Mistletoe Reunion

Isabella frowned. “I should go help Mom.”

“I’ll go help your mom. This is a great idea and you and your friends are the very ones to pull it off.”

As always Isabella blossomed under his praise, and he felt the familiar kick of guilt that he wasn’t around to boost her confidence on a regular basis. “Okay,” she said. “You’re sure you’ll help Mom.”

Tom gave the scout’s honor signal. “Promise,” he said.

“Were you ever really a scout?” she asked, her eyes darting to Patty who had the entire basketball team laughing and eyeing her slim figure.

“I was not,” Tom replied. He took a step closer and placed his hands on Bella’s shoulders. “What I am and always will be is your father and if I make you a promise, you can count on it, okay?”

He saw from the look she gave him that they both knew he couldn’t always guarantee that, but she grinned and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “She’s not your type,” she whispered just before she turned and hurried back to where the boys and Patty were waiting.

Tom didn’t have to look far to find Norah. The woman had always been a bit of a Pied Piper when it came to getting kids to follow her lead. Her eyes sparkled as she listened to the children shout out ideas for how this day camp thing might work. An admiring group of teenaged girls and boys all dressed in matching polo shirts with the logo of their church embroidered over the one breast pocket had gathered behind Norah, no doubt awaiting their assignments. Tom took advantage of the fact that Norah had her back to him and joined the circle of teens.

“Well now, Robbie, snowball forts are a wonderful idea, but we’ll have to ask the people here at the airport if that’s okay.”

“They’ve got security issues,” a worldly girl of ten informed everyone.

“Exactly,” Norah replied. “Now these young men and women are members of a very special choir,” Norah explained, turning to indicate the teens. She spotted Tom among them and faltered.

“Is that man their leader?” a child called out.

“No,” Tom replied stepping forward. “I’m Mrs. Wallace’s assistant.”

The children looked mystified.

“I asked them to call me by my first name,” Norah explained softly. “Where’s Izzy?”

“Putting together a talent show,” he replied, then turned his attention back to the children. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, kids. Who wants to help work on the set for tonight’s performance?” Tom asked.

Several of the children waved their hands and Tom selected half a dozen. “Oh, and we’re going to need a stage manager,” Tom said.

“Me!” The girl who had spoken earlier about airport security waggled her hand furiously at Tom.

Tom had his doubts about others being willing to follow this girl’s lead. She was something of a know-it-all and in his limited experience that trait did not inspire leadership. He glanced past her hoping for more hands.

“Excellent,” Norah said as she put her arm around the little girl and ushered her over to Tom. “This is Elizabeth.”

“Well, Lizzie, let’s—”

“It’s Elizabeth,” the girl informed him. “That is my name.”

Tom met her look. “Elizabeth,” he said solemnly. “Would you be so kind as to join the others over there?” When the girl marched off, he rolled his eyes at Norah who covered a smile as she went back to the choir practice.

The morning flew by and the children were barely aware of the continuing storm. Furthermore, with the children occupied, the adults seemed to have calmed down considerably. Norah, on the other hand, was far too focused on Tom. By the time the children’s parents had come to bring lunch and help settle the younger children for their afternoon nap, it had been over an hour since she had seen Tom and his crew.

Hurrying along the concourse, she could not help but notice more changes from the previous day. One man had apparently taken it as his responsibility to walk the length of the concourse, calling out the latest weather conditions at each gate like a town crier. “Snow has stopped for now, but warming trend means sleet and icing.” He just shrugged when his news was met with good-natured boos. “Don’t shoot the messenger, folks.”

As Norah neared the dead end of the concourse, she blinked, unable to believe what she was seeing there. The semicircular backdrop behind the desks that served the last three gates had been covered with flattened cardboard boxes cut and colored to resemble a holiday village.

Norah walked past a group of children and adults seated cross-legged on the floor, then stopped. There in the middle of them was Tom, his fingers jammed into the child-sized handle of a pair of scissors, his tongue locked between his teeth as he concentrated on cutting a piece of folded white paper. The memory of their first Christmas in Arizona hit her like a snowball to the back of the head. Suddenly she was back in that apartment where she and Tom had first learned that she was pregnant and where her doctor had dictated no travel for her.

On Christmas Eve, devastated that they would not be in Normal for a traditional Christmas, Norah had curled up on the bed and cried herself to sleep. And when she had awakened just before midnight, Tom had been sitting on the rocking chair he’d bought her when they’d gotten the news they were pregnant. He’d been wearing one of those Santa hats available at any drugstore at that time of year, and he’d handed her a headband of reindeer antlers.

“Time to make the rounds, Rudolph,” he’d said, tweaking her nose, red from crying.

She hadn’t felt much like playing, but while she’d slept she’d felt worse about the fact that she wasn’t the only one missing Christmas at home. How selfish was she to think only of herself when Tom was missing out as well? She’d put on the antlers and followed him into the tiny living room. At the doorway, she’d stopped and gasped for the room was lit by dozens of votive candles and a snowstorm of crudely made paper snowflakes hung from the ceiling. In the background, the radio was tuned to an all-Christmas-music station.

“Come on,” Tom had said, leading her to the loveseat he’d turned into a sleigh using the colorful fleece coverlet his mother had sent them.

“Aren’t I supposed to pull the sleigh,” she’d asked, indicating her antlers and red nose.

He’d grinned. “I put it on autopilot for tonight.”

Together they had settled into the sleigh and sung along with the carols. Between songs, Tom had produced milk and cookies. “Perks of the job,” he’d assured her, “unless you’d prefer reindeer food?”

“What’s reindeer food?”

“Carrots, lettuce—healthy stuff.”

Norah had curled her nose in disgust and Tom had laughed and pulled her into his arms and sung “Blue Christmas” along with Elvis as he fed her cookies.

At dawn they had exchanged gifts, but she no longer remembered what. The best gift had been Tom’s recreation of a Normal holiday. The following year, Tom had placed several sheets of white paper and a pair of scissors in front of her.

“Teach me to make a proper snowflake?” he’d asked.

And through the years of their marriage the tradition had continued—even after they’d moved into their first house and then on to the grand house that Tom had insisted on buying. And even when their arguments or stony silences had become almost an everyday occurrence—some time in December they called a truce and the tradition continued.

“Hey, Norah? Check this out.”

Norah blinked, aware once again of her surroundings. Tom was holding up one perfect paper snowflake and grinning triumphantly.

By the time the sky darkened into night, pretty much everyone still confined to the concourse agreed that everything they could reasonably expect was being done to make them as comfortable as possible.

“But we can hardly be expected to ignore the future,” Dave Walker, the airport director of operations, said to Tom. “The airport will reopen—possibly as early as tomorrow. My people are exhausted, too. They’ve been here—away from their families, I might add—for the same number of hours as everyone else. Some of them longer. Some were at the end of their shifts when this thing hit.”

“We appreciate that,” Tom assured him. “It’s Thanksgiving and we’re just trying to make it special—for everyone.”

“Still, you can’t expect our vendors or the airlines to keep shelling out—”

“How about this?” Norah said. “How about if we take an offering for the meal and then divide it between the vendors according to their contribution. It might not completely pay the bill but—”

“I’ll cover the difference,” Tom said quietly.

Dave scratched his head and frowned. “Are you still going to want my staff to serve as waiters and—”

“No one is asking that,” Norah told him. “We have volunteers ready to set up the buffet and others willing to clear away any leftovers afterward. The employees here at the airport should feel that they are as much a guest at this table as anyone else.”