Wrapped in Rain(93)

"Tuck, we're not finished talking about this."

"Look, Katie, you can raise a pretty boy if you want, but sooner or later, you've got to let him be a boy."

Katie stomped her foot. "But what about his curls?"

"Well"-I pointed atJase-"they've been replaced by a smiling kid with a lot of ears."

"Tucker." Katie put her hands on her hips.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Well, not really, but if you need to hear me say it, I'm sorry." I held her hand and tugged her toward the porch. She took one look at Jase and started laughing.



"I cannot believe you did that to my son. And what on earth is that ungodly smell?"

"Katie," I said, looping my arm beneath hers and escorting her back to the porch, "there's more going on here than just a haircut."

"Yeah, like what?"

"I'm teaching Jase how to spell."





Chapter 42


BITTER COLD CREPT DOWN THE STAIRS OF THE BASEMENT and slipped inside my covers. I opened my eyes and noticed my own breath steaming above me. I'm no butcher, but I could've hung meat in the basement. My smoke-breath made me think of Doc, whom I'd neglected, but I think he understood. I danced around the kitchen, loaded the percolator, and listened to the weatherman on Miss Ella's transistor radio. Through the static and single cracked speaker, he said, "It's the coldest Christmas morning in fifty years. Twelve degrees! Merry Christmas!" Two things in his statement caught my attention. "Twelve" and "Christmas."

I piled all three downstairs fireplaces with wood, poured on a quart of diesel fuel, threw in a match, and waited for the first floor to warm up. The dank, dark, and hollow feeling of Waverly drained out, starting in the upper corners of the room and falling all the way to the fire. In its place, a warm glow bubbled out of the fireplace, stretched across the floors, and climbed the walls until the ceiling dripped with golden firelight, transforming my house into a place I did not recognize. But something was missing. One look and I figured it out. I put on just about every piece of clothing I owned and shivered all the way to the barn.

Mutt lay in his bed, sleeping, cocooned like a caterpillar. I didn't wake him because it was the first time I had seen him sleep in almost a week. I saddled Glue, strapped a lasso to the saddle horn, dug out a rusty saw and packing blanket from the tool chest, and we walked east. We circled through the orchards, around the quarry, and up into an area where virgin timber grew. Some of the pines were sixty feet tall, and the oaks were as big around as the hood of my truck. I found a ten-foot holly tree, already decorated with little red beads, and worked up a sweat cutting it close to the ground. I trimmed the bottom, laid it in the blanket, tied it loosely, and began dragging it back, using the saddle horn as my tow hook. The dew had frozen hard, and a thin sheet of ice spread across the earth in front of us. It wasn't thick enough to pose a problem for Glue but allowed the tree to slide along with little effort. I carried the tree through the front door and secured it in the den opposite the fireplace with an old iron brace I found collecting dust in the barn.



Giving gifts posed a problem until I walked through the attic. I pulled down a large cedar chest that was big enough for me to fold up and fit into when I was a child. It looked like something a captain on a pirate ship would have owned. I buffed it with a quick coat of furniture wax, put it beneath the tree, and wrapped a bow around it. I had always loved the smell of that box. The percolator quit gurgling at me, so I poured a cup and began waxing Rex's grand. When finished, I wrapped the entire piano in a bow, loaded more wood in the fireplaces, and stretched out across the leather couch in the den, watching the embers fall beneath the iron grate.

An hour later, the back screen door squeaked and slammed, and small, pajama-footed feet scurried across the kitchen. They raced downstairs into the basement, fell silent, climbed the stairs, and began searching the house. When he ran through the den, I said, "Hey, partner."

"Unca Tuck!" Jase waved his arms through the air and jumped up and down. "It's Christmas!"

"I know. Can you believe it?"



Katie walked in a few seconds later wearing a flannel nightgown and terry cloth robe and wrapped in a blanket. The sleep hung heavy in her eyes, and one patch of hair on the back of her head was standing straight up like Alfalfa. I took one look at her and pointed. "Percolator. It's hot." She nodded, yawned, and turned in the direction of the kitchen.

Jase hopped up on my lap and said, "I gotyou a surprise."

"You did? What is it?"

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I can't tell you that. Then it wouldn't be a surprise."

"Well, I got you a surprise too," I said and pointed at the box.

Jase's eyes grew wide. "Wow. What is it?" He jumped off the couch and circled the box, running his hands along the edges and sizing it up.

Katie walked in and sat down next to me on the couch, her eyes opening wider with every sip. "Hi," she whispered. "I like the tree. You special order that?"

"It's long on promise and short on decoration, but I figured we'd let Jase do that."

"Hey, Mom," Jase said, pounding the top of the box, "Unca Tuck got me a surprise. Can I open it?" She looked at me, and I nodded.