A Midnight Clear Read online

  He didn’t do well in Sunday school either. He just wanted to talk about angel verses to the exclusion of all other parts of the Bible. This frustrated the volunteer Sunday school teachers.

  So about six months ago, Teri had started bringing Aiden here, to Golfing for God, to worship. Golfing for God was a Bible-themed putt-putt place. Holes one through nine depicted Old Testament stories, like Jonah and the whale. Holes ten through eighteen depicted stories from the New Testament, like the miracle of the loaves and fishes. And finally, the new section of the golf course, opened just last year, was dedicated entirely to angels. Teri had to hand it to Elbert Rhodes, the owner of the golf course. He had created a masterpiece, complete with larger-than-life fiberglass angels that Aiden adored.

  And now, even in December, with the course closed for the winter, Elbert had given her permission to bring Aiden to visit the angels any time he liked. Of course, when Elbert talked about angels, he might mean the nine fiberglass angels gracing the new section of his mini-golf emporium. Or he could just as well be talking about real-deal angels.

  Golfing for God was notorious for its angel sightings. Teri didn’t really believe any of the stories about the miniature golf place, but Aiden took them for gospel truth. He believed that if he sat quietly for long enough, he’d get to meet a real angel one day. Aiden had a capacity to sit quietly for unnaturally long periods of time.

  Teri usually had Golfing for God to herself on Sunday mornings. But this morning a black Volkswagen SUV with Massachusetts plates was sitting in the parking lot when she arrived.

  Her suspicions were soon confirmed when she found Dr. Crawford inspecting the hole dedicated to Luke 2:10, where a heavenly host of angels hovered on wires over three poor shepherds and their flock. The putting green required a golfer to navigate through the legs of several fiberglass sheep to the hole in the center of the town of Bethlehem. Elbert had hung some red metallic garland around the perimeter of the town’s buildings. It was festive, but kind of tacky.

  Aiden didn’t bother to greet the doctor, but made his way to the hole celebrating Psalm 91. The angel there wore a blue gown and had a beatific expression on his face. He sat down on the bench and got very still. Too still for a typical eight-year-old.

  “Hello,” Teri said as she strolled toward the new doctor in town. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be wandering through a mini-golf place on a cool December morning.”

  “To be honest, I overslept and I didn’t want to walk into mass late, especially since it’s my first time at St. Mary’s. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on Father Weiss. So I decided to come here instead. I’ve been told this place can be a religious experience.”

  She sat down on the bench near Bethlehem. “I know the feeling. We come here on Sundays instead of church. Aiden has perfect pitch, and he complains when the choir sings out of key. That gets him into trouble with Lillian Bray, the chairwoman of the Episcopal Ladies’ Auxiliary.”

  This elicited a chuckle.

  “Have you met Lillian Bray?” she asked.

  “I have. I’m sure she doesn’t care for being corrected by a precocious eight-year-old.”

  Precocious? Jeez. No one ever used that word to describe Aiden.

  Dr. Crawford sat beside her. Her core heated. Was it his physical presence or the words he’d just spoken?

  “Thank you for saying that,” Teri said. “It’s kind of you, especially after the way he behaved yesterday. There was nothing precocious about yesterday’s meltdown.”

  “He was in pain yesterday. People say and do a lot of things when they’re in pain.”

  She turned toward him. Dr. Crawford was movie-star handsome, with dark hair that spilled over his forehead. He had laugh lines around his mouth and his warm, compassionate brown eyes. It looked as if he smiled a lot. All that smiling had given his face character.

  “Thanks for being so patient with him yesterday. And please, don’t take what he said to heart. He’s in a phase where he says ugly things to everyone. He’s picked up a bunch of new words in school. And normally when Aiden picks up new words, I’m thrilled. He didn’t start talking until he was four, and then only so he could sing his favorite songs. Now I wish he’d never learned the words stupid and idiot and dummy.”

  “And that makes you like most other mothers. My own ma used to wash my mouth with soap every time I used the word stupid. Old-fashioned but effective.” He paused for a moment. “Not that I would recommend that approach.”

  His words assaulted the shell Teri kept around her emotions. No one had ever suggested that she was an ordinary mother. Mothering Aiden took all she had to give sometimes. Her son was not ordinary.

  The doctor leaned back on the bench, a picture of male grace. A question formed in his deep, dark eyes as he gazed toward Aiden.

  “He’s waiting for an angel,” Teri said in answer to the doctor’s unspoken words. “There are stories about angels appearing here at Golfing for God. Aiden believes them with his whole heart.”

  “My sister has a kid. His name is Jimmy. He’s a little younger than Aiden. It’s a fun age. He believes in angels too. Along with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and, most of all, Santa. I’m going to miss my nephew this Christmas, but Ma is coming to visit around New Year’s. She insisted. She wasn’t all that thrilled when I decided to sign up for the National Health Corps. The truth is, I haven’t spent much time away from Massachusetts.”

  Oh, the poor man. He was homesick. Her heart melted a little for him. She couldn’t imagine being away from her large family at Christmas. Especially since her nieces and nephews were like little Jimmy. She got her dose of childlike wonder from them. Aiden might believe in angels, but he didn’t believe in anything else.

  She let go of a big sigh.

  “That sounded sad, Mrs. Summers,” the doc said.

  “Not sad. Just wistful, I guess. You see, Aiden isn’t like your nephew. He doesn’t believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa. In fact, he actively dislikes Santa. He always has. To start with, he doesn’t like the color red. Don’t ask me why, it’s just the way it is. And no matter how many times I tell Aiden that Santa isn’t a real person, he still doesn’t get it. He sees all those Salvation Army Santas and to him they’re all the same person. He thinks Santa is an army of evil clones or something. It scares him silly. But angels—well, that’s a whole different story. He believes they are real.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  She turned toward him. He was so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. And he was gazing right back at her with such an earnest look in his eyes that she knew right then he wasn’t trying to be clever or funny.

  “Mrs. Summers,” he said after a long, charged moment, “anyone who’s spent any time at all in a hospital knows that angels are for real.”

  * * *

  Teri Summers was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, with a dusting of faint freckles across her nose and eyes that seemed to change color depending on the light. Today her eyes were gray. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, so Tom assumed that she was managing Aiden all on her own.

  She was doing a pretty good job of it. Like his sister, she was brave and determined.

  And alone.

  He was alone too. And away from his family for the first Christmas ever.

  “So what’s Christmas like in Last Chance?” he asked.

  “We have a big get-together at the park near city hall to light the town tree. I get pretty frantic this time of year. I’m a florist. I own Last Chance Bloomers, and the holidays are my busiest time of year—even busier than Mother’s Day or Easter. I oversee the decoration of the town tree. And I decorate most of the downtown merchant’s spaces. I run around a lot this time of year.” She kept her eyes focused on Aiden as she talked.

  “I’ll bet you do. Does Aiden help?”

  She shook her head. “No, I use a babysitter a lot during the holidays.” She looked down at her hands, her guilt palpable.

  “The tree lighting soun
ds like fun,” he said, just to make conversation.

  She nodded. “We do other fun things. The Episcopal choir puts on an annual concert on Christmas Eve, which is worth attending. And of course every one of the churches in town puts on a children’s Christmas play. You know, Doc Cooper and his wife organized the play at Christ Episcopal for years and years. I just heard that Lillian Bray has volunteered to organize it this year. But a lot of the parents aren’t very happy about that. You wouldn’t, by any chance, have experience in that department, would you?”

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. And besides, I’m Catholic and I’ll be on call Christmas Eve.”

  “Doc Cooper was on call too. Of course, his wife was there to back him up.”

  Clever. Was she flirting, or just trying to figure out his marital status? “I don’t have a wife.”

  That brought a giggle. “I figured as much. And”—she turned and faced him, her eyes smiling in the pale winter sunlight—“I ought to warn you. Every church woman in the county of any denomination is going to consider it her God-given duty to match you up with someone.”

  No, not flirting after all. “Me? I’m a Yankee from Boston. I got the feeling everyone in town thinks I’m a liberal carpetbagger and I should go back home, which, of course, I’ll likely do when my commitment to the National Health Service Corps is fulfilled. It’s usually a two-year commitment.” He played up his accent as he spoke.

  “Give people time. They’ll come around. And I’m telling you that you are not immune, just because you come from up north and aren’t planning on staying for more than two years. The matchmakers of Last Chance target newcomers. They have this idea that if they can match you up with someone, you’ll stay longer. It’s their way of keeping young people from moving away to the city. So I’m warning you. Watch out for Miriam Randall and her niece, Savannah. People say that they have a knack for matching people up, but I think they’re just a couple of meddling busybodies.”

  “I take it that you’ve been a victim of their meddling?”

  She frowned. “Well, no. Of course not. I mean, I’m divorced.”

  “Oh. Divorced people are immune, then?”

  “Uh, well, no. But, you know, I’m not going to find a soul mate. I mean, there’s Aiden.”

  “And?”

  She blinked at him. “You know, Doctor Crawford, I do appreciate that you think Aiden is precocious, and that I’m just like any other single mom. But the truth is the truth. Aiden is a special needs child. What man in his right mind would want to marry into something like that?”

  * * *

  On Sunday night, Teri collapsed in front of the TV with a glass of red wine. Aiden was down for the night, and she planned to indulge herself by watching the TNT movie version of A Christmas Carol. The one with Patrick Stewart. She hoped it would put her in the holiday spirit.

  She loved Christmas. But her business added so much stress that work could ruin the mood. And, of course, Christmas wasn’t exactly Aiden’s favorite time of year. Sometimes, for example, Teri fervently wished that every Salvation Army bell would miraculously go silent, just to spare Aiden. He hated the sound of bells.

  She had just put her feet up when her cell phone rang. She muted the TV and answered. Her sister Meredith was on the line. “Hey, Merry, what’s up?”

  There was an awkward beat of silence before Merry spoke. “Momma asked me to call you.”

  “Oh?”

  More hesitation. “Uh, well, you see Brad, Julie, Laura, Momma, and me, we all had a talk, and we think it might be best if you and Aiden didn’t come home for Christmas this year.”

  Teri sat there for at least half a minute, saying nothing, while her body went hot and then ice cold. Surely she must have misunderstood her sister.

  “Did you hear me?” Merry said.

  “I heard.” Teri’s voice sounded thin and far, far away inside her own head.

  “I’m sorry, Teri. We love you. And we love Aiden, but the truth is he upsets the other children. Becky, Travis, and Ella are all at that magical age when they believe in Santa, you know? And the older kids play along. But Aiden’s incapable of doing that. Honestly, I don’t want him spoiling it for the little ones. And I figure it might be easier for you. Remember how he pitched a fit at the dinner table last year when Momma wanted him to eat his mashed potatoes? You can’t even take him to midnight services. I really hate to do this but . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Teri sat there watching the scene where Scrooge blows off his nephew’s invitation for Christmas Eve. How ironic. Scrooge’s family wanted to include him, even though he was an unpleasant miser. While in real life, her own family wanted to exclude her, even though she knew how to “keep Christmas,” as well as anyone.

  She didn’t know whether to cry or scream. It wouldn’t be Christmas without going home to Momma’s. Teri had four siblings and eight nieces and nephews. With all those kids and spouses and aunts and uncles dropping in, it was like a family reunion every year.

  Of course there were the rituals— the midnight services at the church she’d attended as a child, hanging the stockings, getting the kids to bed, putting together toys. And Christmas morning was always so much fun—all that noise and chaos and joy.

  Joy for her.

  But Aiden hated it all. He would stay up in the guest room, watching videos on an iPad, utterly disinterested in the presents and the decorations and the rest of the family. All that chaos and the pressure to eat Momma’s cooking would inevitably lead to a meltdown.

  Poor kid.

  She thought back to her conversation this morning with Dr. Crawford. She’d as much as admitted the truth to him. Christmas was supposed to be magical for children. But for Aiden it was nothing but painful.

  “You okay with this?” Merry asked.

  “Would it matter?” Teri managed to say around the knot in her throat.

  “Honey, please. We know you’ll miss us. But we were thinking about Aiden as much as the little ones. It would be better for you to visit when there isn’t a holiday. We really do care about him. But you know…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  We know you’ll miss us? Really? Would they miss her or Aiden? She wanted to dive right through the phone line and strangle her older sister. Did she even know how selfish she sounded?

  The muscles along Teri’s neck clamped into a spasm that sent pain radiating down her spine and up into her head. Right now, she wanted to throw herself on the floor and have her own gigantic meltdown.

  But she didn’t. She swallowed down all those raging thoughts and feelings and said, “Uh, yeah, I’m okay.”

  And then she hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Society of American Florists estimated that pink poinsettias accounted for only 6 percent of all the poinsettias sold during the holidays. Teri figured Ruby Rhodes, the proprietor of the Cut ’n Curl, was a major contributor to this statistic. Ruby had purchased no fewer than a dozen large pink poinsettias, along with two magnolia wreaths and several yards of matching garland, for both the inside and outside of the beauty shop.

  Teri lugged the plants and greenery into the Cut ’n Curl early on a rainy Monday morning. The weather matched her mood. She was still reeling from Merry’s bombshell. Teri had never been alone at Christmastime. What was she going to do?

  Of course, she wasn’t exactly going to be alone. Aiden would be there. But celebrating Christmas with Aiden was like being with someone from another culture or religion. Aiden didn’t see Christmas as a special day. To him, it was just a day like any other, except that the people around him made him do things he hated and feared—like eating mashed potatoes at a table with candles burning on it.

  Well, she’d need to do something for Christmas. It might be an interesting challenge to figure out which parts of Christmas Aiden actually liked. The thought lifted her spirits. She could name one thing right off the bat. He liked the angels who visited the shepherds. So maybe they’d put up angel ornament
s or something.

  Teri busied herself putting together a faux tree in the Cut ’n Curl’s reception area while Ruby and her daughter-in-law Jane took care of the morning customers—Thelma Hanks and Millie Polk. Thelma and Millie were BFFs who considered gossip to be their main occupation.

  The ladies were going at it hot and heavy today. The subject was Arlene Whitaker, the owner of Lovette’s Hardware and Ruby’s sister-in-law. Arlene had become the favorite topic of the moment because Savannah Randall had told everyone that Arlene would be finding a new love—a man with a boat.

  So naturally the folks in town were certain that Arlene, a widow, was having a late-life fling with Roy Burdett, a recent divorcé.

  “If you want my opinion,” Thelma said, “Arlene is too old to be looking for a soul mate.” Thelma was sitting at Ruby’s workstation, where the beautician was applying dye to her roots.

  “She’s not that old,” Millie said. Millie, her own roots already loaded with dye, sat at the manicure table with Jane leaning over her hands. “I’d like to think that, as long as there’s life, there’s hope of finding love. Don’t you, Ruby? I mean, I know Arlene was married to your brother, but Pete’s gone now, and she deserves happiness.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ruby said.

  “Well, I’m just saying that Arlene already got her soul mate in Pete,” Thelma said.

  Jane looked up at Thelma. “Everyone said the same thing about Stone. And look at him now, happily married for the second time.”

  “Well,” Thelma said, “I just can’t imagine Arlene taking up with Roy Burdett. I mean, he’s divorced.”

  Teri cringed at the way Thelma said the word. Of course divorced people deserved happiness. Why should divorced people be excluded from happiness just because their first marriages crashed and burned?

  Good question, especially since Teri had doubts about this herself. Sometimes she wondered if she was worthy of love.

  “And besides,” Thelma continued, “Roy spends most of his time at Dot’s Spot.”

  “Not anymore,” Ruby said. “He spent a month at one of those places where they dry you out. Dottie told me he hasn’t been in the bar in at least a month.”