A Merry Little Christmas (Songs of the Season) Page 22

  “Charles, I will not be spoken to in such a manner. Do you hear me?”

  “I don’t want to speak to you this way. I’ve never wanted to. It feels disrespectful.” He glanced at Willie. “You’ve left us no choice. All we’ve ever wanted to do was please you. And it’s nearly destroyed us. Instead of raising self-sufficient men, you’ve kept us as schoolboys who cower in your presence. We’ve been reduced to begging for crumbs at your table, waiting for you to toss us a kind word. Not love, of course; we gave up on that long ago when Mom died. But I know—”

  “Do not bring your mother into this discussion!”

  Franny startled at Mr. Landau’s sharp tone.

  “Why not?” Charlie asked his father. “We loved her, and she loved us. When she was alive, there was kindness and affection in our house. She made it a real home. And there was understanding and enthusiasm for our dreams. That is, what God called us to do. What He created us to do. Don’t you remember how things were? Even a little?”

  “Not anymore.” Mr. Landau pulled on the ends of his vest. “Her memory is gone from me, and no amount of pining is going to bring her back. So, like any smart businessman, I cut my losses and moved on.”

  Charlie’s hands shot upward. “She was your wife, not an investment!”

  Franny moved her fingers over her lips as a reminder to remain silent. Oh, God, please keep everyone safe, and help me to stay in the shadows of this quarrel.

  Mr. Landau pointed his finger in the air. “How dare you—”

  “All these years I’ve said very little,” Charlie said, “but I know the truth about what happened to Mom.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I knew why she died. She got trampled by the verbal beatings and the petty demands. She could no longer take the abuse. She died of a broken heart, because she could no longer withstand living in such oppression.”

  “That’s a lie! You’re accusing me of scandalous things. Your mother had a weak heart, and you know it.”

  “Yes, she had that too,” Charlie said. “But she also had a big heart. And a lot of love for her whole family…including you.”

  “Love is a precarious word.” Mr. Landau glanced at Franny and then back at Charlie. “I refuse to toss out that word like the younger generation does. People say it, but most of the time I don’t think they really mean it. One minute they’ll smother you with their maudlin affections, and the next minute they’ll be cackling behind your back. You can’t—”

  “Better to try and fail at love than to spend your life forever holding back. And that’s what you’ve done.” Charlie took in a deep breath as if to calm himself.

  “Charlie and I must mean nothing to you,” Willie said quietly, as if to himself.

  “Another lie. I just don’t express my feelings as your mother did. But my ways of caring are shown best in things that are tangible, quantifiable…concrete. That’s what I’ve created for you both. And what you both have thrown back in my face.”

  Charlie looked toward the heavens and then at his father. “We do appreciate your hard work. We’ve always admired it, in fact. To the point that we’ve come close to sacrificing our ambitions for it. But we can’t live your life. God didn’t set it up that way. We love you, Dad, but you have to let us go.”

  Mr. Landau stepped backward as if he’d lost his balance. “You’ve never once called me by that name. Why would you use the term now?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “I don’t know.” Charlie wasn’t sure why he’d called his father by such an intimate word. It felt out of place during such a heated discussion. He’d never even called his father by that affectionate name when they were being civil…but somewhere in his father’s wild-eyed declarations he was reminded of Dunlap, and he couldn’t endure watching his own father’s spitefulness spiral into evil. “I’m not sure why I called you Dad. Maybe I thought you needed to hear it today.” He glanced over at Franny, who was still standing with Noma and still lifting him up in love.

  “My father never allowed me to call him that, even though I asked…even though I begged,” he murmured. As he settled a bit—or perhaps reloaded for another round—his father’s gaze swept across each of them as if he were in the midst of an awakening, as if what he saw reflected in their eyes seemed terribly disturbing to him. “Why are you all looking at me that way?” He scraped his fingers back and forth across his beard. “Why?”

  For the first time, Charlie saw a glimmer in his father’s eyes, of recognition, perhaps, of all that he’d become—a lost and bitter man.

  After a moment or two, which felt more like an eternity, his father eased himself downward and sat in the dirt.

  “Are you all right?” It had to be one of the most extraordinary things Charlie had ever seen. His father had always been meticulous with his clothes, and he hated anything soiled. Charlie glanced at Willie, who appeared to be as bewildered as he felt.

  “Sir?” Willie just stared at their father, looking unnerved.

  “I haven’t been all right in a long time.” He leaned against the car from his place on the ground and donned a vacant expression. “I have a story to tell if anyone wants to hear it.”

  Slowly everyone moved closer to him.

  His father wrapped his hands around his knees, his fine shoes and pants now covered with fine red dust. He didn’t seem to notice or care about the mess. After a few moments, he said, “I was eighteen and a violinist. My father, your grandfather Landau, hated the fact that I’d become a musician. He demanded I quit. But I had a teacher at school who knew of my situation. His name was Nelson Wimberley. Haven’t thought of his name in ages. Anyway, Wimberley knew how much I loved the violin, and so against my father’s wishes, he continued with my lessons at no charge.”

  “What happened?” Willie asked.

  His father patted his hands against the dust. “Well, one day my father heard me playing in the conservatory. By then I had greatly improved. He seemed proud of me and even asked me to play for a function at his country club. So, fool that I was and eager to please my father, I agreed to it.” He released a mirthless chuckle. “At the time, it felt like the happiest moment of my life, to think that my father wanted me to play for his friends.”

  For a brief moment his father cocked his head and positioned his hands as if holding a violin under his chin. “But when I attended my father’s event and walked across the stage, I tripped on a loose board. I was overweight at the time, and when I fell on my violin…well, it broke. So easily. Too easily. And then my father did something that became impossible to forgive. He laughed. He laughed so loudly, in fact, that everyone could hear him. Then his laughter seemed to open the floodgates, giving everyone permission to laugh. And they did. I pretended not to care. I even chuckled along with them. But inside…I died.”

  He picked up a loose nail in the dirt and brushed his thumb against its rusty point. “I never played the violin again. I felt so mortified, so disgraced, that I decided I would pursue a profession that would garner only respect. I made a promise to myself that no one would ever laugh at me again. And no one would laugh at my children—even if I had to force them into professions against their wills for their own good. I knew someday you both would be grateful. Because to be uneasy in one’s profession can be tolerated, but to be laughed at is unendurable.”

  His father dropped the nail into the dust. “And since you know the truth about that, you should also know…this mark on my face isn’t a birthmark.” He touched the red stain on his cheek. “I’ve lied about it all these years. It’s really a scar, and it came from injuring myself when I fell on the violin. This wound…it’s all I have left of my music.” No tears came, but his father took on a desolate look, his eyes hollow with regret and sorrow. “I’m sorry…for everything.”

  Without even looking at each other or giving a sign of what to do, Charlie and Willie went over to their father and sat on either side of him there on the ground. The three of them said nothing m
ore. It was enough to be together, to let the miracle of understanding and forgiveness wash over them all.

  Charlie looked toward Franny. Smiling, she and Noma walked back toward the house.

  His father tapped his finger against his lips. “I think it was Victor de LaPrade who once said, ‘It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible.’ ” He looked up. “In my revenge, I’d forgotten not only the music, but I’d left God behind as well. Music was a good friend to me in spite of my father. And God was always a good friend to me even though I abandoned Him.”

  Charlie gazed across his father over at Willie, who nodded, tears filling his eyes. He could tell that his brother was moved and profoundly grateful for the reunion, but perhaps he was also a little embarrassed that he hadn’t participated in the discussion. Someday he would tell Willie that he’d needed an opportunity to do right by his brother. And God had given him the chance.

  Charlie sighed, a soul-relieving kind of sigh. The three of them remained sitting there, quietly resting against the car, while Charlie processed his father’s revelations. He’d never imagined that his father had been hiding such a traumatic story from his youth.

  But Franny had been right. She had gotten close to guessing the problem when he’d been blinded to it. His father had said little about their deceased grandfather Landau over the years. They’d not known of his cruelty toward their own father. It would have been hard, no doubt, to grow up that way, to break free from such a vicious generational pattern. Right then Charlie made a promise to himself and to God that even if the temptation ever presented itself to fall back on his father’s manner of child rearing, he would not give in. No more would their family’s history be to inflict emotional wounds on their beloved. He would raise his children to know the Lord and to know that they were valued and loved. And they’d be free to become whatever God created them to be.

  Charlie draped his arms around his knees, still thinking how amazing it must appear for the presumed pillars of the Oklahoma City community to be sitting together in the dirt. The newspapers would love every speck of it, and the photographs would be a sensation. But if someone asked him about it, he’d tell them how wonderful it felt.

  His father looked at Willie. “I guess I should confess something else while I’m at it. I wasn’t really going to put you in that institution for good. It was just leverage, but now, well, I see it for what it was.”

  After a moment, Willie said, “I forgive you.”

  Must have been hard for his brother to say those three words, considering what he’d been through, but it was the right thing to do. And it was pure relief to Charlie to hear his father admit that it wasn’t in his heart to be so cruel.

  In the distance, the roar of a bulldozer snatched his attention. Hmm. Guess the insurance company had finally followed through with their promise.

  Soon the huge machine roared past them like a hungry beast and pulled up in front of what was left of the barn.

  When his father struggled a bit to get to his feet, Charlie and his brother helped him up.

  “So, you’re going to get that new barn.” His dad smiled, and Charlie couldn’t help but think how well he wore the expression.

  Hope flowed through Charlie as he dusted himself off. Their first step at a reunion carried a weight—not of anguish but of glory. The moment held an almost prophetic revelation, because Charlie knew their time of reconciliation, their miracle, would have a ripple effect that would not only alter his life but influence the next generations. And in the here and now, he thought of Franny, his Franny, and when the right time might be to propose.

  But in the meantime, on the other side of the farmyard, a man cut the engine on the bulldozer, hopped down from his machine, and stared in their direction, looking eager to sweep away all that was old and damaged. Charlie took in a deep breath. A new season had arrived in the Landau family, and it had the feel of Christmas all over it.

  His father placed a hand on each of their shoulders and gave them squeeze. The two brothers embraced their father, and deep inside Charlie’s heart, he also embraced healing.

  His father took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “Well, now, guess we’d better go over there and make sure this idiot does a good job,” his father said, laughing.

  Charlie and his brother laughed along with him. Guess not all of his father’s rough edges were worked out—but as they all three headed toward the bulldozer, somewhere in their walk across the farmyard Charlie’s father became his dad.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  On the eve of Christmas, Franny stood at the ridge next to Charlie. They looked out over the canyon together as she pondered the miracles that had brought them there. In fact, Charlie’s father had become so merry in spirit and wanted so much to be a part of their lives, it was like living inside the last pages of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Not a bad place to be.

  She looked up toward the heavens in grateful response. Yes, God really was up to something wonderful.

  And Charlie had that look in his eyes—as if he just might propose. If not, she could always pop the question. Women did that sort of thing these days. And yet, if she had her druthers, she really did want to be asked.

  Charlie turned toward her. “I guess you know why we’re here.”

  Franny put on her most innocent face. “We’re here to celebrate Christmas?”

  “Yes, but a bit more than that.” He grinned. “You said that your family brought every important event to the ridge.”

  “Yes, they did. Hey, that would make an interesting song…taking it to the ridge.”

  “I like it.” Charlie made a blusterous sound and tightened the woolen scarf around his neck. “Here, allow me.” He buttoned Franny’s coat. “It’s getting colder by the minute out here.”

  The clouds had darkened and the air had indeed turned chilly, but it was far from what Franny felt inside. She fluffed her hair, but it did no good at all since the wind just whipped it wild again. It was a moment she’d dreamed of since she was a little girl, and she wanted to look just right—and for once, just once, she didn’t want to look anything like a farmer—and yet here she stood. Just Franny.

  “Why do you keep fidgeting with your hair?”

  “I want to look right for this moment, but I still look like a farmer. I couldn’t even get the dirt out from under my fingernails.” Franny blew her bangs off her forehead.

  Charlie took her hands into his, glanced at her nails, and then kissed her hands. “I don’t care about the dirt.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope. We’re going to have dirt under our fingernails for a lifetime.”

  “And music in our hearts?”

  Charlie nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Then I’m ready whenever you are.”

  “I’ve been ready since the day I met you, ever since that day I let you fall into the mud.”

  “And you so gallantly rescued my radio,” Franny said with a deep Southern drawl.

  Charlie touched her chin with the tip of his finger, and she went quiet.

  “Franny girl?”

  “Yes, Charlie boy?”

  “Will you be my wife?”

  Franny whispered in his ear, “I think that can be arranged.”

  Charlie leaned in for what Franny knew would be a very good kiss, but just before their lips met, he asked, “Most women want a big wedding. What do you want?”

  “How about an intimate ceremony and we say ‘I do’ right here? Just family and a few friends. If that’s okay.” And Franny certainly wouldn’t forget to invite Aunt Bee. What a joy it had been to find her still living in the city only a few blocks away from her old house.

  “Then I shall build you a big gazebo, right here, just for the wedding.”

  “You’ll build me a gazebo? Really?” Franny bounced on her toes.

  “Well, I’ll hire someone to do it.”

  “Have I told you lately
that you’re my hero?”

  “Yes.” Charlie smiled. “But you’re more than welcome to say it again.”

  Franny gave Charlie a shove…but only a petite one.

  And then, as if someone had signaled the realms of glory for a little ambiance, one by one snowflakes fell from the sky. “Snow.” She leaned into his arms as he closed them around her. “Merry Christmas, Charlie.”

  “Merry Christmas, Franny.”

  The confetti flurries soon became a cascade, surrounding them in light. There in his arms, she could imagine their lives through the years—sitting on the back porch, holding hands, growing old together. And during the holidays—especially when “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was playing on the radio—Franny would remember the day when God brought a city boy named Charlie out to meet his farmer gal—so they could sing out their lives together. Maybe not always in perfect harmony, but always in love.