Home for the Holidays (24 page)

“How is Allan?” Max asked Alice when she came back down to the kitchen.

“Uncomfortable, but otherwise in good spirits.” Alice went to the freezer and took out a container of Jane’s chicken
soup. “Well, not really good spirits. I think that would be too much to ask of anyone, under the circumstances.”

“Edwina looked done in, so I told her to go upstairs and get some sleep.” Max finished loading the last dish into the dishwasher before closing its door and starting the wash cycle. He seemed completely at ease in the kitchen, something that Alice had not expected. “You might want to plan for what you’ll need if the power fails.”

“I will have to listen to the weather report.” Alice took down a soup bowl from the cabinet. “You don’t seem to be very upset about being stranded here, Max.”

“I’m not,” he said in his blunt way. “I’d have gone back to an empty house and spent Christmas by myself, the way I have for the last ten years. Being stranded in a house full of people isn’t so bad.”

“Do you have to be alone?” Alice put the soup in the microwave to heat.

“No one has to be alone.” He opened a cabinet and looked inside, then placed several spice jars inside on the shelf. “With me, it just worked out that way.”

“I know this is none of my business, but if you were given the chance, would you reconcile with your son?”

“It would never happen.” Max made a dismissive gesture. “My son made his sentiments clear to me after his mother died, and he’s never made an effort to change his ways or
see my point of view. I haven’t seen him since her funeral, in fact. I’m not part of his life anymore.”

“What if your son thinks the same way about you?” Alice asked gently. “He could think that you made your feelings clear and that you’ve never made the effort to change your ways or see his point of view, so that he’s not a part of your life.”

Max was silent for so long that Alice thought she might have seriously offended him.

Just before she opened her mouth to apologize, he said, “No, don’t go and spoil it now with some female twittering. You could be right. He could feel the same way as I do. We always did think alike.” There was a note of pride in his last words.

That is his greatest obstacle
, Alice realized,
his pride
. “You might consider then taking the first step toward reconciliation yourself.”

He seemed defeated again. “After a decade of silence between us? How would you cross that kind of chasm?”

“A voice can often be heard from a great distance. Call your son, Max. Talk to him. Tell him a fantastic story about being stranded by a snowstorm in a little town in Pennsylvania.” Alice brought a tray out from a cabinet under the counter and placed a bowl on it for the steaming soup. “Tell him that you’d like to see him.”

He gave her a long, silent look. “Do you really think that is all that it would take, after all these years apart?”

“I don’t know.” She had to be honest. “What is the worst that can happen? He says no or he hangs up the telephone.”

He stiffened. “A man has his pride.”

“Yes. You both do.” She tilted her head. “Is your pride more important than your son?”

“I thought it was, once,” Max admitted. “Perhaps I was wrong.” He glanced at her. “You say pride like it was a bad thing.”

“Pride is one of the sins we Christians battle against every day,” Alice said. “We feel entitled to our pride, because it seems that we have worked so hard for it.”

He gave her one of his scowls. “I have worked very hard for what I have. That’s nothing to sneeze at. My son turned his back on everything I taught him in order to chase a foolish dream.”

“He hurt your pride with his own. He made his choice at the expense of your dreams for him.”

“Yes, he—” Max stopped for a moment. “No, that’s not how it was.” Suddenly, he looked pained. “My son wanted me to understand his art. He tried to talk to me. I didn’t want to accept it and I drove him away.” He shook his head. “I drove him away from me.”

“Max, in the Bible it says, ‘Do nothing out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!’ [Philippians 2:3–8].

“I memorized that passage a long time ago because I have always regarded it to be the ultimate pride cruncher. When I remember that the Son of God humbled Himself to become a servant of man and died for our sakes, then any pride I might be tempted to let rule my heart shrinks until I can clearly see how petty and small it is.”

He released a long, slow breath. “You make a convincing argument, Alice. Very well. After I get back home, I’ll take the first step. I’ll track down my son and I’ll call him. Who knows, maybe he won’t hang up on me for a few minutes. And, Alice … thank you.”

Once their five guests were settled in their rooms and Allan had been served his soup, the Howard sisters retired
for the evening. Louise reminded Jane to set her alarm clock so that they could get an early start on preparing for their trip in the morning.

Since Alice had slept on the folding bed in Jane’s room the night before, her younger sister offered to trade places with her.

“I don’t want you up tossing and turning like you did last night,” Jane told her. “You know me. I can sleep on a rock.”

“Nonsense. I’m a nurse, I can sleep standing up. Which beats your rock.” Alice turned down the folding bed’s sheets and arranged the thick, lavender thermal blanket she had put at the foot. She eyed the rather flat pillow that she had found so uncomfortable the night before. “However, if you wouldn’t mind parting with one of your bed pillows, my neck and I would be eternally grateful.”

Jane startled her by tossing the pillow at her. “We never had a pillow fight when we were girls, did we?”

“I was in my twenties when you were a girl,” Alice reminded her. “Which is a good thing, because I think you would have dragged me into one scrape after another.”

“I’ve never looked at you and Louise as being older than me, you know. I never even noticed the age differences except on your birthdays, when Father counted out all those hundreds of candles.” She ducked in time to avoid the
pillow Alice threw back at her and laughed. “You have to be faster than that.”

“If we make too much noise, Louise will have something to say about it,” Alice warned her.

Jane nodded and handed the pillow back to her. “Do you ever miss it, Alice? Being a kid?”

“It was easier to enjoy things for what they are.” Alice recalled the conversation they had had about Jane’s memories of Christmas and how she had promised to make this one special for her younger sister. “I know this isn’t what you wanted for the holidays, but I know Father would be very proud of us.”

“I hope so, because it’s going to be really hard to leave Louise here by herself tomorrow.” Jane climbed into bed and thumped her pillow a few times before curling up on her side. “Good night, Alice.”

“Sweet dreams, dear.”

Despite her reassurances to Jane, sleeping on the folding bed for Alice was only marginally more comfortable than taking a nap standing up. She tried not to toss and turn, but as soon as Jane fell asleep, she tried to find a more restful position. She was used to the firm support of her own mattress, so the thin one on the folding bed seemed flimsy in comparison.

I feel like I’m lying on cardboard
, Alice thought as she turned
onto her back and stared through the darkness at the ceiling.
At least now I’m getting firsthand experience of how it might feel for some guest to sleep on this thing. I’ll have to talk to Louise about getting a better mattress
.

“Make a wish.”

“
Hmm
?” Alice lifted her head and looked over at Jane, who had rolled onto her opposite side. “Did you say something?”

“You wanted me to make a wish,” Jane repeated in a strange voice. “I want to hear him again.”

“Who, dear?”

“Father.” Jane sighed.

Alice frowned as she sat up. Her vision had adjusted to the darkness, so she could see that Jane’s eyes were closed. In addition, she could hear that her voice had become high-pitched and her words a little slurred.

Jane was talking in her sleep.

“What about Father, Jane?” she asked, keeping her voice low so that she wouldn’t wake her.

“I miss him.” Jane rolled over and buried her face in her pillow for a moment.

Alice felt tears sting her eyes. “But Father is with the Lord now, sweetheart.”

“I know.” Jane sighed again, then murmured, “Christmas gifts should be special, but you can’t bring our father back.
He’s in heaven now and I’ll never hear his voice again.” She made a low, sad sound. “And we could never afford the snowplow for Max.”

Max needed a
snowplow?
Alice decided that had to be some strange element from Jane’s dream. “So what you want for Christmas is to hear your father’s voice again?”

“It’s okay.” Jane smiled in her sleep. “I hear him in my dreams.”

Chapter Seventeen

T
he next morning the Howard sisters woke up early so that they could prepare to pack up their guests and take them back to the city.

As usual, Jane was the first one up and the first to discover that the weather forecast had been wrong. Wendell came downstairs with her and jumped up on the counter, when a low whistling sound drew Jane to the window over the sink.

Fred’s prediction had been correct.

Outside Jane could see nothing but a grayish darkness and snow, snow that was falling so rapidly that she could actually watch it piling up against the windowpanes. It was so thick and heavy that it blocked out everything on the inn property and whirled past the window so fast that watching it was like staring into a TV screen filled with static. The faint whistling sound was growing louder, too, indicating that the wind was increasing.

There was no possibility of driving the group back to the city now.

“Well, that settles that,” she told the family cat as she stroked his head.

Alice came down dressed for their trip and smiled at Jane.

“Are the birds finally taking advantage of our feeders?” she asked, nodding toward the window.

“I can’t see the bird feeders,” Jane said. “Or the birds. Or the trees.” She stepped away so Alice could see the conditions outside.

“Oh no!” Alice was shocked by the severity of what she beheld. She pressed a hand against the cold pane, as if not sure that what she was seeing was real. “The forecaster said the front wouldn’t reach here until this afternoon.”

Jane turned on the radio and tuned it to the all-news station. As she made coffee and tea for breakfast, the latest weather report broadcast reached them.

The news was grim. Nearly a foot of snow had already fallen and, combined with high winds, had created hazardous conditions. A severe-weather advisory had been issued for travelers, warning against using the interstate and other major roads for anything but emergencies.

Louise joined them in time to hear the report and went to the window. She stood staring out at the snow for so long that Jane grew worried.

“Louise?” She put a hand on her older sister’s arm. “You okay?”

“I was just thinking how fortunate it is that we didn’t tell the guests about our plans last night.” She leaned against Jane for a moment. “They would be so disappointed, having their hopes raised, only to wake up to …” she gestured toward the falling snow.

So you’ll be disappointed for them
. Jane patted her sister’s shoulder before taking a deep breath. “There is a reason for everything that happens. Let’s make the most of it.”

As she was making breakfast, Jane took a moment to call the carriage house and check on their aunt to see if she needed anything. Ethel Buckley had been the wife of a farmer and was accustomed to getting up at dawn, so she answered the phone after only one ring.