It was a nice tradition.
And the truth was, I knew there was a ninety-five percent chance of Sam being at his mom’s place, but I was not going to let him scare me off. Or take away the one tradition I had left to me this morning.
I could ignore him.
I don’t want this.
I could pretend to ignore him.
Betty lived out at Rustic Ranch, north of the city, and the storm that had blown through last night made getting out there interesting in my Jeep, even with the four-wheel drive. But I was painfully aware that I had nothing else to do. My brother was married. Starting a new family. Work was closed.
Truth be told, I’d never felt so alone.
I got out to Betty’s trailer about an hour later than I’d planned, but I knew it didn’t matter to her. That woman’s open-door policy toward me had kept me sane more times than I could count in the years Sam was serving overseas.
I’d barely knocked before the door was pulled open to reveal Betty in her Mickey Mouse Christmas sweatshirt and the necklace that lit up like little Christmas lights. Betty was a force of nature, and her hair was a silver helmet, unmovable by anything but God.
“There you are, girl!” she said and pulled me into her skinny arms. The trailer was meticulously clean. A tree was covered in blinking lights and dozens of macaroni and glitter ornaments that Sam had made in grade school. Christmas music was playing through the fancy wireless speaker Sam had gotten her for Christmas a few years ago.
Sam had sent me a What’s App message from wherever he was fighting whoever he was fighting, asking me if I could help her set it up. She’d been a reluctant convert, but once she realized she could get every Hank Williams Jr. song just by saying his name, she’d quickly gotten the hang of it.
“Sam said there was no way you’d make it out here today on account of all this snow, but I told him he didn’t know you as well as I did.”
“What’s a little snow in the way of my favorite Christmas tradition?” I looked over her shoulder for any glimpse of Sam. No sign, and my shoulders relaxed. Maybe he was wherever my brother was, getting answers my brother couldn’t give me. Or shoveling sidewalks for Betty’s neighbors or burying himself in ice, never to be seen again. Whatever. He didn’t seem to be here.
And that was the best Christmas gift of all.
“That’s what I said. I found a new gingerbread cake on the internet this year and I’m not so sure about it, but I figure we’ll give it a try.”
“I’m sure it’s great,” I said. And handed her the present. It was one of Joy’s designs and I’d asked her to make a little tweak to it specially for Betty. Joy reminded me that she was paid a hundred bucks an hour and I reminded her that we were friends.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
Betty opened the big red bow and dug through the glittery tissue paper that was a part of the new Kane Co. packaging I was trying so hard to get implemented. Betty gasped as she pulled out the ornament. An angel, of course. Made of beautiful clear blown glass with wings as big as my palm and a glass scroll between the wings with gorgeous gilt lettering: Look after my Sam.
“Oh my,” she gasped, holding the angel up to the light.
“Probably could have used it before his last deployment, huh?” I said, remembering the pain of that phone call from Betty. Those weeks we hadn’t known what was going on, or the month we had and it was all so scary. I still felt it, sitting in this warm, cozy house with the knowledge that Sam was home and okay. My heart beating harder. Adrenaline in the back of my throat.
“No, my boy needs watching over all the time. This…honey, this is so beautiful.”
“We hired a new artist,” I told her as she reverently turned the angel around in her hands, taking in every inch of its artistry. “Joy. She made it.”
“Just for me?”
I smiled at her and was so glad I’d come out here. So glad I had a chance to make her happy like this. To make anyone happy like this. I didn’t need presents. I just needed to give presents.
“My girl,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, and I hugged her, taking in the ginger smell of her. “Come, sit, sit!” she said. “I’ve got a pot on and we can try this gingerbread thing I made.”
“Gingerbread thing sounds great.”
I sat down at the Formica table in a patch of watery sunshine beaming through the snow melting down the window.
“So,” Betty yelled from the kitchen. “Your brother up and did it, huh?”