My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(103)

*

I wasn’t looking as Emily walked down the center aisle, moving to the front of the church, but she sounded like an angel as she began to read the Christmas story from the Book of Mark. The lights dimmed even further. Little boys dressed like shepherds were carrying baby goats and taking their place at the front of the room, but it felt like I was in a trance as I eased away from Ethan and his family, clinging to the shadows before I slipped outside.

The man who followed didn’t offer me a hug. He didn’t ask if I was okay or tell me how worried he had been. No. The first words out of his mouth were, “Did you know you had a show tonight?”

“Didn’t you see? I just did one,” I shot back.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the helicopter that was sitting in a nearby field, waiting for us.

“A helicopter, Derek?” I rolled my eyes. “Really? Subtle.”

“Come on. We’re leaving.”

“No,” I shouted. “I have to say good-bye. I have to—”

“Lydia!” Ethan’s voice sliced through the clear night air. “Wait.”

It was all I could do to pull away from Derek long enough to look back.

“Who are you?” Aunt Mary was half a step behind Ethan and closing the gap between us quickly. “Where are you taking her? That child is my responsibility!”

Aunt Mary looked and sounded like a force of nature, and Derek might have recoiled a little if there hadn’t been so much riding on that moment. Riding on me.

He puffed out his chest and spat, “No. She’s not. And she’s leaving this place. Now.”

“Hulda, what’s going on here?” Clint had appeared at his sister’s side. “Is this man bothering you?”

“Clint, he’s trying to take her away,” Aunt Mary explained.

“Are you her father?” Clint asked, and Derek laughed.

“I’m her legal guardian.” Derek eyed Clint in his starched Wranglers and Carhartt coat. “And you, sir, are going to get out of our way before I have you arrested for kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping!” Clint shouted.

“They didn’t know!” I wedged myself in between Clint and Derek. “I ran away. I pretended to be an exchange student named Hulda. I lied, and they took me in.”

The church was quickly emptying, and it seemed as if all of Bethlehem now gathered around us. I kept waiting for someone to make a “What Child Is This?” joke, but no one said a thing. We had all said too much already.

“My name is Lydia,” I told them. “Liddy. Liddy Chambers.”

The night was clear and cold, and my breath fogged as I struggled to make sense of all that had happened.

And that was when I heard the singing.

It was my own voice, but not the song they play on the radio. It was the version of “O Holy Night” I’d recorded in Mom’s hospital room three years before. It was the song that was played ten million times on YouTube. It was the reason Derek and the record company came calling.

And when Mom got really sick—when we could no longer ignore the fact that she wouldn’t be around to raise me—that song was a big reason why she made Derek my guardian, why she thought she was giving me my dream.

“It’s her!” One of the twins held up her phone, playing the video for everyone to see. “See. It’s really her. It’s Liddy Chambers!”

“No.” Ethan shook his head. “It’s Lydia.”

Derek made a motion in the air and, in the pasture beside the church, the helicopter turned on its blades. Snow began to spin, filling the night sky with a swirling white. Derek started toward the chopper, but I was staring at Ethan and his family.

“Liddy!” Derek yelled. “Now!”

I took a few steps, then looked back. I was glad for the spinning snow and dark night. I didn’t want them to see the tears that filled my eyes as I said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied and—”

“Oh, honey,” Aunt Mary said. “You think we didn’t figure out that you weren’t an Icelandic girl named Hulda? You think we weren’t on to you ages ago?”

“You were?” I didn’t know whether to feel hurt or relieved. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you send me away?”

“Sweetheart, when you lose someone, you lose a little bit of yourself, too.” I wasn’t sure if Aunt Mary was talking about what happened to her or what happened to me, but it didn’t matter. It was true in any case. “And that missing piece? Sometimes you have to lose the rest of yourself to find it. Besides”—she cut her eyes at Derek—“I’m pretty sure I would have run away, too.”

Derek buttoned his coat and gathered his scarf as it blew wildly in the air. “I’m her guardian. And she’s coming with me.”

Derek reached for me again, but I jerked away.

“You’re not my guardian—you’re my manager,” I yelled, as if that could make any of them see the difference. “I’m an act to you. A property. I sing and I dance and … my mom was dying. She was sick and scared, and we were broke. That’s why she granted you custody.” Even though it hurt to admit it—not to the people of Bethlehem, but to myself—I had to say, “My mom didn’t know what was best for me.”