Catching Christmas by Terri Blackstock

Author:Terri Blackstock
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

Finn

I stop by Walmart to buy some food and notice a floor model of a small tabletop Christmas tree that’s marked half off. It’s already decorated with white lights and some red, shiny balls. I buy it and carry it out, and lay it carefully on my back seat. I hope it will put a smile on Callie’s face if she’s awake when I go back.

Back at the hospital, I trek up the hall with it to Callie’s room, knock lightly, and push the door open. She’s sound asleep on the bed, an oxygen tube clipped under her nose. I look around for a place to put the tree, but the bedside table is cluttered, and there’s a plastic pitcher and a Styrofoam glass of water on the rolling tray table. Across the room is a cheap, hospital-grade chifforobe. I set the tree next to it on the floor, then realize she won’t even be able to see it unless she sits up.

I go out to the hall to look for a box or something to put it on. As I pass the nurses’ station, I lean over and get a nurse’s attention. “Could you tell me if Callie Beecher is alone, or is her granddaughter still here?”

“She’s still here,” the nurse says. “I think she’s in the prayer room. She asked me where it was. It’s down the hall to the left. There’s a cross beside the door.”

“The prayer room?” I say. “Okay.” I don’t really want to go to the prayer room, but I do want to know how Callie is. And since I’m not family, no one but Sydney can tell me. “Listen, do you have a big box lying around somewhere back there?”

“A box?” she asks.

“Yeah. For a little Christmas tree. Just to get it high enough that Miss Callie can see it.”

“No, I’m sorry. There isn’t anything.”

“Don’t all those sheets come in boxes? Or the drugs? Or those cheap little off-brand tissue boxes that cost twenty times what they cost in stores?”

“Excuse me?”

I don’t know whether she can’t understand me or if she’s being deliberately obtuse. I give up on her and head down to the prayer room. I’ll peek in, and if Sydney isn’t in the throes of prayer, I’ll ask her about Callie’s condition. But when I crack the door open, I see Sydney sitting on the second row, leaning forward with her head bowed. She may be crying.

I step back into the hall and slip into a tiny waiting room where I can watch the prayer room door. I pick up a People magazine and flip through without reading until Sydney comes out, wiping her eyes.

It’s probably not the best time to approach her, so I wait, wondering whether she got more bad news about Callie. My heart sinks. What should I do? I’m suddenly drawn to that room. It won’t kill me to go in and pray. I cross the hall and step back into the quiet. There’s no one else here.

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