Page 31 of The Forever Christmas Tree

That was Mr. Baxter from the hardware store. Lordy, what was he doing with that hairstyle?

“Merry Christmas, Wendy! Are you coming to the bell concert?” Mrs. Jeffers, the church bell choir director at St. Andrew’s, asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Wendy said, remembering how she’d played in the handbell choir from a very young age. It was a rite of passage for all children in Bell Cove. How proud she’d been at her very first recital when she’d successfully completed her first public tremolo, the gentle swaying of a bell, being careful to rest the bell on her shoulder when not playing. How proud her parents had been, sitting in the front row. Mother in her red coat, Daddy in his favorite tweed jacket and Christmas bow tie.

Francine Henderson waved from the front display window of her beauty shop, Styles & Smiles. Wendy had known Francine all her life, although she was a few years younger. At first, Wendy was puzzled by the odd orangish tint to the skin of two older women with gray-blue “helmet” hairstyles who walked out, announced by the distinctive tinkle of the doorbell—every home and business in Bell Cove had its own unique doorbell sound—but then she noticed the poster taped to the glass door which read, “Spray Tans, Reduced Price Today.”

She and JAM exchanged glances and smiled.

All the streetlights were shaped like bells, as she’d told everyone back at the Wet and Wild on that fateful night. They hung from highly polished brass poles, tied with red ribbons. In the gazebo in the center of the square, a perfectly shaped Fraser Fir with fairy lights would draw carolers at nighttime. A donation from Rutledge Tree Farm? Probably. At least it wasn’t one of those Charlie Brown lookalikes, though who was she to judge?

JAM watched everything with interest, and people watched him . . . a stranger to this small town. And an interesting one, at that. He wore a lined windbreaker with the U.S. Navy logo on the back over faded jeans and flat-heeled boots. Black hair was pulled off his Hispanic-featured face.

“Let’s go in,” he suggested when they came to Our Lady by the Sea Catholic Church.

She hesitated, not having attended church much in recent years. “Sure,” she said, and was glad she’d agreed once they entered.

It was a beautiful church, especially at Christmastime with dozens of poinsettias adorning the steps leading up to the altar and sprays of evergreens attached to the ends of all the pews. Two large Christmas trees stood at either side of the communion rail, behind which was a large Nativity scene with painted statues of Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, and shepherds, minus the Christ child which would be placed in the manger at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. Up above, in the loft, the choir was practicing for the upcoming services, a clear-toned, poignant version of “Silent Night.” Candles burned on side altars honoring various saints, filling the air with a heavy scent of cloves and a foreign essence, as only church incenses seemed to do. What were the spices that the Wise Men had carried? Frankincense and myrrh. Could it be a combination of those? Probably not.

Wendy sat on a bench at the back, watching as JAM walked up to the rail, knelt, made the sign of the cross, and bowed his head. What a strange contradiction he was! A former priest—or at least a seminarian at one time—who was a fierce, focused warrior when in battle. She wondered—but would never ask unless he volunteered, for fear it would sound judgmental—how he came to join the special forces, after being in such a seemingly pacifist place.

When a young priest came out of the sacristy, he paused and stared at JAM for a moment, perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit. Then he approached JAM, who stood, and they conversed quietly for a few moments, after which they shook hands, and the priest blessed him by making a cross in the air in front of JAM’s face.

“I love churches,” JAM said as they walked out. “The look of them, the smell of them, the feel of them. Big, small, all denominations. No matter the architecture. But especially the old ones with stained glass windows and wood that reeks of ancient mysteries. Whether a person believes in God or not, they can’t deny the peace of a church, the sense of welcome and open arms.” He glanced at her to see if she shared his opinion, not at all embarrassed by his long discourse which had been a little bit preachy. That’s how JAM was, open and honest, always.

“Do you ever regret leaving the church?” That question didn’t seem quite so intrusive as her earlier wondering about the dichotomy of peacemaker/killer.

“Oh, I’ve never left the church. Just the priesthood. No. No regrets.” He paused then before asking, “How about you, Flip? Regrets? Do you wish you hadn’t come back here?”

They were walking as they talked, headed out of the town center, toward the residential area. She thought before answering. “No, I don’t regret coming home. It had to be done. Too many loose ends that I’ve ignored for years.”

He nodded, as if he understood.

“Trite as it may sound, I need closure,” she continued. “About so many things.”

Another nod, but then he asked, “Including Tall, Dark, and Broody back there?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He arched a brow.

She thought about saying nothing, but then she gave him a brief version of their history leading to their breakup and Beth Anne’s pregnancy, concluding at the end, “Perhaps I was a bit hasty in the way I left Bell Cove twelve years ago, without getting all the details. Not about what had happened. No, that had been crystal clear. But I suspect that’s the reason for Ethan’s bitterness toward me, that I didn’t give him time to work things out. Why should I have? The jerk!” She sighed deeply before summing up the situation, from her viewpoint. “Ethan and I had been a couple practically from kindergarten. We loved each other. Deeply. I know, everyone thinks their love is the best, the most unique, but ours truly was. Everyone remarked on it. But then, like I said, Ethan got a girl pregnant the summer following our high school graduation. End of story.”

JAM pretended to be playing the violin. “So, he fell in love with someone else. Happens all the time, Flip. To both men and women. That’s what country music is all about, ‘he done her wrong’ songs. Nothing new.”

“No, I’m not making myself clear, apparently. It wasn’t like that for Ethan. It was a one-night stand following a party. He didn’t love Beth Anne, at least he hadn’t back then, but he was going to marry her to give the baby a name. ‘A horrible, stupid mistake,’ he said in apology to me, but not to worry, the marriage would be a ‘technicality.’ Seriously, that’s what he’d said it would be. Marriage as a temporary solution that would be corrected in nine months, give or take.”

“Dumb schmuck!” JAM concluded.

“Yep,” she agreed, although she kind of resented JAM classifying him as such. “The shotgun wedding, without the weapon . . . the old-fashioned notion of ‘having to get married.’ I probably could have forgiven the lapse in judgment, but the marriage . . . ?” She shook her head vehemently. “Never.”

“Now that’s where I disagree, with you and my own church. Unlike the old days, priests today are told to discourage couples from marrying just because the woman is pregnant. I, on the other hand, know what it’s like to grow up illegitimate, and, when a child is involved, I vote for doing what’s best for the kid.”

Wendy wasn’t about to get involved in an argument about marriage and children. And, actually, she wasn’t sure she disagreed with JAM. “In the end, all our plans went up in smoke. We had planned to attend UNC that fall, he in a pre-veterinarian program, me in pre-med. We would be married the summer following our sophomore year and continue our studies through med schools. Eventually we’d come back to the Outer Banks to practice. Have three children . . . two girls and a boy. And live happily ever after. Instead, I ran away and never looked back, well, hardly ever. So much for all our beautiful plans!” She laughed, or tried to.

“Silly girl!” He looped an arm over her shoulder and tugged her close for a hug. “Don’t you know that the only time God laughs is when He hears us humans talk about our plans?”

“What does that mean?”