The Dawn of Christmas (23 page)

Oh, how she didn’t want to lose him.

A door slammed, rattling the kerosene lanterns on the kitchen table. The sound had come from upstairs, and she sat perched, listening, ready to run or relax based on the next few seconds. A thud echoed. And another. And another, each harder than the previous one, and she raced up the steps. She glanced in her bedroom.
Charlotte’s Web
lay on the floor. Its spine faced the ceiling, looking as if it’d been dropped there. The rocker where she often sat while reading swayed back and forth. Her bed was crumpled where the younger ones should be sitting or lying on it while Josiah read to them. Muffled voices floated from somewhere, and she knew her destination.

“Ray?” She hurried into the boys’ bedroom.

Michael, Naomi, and Hope stood in the middle of the room, eyes large and focused on the closet.

“Kumm on,” Josiah whispered at the closet door. He shifted the kerosene lantern in his hand. “Don’t do this, Ray. Not now.”

Ray sobbed—short, muted noises, probably crying into a blanket or pillow. Jolene’s heart broke. She knocked on the closet door and tugged. “Ray.” When she encountered resistance, she recognized the pull of Ray’s suspenders, a favorite trick of his for securing the closet door when he wanted to be alone. She leaned her head against the frame. Whether together or apart, how were any of them going to survive their loss? Choking back tears, she had an urge to sing their parents’ favorite song. The lyrics wobbled as she began. “What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”

Her siblings joined her. “O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

How many evenings had they sung that song as a family before dispersing to go to bed?

The suspenders ricocheted against the door, and she knew he’d either lost his grip or released them. When she opened the door, Ray was sitting against the wall at the back of the closet. His flashlight sat upright on the floor, illuminating the small room. He looked tiny and overwhelmed as he held his favorite stuffed toy in one hand, probably what he’d been sobbing into, and a bat in the other. He’d knocked five or six holes in the wall with the bat before sinking to the floor in a heap. This image pretty much summed up her youngest brother when he was overwhelmed—a childlike gentleness mixed with the occasional destructive outburst. But he never lashed out at or near people. She sat next to him.

He curled against her. “I’m sorry. I know that was wrong. I didn’t—”

She ran her hand over his silky hair. “It’s going to be okay, Ray. It doesn’t feel like it to any of us right now, but it will be. Can you trust me on that?”

He held on to her tightly. “What will happen to us?”

She wished she knew. “We will stick together.” But she was a girl facing adult tasks, and it terrified her. Would her brothers and sisters be more scarred in the long run if her best efforts to do them justice were pitiful?

He gazed up at her, and she saw relief overtake his grief for a moment. “Together? Really?”

A knot formed in her stomach, but she put on her best parental face and smiled at him.

“Together.”

His eyes filled with tears. “I’ll do my best to be good. I promise.”

“Me too.” Tightening her grip around him, she kissed the top of his head and began singing the song to him again. Josiah, Michael, Naomi, and Hope piled into the closet with her, snuggling into a huddle of Keim legs and arms as they held each other.

Van came to door and peered inside.

Jolene swallowed hard. “I can’t let them be scattered to the wind.”

Hurt etched itself deep in his face as he nodded. Was that a look of compassion for her and her siblings or heartbreak for himself?

Maybe he already knew what she was just beginning to see. The life they’d wanted was already gone, whether they housed the children or not. They could never be the couple he’d been dreaming of because she was no longer the girl he’d fallen in love with. But she would be. Someday. And she longed to ask, Will you wait for me? Wait for me to raise my siblings? Wait for me to heal and become me again?

But that was too much to ask of anyone. All she could do was hope he’d remain her friend until he fell in love with the person she was becoming.

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A Love Undone
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