Evergreen (10 page)

Four sets of feet all masked by an eighteen-foot tree.

Yeah, he missed that. Or not, because here he was, continuing the tradition with Romeo. He could hear the kid huffing out breath behind him.

“I’ll open the patio door, and you feed it in to me,” John said.

They wedged the massive tree through the door off the deck. Then Romeo fetched the tree stand and helped John set it up in the great room.

“We’ll have to run fishing wire from the tree to the railing to help hold it,” John said and sent Romeo back to the garage for wire and a ladder.

Thirty minutes later, they studied their work. “It’s a great tree,” Romeo said, all hint of pout vanished from his face.

“You picked us a good one,” John said.

Romeo gave him a smile, something honest, and it had the ability to ease the terrible knot in John’s chest. “Let’s get the lights and ornaments.”

John went to the basement, dug around, and found the packages of Christmas lights. He handed them out to Romeo, then rooted for the boxes of ornaments.

For years, Ingrid had given each child an ornament for Christmas until they each had a substantial collection. He found Owen’s, Casper’s, and Amelia’s boxes, but no trace of Eden’s, Grace’s, or Darek’s.

He returned upstairs and set the boxes on the counter. Romeo stood on the ladder, stringing lights.

John opened the boxes. It seemed almost sacrilegious to put the ornaments on the tree without the kids.

Romeo climbed off the ladder. “It looks a little . . . bare. Maybe we need more lights.”

John stepped back. Outside, shadows pressed against the windows, the gray sky and the northern latitude conspiring to turn the day dark even in midafternoon. Yeah, despite his hopes, the evergreen hadn’t exactly made the home magical.

It lacked something. But it was a start, right?

The door opened, and he heard stomping, then the sound of Ingrid dropping her purse. She came into the entryway. Stopped.

And for a moment, so did time as John saw her face change, the years scrolling back to that first Christmas, the one where he’d chopped down their first tree, dragged it home through the woods, draped lights around it at a haphazard angle, hoping to impress his new wife.

She advanced into the room, looking so pretty it could make him ache with the knowledge that she belonged to him. She wore her hair pulled back in a red headband, a white shirt under a red vest, a pair of glittering candy canes dangling from her ears. Corny and sweet in one devastating package. He’d forgotten that about her too.

“Wow,” she said.

“You like it?” Romeo asked.

She smiled. “I like it.”

For one shiny, bright, perfect moment, everything fit. Like puzzle pieces, finally fixing in place.

Maybe John could resurrect this Christmas season after all.

And then
 
—“Hey, where’s Butter?” Romeo looked around as if noticing her absence for the first time.

Ingrid frowned. “Was she outside with you?”

John nodded. “She’s probably just chasing squirrels.”

Except the wind had begun to howl, his Christmas Eve storm arriving early. Ingrid went to the sliding door, opened it. Whistled. Called.

The wind and snow swirled in at her feet, and still she didn’t shut the door.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” John said, but even he heard the tremor in his voice.

“I’m going out to look for her,” Ingrid said.

Which meant that he was too.

Romeo shoved his boots on in silence. John handed him a flashlight and they trudged back out into the cold.

I
NGRID NEVER THOUGHT
she’d say this, but . . . “John, please drive faster.”

John gripped the wheel of the Caravan with his gloved hands, ice still caking his pants where he’d plowed through the drifts with her as they searched for Butter. “It’s icy, Ingrid. I’m going as fast as I can.”

She nodded. Looked out the window at the blades of snow dicing the night. It wasn’t his fault.

Not John’s fault.

He didn’t know that Butter couldn’t run outside immediately after eating or that the cold would strain her breathing.

He didn’t know or maybe . . . didn’t care.

She closed her eyes. Not true. He cared.

Ingrid glanced behind her to where Butter lay, her head on Romeo’s lap, her breathing labored. “How is she?”

Romeo had his jaw clenched as if to keep from crying. She didn’t blame him. Seeing Butter struggling to make it to the house, her howls echoing in the night, had torn Ingrid asunder. Thankfully, John had picked Butter up in his strong arms and headed straight for the Caravan. Ingrid had dialed the vet from her cell phone as they careened into the night.

“Her stomach keeps getting bigger, and she’s whining,” Romeo said.

“I thought the doc said this wouldn’t happen again if she had surgery,” John said darkly. “That’s why we spent all that money
 
—”

“It’s rare, but yes, it can happen again. We had to be careful . . . feed her a mixture of foods, not let her run immediately after eating, feed her more than once a day.” And he would know that if he’d gone with her to pick up Butter after her surgical stay.

No. She wouldn’t blame him.

They pulled up to the vet’s office. Kate was waiting outside, her jacket on, the light a blur in the wind.

Romeo scooped Butter up and hopped out of the Cara
van as John threw it into park. Ingrid followed Romeo inside.

He settled Butter on the stainless steel table. Stroked her fur. “Shh, Butter, it’s going to be okay.”

“Hello, Romeo,” Kate said as she reached for her stethoscope.

Ingrid stopped breathing as Kate listened to Butter’s heart. Kate gently probed Butter’s stomach just as John came into the room.

“I’d need X-rays, but it seems as though Butter has a gastric torsion again.”

“I thought surgery would solve that,” John said.

“It almost always does. But perhaps one or two of the surgical tacks failed. She’s an old dog, too, and who knows but she didn’t heal properly.” Kate pressed her fingers against Butter’s femoral artery. “We could try to relieve the gases again, but I’m afraid she’d go into cardiac arrest.”

“Yes, please. Relieve the pressure.”

“Ingrid
 
—”

“John, listen, we have to help her
 
—”

“And then what? More surgery?” He turned to Kate. “She’d have to have surgery again, right?”

“Yes.”

Romeo buried his face in Butter’s fur.

“But she arrested in surgery last time, and I fear her heart won’t take it.”

“So we try
 
—”

“Ingrid.”

“What? This is our dog, and we love her.”

“And she’s suffering. Do you want her to continue to suffer?”

“No! Of course not but . . .”

Romeo raised his eyes, so much pain in them that she couldn’t breathe. “Please,” he said.

She wanted to weep.

John turned to Romeo, putting his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Romeo. I know you love her.”

Romeo shrugged him away and pushed past him out of the room.

Ingrid walked over to Butter, took her face in her hands, and touched her forehead to the dog’s, inhaling the sweet smell of her fur. “Can you give her something to breathe easier?”

“I’ll give her a sedative. And some medication for her heart. But it won’t stop the inevitable.”

Ingrid ran her hands beside Butter’s head, rubbed her ears. Butter moaned, and Ingrid saw Kate draw out a
needle from her skin. “I’ll be right back,” Kate said, leaving her intentions unsaid.

Ingrid looked at John. He stood away, hands in his pockets, a grim slash to his mouth.

“I’m not ready,” she said.

John stepped toward her, but she held up her hand.

“What? Ingrid, you know it’s time.”

She closed her eyes, her own breathing labored. When she opened her eyes, a strange, dark churning began in her chest.

“No . . . John, I can’t.”

He stepped closer, put his hands on her shoulders. “Honey, I know how much you love Butter. But she’s just a dog
 
—”

“She’s more than a dog. She’s family. She’s . . . my last child.”

She closed her eyes again, turning away from him. “She . . . she’s the child I wanted to have but . . . you stole from me.”

Silence, and she couldn’t believe those words had actually emerged.

Then, “I don’t understand.”

She hardly did either, but, “John, I . . . If I let Butter go, then it’s just you and me. And I have to figure out how to forgive you for that.”

His own breathing had deepened, his face wrecked with confusion.

Her voice shook. “Listen. I am so grateful for our six amazing children, and I know a woman in my position shouldn’t want more, but the fact is, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to that part of my life. Maybe we would have decided
 
—together
 
—that God was shutting that door. But you just took matters into your own hands.”

Her voice dropped. “Yeah, we’d talked about it before I got pregnant, but we’d never decided. Not really. And then you practically ran to the doctor only two weeks after we lost Benjamin. You didn’t ask; you simply took charge, and . . . I felt bullied into the decision. I could barely think straight, and then suddenly . . . it was done.”

Ingrid wiped her cheek. “If Butter dies, then I have to figure out how . . .” She pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to force out the words. “How to live with you. How to stop being so angry with you. I thought I was over it, but . . . but I’m not. And somehow I have to figure out how to forgive you. How to love you again, anyway.”

He didn’t move, and for a second, neither did she. Just the rise and fall of their breathing as she stared at him. At the terrible truth she hadn’t wanted to believe.

“You stopped trusting God. And I . . . I stopped trusting you.”

His mouth tightened. Thankfully, he didn’t reach for her. But his eyes glistened, and in a dark, nearly hidden place inside Ingrid, something howled when a tear dropped down his cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why did I have to?” she whispered.

Kate came back into the room, holding a tray with a vial and needle. “I’m so sorry.”

Ingrid wiped her cheek fast, hard. “We should get Romeo.”

“He’s out back with the puppies.”

“Leave him,” John said. He put his hand on Butter’s body, then bent down to meet her eyes. They remained closed. “You were a good dog, Butterscotch.” He kissed her between her eyes. Stood. “It’s up to Ingrid.”

Ingrid looked at Kate and nodded. She clenched her teeth, watching as Kate inserted the needle. “How long will it be?”

“About a minute.”

A minute. Ingrid stooped and took Butter’s head in her hands, rubbing the soft skin inside her ears. Butter moaned and opened her eyes. Found Ingrid’s.

“I love you, Butter,” Ingrid whispered, but the words didn’t quite make it out.

And then Butter closed her eyes.

Ingrid leaned her head against the dog’s belly, listening to her breath until it finally stopped.

“It’s too cold outside to bury her,” she heard John say, somewhere behind the thundering of her pulse.

“We can take care of her,” Kate said quietly.

Ingrid closed her eyes. Bit her lip. Breathed out a long breath.

Then she stood and walked out of the room, leaving Butter on the table behind her.

No doubt Ingrid was right.

John hadn’t a prayer of fixing the problems between them. He couldn’t exactly go back in time and . . .

Frankly he couldn’t get past the idea that he had been right.

For two weeks after the day he’d found his wife in a pool of blood in the bathroom, after he’d rushed her to the ER, after they’d lost Benjamin, after he’d been shaken at his life unraveling before his eyes, he’d watched his wife
descend into darkness. So with resolve in his heart, he headed to the doctor.

Because he
 
—they
 
—had six children to raise. Six children who needed their mother. And John couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.

If Butter dies, then I have to figure out how . . . to love you again.

He hardly slept, those words seeping into his chest like poison.

At one point, he rolled onto his side, watching the night outline his wife. The desire to rest his hand on her hip, roll her over to himself, try to comfort her, nearly overtook him.

He rose in the darkness of 4 a.m., brewed a cup of coffee, then found Butter’s bowl and dog bed and took them out to the garage, hiking back through knee-high drifts.

The blizzard had died with the night, leaving only waves of snow across the deck, the lake a pristine ocean of white.

He hitched the plow to his truck and started in his driveway, clearing a path, then drove into town.

At the station, he climbed into the John Deere, finished his coffee in the thermos, and headed out into Deep Haven, clearing the roads, the snow peeling off his plow
in curls of cream, banked in unblemished piles as the sun rose glorious and bronze over the horizon.

If I let Butter go, then it’s just you and me. And I have to figure out how to forgive you for that.

Why hadn’t she told him?

He parked the plow at the station, then took the truck to the church and cleared the lot. Finally he dug out the manger scene, cleaning it off, and plugged in the heaters.

He drove home with the sun still low, simmering across the icy lake, and thawed out in his living room, staring at their barren tree. He tried to rearrange a few ornaments to hide the empty places, to no avail.

Ingrid trod down the stairs an hour later. She said nothing as she brewed new coffee. Then she cracked eggs and stirred up waffle mix. The smell turned the room familiar, and he walked over to the counter, sat down.

She didn’t look at him as she forked out a waffle and handed it to him on a plate.

“Ingrid
 
—”

“I need to get over to the church and set up for the Nativity this afternoon. I have a million things to do
 
—including finding wise men. I can’t believe I forgot to cast them.” She set the syrup in front of him, then headed upstairs.

He ate in the quiet, missing Butter’s nudge on his knee, asking for a bite of waffle.

Ingrid left the house before Romeo rose, and John didn’t ask what they might be doing for supper, why the annual wild-rice soup didn’t simmer on the stove or why the smell of fresh buns baking didn’t fragrance the house.

He was standing, staring out the window, lost in himself, when he heard Romeo rise.

“Um, are these waffles for me?”

Two cold waffles sat on a plate on the counter.

John nodded. “Heat them in the microwave.”

He heard the appliance running. Apparently Romeo could take care of himself. Perhaps they all could.

Romeo stirred his waffles through syrup. “Are we going to the live Nativity thing?”

John didn’t feel like going anywhere. Still, he nodded.

“Do you think . . . ?” Romeo made a face. For the first time, John noticed his eyes were red, even puffy. “Do you think dogs go to heaven?”

John slid onto a stool. Oh, boy. “I think God loves animals, but the truth is, I don’t know the answer to that question. I think we’ll have to wait and see.” He rested a hand on Romeo’s shoulder.

Romeo stared at his waffle, blinking. “Uncle John,
do you think . . . do you think I’ll go to heaven when I die?”

Oh. He didn’t know why, but the words became a fist in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe.

You might consider that you’re one of the few father figures he’s ever had.
Nate’s words rattled through him.

“That’s a great question, Romeo. And the answer is God loves you, and He wants you to be with Him in heaven. That’s the point of Christmas.”