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19
MARYPAIGEFAKEDa happy smile as Caleb sped into the living room of their old farmhouse like a NASCAR driver. She really wanted to be happy. Really wanted to enjoy Christmas, but her heart ached too badly.
“Caleb! You almost knocked down the Christmas tree,” her mother shrieked, grabbing hold of the wheelchair arm.
The chair ground to a halt and Caleb grunted his displeasure.
“Well, I don’t care. I don’t want broken ornaments on the floor. I picked glass out of my foot last Christmas.”
Caleb gave Mary Paige a look that said,you see what I deal with?and signed something to her.
Mary Paige laughed. “Caleb said to take a leap.”
“Stop siding with him,” her mother said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes but tempering her fussing with a smile. ItwasChristmas morning, which meant even a broken ornament wouldn’t earn her anger.
“Can’t help it,” Mary Paige said, pulling her legs up onto the old velour sofa and looping her arms around her knees. She wore her traditional Christmas nightgown, sewn by Granny Wyatt right before the woman passed when Mary Paige was twelve. It was red flannel with white snowflakes and covered her from throat to ankle. Her wool socks with the fuzzy reindeer stuck out from the hem. “It’s what brothers and sisters do.”
Caleb grinned and slapped his hands together with jerky imprecision common in most kids with cerebral palsy. He’d just turned fourteen and was going to flip for the modified PlayStation 3 she’d bought him. The dude loved art, video games and playing practical jokes…which was hard for someone as challenged as Caleb. But he made out fine.
“Mary Paige, will you grab my coffee and then we’ll open presents before Caleb destroys the house,” Freda said, plunking down on the braided rug and sorting through the presents stacked beside the tree. This year she and Caleb had strung popcorn and cranberries as decorations. Tango, the small mixed terrier that was her mother’s constant companion, gnawed some of the popcorn off one end of the tree. “Stop it, Tango.”
Smiling, Mary Paige shuffled toward the kitchen, temporarily comforted by the sounds of a typical morning on an atypical day. The coffeepot was full and smelled like a toffee-flavored brew. Yum, her favorite. She grabbed a mug that said Welcome to Kansas from the faded cabinet beside the porcelain sink and filled a cup to the brim. She added a splash of creamer then searched for the mug her mother had already used. Before she located it, the doorbell rang.
“Coming!” she heard her mother shout.
Mary Paige found the mug beside the bread box right as the sound of two dogs fighting reached her ears.
“What in the devil?” she said, grabbing both mugs as her mother started shouting.
She heard a man hollering “Sit!” at the top of his lungs, and nearly spilled the coffee all over herself when she rounded the corner and saw who was chasing two dogs around the Christmas tree, tangling the lead in Caleb’s wheelchair.
“Brennan!”
He didn’t stop, just kept grasping at the leash, which had obviously jerked from his hand when Izzy launched herself at Tango.
“Tango! Stop!” Her mother tried to catch the scrappy terrier, who ran like mad from the barking dachshund.
Caleb flailed his arms and legs, and Mary Paige couldn’t tell if he was excited or upset.
Mary Paige set the cups on top of the bookcase and lunged forward as Tango headed her way. She scooped up the terrier and snapped, “Sit, Izzy!”
Izzy barked at her…or more likely at Tango, who panted and shook in her arms.
“I said, sit!” Mary Paige pointed at Izzy, who gave one yip and sat, looking up at her with her tongue lolled out to the side. Mary Paige lifted her gaze as Brennan brushed against the tree, causing several ornaments to fall and shatter on the hard floor.
“Well, hell,” her mother said, looking up at Brennan, who made the strangest face Mary Paige had ever seen him make. It looked like he was half constipated and half embarrassed. Not to mention he wore that ridiculous elf hat they’d been given on the streetcar. In fact, Izzy wore hers, too, but it was riding low on the dog’s neck.
Caleb quieted and Tango stopped shaking. Mary Paige looked at Brennan, who lowered his arms and swallowed hard. Her heart started thumping almost as hard as Tango’s. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged, spreading his hands apart. “Uh, I came to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
“Who are you?” Freda said, rising from the rug where she’d landed in effort to catch one of the dogs.
“I’m Brennan Henry.” He scooped up brightly wrapped gifts he’d obviously dropped when chaos reigned. He wore a long-sleeved button-down shirt, jeans, running shoes…and were those Christmas socks? “Sorry about Izzy. I’m dogsitting her and couldn’t leave her at my apartment. I’ll pay for the ornaments.”
Her mother took his hand, casting a look at Mary Paige before saying, “I’m Freda Gentry, and I don’t really give a rat’s ass about those ornaments. Got ’em at the dollar store.”
“Oh, good to know they weren’t heirlooms.”
