The Great Christmas Bowl Read online

  I smiled, but inside I longed for his words to be true.

  State champions. The Super Bowl of high school sports. I could barely think the words.

  Bud moved up the field, where he stood at the gate, waiting for the team to pour out onto the field. I waved to friends as the stands filled. In a town of 1,300, a Friday night football game is the hot ticket. A coolness nipped the air, spiced with the bouquet of decaying leaves and someone grilling their last steaks of the season.

  The band, a motley crew that took up four rows of seats, assembled. I hummed along as they warmed up with the school fight song.

  Town grocer Gil Anderson manned the booth behind me and announced the team. I leaped to my feet in a display of disbelief and joy as the Trouts surged out of the school and onto the playing field.

  Each player’s hand connected with one of Bud’s fins on the way to the field.

  I spotted Kevin right off, big number 33. He looked enormous with his pads. As he stretched, I noted how lean and strong he’d become over the past six weeks of training. I held my breath as he took the sidelines, wishing for a start for him. To my shock, he took the field after the kickoff, just behind the offensive line.

  I’ve never been one to hold back when it comes to football. I cheered my lungs out, pretty sure the team needed my sideline coaching. And when Kevin got the ball and ran it in for a touchdown, I pounded Gretchen Gilstrap on the shoulders in front of me. “That’s my son!”

  She gave me a good-natured thumbs-up.

  We won the game by two touchdowns and a field goal. As Kevin pulled off his helmet and looked for me in the stands, his blond hair sweaty and plastered to his face, I heard Bud’s words again: “Maybe this will be the year they go to state.”

  What is it they always say? Be careful what you wish for?

  “Amazing run on Friday!”

  “I didn’t know your son could play football!”

  “Kevin has his father’s moves—I remember when Mike took them all the way to state!”

  I love my church. I stood in the foyer, receiving accolades for birthing such a stupendous athlete, smiling now and again at Kevin, who was closing up shop at the sound board that he ran every Sunday. Mike had already gone to get the car—his favorite “giddyap and out of church” maneuver. I still had more compliments to gather.

  After all, Kevin had been a ten-pound baby. I get some credit.

  I worked my way to the fellowship hall to pick up my empty pan. With eighty members, sixty attendees on a good Sunday, we took turns hosting the midmorning coffee break. I had whipped up a batch of my grandmother’s almond coffee cake.

  Pastor Backlund stood by the door, and when I finally reached him, he grinned widely. “Great game, Marianne.”

  “Thanks. I’ll tell Kevin you said so.”

  “Must be strange to have your youngest be a senior this year.”

  I was trying not to think about that, but yes, although I was thrilled to see Kevin move off the sofa and onto the playing field, I was dreading the inevitable quiet that would invade our home next year. I smiled tightly.

  “I hope that will leave you more time to get involved at church?” His eyebrow quirked up, as if I’d been somehow delinquent over the past twenty-five years. I was mentally doing the math, summing up just how many years in a row I’d taught Sunday school, when he added, “Would you consider taking on the role of hospitality chairperson?”

  “Hey, Mom!” Kevin appeared beside me. “Can I head over to Coach’s for lunch? A bunch of guys are getting together to talk about the game.”

  I glanced at him, back to the pastor. “Sure.”

  “Perfect,” Kevin said, disappearing out the door.

  “Wonderful,” Pastor Backlund said, reaching for his next parishioner.

  Mike, now spotting me, leaned on his horn.

  I’d have to call the pastor later and politely decline his offer to let me take command of the weekly coffee break, the quarterly potluck, and most importantly, the annual Christmas Tea. The hospitality position came staffed with women decades older than I, who could teach even Martha Stewart a few things about stretching a budget and creating centerpieces. I’d rather lead a camping trip for two hundred toddlers through a mosquito-infested jungle.

  “Be back by supper!” I hollered to Kevin as he slid into his friend’s sedan. He didn’t even look back.

  I climbed into our SUV next to Mike. His thoughts had already moved on, probably to the training he would attend next weekend. Or maybe just to lunch. We rode home in silence. I noticed how the brilliant greens of the poplar trees had turned brown, the maples to red, the oaks to orange. The wind had already stripped some of the trees naked.

  I could admit that my leaves had started to turn. But I wasn’t ready to shed them yet.

  I pressed my lips together and silently begged the winter winds to tarry.

  Chapter 2

  Small-town charm reaches its zenith when the hometown team has a hot streak. Our Big Lake Trouts had the magic and marched through their season without breaking a sweat, remaining undefeated each week.

  Kevin didn’t exactly become their top scorer, but he did have two assets that his team counted on: He held the ball as if it had been superglued to his enormous hands. And he went down fighting. In fact, he put his whole heart into the game, 120 percent dedication. Perhaps he had discovered the contagious joy of being a part of something bigger than himself. Perhaps he realized he could move more than his thumbs and still tackle his enemies. Perhaps it was because it was the only thing his brothers couldn’t beat him at.

  Whatever the case, seeing Kevin work out, study plays, and drop in an exhausted heap on the sofa after dinner had me beside myself with joy.

  I attended every game, regardless of distance. A two-hour trip to Duluth? No problem. An away game on a Saturday morning? I’ll bring the rolls. Friday night downpour? What are mothers for?

  Secretly, I entertained the idea that I might be their good luck charm.

  Team discounts, special menu items down at the Big Lake Café, and decorative slogans painted on store windows or on signs in front yards began appearing all over town. “Rout ’em, Trout!” and “Go, Big T!” I always wondered if the city elders, or whoever had named our team once upon a time, gave any consideration to the difficulty of creating menacing slogans about a bunch of creatures best known for the way they’re broiled in onions and butter. But we’d been the Trouts for as long as my memory stretched back—clear to my sophomore year when my father moved us north from the big city of Minneapolis for a slower life.

  We took over my uncle’s floundering lakeshore resort. Living lakeside soothed the angry teenager inside me who longed for shopping malls and theaters. Meeting Mike Wallace didn’t hurt either. Wide shoulders, dark blond hair, blue eyes . . . I met him during the Fishermen’s Picnic street dance three weeks before school started and became his biggest fan as he quarterbacked his team through three seasons and finally to the section A state championship.

  We’d been together since then, even through my tumultuous years at the University of Minnesota, when I thought I should date other men, especially those pursing an English degree like me. After all, what better pastimes for our old age than lengthy talks about literature? Mike stayed the course, taking his EMT classes, finally becoming a paramedic, waiting for my heart to realize it would be broken without him.

  We married a week after I graduated. And promptly moved back to Big Lake.

  I occasionally worried about our stretches of silence between football games or church meetings. He’d long ago become the head of our emergency medical services and spent considerable time training new staff, keeping up on new procedures. Our EMS was the best in the county, perhaps in the state.

  More often than not, as Kevin began spending more time with his football pals, the loudest noise in the house became the soft rustle of the newspaper as pages turned. Maybe the gurgle of the coffeepot, brewing decaf.

  “Are you g
oing to the game this weekend?” Mike asked one morning as I packed Kevin his after-school/before-practice snack of an orange, an energy drink, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a little bag of peanuts. I reached for the homemade chocolate chip cookies, and Mike raised an eyebrow. “He won’t be able to run.”

  “He needs his energy.”

  Two cookies wouldn’t hurt. I slid them into a plastic bag. “Of course I’m going to the game. It’s the division play-offs. They take this and they’re on their way to the state tournament.” I put the lid on the cooler I’d purchased for Kevin’s supplies. “They’re playing Lakeside, and since they trounced them earlier in the season, I have a good feeling.” I gave him two thumbs up.

  He looked at me a long time without words. “Which is why I thought you might want to stay home.”

  “Now why would I do that?” I tucked the cooler into Kevin’s backpack and hollered for him one more time to roust him out of the shower.

  “Because, uh, it’s your birthday?”

  I stopped midstride down the hallway, turned back to look at Mike. “Really?”

  “Forty-eight, old girl. I was thinking I’d take you out for dinner.” He got up, folded his paper, and came over to me, slipping his arm around my waist. “How about it, Mrs. Wallace? We can even go parking up at Colville Point.”

  I love the aura of Mike in his uniform—something about the residue of clean cotton mixed with the strength that radiates off him, as if in his capable hands, all will be right with the world. All those years of helping others out of trouble had made him strong and fit, as well as savvy. I hooked my arms around his neck. “But I promised the team I’d give them cookies if they win.”

  “And she makes amazing cookies, Dad,” Kevin said, coming up from his bedroom. He winked as he passed me.

  Mike’s smile slid just a little. “Yes, she does.” But I saw the disappointment in his eyes.

  “After the season, for sure,” I said, kissing him quickly, then untangling myself to hand Kevin his supplies.

  “Did you know it’s your mother’s birthday this Saturday, Kevin?” Mike asked as he attached his radio to his belt.

  Kevin sat in the entryway, sliding his shoes on. “Really? Wow. That’s great, Mom. How old will you be?”

  “Twenty-three.” I glanced at Mike.

  “Whatever. See you after practice.” Kevin leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Sweet boy. He’d never caught on that most teenage boys didn’t kiss their mothers anymore. I was hoping he’d sail right through without figuring that out.

  “Of course. Be careful.”

  I got the “oh, Mom, don’t be such a worrywart” look from my rookie driver.

  Mike whooshed out the door behind Kevin.

  The cavern of silence that greeted me after they left always rattled me, just for a moment. It wasn’t so long ago that Kevin and I would be left behind while the others roared off to school with their dad. We’d read and do laundry and bake cookies together. Kevin was the boy who told me he’d never leave.

  Perhaps both of us took that too much to heart.

  With October finished and Thanksgiving pressing upon us, I spent the day decorating the house for fall—a straw scarecrow on the door, a couple of stuffed turkeys in the picture window. A brown cloth on the table, with a cornucopia. It would be a quiet holiday. Neil would spend Thanksgiving with his wife, Anya from Califoranya. (He didn’t like my rhyme nearly as much as I did.) Brett’s new job didn’t allow him enough time off to make the trip from Chicago and back, given that we were three hours from the nearest airport. Thankfully, my second son promised to return home for Christmas. Amy e-mailed, of course, nearly every day. I hardly expected her to get on a plane from London for the four-day weekend. Only Brianna would make the trek home from Minneapolis. I kept a stiff upper lip, my eyes fixed on the pinnacle of all holidays—Christmas.

  Never had we missed a Christmas under my roof, the entirety of us, and I held my breath in silent dread of the year when one of my five would call with the dark news that they couldn’t return home. Even Amy had promised a short jaunt over the pond this year.

  I didn’t care if they missed my birthday. And I could shrug away Thanksgiving. But please, I begged to the silent, gray, snowless heavens as I brought in the giant plastic pumpkin from the front lawn, send them home for Christmas.

  Game day dawned bright, with clear sunny skies and a crisp chill in the air. Kevin declared it perfect and nearly sprang out of bed. I dropped him off at the field, then drove down to the coffee shop for a mocha, a birthday treat. After all, if Mike was going to bring it up, I’d just use that fine excuse to reward myself for forty-eight successful years.

  Gretchen Gilstrap was there, chatting with Rachel Backlund, our pastor’s wife. They brightened when they spied me, wildly gesturing me over to their table, which overlooked Big Lake. Today the lake looked glassy quiet, the seagulls absent.

  “I know this is your first year and all, but I just wanted to assure you that I made a list and put it in your box at church.” Gretchen patted the seat beside her even as I stood and stared at her. Gretchen is Big Lake stock clear through to her bones. Her great-grandfather had been the preacher at our church, and her great-great-grandfather, one of the founding fathers of Big Lake. An elegant woman of sixty, especially with her colored tawny brown hair, she wore a wool coat and held a pair of leather gloves. A half-drunk cup of black coffee sat on the table.

  “Don’t forget it’s supposed to be an outreach event,” Rachel added. “So you’ll need to invite the community.” She stirred her chai with a wooden stick, then set it on her napkin, where it soaked through. Her dark brown hair was back in a messy ponytail today, and she looked about fifteen, despite the fact that she had four children, the oldest of whom was already ten.

  I sank into a chair, noticing the smallest of ripples on the lake, as if the wind had kicked up. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  “The Christmas Tea. Didn’t you agree to be the hospitality chair?” Gretchen had been a key player, if not the ringleader, of the Christmas Tea for roughly a decade. I wasn’t sure whose idea it might have been to bring in a new dispensation, but I wasn’t eager to be the new queen. I’ve read the Bible a number of times. Things never go well for the successor of a despot. Not unless their rule is more terrifying than the first.

  Were those storm clouds rolling in off the horizon?

  “I don’t remember agreeing . . . ,” I started. And then, with a whoosh, it came back to me. Sunday morning, a chat with the pastor.

  I’d forgotten to call him back, straighten things out. “Oh no. That was a misunderstanding. I can’t be hospitality chair—”

  “Going to the game, Marianne?” Gil Anderson thumped me on the shoulder as he passed by.

  I raised my mocha to him and nodded. “Right behind you, Gil.” I slid out of my seat. “I gotta run, but no, I’m not going to be the chairperson.”

  “But you don’t have any kids at home,” Rachel said, confusion on her young face. Last I checked, Rachel not only homeschooled her four children, but she also ran the nursery schedule and VBS.

  Guilt crept up my throat in a slow stranglehold. “I have Kevin,” I squeaked.

  Gretchen looked at Rachel, and for a long moment they said nothing. Then, in sync, they laughed.

  “Yeah, he’s a lot of work!” Rachel said.

  She had a point. Today might be his last game, and then what?

  “The elders are meeting today to vote you in,” Gretchen said. “So you’d better call them.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said, already to the door. Hospitality chairperson. I’d rather lie in traffic.

  The truth is, I’m not the kind of person who loves to be in charge, to head up big projects. Give me a broom or a towel, and I’ll go to work cleaning the basement of the church after any potluck. However, put me in charge of a group of women or in front of a crowd with a mike, and everything inside me turns to glue.

  No, I co
uld not—would not—be the hospitality chairperson.

  Outside, a storm had indeed begun to roll in. I arrived at the school, found my seat in the bleachers, and waved to Bud, who was suiting up on the sidelines. I noted he’d brought accoutrements to the game—a cowbell, a sign, a couple of pom-poms, a blow horn. I had to give him credit for his enthusiasm.

  The team poured out, each player slapping Bud’s fin for luck, and took the field. A fine dusting of snow had begun to trickle from the sky, landing on the smooth plastic bench seat beside me, melting quickly. It accumulated on the field as the first quarter commenced.

  The Trouts exploded off the kickoff line and ran the ball back for a touchdown. It would be the only one of the half. Snow slicked the terrain, turning the game into a Three Stooges comedy, kids sliding under each other, hitting the deck without a tackler, dropping the ball. When Kevin scooted for a few precious yards through the grip of a defender, it reminded me of those days when the boys would wage snowball fights in our backyard.

  Halftime was cold and miserable. I scored a hot cocoa from the booster club and found Mike sitting in the cab of his rig. “Happy birthday,” he said.

  I’d forgotten. Again.

  “I’ll treat you to McDonald’s after the game.”

  “Big spender,” I retorted, laughing.

  The Trouts took the field for the second half, and I felt a new spark in the air. They might be cold and wet, and the ball as slippery as the lake in January, but we could all taste victory. If they shut out the Lions, they just might go to the state tournament.

  I held my breath.

  The Lions received and then drove the ball up the field in a series of successive first downs, right into the end zone. I saw Kevin on the sidelines, pacing. I wasn’t sure if he was cold—I had my nose down in my jacket, my hands in my pockets, my hat pulled low—or frustrated.

  The team obviously needed my coaching.

  “C’mon, Trouts!” My cheer joined Bud’s as he went into a frenetic pace of rousing the crowd. He banged his cowbell, waved his “Rout ’em” sign. The crowd roared with his “de-fense, de-fense” chant, aiding the Trouts as they blocked the extra point.