Chapter 12
Here's the start of the happy I promised you. Please pardon any typos, I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off and I didn't have time to edit. But I thought it was time to get the happy started, 'cause it's almost Christmas.
Chapter 12
The problem, Jack thinks when his feet are back on Tennessee soil, is how to convince Sawyer. Sawyer believes that he’s fated to fail, fated to suffer. Jack thinks he’d been getting over that in his weeks on the island, and in their month together on the mountain. Then Margo had appeared, and fate had dealt him yet another blow. How can Jack convince him that if he stands up to fate, if he faces it down and rises above it, he’s destined for happiness? They are destined for happiness. Jack believes this now more than ever.
It’s past dark and a light snow is beginning to fall as Jack emerges from the airport. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Jack thinks. In the morning the streets will be filled with the bustle of last-minute shoppers. He feels an automatic twinge of panic that he hasn’t gotten anything for his mother yet, and then he gives a bitter laugh at his own absurdity. Surely she won’t expect anything from him this year. He doubts he’ll find any brightly-wrapped packages from her waiting for him when he returns to his hotel.
He hasn’t gotten anything for Sawyer, either. The man needs so many things, but judging by his reaction to the clothes Jack bought him, he won’t welcome anything he perceives as Jack trying to improve him or his life. If Jack is going to show up at his house and demand to be let back into his life - and that is what Jack is going to do - he has to come up with the perfect gift. Just the perfect peace offering. And then he has an idea.
********
Sawyer hammers the last nail home on Christmas Eve. He climbs down the ladder and grabs his cigarettes and lighter from among the litter of building supplies and hand tools on his makeshift worktable. He makes his way around the house to the front yard and leans against his truck, smoking and studying his handiwork.
The new siding gleams white against the backdrop of greens and browns that cover the mountainside. The new roof, a deep charcoal gray, looks tight and secure. He’d shored up the front porch so that it no longer sags, and he replaced the torn screens. The little house no longer looks neglected, dejected; it looks cared-for. Something’s missing, though. He looks at the pile of old shutters he’d stripped from the windows before he’d begun to replace the siding, and decides that he needs to buy new ones. He’ll paint them black, he thinks, or maybe dark green. He wonders what color Jack would choose, but he shoves the thought away before it’s even fully formed. Jack’s gone, and he’s never coming back to Sawyer’s little house in the Smokies. The sooner Sawyer makes peace with that, the better.
He glances at his watch and sees that it’s barely noon; he’s got plenty of time to go into town and pick up supplies. He runs inside to grab his keys, and takes a minute to think about what else needs doing. He plans to stay as busy as possible today and tomorrow, to keep his mind off of being alone at Christmas. It’s odd that it bothers him, he thinks; hasn’t he been alone for every single Christmas of his adult life? Why should it be any different now? And why would he imagine that there would be anything special about spending Christmas with Jack? They’d never talked about it - Jack probably doesn’t even celebrate the holiday. Sawyer supposes he’ll never know, now.
He climbs into his truck, and somehow finds himself turning right off the little gravel road rather than left. Left would take him into Gatlinburg where there’s one small hardware store, or if he wanted to drive fifteen minutes more, Sevierville boasts all of the large chain building supply stores. Turning right takes him over the mountain, along steep, winding roads for miles and miles, until he finally emerges near the entrance to Interstate 40. He’s going all the way into Knoxville, then. He doesn’t understand the pull; there’s nothing for him there anymore. But still he drives on.
He leaves the Home Depot two hours later and piles the new shutters, a gallon of forest green paint, and an assortment of plumbing supplies in the back of the truck. Go home now, he orders himself, but of course he doesn’t, or course he turns toward the hospital instead. He has to know.
Jack’s car isn’t in its usual parking spot, but that doesn’t mean anything; it could be his day off. He tries the hotel parking lot, but there’s no sign of Jack’s car there either. On impulse he drives south, toward the airport. He’s acting like a stalker, he realizes, and he could probably get the answer he needs just by picking up his phone and calling the hospital. But he wants to see it with his own eyes.
Sure enough, he finds Jack’s car parked in the short-term parking lot. So he’s really gone, then. Sawyer doesn’t know why he’d ever have imagined that he might not be. He supposes that a man as wealthy as Jack is wouldn’t think twice about just abandoning his car, knowing it’ll eventually be towed away. He’d left it as a signal to Sawyer that yes, he’s really gone. It’s really over.
Resigned, Sawyer turns his truck back toward the mountains and home.
********
Night comes early in the mountains in the winter, and Sawyer puts away his tools, grimly satisfied that he’s put in another hard day’s work. Tomorrow he’ll start ripping out and replacing the plumbing, but tonight is Christmas Eve. Tonight he has drinking to do.
Snow is beginning to drift from the darkened sky as he grabs a bottle of Jack Daniels and makes his way out to the screened porch. He piles firewood into the pot-bellied stove and sets it alight. He pulls his mamaw’s cane-bottomed rocker close to the blaze and sits back and watches the fat flakes of snow twirl in their air-dance as they drift toward the ground. His only goal is to get drunk, to find the release that he achieves each night when the alcohol has done its work and Jack is erased from his mind, if only for a few hours.
As the fire burns and the snow falls, he thinks back to his first Christmas spent in this house, the year he was seven. His parents had been gone for several months by then, and he was finally beginning to understand that “dead” meant “never coming back.” So many things worried him in those days, but the thing that was worrying him most that Christmas Eve was whether or not Santa would be able to find him.
Christmases in his house in Knoxville had been bright and cheerful, full of fun traditions like baking gingerbread men and putting the star on the top of the tree and running to the front door in delight when the Brownie Scouts came caroling. The local children liked to come to his house. His mother took care of most of them when they were sick. On those nights when they came to his house to offer her something in return, he felt happy and proud.
Christmas in the mountains was different. Here nobody seemed cheerful, nobody seemed excited. He helped his mamaw decorate the tree, but for some reason she had tears in her eyes as she hung homemade ornaments and draped ropes of strung-together popcorn from the branches. “Why are you sad?” he’d asked, and his papaw had barked, “Mind your own business, boy.”
It’s what he said whenever James asked about his father, about whether or not his grandparents thought he’d gone to heaven, so he guessed that his mamaw’s tears had something to do with his daddy. He thought his mamaw didn’t believe that his daddy went to heaven. She’d cried at his mama’s wake, not for his mama, but because his own daddy couldn’t have one. You don’t get a wake if you kill yourself.
James worried about his mamaw. She always seemed so sad, and his papaw thought that James always said things that made her sadder. He wanted to ask her about Santa Claus, about whether or not Santa would be able to find him here in the mountains, but he was afraid that that would make her cry more, so he didn’t.
Then he had an idea. He could write a letter to Santa like he’d done last year when he told Santa everything he wanted for Christmas. This year he was a lot better at writing, and he could tell Santa where he lived now. As soon as they’d finished trimming the tree he ran to his room and opened up his school notebook. Then he sat at his desk for a while, trying to think of what to ask for. Somehow the idea of new toys didn’t make him as happy as it had last Christmas. The only thing he could think of that would make him happy would be for his mamaw to not be so sad, and for his papaw to not be so mad. And he wanted to see his mama and daddy again. Those weren’t the kind of things you could ask Santa Claus for, though. He put his pencil to the sheet of paper in front of him, but instead of writing, “Dear Santa,” he wrote “Dear Mr. Sawyer.”
********
Now he stares into the flames dancing in the same stove where he’d burned that letter the day he’d come back to this house, almost exactly one year ago. For nearly thirty years he’d believed that the real Mr. Sawyer had ruined his life. He’d blamed him for everything that had gone wrong since the day his daddy murdered his mama and killed himself. But the island had showed him that his life didn’t have to be ruined. He could find happiness even in the midst of disaster. He could do something good even when bad things were happening all around him. And knowing that, he could finally make peace with the past, and in doing so, with himself.
Sawyer sits and drinks and laughs bitterly at himself for being so stupid. On this, the night of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, he feels nothing but inner turmoil and anger at the world. “Goodwill toward men, my ass,” he mutters. There’s only one man he cares about being good to. And Sawyer is the worst thing that ever happened to him.
He raises the bottle to his mouth and pours sweet oblivion down his throat.
********
It’s possibly the strangest idea that Jack has ever had, and he thinks that before the island such a thing would never have occurred to him. His brain seems to have been re-wired since Sawyer came into his life, though, and so now he analyzes this new thought, wondering if there’s any way it can possibly work. It’ll have to be handled very carefully, he thinks, and luck will definitely have to be on his side. He decides that if it’s meant to be, everything will fall into place, and he sets to work.
The streets of Knoxville are crowded with last-minute shoppers in spite of the light glaze of snow and ice on the ground, and the stores are filled with faces both anxious and cheerful. So much left to do, but soon it will all be over except for the enjoyment of gifts and food and family, the reward for all the hard work of preparing for the day. Jack catches himself saying “Merry Christmas” to cashiers and shoppers alike with a genuine smile on his face. After days of despair, it feels good to find the spirit of the season. The spirit of hope.
The crowds make shopping an all-day event, but Jack doesn’t mind. He has to time everything carefully, so he takes his time and focuses on getting each detail perfectly in place. He’s thankful that he was able to rent a pick-up truck at the airport, as its bed becomes more and more crowded and at last he straps his final purchase on top of the heap. Finally, well past dark, he turns his loaded vehicle toward the mountains and begins his journey home.
Snow begins to fall again as he reaches the higher altitudes. The more he climbs the thicker the flakes become, and Jack smiles. They’ll have a white Christmas, then. Where once he hadn’t particularly cared about such things, now it makes him feel as if this night is truly special. The snow is a sign that everything will happen just as it should.
He cuts off his headlights and lets the truck coast to a stop on the side of the road just around the bend from Sawyer’s house. Through the trees he can see the rising smoke from Sawyer’s fireplace. He waits until the wisps stop drifting toward the sky, then he waits another half-hour just to be on the safe side. He keeps his lights off and pulls slowly into the yard. He parks as close to the steps as possible, and reaches into his pocket for the key he still keeps on his keyring. Stealth has never been his strong suit, but as he crosses the porch he sees in the shadows the shape of a whiskey bottle lying on its side. He picks it up. It’s empty. Jack grins, and though there’s a twinge of guilt because he should be sorry that Sawyer needed to drink himself to sleep, it’s mostly a sense of satisfaction that he feels. Fate is playing right into his hands.
He opens the front door slowly, noticing as he does that it no longer squeaks. The WD-40 must’ve done the trick, after all. He crosses the room silently and slips into the bedroom. In the dim half-light he can see Sawyer sprawled on his back, dead to the world. From the whiskey-smell that permeates the room, Jack can tell he’d had a lot. He hopes Sawyer won’t be too hungover in the morning. It’s a safe bet that he’ll sleep soundly all night long, though. Jack stands over him, watching him sleep. Even in the oblivion of drunken unconsciousness his slumber isn’t easy; there’s a deep scowl on his face and every now and then he mumbles angry-sounding syllables in his sleep. Jack wants to reach out and cradle his cheek in his hand, tell him that everything’s going to be all right, tell him that he’s is home to stay. But he doesn’t dare. He has a job to do, and he can’t risk waking Sawyer until it’s done.
He closes the bedroom door quietly behind him as he leaves, and gets to work.
link to Chapter 13
Chapter 12
The problem, Jack thinks when his feet are back on Tennessee soil, is how to convince Sawyer. Sawyer believes that he’s fated to fail, fated to suffer. Jack thinks he’d been getting over that in his weeks on the island, and in their month together on the mountain. Then Margo had appeared, and fate had dealt him yet another blow. How can Jack convince him that if he stands up to fate, if he faces it down and rises above it, he’s destined for happiness? They are destined for happiness. Jack believes this now more than ever.
It’s past dark and a light snow is beginning to fall as Jack emerges from the airport. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Jack thinks. In the morning the streets will be filled with the bustle of last-minute shoppers. He feels an automatic twinge of panic that he hasn’t gotten anything for his mother yet, and then he gives a bitter laugh at his own absurdity. Surely she won’t expect anything from him this year. He doubts he’ll find any brightly-wrapped packages from her waiting for him when he returns to his hotel.
He hasn’t gotten anything for Sawyer, either. The man needs so many things, but judging by his reaction to the clothes Jack bought him, he won’t welcome anything he perceives as Jack trying to improve him or his life. If Jack is going to show up at his house and demand to be let back into his life - and that is what Jack is going to do - he has to come up with the perfect gift. Just the perfect peace offering. And then he has an idea.
********
Sawyer hammers the last nail home on Christmas Eve. He climbs down the ladder and grabs his cigarettes and lighter from among the litter of building supplies and hand tools on his makeshift worktable. He makes his way around the house to the front yard and leans against his truck, smoking and studying his handiwork.
The new siding gleams white against the backdrop of greens and browns that cover the mountainside. The new roof, a deep charcoal gray, looks tight and secure. He’d shored up the front porch so that it no longer sags, and he replaced the torn screens. The little house no longer looks neglected, dejected; it looks cared-for. Something’s missing, though. He looks at the pile of old shutters he’d stripped from the windows before he’d begun to replace the siding, and decides that he needs to buy new ones. He’ll paint them black, he thinks, or maybe dark green. He wonders what color Jack would choose, but he shoves the thought away before it’s even fully formed. Jack’s gone, and he’s never coming back to Sawyer’s little house in the Smokies. The sooner Sawyer makes peace with that, the better.
He glances at his watch and sees that it’s barely noon; he’s got plenty of time to go into town and pick up supplies. He runs inside to grab his keys, and takes a minute to think about what else needs doing. He plans to stay as busy as possible today and tomorrow, to keep his mind off of being alone at Christmas. It’s odd that it bothers him, he thinks; hasn’t he been alone for every single Christmas of his adult life? Why should it be any different now? And why would he imagine that there would be anything special about spending Christmas with Jack? They’d never talked about it - Jack probably doesn’t even celebrate the holiday. Sawyer supposes he’ll never know, now.
He climbs into his truck, and somehow finds himself turning right off the little gravel road rather than left. Left would take him into Gatlinburg where there’s one small hardware store, or if he wanted to drive fifteen minutes more, Sevierville boasts all of the large chain building supply stores. Turning right takes him over the mountain, along steep, winding roads for miles and miles, until he finally emerges near the entrance to Interstate 40. He’s going all the way into Knoxville, then. He doesn’t understand the pull; there’s nothing for him there anymore. But still he drives on.
He leaves the Home Depot two hours later and piles the new shutters, a gallon of forest green paint, and an assortment of plumbing supplies in the back of the truck. Go home now, he orders himself, but of course he doesn’t, or course he turns toward the hospital instead. He has to know.
Jack’s car isn’t in its usual parking spot, but that doesn’t mean anything; it could be his day off. He tries the hotel parking lot, but there’s no sign of Jack’s car there either. On impulse he drives south, toward the airport. He’s acting like a stalker, he realizes, and he could probably get the answer he needs just by picking up his phone and calling the hospital. But he wants to see it with his own eyes.
Sure enough, he finds Jack’s car parked in the short-term parking lot. So he’s really gone, then. Sawyer doesn’t know why he’d ever have imagined that he might not be. He supposes that a man as wealthy as Jack is wouldn’t think twice about just abandoning his car, knowing it’ll eventually be towed away. He’d left it as a signal to Sawyer that yes, he’s really gone. It’s really over.
Resigned, Sawyer turns his truck back toward the mountains and home.
********
Night comes early in the mountains in the winter, and Sawyer puts away his tools, grimly satisfied that he’s put in another hard day’s work. Tomorrow he’ll start ripping out and replacing the plumbing, but tonight is Christmas Eve. Tonight he has drinking to do.
Snow is beginning to drift from the darkened sky as he grabs a bottle of Jack Daniels and makes his way out to the screened porch. He piles firewood into the pot-bellied stove and sets it alight. He pulls his mamaw’s cane-bottomed rocker close to the blaze and sits back and watches the fat flakes of snow twirl in their air-dance as they drift toward the ground. His only goal is to get drunk, to find the release that he achieves each night when the alcohol has done its work and Jack is erased from his mind, if only for a few hours.
As the fire burns and the snow falls, he thinks back to his first Christmas spent in this house, the year he was seven. His parents had been gone for several months by then, and he was finally beginning to understand that “dead” meant “never coming back.” So many things worried him in those days, but the thing that was worrying him most that Christmas Eve was whether or not Santa would be able to find him.
Christmases in his house in Knoxville had been bright and cheerful, full of fun traditions like baking gingerbread men and putting the star on the top of the tree and running to the front door in delight when the Brownie Scouts came caroling. The local children liked to come to his house. His mother took care of most of them when they were sick. On those nights when they came to his house to offer her something in return, he felt happy and proud.
Christmas in the mountains was different. Here nobody seemed cheerful, nobody seemed excited. He helped his mamaw decorate the tree, but for some reason she had tears in her eyes as she hung homemade ornaments and draped ropes of strung-together popcorn from the branches. “Why are you sad?” he’d asked, and his papaw had barked, “Mind your own business, boy.”
It’s what he said whenever James asked about his father, about whether or not his grandparents thought he’d gone to heaven, so he guessed that his mamaw’s tears had something to do with his daddy. He thought his mamaw didn’t believe that his daddy went to heaven. She’d cried at his mama’s wake, not for his mama, but because his own daddy couldn’t have one. You don’t get a wake if you kill yourself.
James worried about his mamaw. She always seemed so sad, and his papaw thought that James always said things that made her sadder. He wanted to ask her about Santa Claus, about whether or not Santa would be able to find him here in the mountains, but he was afraid that that would make her cry more, so he didn’t.
Then he had an idea. He could write a letter to Santa like he’d done last year when he told Santa everything he wanted for Christmas. This year he was a lot better at writing, and he could tell Santa where he lived now. As soon as they’d finished trimming the tree he ran to his room and opened up his school notebook. Then he sat at his desk for a while, trying to think of what to ask for. Somehow the idea of new toys didn’t make him as happy as it had last Christmas. The only thing he could think of that would make him happy would be for his mamaw to not be so sad, and for his papaw to not be so mad. And he wanted to see his mama and daddy again. Those weren’t the kind of things you could ask Santa Claus for, though. He put his pencil to the sheet of paper in front of him, but instead of writing, “Dear Santa,” he wrote “Dear Mr. Sawyer.”
********
Now he stares into the flames dancing in the same stove where he’d burned that letter the day he’d come back to this house, almost exactly one year ago. For nearly thirty years he’d believed that the real Mr. Sawyer had ruined his life. He’d blamed him for everything that had gone wrong since the day his daddy murdered his mama and killed himself. But the island had showed him that his life didn’t have to be ruined. He could find happiness even in the midst of disaster. He could do something good even when bad things were happening all around him. And knowing that, he could finally make peace with the past, and in doing so, with himself.
Sawyer sits and drinks and laughs bitterly at himself for being so stupid. On this, the night of peace on earth and goodwill toward men, he feels nothing but inner turmoil and anger at the world. “Goodwill toward men, my ass,” he mutters. There’s only one man he cares about being good to. And Sawyer is the worst thing that ever happened to him.
He raises the bottle to his mouth and pours sweet oblivion down his throat.
********
It’s possibly the strangest idea that Jack has ever had, and he thinks that before the island such a thing would never have occurred to him. His brain seems to have been re-wired since Sawyer came into his life, though, and so now he analyzes this new thought, wondering if there’s any way it can possibly work. It’ll have to be handled very carefully, he thinks, and luck will definitely have to be on his side. He decides that if it’s meant to be, everything will fall into place, and he sets to work.
The streets of Knoxville are crowded with last-minute shoppers in spite of the light glaze of snow and ice on the ground, and the stores are filled with faces both anxious and cheerful. So much left to do, but soon it will all be over except for the enjoyment of gifts and food and family, the reward for all the hard work of preparing for the day. Jack catches himself saying “Merry Christmas” to cashiers and shoppers alike with a genuine smile on his face. After days of despair, it feels good to find the spirit of the season. The spirit of hope.
The crowds make shopping an all-day event, but Jack doesn’t mind. He has to time everything carefully, so he takes his time and focuses on getting each detail perfectly in place. He’s thankful that he was able to rent a pick-up truck at the airport, as its bed becomes more and more crowded and at last he straps his final purchase on top of the heap. Finally, well past dark, he turns his loaded vehicle toward the mountains and begins his journey home.
Snow begins to fall again as he reaches the higher altitudes. The more he climbs the thicker the flakes become, and Jack smiles. They’ll have a white Christmas, then. Where once he hadn’t particularly cared about such things, now it makes him feel as if this night is truly special. The snow is a sign that everything will happen just as it should.
He cuts off his headlights and lets the truck coast to a stop on the side of the road just around the bend from Sawyer’s house. Through the trees he can see the rising smoke from Sawyer’s fireplace. He waits until the wisps stop drifting toward the sky, then he waits another half-hour just to be on the safe side. He keeps his lights off and pulls slowly into the yard. He parks as close to the steps as possible, and reaches into his pocket for the key he still keeps on his keyring. Stealth has never been his strong suit, but as he crosses the porch he sees in the shadows the shape of a whiskey bottle lying on its side. He picks it up. It’s empty. Jack grins, and though there’s a twinge of guilt because he should be sorry that Sawyer needed to drink himself to sleep, it’s mostly a sense of satisfaction that he feels. Fate is playing right into his hands.
He opens the front door slowly, noticing as he does that it no longer squeaks. The WD-40 must’ve done the trick, after all. He crosses the room silently and slips into the bedroom. In the dim half-light he can see Sawyer sprawled on his back, dead to the world. From the whiskey-smell that permeates the room, Jack can tell he’d had a lot. He hopes Sawyer won’t be too hungover in the morning. It’s a safe bet that he’ll sleep soundly all night long, though. Jack stands over him, watching him sleep. Even in the oblivion of drunken unconsciousness his slumber isn’t easy; there’s a deep scowl on his face and every now and then he mumbles angry-sounding syllables in his sleep. Jack wants to reach out and cradle his cheek in his hand, tell him that everything’s going to be all right, tell him that he’s is home to stay. But he doesn’t dare. He has a job to do, and he can’t risk waking Sawyer until it’s done.
He closes the bedroom door quietly behind him as he leaves, and gets to work.
link to Chapter 13