Page 116 of Smoky Mountain Dreams
Brigid finished eating and sat in her chair fidgeting. “Idon’t know what to do,” she said, finally.
“What do you mean?” Jesse asked as he dug into a pancake.
“I’m almost done now. I’ve only got eighty cranes left tomake and I’ll have two thousand.” Her eyes went wide. “I’m not ready to make mywish yet.” She swallowed convulsively.
“Two thousand,” Will muttered. “All over the dining roomtable. I can’t play NASCAR with my Matchbox cars in there anymore.”
Jesse ignored Will. “That’s okay. You can wait as long asyou want to fold the last cranes, Brigid. There’s no pressure.”
“No, I have to do it by Christmas. That was the plan.”
“Then you have plenty of time.”
Brigid looked between Jesse and Christopher. “Okay. Are yousure?”
Christopher waited for Jesse to answer but he seemeduncertain of what to say next.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that a real ‘it’s okay if you don’tlike it,’ or a Grandma Birch ‘it’s okay if you don’t like it’?”
Christopher glanced at Jesse, who was trying to hide hislaugh by stuffing another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “A real one.”
“Let’s hear it so I can say no, and we can get on with our day.”
“Brigid…” Jesse’s tone held a note of warning.
Christopher didn’t want them to get into it this morning.They were going to have a fun day together. As a family. Well,theywere going to be a family, and Christopher was goingto be…along for the ride.
Now auditioning for the part ofPotential Future Family Member is Mr. Christopher Ryder.
Christopher took a nervous swig of coffee at the intrusivethought. Was he really entertaining that kind of commitment? Yes, he was, andyesterday had been part of that. Another needling realization hit himsuddenly—the voice in his head hadn’t been Gran’s. He hadn’t heard her in hishead ever since Thanksgiving, actually. A winter cold welled up in him, a lotlike fear, and he swallowed a few more sips of coffee to warm himself beforeturning to Brigid.
“You know how some kids make paper chains to decorate theirtrees?”
“I was going to suggest we do that,” Jesse said.
“Well, if Brigid wants—and only if she wants—I was thinkingshe could make a chain of her cranes. If we’re careful with them, she could usethem every year. Or until they got too torn up.”
Brigid assessed him, her dark eyes flickering as sheconsidered the suggestion. “There’re too many. We couldn’t use them all.”
“But we could use some of them. You could string the resttoo, and you could put them up around the house for other decorations, like ona wreath or just hanging from the doorways.”
She pondered it. “Okay. I like that idea.”
Jesse glanced at Christopher with gratitude in his eyes. “Soundsperfect. What’ll you need to make it work?”
Christopher and Brigid talked through what they’d need whileWill moved the salt and pepper shaker around the table, muttering footballcommentary under his breath, and Jesse sat back in his seat smiling. A thoughtswelled in Christopher’s mind, and again it wasn’t from Gran.
This is how a family acts.
Maybe the audition was going all right after all. Maybe hecould have this family and this life if he just said the right things andopened his heart to this hurt child and her father. If he just stayed there forWill, and let himself fall as hard and fast as he would inevitably fall. Forall of them.
With any luck, Brigid and Will would have inherited theirfather’s eyes. Christopher hoped fervently that they’d really see him too, andmaybe they’d find something in him to love and call their own.
The Wilson Glyn Christmas Tree Farm was perfect, like apage from a storybook. They’d left Brigid watching over Will by the bluegrassplayers in the barn-cum-sales area. The musicians were playing carols, stompingtheir feet and swaying with their whole bodies as they worked their fingersover necks of their fiddles and stroked with their bows. Will was dancing hislittle heart out and obviously cared more about that than choosing a tree. “Funpart’s when you get it home,” he’d declared.
Brigid had been taken with the wooden ornaments on sale.Jesse suspected he’d be getting one as a present given how eager she was toannounce that she’d stay to watch Will dance and shooed them off to go choose atree without her.
“So, things are better with Brigid today,” Jesse said,meaning in terms of how she was relating to Christopher, but Christopherinterpreted it differently.
