Jamie could not see the front door, but the carolers were all looking in that direction. Amanda and Gus Hartmann would be standing there, and Toby, smiles on all their faces as they graciously acknowledged the devotion of their faithful vassals. And probably Miss Montgomery would be hovering nearby, the steadfast family retainer, like a figure from a Dickens novel.
Back in her room, Jamie made herself a cup of hot chocolate and, with the radio tuned to a station playing Christmas music, tried to make a ceremony out of opening the presents that Amanda and Toby had brought-gifts selected to help her start a new life. The first package was a bottle of French perfume cradled in a satin-lined box. Then she opened a box with a sterling silver compact in a leather pouch. The next box held a pink silk peignoir set. A sterling silver bud vase occupied the next box. The last one contained a handsome leather billfold.
The billfold would come in handy, but Jamie found the other gifts puzzling. They had nothing to do with the sort of life she would be leading. Perhaps Amanda wanted her to have some pretty things to relieve the otherwise utilitarian life that most college students led. Or perhaps she had asked a secretary or servant to buy some gifts for a twenty-year-old female.
She put the gifts back in their boxes and stored them under the bed.
She waited until after dinner to visit Mary Millicent.
As soon as she opened the secret door, she heard voices. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she crept halfway up the stairs. The voices were coming from Mary Millicent’s room.
She peered through the railing into Sonny’s room, which was illuminated by the light from dozens of flickering candles. Candles were everywhere-on the windowsills, on the tabletops and bureau, set in trays on the floor-illuminating the still form on the bed.
Jamie wondered if Sonny was dead and the candles were part of a wake. But the catheter tube was still connected to its bag.
She knew that Amanda had done this and that she had sat with her son in the candlelight, holding his hand, kissing his lips, remembering Christmases past when he was a beautiful young man and had his whole life ahead of him.
Jamie wondered how long a person in his condition could be kept alive.
She climbed the last few stairs, tiptoed over to the bed, and touched Sonny’s hand. She agreed with Mary Millicent. It was time for Amanda to let Sonny die, but she also understood why a mother might put off such a decision and instead pray for a miracle.
She had no doubt that Amanda had genuinely loved her son, who had apparently been a very nice young man. Jamie wondered if Sonny had really wanted to follow in his mother’s footsteps. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Except she wondered how you know that other people’s religion is wrong for them and that your own would be better. What if all God cared about was that people be good to one another?
Amazed at her own daring, Jamie carefully climbed the second staircase far enough to peek under the railing that guarded the stairwell. A small Christmas tree with twinkling lights stood in the middle of the table. Mary Millicent in her wheelchair was wearing a new sweater with the tags still on it. Sitting with her at the table were Amanda and Gus-her children. Gus was telling a story about their father, recalling the Christmas when he drove their brand-new pony cart right into the great hall. He had been wearing a Santa Claus hat and jingle bells were attached to the pony’s harness.
Feeling very much the intruder, Jamie crept back down the stairs.
Chapter Eighteen
AFTER TUCKING THEIR mother into bed, Gus followed his sister down the stairs to Sonny’s room. The room was incredibly beautiful with all the candles reflecting in the hundreds of diamond-shaped windowpanes.
Gus stood beside his sister at her son’s bedside and watched while she stroked Sonny’s forehead and spoke to him in a soothing voice, like a mother would talk to an infant in a crib. Suddenly Gus couldn’t stand it anymore and grabbed Amanda’s arm. “Let him go,” he begged. “Please let him go. You promised that you would.”
“It’s already begun,” she said. “Freda removed the feeding tube last week. She says that starvation is actually a very gentle way to die.”
“How much longer will it take?” Gus asked, staring at his nephew.
“Not long,” Amanda said, kissing Gus’s cheek and stroking his back. “Aren’t we lucky that the Lord allowed us to have this wonderful boy to know and love for twenty wonderful years? Just think of all those lovely memories. We have been blessed.”
One of those memories came to Gus’s mind. Sonny was racing ahead of him across the great hall and up the stairs on sturdy little legs, anxious to show off his new hamster that went round and round in its own little Ferris wheel. Beautiful Sonny, the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows highlighting his golden curls, looked over his shoulder and called out, “You’re going to love him, Uncle Gus. His name is Brownie.” Sonny waited at the top of the stairs for him and slipped his hand into his.
Gus had to pause and close his eyes for a moment to deal with the ache that filled his chest. And for an instant, he could feel that small, sweet, warm hand in his own. He had loved the boy Sonny without reservation-and the young man he had become, a young man who had shared his uncle’s love for the ranch and wanted to live here always. Sonny had asked Gus to help him make his mother understand that he was not cut out to be an evangelist or to run an oil company or a political movement. He did not want to follow in anyone’s footsteps. He wanted to be himself. And Gus had said yes, that he would side with him against Amanda, and remembered feeling amazement at how correct that decision seemed. Sonny wanted to be his own man. And that made Gus proud.
But Amanda refused even to discuss the matter, and less than a week after that conversation, Sonny had been reduced to a vegetable.
If Gus thought there was even the tiniest chance that there was a heaven and he would see Sonny again, he would become the devoutest of believers and give away all his worldly goods and wear rags like Saint Francis of Assisi. As it was, every single day he cursed the God that he didn’t believe in for taking away that precious boy. And he had insisted on finding someone mortal to blame when maybe the accident had been just that. Accidental. No one’s fault-except perhaps Amanda’s goddamned God if he did happen to exist.
Amanda smoothed Sonny’s hair from his forehead and planted a kiss there. “I love you, my darling,” she told him. His face was gaunt, but she could still see the beautiful boy he had been-physically and spiritually. Everyone who saw him responded to his beauty. They wanted to be near him and bask in his smile, shake his hand. Her son had the power to save the world. After the accident, she hadn’t been able to understand why God had let such a thing happen to him. Finally, she had given up trying and simply bowed before God, submitting herself completely to his will. It was the only way she could find peace. That was when God had pointed the way. He was calling Sonny home, but he had shown her the way to have Sonny’s child. She would have another child to raise and adore. Yet, if an angel were to appear before her and tell her that she could have her son back if she would tear the baby from Jamie Long’s belly and kill it with her bare hands, she would do it.
Amanda sighed. What must God think of her for having such thoughts? And she banished them from her mind.