A Forever Thing (28 page)

Hattie had never allowed a tree in the living room. When they
moved to Florida, Gwen had bought the biggest artificial tree she
could fit into her house and decorated the whole place every year.
Les put on his Santa suit, and it was a merry old day.

“It smells heavenly,” Fancy said.

“Nothing like the real thing, I always say.”

“It’s beautiful,” Fancy declared.

Theron grinned again. “I hauled the decorations out of the attic.
Uncle Joe insisted on a tree every year. His wife loved Christmas,
and it was a way of bringing her memory back to him.”

His heavy caramel-colored insulated jacket hung on the back of
a dining room chair. Mud dotted the floor from the door to the
fireplace, hardwood and area rugs alike. The knees of his overalls
were so dirty, it would take at least two wash cycles to get them
clean. And Fancy didn’t care. She’d gladly clean up the mess and
sweep up dried cedar needles every day for a real Christmas tree.

“Breakfast or decorations first?” she asked.

He hugged Tina to his side. “I made an early-morning run into
town and picked up doughnuts. They’re on the table. Coffee is
perked. Milk in the fridge for a little girl with brown eyes”

He’d had a dream about Fancy the night before and awoke at four
o’clock. He’d tossed and turned for an hour and finally arose. In the
dream they were sitting around the tree on Christmas morning.
Tina had finished opening a whole raft of presents and was jumping
up and down when she found the red tricycle from Santa. It was then that he realized he hadn’t bought a single thing for Fancy. He
awoke with a sense of urgency to get her a present and couldn’t go
back to sleep.

So he’d gotten dressed and slipped out the back door. Somehow
the tree hadn’t looked nearly so big out there in the north pasture as
it did in the living room. He’d chosen that particular one because it
had a flat side that would fit well into the corner of the room. He’d cut
it down with a chain saw and dragged it to his truck bed and then
realized how hungry he was. It was only a couple of miles into town,
and the doughnut shop was always open early for the early risers.

Tina skipped to the kitchen nook and pulled out her customary
chair, the one with a big thick phone book on the seat. “Doughnuts!”

“You done good, Mr. Warren,” Fancy said.

He offered her his arm. “Thank you, Miss Sawyer.”

They marched into the kitchen, Theron in his dirty overalls,
Fancy in Uncle Joe’s robe, as if they were entering a ball at the
Hyatt Regency in Dallas.

Theron opened the lid of the doughnut box. “What kind would
you like?”

“Good grief!” Fancy exclaimed.

“I was hungry and couldn’t decide, so I got an assortment. I bet
Tina wants the chocolate with sprinkles,” he said.

“No. The pink one,” she said.

“I think we really may have a girly-girl here. I want that one.”
Fancy pointed to the maple cruller.

He poured two cups of coffee and a glass of milk. “No girlygirls on a ranch.”

“Don’t be so sure. Ranch girls can be feminine just like a city
girl can be a tomboy,” she argued.

He picked up a glazed doughnut. “So you’ll have her taking ballet soon? What good is that going to do her?”

“Ballet teaches form and grace, which could keep her on the
back of a bucking bull for eight seconds,” Fancy pointed out.

“Why not just teach her bull-riding?” Theron said.

“Okay, let’s ask Tina. What would you like, honey? Bull-riding
or dancing?”

She wiggled her shoulders to imaginary music. “Dancing!”

Theron rolled his eyes and sighed. “Ballet or salsa?”

“She doesn’t know the difference, but you can start with ballet
and jazz,” Fancy said.

“Maybe I’ll start by putting her on a horse and teaching her to
ride.”

Fancy looked puzzled and seemed to have drifted off somewhere else.

“Penny for your thoughts. Are you picturing Tina on a pony in
a tutu?” he asked.

“That sounds like a circus stunt,” she said, laughing.

“What were you thinking about?”

“That here it is a week before Christmas, and I’ve not got my
shopping done. I need to buy something for the girls and for Aunt
Maud and…”

“Your folks?”

She nodded. “And it has to be mailed, so it will be there when
they get home from the cruise they left on yesterday.”

“They’re not going to be home at Christmas?”

“It’s the first year they don’t have a kid in the house, even if I am
thirty, so Les bought Momma a cruise. They offered to let me tag
along, but I couldn’t do it,” she said softly.

He grabbed another doughnut and carried it with him toward
the boxes cluttering the living room floor. “Well, we’ve got a tree
to decorate. I’ll start the lights while you girls finish breakfast.”

Fancy literally sucked air when he pulled out antique big-bulb
lights. “Where did those come from?”

Theron talked as he circled the tree, clipping the lights to the
branches. “Uncle Joe had all this in the attic. I remember being
here one time a couple of weeks after the holiday. We’d already
taken our decorations down, but he still had his all up. Said it reminded him of the good days, and he always kept them up until
the tree got so bare, he couldn’t stand to look at it “

“Bless his heart.” Fancy polished off the last of her cruller and
went to open the other boxes of ornaments.

Tina sat at the table and watched them until she finished the last
drop of milk; then she hopped down and skipped into the living
room.

“I help,” she said.

“Yes, you will. When your daddy gets the lights on, we’ll put
this garland around the tree. You can help with that,” Fancy said.

Tina touched the red, green, and gold garland that had seen
years of holidays. When Fancy pulled out a string of popcorn, she
frowned. “What’s that?”

Fancy held it gently, afraid it would fall apart in her hands.

“Now, that’s a story. Aunt Molly didn’t have much there in the
beginning, so she popped corn and strung it to use on her tree.
That’s from their first year together. Uncle Joe was afraid it would
disintegrate, so he patiently varnished every single bit of it, not
once but twice. So basically it’s the remains of popcorn inside a
bubble of varnish. We’ll be very careful with it, won’t we, Tina?”

She held up gold tinsel. “Pretty!”

“The old and the new. If Joe is lucid, we could bring him home
for the holiday. He would like seeing Tina in the house,” he said.

“Who cares if he’s lucid?” Fancy asked. “Bring him home for
the day anyway. If he’s going to have a good day, it will be here
among his memories. If not, then who cares? He can still play with
Tina.”

“Wonderful idea.” Theron finished one strand of lights and
plugged in the second. Nothing lit up. He started replacing bulbs,
one at a time, until he found the culprit, and the whole strand lit up.

Two hours later the tree looked finished, but something wasn’t
right. The lights were evenly spaced, the garland and the popcorn
looped perfectly, the antique ornaments shining in every nook and
cranny.

“We need the skirt. It’s got to be in one of these boxes” Fancy
searched through three before she found it folded neatly under
several layers of tissue. When she pulled it out, she almost cried at
the beauty of the thing.

“Why does that bring tears to your eyes?” Theron asked.

“It’s a handmade quilt. Look at all these tiny stitches. And I bet
every single piece of fabric has a story to tell. This might have
been a piece of the dress Molly wore when she met Joe. That could
have been a scrap from a baby blanket she made for someone she
loved.”

“Okay.” He drew out the word to three syllables. “Put it around
the tree, and I’ll plug in the lights. We’ll see how pretty it looks.”

Fancy and Tina stood back and watched the tree come to life.

“Ooh, magic,” Tina said.

“You had a Christmas tree at Kay-Kay’s, didn’t you?” Fancy
asked.

She shook her head. “No, at school. Is Santa really coming here?”

“Yes, he is,” Fancy said.

Tina’s black curls bounced as she hopped around.

“What’s on your agenda for the rest of the day?” Fancy asked
Theron.

“I expect we’d best go to Abilene if there’s going to be presents
under the tree. Think the truck is big enough to haul it all home, or
do we need to put on a stock trailer?” he teased.

“Depends on how big a fortune you’re willing to spend.”

“It’s Christmas. Time to go crazy,” he laughed.

“Tina,” Fancy said, “you’d better get on back to your room, and
we’ll find something special for you to wear today. I want your picture taken with Santa Claus, and he’s going to be at the mall today”

“Santa Claus!” Tina singsonged down the hallway toward her
bedroom.

Theron took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Fancy.
The kiss was a spur-of-the-moment meeting of lips in front of the
tree they’d worked so hard on. When it ended and he stepped back,
the only thought that crossed Fancy’s mind was how Sophie and
Kate were going to hum the wedding march when she told them on
Sunday.

“So?” he asked.

“So what?”

“Are you going to wear that robe to shop in today?” he asked.

“Are you wearing those dirty overalls? If so, I’ll fit right in with
my present attire,” she answered with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

“I suppose we’d better get dressed then, before Santa leaves the
mall.” He hummed a Christmas carol all the way down the hall.

Tina had unwrapping presents down to an art by the middle of
Christmas morning. On Friday the ladies had each brought her a
small gift. On Christmas Eve she’d had presents from Sophie and
Kate at the ranch. She tore into the presents under the tree with the
gusto allotted to three-year-old children, but the thing that amazed
her most was the pink tricycle with a basket on the front. Her doll
and bear were already in the basket, and she kept stealing peeks at
them as she opened her other presents.

Fancy had been dreading the holidays ever since her momma
had told her she was going on a cruise, but instead it had been a
great week. She held a present in her lap, wrapped poorly with tape
stuck everywhere and three mismatched bows stuck on the top. It
was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, next to Tina sitting in
a pile of ripped wrapping paper.

“Open yours first,” Theron said.

Fancy shook it. “What’s in here, Tina?”

“It’s little and red,” Tina said.

Fancy cut her eyes at Theron. Surely he hadn’t done something
stupid like buy her something red and lacy.

If he did, what do you intend to do about it? Maybe it’s a joke
because of your boxer shorts and oversized tees, not to mention
Uncle Joe’s old robe you’ve fallen in love with.

Theron read her mind. “It’s not that.”

“You’re the one who can’t hide anything,” she said.

He smiled. “Not today. The look on your face is priceless. I
couldn’t tell her what was in the box because she would have told
you, but it is red, and it is little. Want to guess?”

She ripped the paper from the shoebox-sized present and held her breath as she opened the lid. It was filled with crumpled tissue
paper. She removed it slowly. Halfway to the bottom she looked
up. “Is there anything in here?”

Tina watched from the seat of her tricycle. “Daddy said it’s little.”

When she reached the bottom of the box she found a small red
velvet box. An open gold heart necklace rested inside. She gasped
and looked up at Theron for an explanation.

“Do you like it? Tina and I saw you admiring it at the Penney’s
store in the mall.”

She couldn’t tell him that she hadn’t even seen it; she’d been
looking at a tie tack for him.

“It’s beautiful. I love it,” she said.

“Let me put it on you. It doesn’t really match the robe, but I
don’t suppose you’ll be wearing that all day.”

He brushed her hair back and draped the necklace around her
neck. The warmth of his fingers set up a blush that found its way
to her face. It was her thoughts that brought on the high color; she
wanted to turn her face slightly and really lay one on him. A week
had gone by, and every day Fancy had thought about their last
kiss. It haunted her dreams and made her biological clock spin like
a merry-go-round.

“See? Little and in a red box,” Tina said.

“I’ll think of you both whenever I wear it. Thank you.”

“Now yours, Daddy.”

Theron opened a gold tie tack in the shape of longhorns. “Oh,
my!”

“You have a dozen, right? You can take it back,” she said.

“I don’t have a single one. Matter of fact, I only have three tie
tacks period, and they’re all plain silver. I’ll wear it every day at
school and on Sundays at church.”

“Daddy put your heart on, Fanny. You put his horns on,” Tina
said.

“Fair enough,” Fancy said.