Mrs. Miracle (20 page)

“W
hat do you mean your aunt Harriett can’t play the piano for the Christmas program?” It was all Reba could do not to clench Jayne by the collar and demand an explanation. “This is some kind of joke, right?”

Jayne retreated one small step. Reba didn’t blame her. She could feel the hysteria rising. The Christmas Eve program was scheduled in less than forty-eight hours. While she was confident that any number of volunteers were qualified to replace Mrs. Foster, Jayne’s aunt was the only one who’d practiced the routine with the children. The only one who knew the program backward and forward.

“She’s taken a nasty fall,” Jayne repeated. “She has to spend the night in the hospital and have her jaw wired. Her arm’s broken, too.”

Reba didn’t mean to be callous about the older woman’s injuries, but she was the one responsible for the performance. All week she’d heard how much this Christmas pageant meant to the church family. How pleased people were that she’d stepped in and taken over for Milly Waters. How grateful they were. Friends and family were planning on attending, people of other faiths. The pressure was on her and the children to give the performance of their lives.

And now she was without a pianist. Without hope.

Reba sank onto her chair and resisted the urge to bury her face in her arms. She didn’t know what she was going to do.

“I realize this isn’t the best time to ask, but would you mind terribly if I left a few minutes early?” Jayne asked, her words soft and cautious as if she were tiptoeing across a freshly polished floor. “I’d like to stop off at the hospital and visit my aunt. I know I complain about her a lot. She drives me crazy at times, but she is my aunt, and the only living relative on my mother’s side of the family.”

“Of course.” Having Jayne leave an hour early wasn’t nearly the catastrophe of not having a piano player for the church program. “Give her my best while you’re there. Tell her not to concern
herself about a thing.” No need to heap more trouble on the woman’s shoulders. She had enough on her mind without having to worry about the Christmas program.

Something like this was bound to happen, Reba thought as Jayne silently gathered her things and left the agency. She glanced over her shoulder on her way out the door, and Reba managed a brave smile.

“Don’t worry,” Jayne said, “everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to.”

Reba didn’t believe that for an instant. She was supposed to go through this agony? Supposed to conjure up a piano player at the last minute? If she believed that, she’d have to accept that her sister was supposed to have ruined her wedding and her life. This was one of those clichéd comments she’d come to hate. It made no sense.

“Just remember, God doesn’t close a door without opening a window.”

The door closed, and Reba muttered, “Yeah, right.” She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, releasing her pent-up frustration.

It never failed. Just when she was beginning to see the light at the end of a tunnel, she discovered it was an oncoming train. Just when she was beginning to believe that she’d found a man who would love and accept her with all her faults and foibles, Seth revealed his true self.

He was like all the others, preaching love and forgiveness, telling her how much better it would
be if she forgave Vicki. It hurt—far more than she cared to admit. She’d been so hopeful with Seth. She’d started to believe again. And trust. Still, she hadn’t said anything yet about ending their relationship. All the emotional strength she possessed would be focused on getting through Christmas and New Year’s. Afterward she’d deal with the situation with Seth, although there really wasn’t much to say or do. As far as she was concerned, it was over between them. Over before it started.

Their brief relationship wasn’t all that different from the others she’d had in the last four years. Only this time her heart had gotten involved. She cared about Seth, cared about his children.

Working with Judd and Jason, getting to know them, love them, would make parting all the more painful.

The bell over the door chimed, indicating that she had a customer. She looked up, expecting another last minute walk-in desperate for her to part the Red Sea and book Vegas on New Year’s. But it was much worse than that.

It was her mother.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Joan Maxwell strolled inside, as cheerful as a canary. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Reba returned with a decided lack of enthusiasm.

Her mother’s face fell. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you got a year?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She pulled up a chair
beside Reba’s desk and plunked herself down as if she intended to sit right there until all was right with the world once again.

“The piano player fell and broke her arm.” No need to mention that her jaw was out of commission. It was her arm that mattered. At her mother’s blank look, Reba continued, “The Christmas program, remember?”

“I’m sure there are other people in the church who’re qualified.”

“It’s not that simple, Mother.” Such matters rarely were. “First off, no one else has practiced with the children or knows the songs. It’s more than just pounding out a few numbers on the keyboard. It’s knowing when to play, giving the children their cues, and playing the background music. It’s…everything.”

“Oh, dear, you do have a problem, don’t you?”

For the first time in recent memory her mother wasn’t trivializing her troubles. Reba was grateful enough to comment. “Thanks, Mom.”

Joan suddenly looked unsure and flustered. “Thanks for what? I can’t help you. I would if I could, you know that, but I don’t have any musical ability. Why, I don’t even know where middle C is on a piano.”

“Thank you for understanding,” Reba explained.

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed, but Reba forgave her that.

“Can I help you with something, Mom?” She didn’t think this was a social call.

Her mother smoothed out her skirt, brushing her hand down the length of her thigh. “I understand…actually Doug was the one who brought it up…that you bumped into your sister.”

“Yes,” Reba answered shortly. She’d been hoping the conversation wouldn’t turn to Vicki, the way it always did when she was with her mother. Just once she’d like it if they could talk without involving her sister. Just once. It shouldn’t be too much to ask.

“Vicki said you looked well and happy.”

“You know what I look like,” Reba returned, unable to disguise her irritation.

“It was the happy part that pleased her.”

“Why don’t I believe that?”

“Oh, Reba, don’t you know how eager your father and I are to resolve this? All we want, all everyone wants, is for you to be happy. Meeting Seth has been the best thing to happen to you in years, and—”

“I won’t be seeing him again after the holidays.” She might as well get that out in the open now.

The sadness and regret that filled her mother’s eyes were immediate. “But why? I thought…we all did. You two are so good together….”

“You don’t know that,” Reba challenged. “You’ve never even met him.”

“I don’t need to. I saw the difference in you.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Reba muttered.

“Oh, Reba,” her mother murmured sadly, “there are so many things you don’t know.”

“Then tell me,” she challenged, waving her arms in the air. She was tired of hearing it, tired of having her mother throw it in her face, as if any excuse she offered would change the way she felt.

“It involves your sister.” Her look was skeptical, as if she expected Reba to stop her. The assumption was a fair one. Her mother had attempted to talk some sense into her plenty of times before, and Reba had refused to listen.

“Doesn’t everything?”

Joan briefly closed her eyes, as if praying for patience.

“Are you going to tell me again how very sorry Vicki is?”

“No,” she responded, pressing her lips together tightly. “There’s no denying Vicki did something foolish.”

“There are a number of other adjectives I’d like to add, but won’t.”

“Good. I appreciate that. She’s paid dearly for her mistake….”

Reba sighed. “If you’re going to tell me she’s suffered enough, I don’t want to hear it.”

Her mother ignored the comment. “After you found Vicki with John she came to your father and me and told us what she’d done. She blamed herself, was sick with regret.”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t exactly a picnic for me, either.”

“No, but you dealt with it in an adult manner. In the beginning at any rate,” she amended.

Reba’s head came back with surprise.

“Vicki didn’t. I don’t know what happened that night, but I strongly suspect, as does your father, that John seduced her.”

There it was again, the willingness to offer excuses for her sister.

“I know what you’re thinking,” her mother announced stiffly, “but we were the ones who dealt with the aftermath of that night, as far as Vicki’s concerned.”

Reba couldn’t believe her ears. Her mother made it sound as if canceling the wedding had been some kind of picnic for her. True, she’d left town almost immediately, but who could blame her?

“Your sister ended up in the hospital.” The words were low and filled with pain. “She attempted suicide the day that was supposed to have been your wedding day.”

Reba’s breath jammed in her throat. Vicki had attempted suicide? “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Only a handful of people know about it. Vicki made me promise that I’d never tell you, and until now I’ve kept my word. I wouldn’t discuss it now except that I’m desperate. Your sister isn’t the same person she was back then. Not anymore.”

“We all change,” Reba said, unwilling to allow this information to influence her attitude.

Joan sighed. “You can be so stubborn, Reba. I’d
like to blame your father for that obstinate streak of yours, but I fear you get it from my side of the family as well.” She smiled sadly, acknowledging her lame joke, then went on.

“Vicki was in counseling for a long time afterward. You refused to forgive her, and she had to learn to deal with that along with everything else. With time, therapy, and a sympathetic counselor, she was able to forgive herself. Shortly afterward she met Doug.”

The silence that followed was unwelcome. Apparently her mother was looking for her to make some charitable comment, but unfortunately she was all out of charity. “Okay, you’ve told me, and I’ve listened, but it changes nothing.”

The sadness and dejection in her mother’s eyes was almost enough to make Reba capitulate. “Somehow I didn’t think it would,” Joan mumbled. She reached for her purse and stood. “Actually the reason I stopped by was to tell you that your father, Gerty and Bill, and I plan to attend the Christmas Eve program. They want to be able to spend some time with you, no matter how limited.”

Reba nodded. Terrific. The pressure to put on a memorable pageant had just increased a hundredfold.

“I hope everything works out for you, sweetheart.” Joan paused at the door. “And I’m not just talking about the Christmas program.”

Reba desperately needed someone to play the
piano. Someone who knew the routine. Someone who’d attended the practices and knew the nuances of timing as well as she did.

Seth.

The instant his name flashed into her mind, Reba knew it was divine inspiration. He’d been to almost every practice. He’d sat in the back of the church activity room and had even helped out backstage a time or two.

More important, he played the piano. He hadn’t in some time, she remembered, but he’d been good. He’d said so himself.

Heart pounding, Reba flipped the pages of her personal directory until she found the work phone number he’d given her. She punched it out so fast and hard, she bent a nail.

“Seth Webster.”

“Seth,” she breathed, relieved he’d answered the phone himself. “I need you.”

“Now? I mean, I’m perfectly willing to give you my body, but—”

“Not sexually.”

“Oh.” He pretended to be terribly disappointed.

“Mrs. Foster, you remember Mrs. Foster, don’t you? She fell and broke her arm, and now I need a piano player. Not just anyone, either, but someone who knows the program. Someone who’s been there practice after practice. You.” She spoke so fast that the words all but ran together. The silence that followed left her feeling as though she
were standing on a precipice, ready to tumble over a cliff.

“Surely there’s someone else more qualified,” he said finally, breaking the tension.

“No, there’s only you.” Her hand squeezed the telephone receiver tightly. “You told me you play, remember? I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important. There’s no one else who knows the program. No one.”

She felt his hesitation once again. “I’m sorry, Reba. I hate to let you down, but I told you before, I gave up playing the piano after Pamela died.”

“Are you saying you won’t help me?”

The delay before his response said it all. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”