake she'd baked in honor of his birthday. She'd written his name on top in red icing, and she'd stuck in green candles. The recipe was one she'd acquired from Carrie's grandmother.

“We shouldn't be late for church,” Howell said, pulling on his gloves. “Let's get going.”

They headed out into the cold crisp air. Luke, his hopes of seeing Carrie dashed, didn't care if he went to church at this point or not, but he didn't know any way out. His parents were on a roll with this new community involvement of theirs, and he wouldn't derail their plans. More than anything, he longed for the three of them to function as a family again, and he knew his attitude was of major importance in getting them all back to normal.

Even though Carrie wasn't present, Luke surveyed the faces of the parishioners during the church service. He had no trouble identifying Hub and his family, and Hub nodded gravely at him in recognition. Memaw Frances held her hymn book right up in front of her face, sharing it with Claudia, and Jackson, Claudia's son, was ogling a couple of teenage girls sitting diagonally across the aisle from him. Then Luke spotted Carrie, and his heart leaped in recognition until he realized that it was not Carrie but Dixie. He tried to catch her eye, but she ignored him. Maybe she was bummed out because she believed he'd mistreated her sister, which, in retrospect, perhaps he had. Regret washed over him, a knowing that he'd held something precious in the palm of his hand and let it slip away.

As the sweet sound of carols filled the large hall, he engaged in a few moments of serious introspection. After Carrie handed him his walking papers, he hadn't believed he'd done anything wrong in regard to their relationship. Awash in self-righteousness, he told himself that he'd been honest with Carrie. He hadn't promised more than he was prepared to give, and he'd considered it unfair that Carrie expected better.

But was it? Now that he'd had time to mull over Carrie's position while far away from Yewville and everything it represented, it occurred to him that perhaps he'd been unreasonable. Maybe he'd been regarding the situation from a perspective that wasn't even valid.

Looking around at the families gathered—the mothers and fathers standing together, their children holding their hands or maybe carried in their parents' arms, everyone so warm and trusting—it seemed to Luke that maybe these people had the right idea. They tended to stay close to home, to keep family ties intact. To be there for one another through whatever happened to them, loyal, supportive and loving no matter what.

He hadn't done that in his own nuclear family, and though running away from Garrett Falls had started him on his way to a fulfilling and lucrative career, for a while he'd almost severed his ties with his parents completely. He glanced at Ruth, whose expression as she sang “Silent Night” was beatific, and at Howell, whose arm was curved around his wife. His father noticed him watching and placed his free hand on Luke's shoulder.

Luke was overcome with emotion. It had been so long since they'd stood together like this, joined together in love. Unbidden tears sprang to his eyes, and he thought of his sister. Sherry, the most kind and loving of little girls, would be pleased that the family had melded again. A kind of peace settled over him. He felt reconnected with his soul, and he hadn't even known he'd lost it before now.

When the service was over, when everyone was pushing toward the exits, Luke found himself beside Dixie. He hadn't planned it. Suddenly Dixie was just there, though only a few moments ago she'd been moving toward a different door.

“Merry Christmas, Dixie,” he said, and her head snapped around.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” she replied courteously, but he could read nothing more into the greeting than that.

They both took a few more steps before Luke said, “How's Carrie?”

“Sick,” Dixie said. “Sick as can be.”

This concerned him. “I heard she was on a cruise.”

Dixie shook her head. “At the last minute, she had to cancel. She caught the flu.”

“So she's home?”

Dixie nodded, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do you ask?”

“I wanted to wish her a happy birthday,” he said. It was a lame excuse, though certainly true. Plus, maybe if he saw her sick, her nose all red from blowing it and her hair matted from lying in bed all day, she'd seem less attractive to him. Maybe he would be able to relegate her to the past and forget all about her beautiful body and their wonderfully orchestrated lovemaking in all sorts of positions and places, like the old Skyline Drive-in.

Dixie seemed to be considering. “I was going to drop her off a bottle of aspirin when I drive Memaw home. Maybe you could take it by.”

“Maybe I could,” he said, though his heart flipped at the prospect.

Dixie regarded him, a carefully measured glance. “She may not be happy to see you.”

“I'm prepared for that,” he told her. “I might even understand it.”

Dixie stuck a hand deep into a coat pocket, then pressed a bottle into his hand. “Here. Take this. Go there alone.” With that, she melted into the crowd, joining Memaw Frances and Claudia at the exit. She shot him a quick little wave as they went out the door.

If Luke could have had his way, he'd have deposited his mother and father at their house and rushed right back to Carrie's, which they had to pass on the way home. Instead, as they drove, he endured his father's description of the clever tricks Shasta could do, his mother's complaints that her friends in New Hampshire neglected to write, his father's remarks about the latest political situations. At their house, he had to honor his mother's insistence that he blow out birthday candles and eat not one but two pieces of cake before he could leave. And then, since his Ferrari was still garaged at the rental house, he had to ask his father for the car keys.

“Reminds me of old times,” Howell said jocularly, tossing them to him, and Luke made tracks.

When Luke got out of his parents' car at Carrie's home place, something cold stung his face, and he lifted his eyes to see tiny snowflakes drifting down. The first story of the house was dark, but inside a dim light shone from the upstairs window of Carrie's bedroom. He knew the back door wouldn't be locked because it never was, so he walked around the house and entered through the screen porch into the kitchen.

Killer hopped away from the door as Luke switched on the light. The rabbit blinked at him, and Luke felt inordinately glad to set eyes on him. He'd slept with that fool rabbit almost every time he'd slept with Carrie, shoving Killer aside when he reached for her, sometimes hating it when the rabbit refused to move. Killer was part of the whole Carrie experience, and he felt an absurd affection for the animal, even though he knew that it was probably hoping for a chance to chomp down on his big toe.

“Carrie?”

No answer.

“Carrie,” he called again. He weighed the idea of leaving the aspirin on the kitchen table but discarded the idea immediately. Carrie might not come downstairs for a while, and maybe she really needed the medicine.

He heard the strains of Christmas carols. Carrie must have her radio on. The radio was a nice model with good speakers, and they'd often listened to it when they made love.

“Well, if she's not going to answer, I'll have to go up there,” he told Killer. The rabbit followed along, inquisitively sniffing his way up one step at a time.

“Carrie, I brought the aspirin,” Luke called when he stepped onto the landing.

He heard a stirring, but Carrie didn't reply. He recalled all the other times he'd climbed these stairs, eager to slide into bed beside her. It made him sad that they were no longer lovers, and it occurred to him that he'd been miserable ever since they broke up. This qualified as a paradigm shift of momentous magnitude, but he didn't have time to ponder it at length.

When he stood at the bedroom door, Carrie said something unintelligible. She was swaddled in bedclothes. What was exposed of her face was flushed with fever, her nose as red as he'd expected it to be. Tissues were strewn about the bed, and the radio played “It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” It looked like a sickroom, not much like Christmas at all. But Carrie was beautiful.

“Luke,” she whispered.