Coal Black Blues (21 page)

Nothing anyone had ever done for her moved her as much as his simple gesture. Caroline rushed across the room and into his open arms. “Thank you,” she said. Tears of joy choked her throat. “It’s lovely and I love it. I love you!”

Neil lowered his lips onto hers and kissed her with a powerful thoroughness that made her heart race and heated her blood. She cuddled against him, delighting in the way his mouth moved against hers. The kiss might have lasted much longer if she hadn’t shifted position and noticed he winced. Then she remembered his hands and pulled back.

“I almost forgot your poor hands. Do they hurt?”

He held them out where she could inspect them. “They’re sore, but it’ll be okay.”

A little worry crept into her momentary paradise. “How do you feel? You were light-headed at the church.”

“That’s because it was hotter than July and I just got out of the hospital,” he told her. “I’m feeling pretty good, considering it all. I’m hungry and it’s been a long time since breakfast.”

His tone remained light, cheerful as sunshine, and Caroline relaxed. “Then how about I put the lasagna in the oven, fix an ice bag for your hands, and start decorating this tree while you watch?”

Neil smiled. “That sounds just about perfect, honey.”

The afternoon stretched out, slow and lazy as Caroline unpacked the decorations her grandmother had packed away. Most were wrapped in bits of tissue paper or newspaper, but as each one emerged, she would exclaim with delight. The oldest ones were a set of stars and snowflakes that dated to her great-grandparents’ time. Only a few remained and so each was a treasure from the past. Dime-store garlands decked the evergreen with still bright colors. Fragile glass balls were hung beside straw-haired angels and homemade cookies, made with salt instead of sugar. Each one had been hand painted with a hole for a piece of yarn to thread into a loop to hang on a branch. There were a few hand-whittled ornaments Caroline’s grandfather and great-grandfather had made at leisure and several hand-crocheted bells in vivid dark green. Preserved pine cones had been kept, and paper chains Caroline had made in childhood were still intact. Rob, at Neil’s insistence, had bought two boxes of large, multi-colored lights and before he settled into the recliner, Neil twined them through the branches of the cedar.

Caroline crowned the tree with the homemade star that had graced the top of many Christmas trees in the Reaburn family. Her great-grandfather had carved it from a piece of walnut and hollowed out enough to fit on the top branch. Someone had painted it white, and although it could use a touch-up coat, it remained beautiful. Last, she opened the boxes of traditional red-and-white striped candy canes, another item on Neil’s shopping list, and hung them on various branches. When she finished, she stepped back to admire the tree.

“It’s perfect.”

Neil glanced up from reading and smiled. “It’s pretty, honey. So are you ready for Christmas now?”

She shrugged. “I’m as ready as I can be, I guess. I mailed out a handful of Christmas cards, arranged for my mother to have a holiday floral arrangement delivered, gave every employee at the store a bonus, bought food for dinner and supplies for baking. I wanted to buy a few gifts for you, but I can wait.”

“You’ve given me all I could want,” Neil said. “I don’t need presents, honey.”

If she could, Caroline would shower him with gifts, but she knew material things weren’t important. “I still want to give them to you.”

“And that’s fine, but there’s no rush. We’ve got time. Who’s coming to dinner on Christmas?”

“Will’s family, so Penelope doesn’t have to cook, your Uncle Sammy and his wife, two of your other cousins, and my Aunt Darla and her daughter Mallory.”

“I thought maybe your cousin Susan might come.”

Caroline shook her head. “No, they’ve got plans with her in-laws and Sheryl’s staying in Staunton.”

Neil nodded. “What are you cooking for dinner anyway?”

“I bought a real ham, a big one.”

There was laughter in his voice as he asked, “Are there fake ones?”

“No, don’t be silly. I mean a traditional whole ham with a bone, not one of the boneless formed ones. I remember my Pop saying people would forget ham has a bone and I think a lot of them have. We’ll have ham, au gratin potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with bacon and onions, homemade bread, and whatever people bring. I think your Aunt Mart is bringing pea salad and a big pot of hominy. Penelope said she’ll bring cookies and I’m going to make some more, plus an apple pie and probably a chocolate cake.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “When’s supper?”

They shared a quiet evening and spent Christmas Eve together. Neil’s hands improved and he slept more than he had expected while she baked. Christmas carols, traditional ones from the 1950s and 1960s, played on the stereo, along with a Johnny Cash holiday CD. In the evening, they watched
It’s A Wonderful Life
and then an old black-and-white version of Dickens’s
A Christmas Carol.
Although there were no gifts beneath the tree, the house brimmed full of joy. The combined aromas of woodsmoke, fresh cedar, and homemade baked goods pleased Caroline. It connected the Christmases of her childhood with the present and brought her a deep joy. For now, she and Neil were together, keeping Christmas the old way, and she enjoyed every moment. No one knew what the future would hold, but Caroline knew she had come back to stay and that Neil loved her. It was enough, in the moment, although she dreamed of something lasting.

On Christmas Day, their guests came early and stayed late. Everyone, from the youngest kids to the old folks, ate their fill, even if most had to balance plates on their laps. Conversation and laughter rang through the old house like a blessing. Neil’s kinfolks all made a fuss over him, pleased he’d survived and happy he wasn’t going back underground in the mine. In the evening, when Will’s family remained, Caroline rocked the new baby in her Granny’s old rocker.

The newborn cuddled in her arms evoked a desire to have children. She’d never thought about motherhood during her marriage to Dylan. In his life plan, parenthood would come late if at all, and he hadn’t been especially fond of the idea. As the years had passed, Caroline had realized Dylan would be a poor father and didn’t consider having a baby. With little Luke tucked against her shoulder, however, Caroline longed for a child, Neil’s child. She wanted to bridge the old generations with a new one, to continue the family into the future. She said nothing about it, however, and Neil, caught up in a lively game of checkers at the kitchen table, didn’t appear to notice. Penelope did, however, because when Caroline handed the infant back to his mother, she said, “Your turn will come.”

Those four words lingered, long after Will’s family had gone home, words brimming full with possibility and a dream Caroline had never dared to have until now.

And she knew well it might never come true, but she could hope, and did.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Once all the guests had gone home, Caroline sighed with relief. Although she loved Neil’s folks as if they were her own, she craved quiet and space. Before she closed the front door, she took a long, deep breath of the cold night air. Neil sat on the couch, eyes closed, face marked with fatigue. She sat down beside him, and without changing position, he took her hand and held it, his fingers wrapped tight around hers.

“Are you okay?” she asked, worried that the hectic, busy holiday might have taxed him too much.

“I’m good, just worn out.”

“We can go to bed. I’m tired, too.”

Neil shook his head. “I need a little time to unwind and besides, Christmas isn’t over yet.”

Caroline glanced at the nearest clock. “It will be in a few hours. Did you enjoy today?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s the first time in a long time Christmas seemed like it did when we were kids.”

She snuggled against his side and rested her head on his shoulder. “It really did. I kind of wish my mom and the rest of your family could have been here, too.”

He laughed a little. “I don’t know where we would have put them. The house was full to bursting as it was. Besides, we talked to all of them this morning on the phone.”

“That’s true.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Nothing needed to be said and the quiet rested easy on Caroline’s heart. Neil sat up and stretched.

“You ended up with a pretty tree, Carrie. I like sitting here, just looking at it. Which one is your favorite ornament?”

Caroline studied the tree. “All of them,” she said. “I don’t think I could pick one above all the rest. I do like that little angel with a pink dress. I picked that out for Granny in town when I was six or seven.”

Neil peered closer. “Which one is it?”

She pointed. “It’s up toward the top in front, right next to the elf with striped stockings…”

A box wrapped in silver foil and trimmed with a bright red bow sat on the branch above the angel ornament. Caroline’s voice halted as she stared.

“What it is it?” Neil made his voice sound casual, but she picked up on his mood. His tone teased and a warm note in his voice made her wonder.

“There’s a present that wasn’t there before.”

“Santa Claus must have brought it when you weren’t looking.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Neil, what is it?”

“Looks like a gift for someone. Why don’t you go fetch it?”

Caroline plucked it from the branches. Like a kid, she shook it and listened to the faint rattle. “What is it?”

Her best guess about the rectangular package would be some type of jewelry. Maybe a pendant or earrings or a watch, she thought.

Neil grinned. “You’ll find out soon enough. Let me have it and sit down.”

She hated to hand it over but she did. Then Caroline sat back down on the couch and waited.

He dropped down on his knees while she gawked, worried. The move reminded her of the way he’d gone down when he walked out of the mine and she frowned, searching his face for any sign of breathing difficulty. Neil smiled at her and she sighed, releasing a little tension.

“Here, you can hang onto it, but don’t open it yet. I got something I need to say, first.”

Neil’s voice dropped low and serious. Whatever he was about to say, she knew he meant it. “Tell me.”

“I’ve known you since the day you started school,” he told her. “And we grew up together, in each other’s shadow. I started loving you back then, Carrie, and by the time I was in high school, I knew what I wanted and it was you. I thought I wanted to go away from the hills, too, but then you were gone and I was left here. It liked to have killed me, honey. I missed you. I thought about running up to Baltimore and find you, but I didn’t. I probably should have.”

“I wish you had,” she said with sudden ferocity.

He put one finger across her lips. “Hush, honey. If I don’t get this said, then I never will. But I went off to the Army and you know what all happened there. Maybe not every detail, but I told you the important things. And then I got hurt and I came home. By then, I’d figured out I didn’t want to be anyplace else. But the mountains weren’t enough and I was a mess. Still am, sometimes, although you don’t seem to notice. I had a bad case of the coal black blues, like that old song. You remember, I know. You mentioned it before.”

Neil shook his head as if he marveled at that, then continued. “I lived lonely, went to work in the mine, wouldn’t move closer to my folks, and got by, one day at a time. I wasn’t back long when I asked your Uncle Jim about you, down at the store and he told me you were married. He told me what a worthless scum-sucking idiot you’d married and how you lived up there in Fairfax, on the doorstep of Washington DC. Up until then, I had some idea I might go find you, or that maybe you’d hear about me and come home. After I heard that, though, I knew you wouldn’t.”

He paused and Caroline saw the shimmer of tears in his eyes. “Neil…”

“Carrie, let me finish. So I got up every day, went to the mine, came home, went to bed and did it over again. There was never a day I didn’t think about you or what kind of life you had. Jim would show me pictures, once in a while and I’d look at the woman in them, trying to imagine if Carrie, the girl I’d loved so much, was still there. I didn’t think so, but I’d decided I’d never settle for second best. When Jim first started feeling poorly, I helped him around the store as much as I could, because he’d become a good friend by then, but also because he was your uncle. I didn’t figure I’d ever see you again. The few times you did come down here, I stayed away on purpose. I didn’t want to know if you had become someone I didn’t know.”

As she listened, Caroline could envision it and her heart ached. She wanted to say so much, but she kept quiet. She needed to hear what Neil said, as much if not more than he had to say it.

“Then he got real sick and you started coming down a lot. I heard you got divorced but I didn’t know if it was true and I still didn’t know what to think. I visited him a good bit, but I made sure not to come when you were visiting. And then he died. I hadn’t heard how he’d gotten sicker. I had been working overtime at the mine, like I said. Then I wanted to be at the funeral, but I got there late. I almost left, but I saw you standing there and I had to know.”

Tears gathered in her throat and threatened to erupt from her eyes, but Caroline did her best to hold them. “Know what, Neil?”

“If I still loved you, Carrie, and I did. I knew it soon as we spoke and I saw there was something left between us. I didn’t know what or how strong, or if it could ever be anything, but I had to be around you. I figured you’d leave so at first, I just wanted to spend what time I could with you and save up some memories to last me the rest of my life. Then I thought maybe I was too messed up to be with you or anyone. I worried the years I spent alone might have ruined me and that I didn’t have anything left to give. But you didn’t seem to find me that way. You looked at me like a man, like I still had some worth and I started to feel like maybe I did.”

The tears poured down her cheeks as she listened, the package gripped in both hands.

His voice broke a little, but he kept talking, his eyes focused on her and nothing else.

“I got scared you would still leave and so I tried not to get too attached because I knew if you did go away, it would kill whatever good was left in me. Hell, I figured I’d curl up like a sick dog and die. But the more time I spent with you, the more I needed you. I got sick and you didn’t abandon me. You stayed right there and took care of me and kept right on loving me. I thought maybe we’d make it, but then I got that bad feeling. I still can’t explain it, but I knew damn well something terrible was going to happen. I figured I might die anyway and for sure that I wouldn’t make old bones. It didn’t seem fair to you to be so involved if I wouldn’t be around. But I wanted us together and I wanted to hope.”

“I thought I was a dead man when that explosion happened. But when I realized I wasn’t, then I knew I’d do anything to stay alive, for you. I had to make it, had to get out of that damn mine, and I did. The whole time, I couldn’t think of much but you, Carrie, from now and from long ago. I believed you were out there, waiting, and when I come out of the mine, you were there just like I knew you would be. And that’s when I knew what I needed to do. So, go ahead, open that box and tell me if you want what’s in there.”

Caroline fumbled with the package. She removed the silver wrapping and held the cream-colored leather box in both hands. By now, she thought she could guess what might be inside, but she didn’t want to jinx their future by saying anything. Her fingers shook as she raised the lid, and when she saw what lay inside, she couldn’t find her voice for a few moments.

A pair of matching bands rested on dark velvet. Both were silver, etched with a woven design but edged, top and bottom, with gold. One was larger than the other but except for the size, they were identical.

She lifted her eyes to meet Neil’s. He smiled, his eyes still sparkling with tears.

“I didn’t figure we needed to be engaged,” he told her. “I thought we settled all that a long time ago, when we were just kids. You’re mine and I’m yours, so all I need to know is if you’ll marry me, as is, no warranty, nothing for sure but love.”

“Yes,” she said and began to weep with joy. “Yes, I will, Neil.”

He stood up then and pulled her upright. Neil took her into the circle of his arms and held her, close and tight. Caroline leaned against him, still crying a little, and after a few minutes, he kissed her, once, twice, three times, as if to seal the promise.

****

Wearing the light-blue princess-style gown her grandmother had worn in 1948 when she walked down this same aisle to be married, Caroline carried a bouquet of white roses and red carnations. Granny’s dress, tucked away in her old cedar chest, fit as if it had been made for her, not sewn by her great-grandmother on the old black Singer sewing machine still in the attic. Neil, wearing black jeans, a white button-down shirt with suspenders and a carnation in his lapel, waited at the front of the Blessed Shepherd Church. The pews were full since the wedding followed the Sunday, January 7
th
service. Almost everyone in Coaltown was there, but at the front, Caroline’s mother and step-dad sat on one side and Neil’s parents on the other. Her cousin Susan served as her matron of honor and Sheryl as the bridesmaid. Will stood beside Neil as the best man and Neil’s brothers flanked him.

Winter sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows as Caroline listened to the traditional vows and said, “I do.” Neil spoke his and so the pastor pronounced them man and wife.

Everyone ate slices of the wedding cake that Neil’s Aunt Dena had baked and enjoyed homemade ice cream. Although Caroline and Neil had told everyone not to bring gifts, many did, but they were simple, useful things. Kitchen utensils, a variety of kitchen and bath towels, some scented candles, and a few cards with cash could all be put to use. After the gifts had been opened, Caroline’s mother approached her, overdressed for the occasion.

“Frank and I need to head home,” she said. “It’s a six-hour trip and if we leave now, we can be there by eight o’clock tonight. I hate to run off but…”

Caroline interrupted her. “Mamma, I understand. So does Neil.”

Her mother glared at her for a moment and Caroline realized what she’d said. She hadn’t said ‘Mamma’ since they left West Virginia and she had been told to say ‘Mom’ because it didn’t sound so ‘hillbilly’. Then her mother’s expression shifted and she smiled.

“I like him,” she said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t like you coming back here, and I thought you should stay married to Dylan, but I was wrong. This is no place for me, but you seem to thrive here, with Neil.”

“I do.”

“Then I hope you’ll be very happy. He loves you.”

“I know, Mamma.”

Frank approached, car keys jangling in one hand. Caroline hugged her mamma and watched her leave. After that, Neil’s out-of-town family, including his parents, left for the airport and Neil whispered in her ear.

“Honey, it’s time to leave. Throw your flowers and let’s get out of here.”

“Don’t we need to pack up all the gifts?”

He smiled at her. “I already did. They’re all in the truck. Will said he’d clean up here and that kid, Jackson from the store, said he would help. Uncle Sammy can’t see to drive in the dark and Alexander wants to get the store back open for the last-minute Sunday-night business.”

Caroline kicked off her shoes and climbed up on the nearest chair. She whistled and everyone turned around. “I’m ready to toss my bouquet, so who wants to catch it?”

A group of women, ages ranging from twelve to eighty, gathered and she let it go. One of Mattie’s kids caught it and grinned, exchanging smiles with a tall, lanky teenager who beamed. Caroline watched the exchange and shook her head, laughing. It reminded her of the way she and Neil had been.

Neil lifted her down to the floor despite her protests and then he kissed her as if they were alone in the room, his lips hot and lingering, his mouth insistent and filled with promise.

“Take me home,” she whispered in his ear.