Christopher Tesdall called a final goodbye to Uncle Erwin as he drove away, and shut the door.  “Well, another year, another Thanksgiving.”

“Luke just called, he’ll be over at four to pick up you guys,” Marianne called from the kitchen.

“It’s just sick.”

“What is,” Willow asked curiously.

“They’ll be out in the freezing cold for a few cheap deals.”

The blank expression on Willow’s face didn’t change.  “Where are they going and why?”

Chad shoved a black Friday ad at her as he plopped on the carpet at Willow’s feet.  “Day after Thanksgiving sales.  Mom and Cheri hate ‘em.  Doesn’t make sense but they do.  Dad, Chris, and I love ‘em.  All Christmas shopping done in one stop, at the best prices, and we make the retailers happy by giving them a great sales day.  However, our shopping fiends don’t like it.”

“You like to shop but not tomorrow?”

Marianne’s impatience with her husband and sons was evident.  “They don’t shop, they hunt.  The store is the hunting grounds, the items are the game, and their speed is their weapon.  They get in, go for the kill, and get out.  No thought whatsoever in their purchase.  Just grab, wrap, and bow.”

“Ooh good one mom!”

“So, are you a ‘drag it out as long as possible and spend twice as much time and money’ like the girls or do you have a little common sense like us,” Chris challenged.

“I don’t think I’m either.  I think I’m more of a ‘make it up as I go’ kind of giver.”

“What does that mean?”

“Cheri, that means she’s a diplomat,” Christopher insisted.  “Smart girl this one.”

“No, I just wouldn’t know where to look or what to buy.  We made a lot of our gifts.”

Intrigued, Christopher leaned back in his recliner, on arm behind his head, and encouraged her to tell them more.  “What did you get for Christmas last year?”

Smiling at the memory of her mother’s excitement, Willow said, “Fishing line.”

Plastered smiles and nods were their only response.  Chad, realizing there must be more to it than just the line but not knowing what, said, “You have a look on your face that says it was one of your favorite presents ever, why?”

“Because it was her last one stupid,” Cheri muttered jabbing her brother in the ribs.

“No, because it was such a sacrifice for her.”

Marianne, Cheri, and Chris stared at one another in horror but Chad and Christopher knew her net worth and knew that it wasn’t how it sounded.  “Why a sacrifice?”  Chad’s probing surprised his mother and she felt a little mortified that her son was so rude.

“Well, because it’s not just about buying more fishing line.  We probably had plenty.  It’s about giving up some of her free time so I could spend the summer fishing.  It was something to look forward to.”  She turned to Chris, “What was your favorite Christmas present?”

“Charlie.”

“You loved that crazy robot!” Cheri remembered excitedly.  “I woke up every morning for ages hearing, ‘Greetings, what shall we do today?’ in that awful digital monotone.”

Chris grinned at the memory.  The robot still held a place of prominence on his living room shelf.  Girlfriends who mocked his robot never returned to his house.  Somehow, it had become a litmus test for the right woman.  “Hey Cheri, how about you?”

Unlike Chris, Cheri had to think about her answer.  “My first instinct was to say my Diaper Darlin’ Dolly.  I really liked feeding her and changing her diapers, but I truly think my favorite gift was camp.”

A hush descended over the room.  Willow knew instinctively that Cheri meant the camp she’d been prevented from attending by the bus hijackers.  Christopher rubbed his hand across his forehead surreptitiously wiping away tears as he did.  “You have no idea how hard we prayed over that decision.  We always wonder if you resent us for it.”

“Of course not!  It was the best summer of my life.  It was horrible but so wonderful.  I guess I never thanked you.  I’m sorry.”

Amazed, Willow watched as Cheri flung herself into her father’s arms settling into them on his lap.  Her heart tugged in directions she’d never imagined.  The relationship of father and daughter was something she couldn’t fathom.  It was, well, inconceivable.  She tried to imagine her relationship with the Lord as an equivalent but the idea of the Lord’s arms wrapped around her so lovingly and protectively was impossible to grasp.

Self-recrimination also flooded Willow’s heart.  The story of Cheri’s abduction and persecution had horrified Willow.  She’d been thankful for a protective mother and a sheltered world where that kind of harm was nearly impossible.  Even seeing the blossoming and growth that Cheri obviously experienced didn’t warm Willow to the idea that such beauty and good could come from a horrifying experience like that and she certainly was willing to be a weaker Christian if it meant safety from mental and physical torture.

Anxious to change the subject, Willow nudged Chad’s knee with her foot.  “What was your favorite gift?”

“My sheriff set.”

Chris and Cheri erupted in laughter.  While they joked about him never growing up, Willow watched a silent exchange between Chad and his father.  “Why is it so funny?  I would think that’s a perfect gift for him.”

“He was sixteen!” gasped Cheri as she went off into further gales of laughter.  “He never did get that it was a joke.”

Willow’s quiet voice pierced through the hilarity.  “I think that you missed the punch line then.”

“Huh?”

Chad shook his head.  “Don’t worry about it Willow.”

“I will worry about it!” she insisted.  “Your parents gave him that set as a way of telling Chad that they’d support him in his dream even if they didn’t understand it and I think it’s beautiful.”

The Tesdall family watched amused as Chad squeezed Willow’s foot and smiled gratefully at her.  “It’s ok.  They know what I mean even if these twits don’t get it.”

Calling for hot chocolate orders, Cheri escaped to the kitchen to avoid showing her amusement.  Marianne, desperate to change the discussion before her emotions spun out of control, redirected the questions back to Willow.  “Your gifts seem unique Willow, what other gifts have you received?”

“From mother?”

“Well, I assumed-”

Smiling brightly, Willow plunged into a description of birthdays, Valentine’s Days, and Christmases.  “Well, I think some of my favorites were probably my tree blocks, Chinese checkers, and my shower cap.”

“You got a shower cap for Christmas?”  Marianne’s disbelief was almost comical.

“The year mother put in a shower for me she gave me a shower cap for Christmas.  I love that shower cap.  I still have it.”

“Why is it so special to you?”  The psychologist in Chris was coming out in full force.

“Because it was mother saying that she embraced the shower, not just tolerated it.  Mother didn’t like showers.  She loved baths but she put that shower head in just for me.”

Cheri, calling from the kitchen, asked curiously, “What are tree blocks?”

“Mother took the smallest branches from trees we used for wood and carefully cut logs, intersections, slices for floors and things like that, sanded them, oiled them well, and gave them to me for playing.  They’re like building blocks that create a tree house or fort or whatever you want it to be.  I still bring it and my fairies out and decorate it with tea lights at Christmas.”

“Fairies?”  Chad had a sudden mental image of Willow with two braids, overalls, and oversized front teeth playing with delicately crafted dolls in her room or on the porch.

“Mother made them.  I made angel fairies one year but they weren’t as pretty as Mother’s.”

The clock chimed ten before the men finally dragged themselves off to bed.  Feeling awkward at leaving Willow at the mercy of his mother and sister, Chad lay on his bed in the room he’d just left the previous year.  Willow and Cheri changed into pajamas and started the slumber party rituals while Marianne mixed a batch of brownies.  The night had just begun.

Thirty minutes later, Willow sat with a bowl of popcorn, a batch of brownies, and green goop on her face watching the fascinating world of internet communication as Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks sparred over caviar.  Cheri rolled her hair in hot rollers and peeled the goop from Willow’s face leaving it red and raw; however, after a slathering of deep moisturizing cream, she felt rejuvenated.

The by the time Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly faced off in the coffee shop, Willow’s hair was bouncing around her head in curls that rapidly drooped into nearly non-existent waves.  “I told you my hair didn’t curl.  It kinks, but not curls.”

After Brinkley brought the couple together, Cheri led Willow to the guest room and turned down the covers.  “I’m really glad you came Willow,” she began.  “You’re good for us.  You’re really good for Chad but you’ve been good for us as well.”

Unsure of what else to say, Willow smiled half-heartedly and whispered, “Thank you.  I’ve enjoyed being here.”

Once Cheri left, Willow curled under the covers and reached for the lamp only to remember that there was none.  She scrambled from the bed, snapped off the light switch, banged her knee into the footboard, and crawled back into bed muttering, “It’s illogical to put the switch across the room so you have to cross it blindly when you’re already tired.  Lamps are better.”

Sleep refused to come.  The bed was comfortable, the pillows fluffy, and Cheri’s pajamas were the most comfortable thing Willow had ever worn to bed but her mind refused to quiet down and let her rest.  The hum of the furnace and the periodic blasts of air rattled vent covers and kept her mind spinning.  Sirens wailed now and then and dogs barked and howled at odd times.

A crack of light appeared from the door.  “Willow?  You sleeping?”

She started to sit up but Chad opened the door further and waved her back in bed.  “Don’t get up,” he whispered.  “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable and that mom and Cheri didn’t pester you.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep.  You have to get up in a few hours.”

Chad sat on the floor in front of her nightstand, wrapped his arms around his knees, after pushing her shoe in front of the door to keep it from closing.  “I’m used to it.  Did you like the movie?  I think I heard You’ve Got Mail.”

“It was nice.  I didn’t understand a lot of it.  They were talking on computers somehow which makes no sense.”

“I like Tom Hanks.”

“Who is that?”

A comfortable sense of the new familiar settled around them.  Willow didn’t fit in his world and comments like that were delightful reminders of that.  “Joe Fox.  His real name is Tom Hanks.”

“I didn’t like how they got divorced.  That was sad.”

“Who, Joe’s father?  I didn’t like that whole sub-plot.  It wasn’t necessary to the advancement of the story at all.”

Her head shook and the light streaming in from the hall made interesting shadows on the wall as she gesticulated.  “No, Joe and Kathleen.  Why did they have to be married?  Couldn’t they have just been single people?  The infidelity made me feel icky.”

Chad’s heart dropped.  He hadn’t thought about how she’d see things.  Had he been more perceptive, he could have prevented her from being exposed to things he knew her mother had deliberately avoided or at the least, warned her of content first.  “Willow, they weren’t married.  Neither one of them was married.”

“I guess I don’t understand why they made it seem like they were then.  Either way, it wasn’t necessary except that Frank was a great character.  I liked what they did with him.”

She struggled with questions she wanted to ask and Chad rested his back against the nightstand feeling like things were right in his world again.  “Thanks for understanding about my sheriff set.”

“I like the teasing and banter you have with your siblings.  It’s endearing most of the time.  I just think sometimes you don’t seem to know when to be serious and when to be silly.”

“I think you’ll find that we’re most silly when we feel most serious.”

As she mulled his words, Willow remembered a question she’d longed to ask.  “How can Cheri be so grateful for such an awful experience?  What happened to her when she went to camp that time- it’s frightening to me.  I don’t think I could be thankful for it.”

Chad ached to explain it in depth.  The family had given their word that the events surrounding those weeks in Cheri’s life wouldn’t be shared with anyone.  “Willow, I can’t tell you all I want to about that time.  It’s not my story to tell.  I can tell you that I truly believe if you lived it as Cheri did, you’d say the same thing that she does.  It changed her life, for the better, and she would do it over again in a heartbeat.”

“I don’t think so, Chad.  I’ve learned from this that I am weaker than I ever imagined.  It scares me to think that such a thing can happen in this country.  I just want to go home, hide out on my farm, and forget the world and the people in it if it means I’ll be safe from that kind of persecution.  I don’t think I’m prepared for difficult times.”

Willow felt Chad’s hand seeking hers.  As he wove their fingers together, he prayed aloud.  Asking for faith, understanding, and boldness in Christ, Chad prayed for guidance and wisdom.  Eventually, he felt her hand slacken and her breathing grow soft and rhythmic.  He stood at the side of her bed watching her sleep for a few seconds and then turned to leave the room.  His mother’s silhouette blocked the doorway.

“Is she ok Chaddie?”

“She’s feeling inadequate as a Christian.”

Nothing Chad could have said would have surprised Marianne Tesdall more.  “How is that possible?” she whispered back.

“Cheri’s persecution is hitting home.  It’s the antithesis of what the Finley farm is all about.  Where Cheri embraces her painful circumstances, Willow flees them as her mother taught her and now she’s struggling.”

Marianne followed her son into his room, pulled the covers over him and laying one hand on his cheek said, “I’m proud of you son.  I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of you.”