Cadence of Cranberries - Valerie Comer Page 0,40
Why can’t I be the youngest? It’s not fair.”
Winnie chuckled. “Nice try, Arie. Oliver and Gavin are both younger than you.” She bounced the baby in her arms. “Even Lillian is. It’s not something you get to choose.”
“He’s got a point.” Grace ruffled the boy’s hair. “He was too little to remember doing it when he was the youngest. Remind me to show you a picture at our house tomorrow, kay, buddy?”
Arie crossed his arms and stuck out his lower lip. “Okay, but—”
Grace tapped his lip. “Enough.”
The fairness lament didn’t start when a kid was six like Arie or end when he was thirteen like Michael. The boys dashed out as some of the girls came in.
Whew. Maybe Winnie could avoid a further heart-to-heart with Grace. Her sister-in-law meant well, but some things were too new, too fragile, to share with anyone. “I guess if Marietta has called for us, we should go.” Winnie rounded up Lila and Tieri and turned them to the living room. “Time for some Christmas carols, girls.”
The living room was packed with over thirty Santoros. Al’s brother Matt’s family was missing — they lived in Idaho — and so were Basil and Dominic. But Marietta, mostly recovered from her tumble back in August, sat in her chair between the Christmas tree and the tall presepe, the nativity pyramid brought to America by her husband as a young man.
Even though Winnie’s own family wasn’t Italian and had managed with a small nativity scene on the mantel, the presepe had represented everything Christmas to her since she’d come to Bridgeview as Al’s young bride. The hexagonal wooden stand had shelves for the various parts of the Christmas story. Six angels with blowing bugles pointed out from the top tier. Beneath them, Mary and Joseph waited beside an empty manger surrounded by farm animals. Wise men, shepherds, and the village of Bethlehem took up the next tiers, while the bottom one held a Dickensian village with a small church, a few houses, and caroling figures.
Winnie’s gaze landed on the remainder of that bottom tier, where the figurine of a couple skated on a scrap of mirror, just like she and Charlie had done a couple of weeks ago. The evening had been so perfect. So magical, even though the magical kisses hadn’t come for a couple of more days.
Tears pricked her eyes. Why couldn’t she be happy again? Was it so wrong to mourn romance in her life as well as mourning Alberto? She’d loved him with her whole heart, and he’d adored her back. She’d been... whole... with him. No, Charlie wasn’t Al. He was a much newer believer, for one thing, but he was gentle and kind and made her heart race. Why wasn’t it okay?
Ray took the worn leather Bible and began to read from Luke chapter two. Mary had felt such wonder in the tiny Son of God entrusted to her care, but her life had grown increasingly more troubled as the years wore on, especially after Joseph’s death. She hadn’t understood Jesus’ role to everyone around them, that He wasn’t just her baby anymore. She’d had to learn to see her Son’s life through the eyes of eternity.
It must have been so difficult. Much harder than anything Winnie had gone through as a wife or mother. Her gaze caught on the figurine of Mary kneeling by the empty manger as Ray finished reading and prayed a blessing over each member of the family, those present, and those far away.
Then Dafne lifted two-year-old Gavin to the presepe, and the little boy placed the ceramic baby in the manger, knocking Mary over with a pudgy hand in the process. His mama reached in and righted the young mother. Dafne had only been seventeen, still with a year of high school to go, at Gavin’s birth. Maybe she identified with Mary, too.
Maybe they all could, because didn’t the story of Jesus’ birth, life, and death reveal that God’s plans far outshone any created by humans?
Winnie couldn’t know what all God intended to do through Al’s death. So many in the neighborhood and across the city had come to know Jesus through his witness. Wesley Ferguson, for one. Dan Ranta, for another. Dozens of others had phoned and sent notes telling Winnie how Al’s life and death had impacted them. She’d found solace and peace in those connections at the time.
Lately? She’d wanted more, but it was a good night to remember that eternity was far greater