The Blessing Read online

  “I think he’s happy because he has a mother who loves him so much,” Jason said, then smiled when Amy blushed.

  “Mr. Wilding, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were flirting with me.”

  “I guess stranger things have happened,” he said; then when she looked confused, he said, “Come on, woman, there’s a tree to decorate.”

  In all his life, Jason knew that he’d never had as much fun decorating a Christmas tree as he had with this one. As children he and David had complained every minute they had to spend on the task. Without a woman in the home, there was no smell of cookies baking, no music playing, just their dad, who was his usual grumpy self. He put up a tree or his sister would hound him all the rest of the year, saying that she should raise the boys, not her lazy brother.

  Now, as Jason strung lights that Amy had untangled, he found himself telling her about his childhood. He didn’t bother explaining why he had lived with David when he was supposedly only a cousin, and she didn’t ask. In return Amy told him about her childhood. She had been an only child of a single mother and when she’d asked who her father was, her mother told her it was none of her business.

  Both of their stories were rather sad, and definitely lonely, but when they told them to each other, they made jokes, and Amy started a contest to see who had the grumpiest parent. Amy’s mother was a fanatically clean woman and hated Christmas because of the mess. Jason’s father just hated having his routine disrupted.

  They began fantasizing about what a marriage between the two of them would be like, what with Jason’s father playing poker and flipping cigar ash all over the room and Amy’s mother with a vacuum cleaner permanently attached to her right arm.

  They went on to speculate what kind of children these two would produce and decided that they themselves were actually perfect examples of what would happen if their two parents mated. Jason was so serious his face nearly cracked when he laughed, and Amy lived in a house that would make her mother’s heart stop beating.

  “It’s beautiful,” Amy said at last, standing back to look at the half-finished tree.

  “I wish I had a camera with me,” Jason said. “That tree deserves to be immortalized.”

  “I don’t have a camera, but I can—” She broke off and grinned at him. “You finish with the tinsel while I make a surprise. No, don’t turn around, look that way.”

  He heard her scurry off into the bedroom, then return and sit down in the ugly old sunflower chair. He was dying to see what she was doing, but he didn’t look. Not until he’d strung the last of the tinsel did she tell him he could turn around.

  When he turned he could see that she was holding out a piece of printer paper and there was a pencil and a book on her lap. He took the paper and looked at it. It was a delightful sketch of him struggling with the wires of a dozen strings of lights, the tree just behind him. The picture was whimsical, funny, and at the same time poignant, making him look as though he was putting a lot of love into the project.

  Jason sat down on the sofa, the sketch in his hand. “But this is good.”

  Amy laughed. “You sound surprised.”

  “I am. I thought you said you had no talents.” He was very serious.

  “Not any marketable talents. No one wants to hire someone to draw funny pictures.”

  Jason didn’t respond to her remark. “If you have more of these, get them and bring them to me.”

  “Yes, sir!” Amy said, standing and saluting him. She tried to sound lighthearted, but she rushed to obey his command, and in seconds, she handed him a fat, worn, brown envelope tied with a drawstring.

  Jason was very aware that Amy was holding her breath while he looked at the drawings, and he didn’t need to ask if she had shown them to anyone else, for he knew she hadn’t. For all that she put on a brave act, life with a drunk like Billy Thompkins had to have been difficult.

  “They’re good,” he said as he lifted the papers one by one. The drawings were mostly of Max, from birth to the present, and they were quite clever, showing all the things a baby could get into. There was one of Max with wonder on his face as he looked up at a balloon, his hands reaching for it eagerly.

  “I like them,” he said as he carefully put them back into the envelope. The businessman inside him wanted to talk to her about publication and royalties, but he reined himself in. Right now he thought that all he should do was give her praise.

  “I like them very much and I thank you for showing them to me.”

  Amy gave him a smile that threatened to break her face in half. “You’re the only one who’s ever seen them. Except my mother and she told me to quit wasting my time.”

  “And what did she want you to do?”

  “Become a lawyer.”

  At first Jason thought she was joking, but then he saw her eyes twinkling. “I can see you defending a criminal. ‘Please, Your Honor, he promises that he won’t do it again. He gives his word, hope to die. He’ll never murder more than the twenty-two little old ladies that he has already. Pleeeeaaaaasssseeee.’ ”

  It was such a good imitation of Amy’s tone of voice that she picked up a pillow and tossed it at him, watching him do an elaborate duck as though he might get hurt by the flying object. “You are a horrible person,” she said, laughing. “I would have made an excellent lawyer. I’m quite intelligent, you know.”

  “Yes, very, but you do tend to love the underdog.”

  “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have had any place to spend Christmas,” she shot back.

  “That’s true,” he said, grinning. “And I thank you for it.” As Jason said this, he looked down into her eyes and realized he wanted to kiss her. Like he wanted to continue living, he wanted to kiss her.

  “I think I better go to bed,” she said softly as she got up and went toward her bedroom. “Max is an early riser and there’s a lot to do tomorrow.” She was halfway into the room when she turned back to him. “I didn’t mean to sound as though I was doing you a favor by allowing you to stay here. The truth is, you’ve made this Christmas wonderful for Max and me. Both of us enjoy your company very much.”

  All Jason could do was nod in thanks. He couldn’t remember anyone ever telling him that he was enjoyed just for his company. “Good night,” he said, then sat for a long time before the dying fire, thinking about where he was and what he was doing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A SMELL WOKE JASON. IT WAS A SMELL THAT HE KNEW BUT couldn’t exactly place. It was from a time long past and only vaguely remembered. Following his nose, he got out of bed, pulled on his wrinkled suit pants, and went toward the light. He found Amy in the kitchen, Max in his high chair, his face and hands covered with food, and wet clothes were everywhere. Shirts, pants, underwear, hung from the light fixture, the door jambs, the crack in the plaster over the stove. And in the middle of it all Amy stood over an ironing board using an iron that should have been in a museum.

  “What time is it?” Jason asked sleepily.

  “About five, I think,” Amy answered. “Why?”

  “How long have you been up?”

  She turned the shirt she was ironing so the wrinkled sleeve was exposed. “Most of the night. Little rascal, he does love to mix up his days and nights.”

  Yawning, rubbing his eyes, Jason sat down at the table beside Max’s high chair and handed him a dried peach. Wordlessly, he motioned to the wet clothes hanging around the room. It had been a long time since Jason was a child and his father had spread their wet clothes about to dry, but it was a smell one never forgot. “What happened to the dryer?”

  “It broke about a year ago and I haven’t had the money to get it fixed. But the washer works great.”

  Standing, Jason put his hands in the small of his back, stretched, then walked behind Amy and unplugged the iron.

  “I have to finish this. It needs to be—”

  “Go to bed,” Jason said quietly. “No, not a word of protest. Go to bed. Sleep.”

  “But Max . . .