They picked Donovan up thirty minutes later, after he’d eaten breakfast. He wanted to get home as fast as he could to check on the Christmas bush. After three days without water he was certain the bush must be close to death. “Santa won’t put presents under a dead Christmas bush,” he repeated throughout the meal.
As I bundled him up to go, I kissed his face. “Thank you, Donovan.”
He wiped away the kiss. “What for?”
There wasn’t enough time in the day to help him understand. He had slept through Matt’s arrival, camped out, as usual, in my room in a makeshift tent of quilts and blankets. I kissed him again and hugged him close before lying down on the sofa to sleep. If Matthew came down the stairs I wanted to hear him. Images from the night reeled through my mind and I smiled.
Miriam was right. A miracle had taken place, and we had all played our parts in it.
When I awakened I felt terrible and wondered if I would have been better off not sleeping at all. I opened the curtains in the kitchen. Through the window I saw Miriam at her house, surveying the work the men were doing there. I hadn’t heard her walk past me and wondered if Matthew had left also. His shoes sat by the door, however, so I crept upstairs to shower. I put on my navy blue jersey knit pants with a white turtleneck and a matching blue jacket before running a pick through my curls. I pinned back the unruly ones and put on some makeup. I stared at myself in the mirror. “The barn sure needs more paint today.” The brush flew across my cheeks. I was reaching for my Morning Rose lipstick when the doorbell rang. I ran the tube over my bottom lip and looked at myself, shrugging. “It’s the best I can do.” The doorbell rang again and I ran down the stairs, tripping over the cat. “Move it, Whiskers!”
Erin held the baby on the porch and her mother, Lois, stood behind her with a diaper bag. I took Gabe and led them inside, then told them what happened, blabbing as fast as I could. “Long story short—Matthew is sleeping in your room right now!” Erin fell onto the recliner and her mother gaped at me, searching for words.
“He’s here?” Erin asked. “He’s actually in this home?”
“He’s home.” I kissed Gabe and looked down at his face. “Babies are being born and children are coming home. Now that’s what I call Christmas!”
“I was going to pick up some of my things,” Erin said. “But I’ll come back another time.”
“No, stay. You can meet him.”
“This is your time,” Lois said. “We’ll come back.”
“Are you going back to Layton and Associates?” I asked.
Erin threw the diaper bag over her shoulder. “I’ll go back on Tuesday. Jodi said they’ll be needing someone full-time soon, and I don’t want to miss my chance at it.” She ran her finger over Gabe’s nose. “It’s a new chapter, you know?”
It seemed we were all learning about new beginnings and starting over.
After years of working with folks in this town, I’ve discovered that people want to change when what they’ve been doing doesn’t work for them anymore. Call it what you will—an epiphany, an awakening, or a stirring of the soul—whatever it is it raises you to your feet, maybe for the first time in your life, and you are determined that this time you will change. That’s why Matthew called AA—not because I told him to, but because his life wasn’t working for him anymore. His head pounded and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he looked up the phone number in the yellow pages late that morning. Sometimes when you want a new life, you want it to start as soon as possible.
On Monday morning he drank half a carton of orange juice to help his dry mouth, and stood for ten minutes in the shower at his apartment before popping a couple of Xanax pills. He walked to the AA meeting at the church alone—it’s how he wanted to do it. The smell of cigarette smoke filtered up onto the street from the stairs that led to the basement. People lined the steps, taking one final puff before entering. Matt made his way through the smoke and the steel door clanged shut behind him as he walked down the darkened hallway to an open door. A table with coffee was set up at the front of the room. He poured himself a cup.
“You new?” Matt turned and saw a man dressed in khakis and a turtleneck sweater looking at him.
“Yeah.”
“Good to have you,” the guy said, as he stirred cream into his coffee.
Smoke clung to the drapes, and the carpet bore coffee stains from the members’ presence in the building. “What in the world do the people upstairs think of this?” Matt said.