A Family for Christmas

“Maggie’s right,” Trent added. “They are fragile. Too fragile to deal with virtual strangers. Please, just go back home. No good will come from your being here. Someone will let you know what the funeral arrangements are.”

“Since I’m certain they’ll have something to do with those fanatics who meet in that converted barn, we’ll just see you in court,” his father said. Nearly identical frowns in place, they turned as one and left.

Ed approached from the other end of the large room. “Not a pretty sight,” he murmured. “Did that go as badly as it looked?”

Trent sighed. “They won’t be at the funeral, and they’ll see us in court.”

Chapter Three (#ulink_f7ad20ba-ac7e-5608-a7f0-bda07fb8f126)

During the ten years of her marriage, Maggie had been in the company of her in-laws only a handful of times. She knew them to be stiff, formal people. She’d felt uncomfortable with them even though they hadn’t objected to her marriage to Trent. They’d hosted the usual engagement party and rehearsal dinner, and Albertine had attended her bridal shower. But when Michael had fallen head over heels for her maid of honor, Maggie had seen their true colors—the people behind the polite facades they presented to the world. It had been an eye-opener, not a very pretty sight.

Sarah was the daughter of Maggie’s mother’s livein maid. She and Sarah had grown up together. When Maggie had been headed for an exclusive private high school, her father had pulled some strings, donated some money to the school and arranged for Sarah to attend on a scholarship. There wasn’t a day of Maggie’s life when Sarah hadn’t been there—’til now— and back then, they’d been inseparable.

At first, any friend of Maggie’s was good enough for Michael, as far as her in-laws had been concerned. But then Sarah had made the grave error of explaining their lifelong friendship. The Osbornes’ opinion had changed in the blink of an eye on learning that Sarah was the child of a maid.

But Michael had loved Sarah to distraction. He’d agreed to begin attending services with her on Sundays. The change in him had been dramatic, but Maggie hadn’t understood the source of that change back then. She’d thought her friend Sarah was solely responsible. But she’d been wrong. Jesus, working in the life of a misunderstood, angry young man, had sparked the changes.

But whatever the source, Trent had been thrilled when wild, unpredictable Michael had stopped getting into scrapes with the local police that Trent or their parents had to pay his way out of. After a few weeks, Michael had gone to Trent and told him that he wanted to go to school to learn to be an auto mechanic. Trent finally seeing real excitement in his brother’s eyes about learning something, had loaned him the money without a thought. And for the first time in his life Michael had flourished.

A year later, Michael and Sarah had been married at Maggie’s parents’ home, under the same rose trellis where Maggie and Trent had stood a year earlier. Michael had invited his parents even though they didn’t approve of Sarah’s background. And they had attended. But it had been painfully obvious that they’d only gone because they hadn’t wanted their friends to know that Michael’s choice of a bride was causing a rift in the family. But there was a rift. And only now, hearing her in-laws denigrate Michael even in death, did Maggie realize how deep it had gone.

“I’m sorry, Trent,” Ed said with a grimace. “This is one of those times I wish I’d been wrong, but I had a feeling they’d pull something like this.”

Trent grimaced and shook his head. “No. It’s better this way. Now that the other shoe has dropped, we know for sure where it is.”

Maggie dropped her arm from Trent’s waist. “I’m stunned. They’ve always been hard people, and you and Michael haven’t been close to them since before he and Sarah married. But to belittle Michael that way, and in front of one of his children, is unbelievable.”

“And unforgivable. The worst part of the whole thing is that they don’t care about the kids. It’s the appearance that they do that matters to them. And they probably just don’t want me raising them.” Trent looked uncomfortable, as if he’d revealed something accidentally.

“It’s probably more that they don’t want me involved,” Maggie said. “She’s always held my acceptance of Sarah as an equal against me. And did you hear that crack about our church? The one about me being as bad as Sarah at raising them was a little strange, though. How would she know what kind of mother Sarah was? This whole thing is just so unbelievable. If Albertine was always scandalized by the number of children they had, why would she want to raise them? That letter she wrote to Sarah when she heard Grace was on the way was nothing short of cruel. ‘Only animals have more than two children’? When Sarah called and read it to me, she was in tears and Michael was furious.”

Trent frowned but remained silent Trent had been even angrier with his parents than Michael had. Maggie had wondered why then, and wondered again now, noticing his eyes glitter with suppressed fury.

“I’ll keep an eye out for it in case they saved it,” Maggie promised, hoping to change the subject.

Ed’s smile was almost mischievous. “They did, and now I have it. Michael was smarter than most people gave him credit for. He was determined that if something happened to him, Sarah would have plenty of ammunition in case his parents went after custody. And he was sure they would. They blamed Sarah for every step Michael took in a direction that they didn’t approve of.”

“Speaking of the children,” Maggie said. “I think we should go check on them. I haven’t seen Grace or Daniel yet today, and they were asleep when I saw them yesterday. I wonder if the hospital would let Rachel in to see them. I think it would do all of them a world of good to be together. Especially Mickey.”

Trent and Ed needed to sign papers for the release and transportation of Mike’s and Sarah’s bodies back to Pennsylvania, so Maggie took Rachel along with her to see the others. The nurses in pediatrics, who had shuffled patients to put Mickey’s siblings in the room next to him, saw no problem with one more child visiting.

Rachel went immediately to Daniel, who was alone in a crib on the left near the windows. Maggie walked to the other crib where Grace slept on her side, facing into the room, her teddy bear clutched in a death grip. The bandage on Grace’s upper-left arm covered a laceration that would no doubt leave a nasty scar, as would the one on her thigh that had been caused by the flying glass. Amazingly, she hadn’t suffered facial injuries. Maggie looked into her little cherub face and touched her carrot-red curls. Careful not to wake her, Maggie then tiptoed away to Daniel. She could hear grumbling across the room about having been put in a crib like a baby.

And then the hard part began.

“Where are Mommy and Daddy?” he asked.

It had been a long day, Maggie thought at almost midnight, as she tossed the last little outfit into the laundry bag and leaned against the wall. Grace was too young to understand that Mommy and Daddy were in heaven and wouldn’t be back. She’d just wanted her parents, but Maggie’s familiar face had gone a long way toward soothing her and making her feel more secure. Daniel understood a little more and oddly had been more easily consoled. He was nowhere near as aware of the changes ahead as Mickey and Rachel, though.

It was Mickey who worried Maggie the most—and not just because of his medical condition. He was too quiet. Too detached from all that was happening. After a conference with his doctor, Maggie and Trent had decided she would have to remain in Florida with the other children until Mickey could safely be moved to a hospital back home.

By the end of the day, Trent and Ed somehow had found and rented a small furnished house not far from the hospital. Ed had taken Maggie to rent a van which they’d equipped with a car seat for Grace, while Trent had visited with the children.

He was so good with them—teasing smiles out of Grace, reading stories to Rachel and Daniel, and playing board games with Mickey—that Maggie was confused. Why was Trent so sure that he would be a poor father? It simply made no sense.

But whether he was ready for parenthood or not, the children, except for Mickey, had been ready to be released by the end of the day. Grace was badly bruised in addition to the lacerations, and she was cranky and out of sorts. Plus, Maggie was sure Grace felt the tension of the adults who populated her world and was reacting to it.

Grace had finally drifted off about an hour ago, after Maggie spent time rocking her. Trent, meanwhile, had read several stories to Rachel and Daniel, had supplied the requisite extra glass of water and had tucked them in—several times.

And so now it was midnight and all the children were finally settled. Maggie pushed away from the wall, knowing she had one more task to perform. She had to talk to Trent and get him to talk to her. She found him in the living room, staring out the patio doors at the rain.

“I hope this weather doesn’t mean you’ll have a rough flight in the morning. What time do you take off?”

Trent glanced back at her for a second. “Not until ten. The first available flight was at dawn, but I didn’t think it would be good for the kids to have another adult just disappear on them.”

Maggie stared at him. Even she hadn’t thought of that. Trent became more of a puzzle about the children every time he opened his mouth. “Are you too tired to talk awhile?” she asked. “I thought we should formalize some plans.”

Trent turned, his smile bitter. “We’ve been married ten years, Mag. Why not say what you mean? You’ve never had trouble expressing your feelings in the past. I seem to remember several dissertations on my faults that lasted a good long while before you walked out.”

“Fine. Where do we stand?” she asked flatly.

Trent visibly started. “I—I don’t know.”

Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Please help me say the right things, Lord. “I shouldn’t have left you, Trent. Both Michael and Sarah tried to tell me that I still loved you too much to start over without you, but I wouldn’t listen. I couldn’t see past the emptiness inside me that called out for a child. Then I left and the emptiness grew. I managed to achieve so many of the goals I thought I wanted—the house in Valley Forge, the reduced hours at work. I found that hole I’d wanted to fill with a child filled with the love of Jesus. Then I found out that even as a single parent I had a chance for a foreign adoption, but the emptiness only got worse because you weren’t there to share it with me.”

Maggie blinked to clear her swimming vision. “I was wrong. I promised you for better or worse, but when worse came along, I folded my tent and walked off. I can’t change what I did. I can only tell you how sorry I am and will be for the rest of my life. I can only tell you that I love you. And that I’d like to try to make it all up to you.”

Trent closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t honestly see how you can.”

Maggie felt the pain of his words in every pore of her body, but she prayed for strength and found it. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. He stiffened at her touch and tears flooded her eyes, overflowing down her cheek, blurring her focus. “Please let me try. Please.”

Narrowing his blue eyes, he stared at her for a long moment. “I don’t know.” He turned and walked away, dropping into the rattan sofa against the far wall of the small parlor. He was silent for several minutes, staring ahead. Then he looked back over at her. In his eyes she saw such stark longing and desire that she gasped, but his clenched teeth and hand said that his need for her still warred with pain and anger. “Why don’t you tell me why I should?” he demanded.

“Because I’ve never stopped loving you. And I think it’s God’s plan that we be together.”

“You left me!” he shouted, his voice breaking, his anguish bursting through the anger.

And that pain—pain she’d inflicted—felt like a knife in her heart. “I know it won’t be easy for either of us, but I think we can salvage our marriage.”

“It was you who decided to scuttle our marriage in the first place.”

Regret had never weighed more heavily on Maggie’s shoulders. She walked to the sofa and sat on an ottoman placed nearby. The hurt and confusion on his face nearly overwhelmed her. How could she have done this to him? “I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry for all the arguments before I did. But we have ten years together behind us, and the raising of four children ahead of us. I think those are fourteen pretty good reasons to try again. And you can’t say I only want to try now because of the children. You know I felt this way before the accident. Even before I learned about the foreign adoption possibilities. You know that!”

“And I told you how I felt every time you contacted me.”

Had he decided not to reconcile, after all? She braced herself. “This morning you told Ed you were agreeable to getting back together. Have you changed your mind?”

Trent shook his head. “The kids need both of us to protect them from my parents. I just don’t know how to handle you and me.”