Chapter 8

Christmas 1881

For days, Heath was inconsolable. Suzanne could only hold him and cry with him. Victoria took every chance she could to touch him, hold him, kiss his cheek and rub his back. Only to Nick did Heath say, "If I'd taken care of this sooner - " and "If I hadn't come here - ." Nick was quick to remind him that whether he'd taken care of Butler sooner or not, or whether he'd ever come here or not, Jarrod would still be gone. Nick reminded him that they needed him - Heath - now more than ever.

After a while, that seemed to sink in. After a while, Heath began to give them his lopsided smile again. But deep in his heart, his grief would always be different than everyone else's. Everybody knew that.

Nick did his best to comfort his mother, his sister and his sister-in-law. He could see they were all trying to comfort Heath as a way of comforting themselves, and he was probably doing that too, he admitted. He understood a little how Jarrod had managed to guide the family through their pain when Tom Barkley died, since now he was taking that part. He understood how helping the people you love is a way of helping yourself.

Maggie did what she could to console Heath, too, and everyone else for that matter, even though her heart was even more broken than anyone's. For her, weeks went by in a fog. If you asked her, she might have remembered that when they lowered her husband into the ground beside his father and first wife and everyone tossed dirt onto the casket, J.J. made a grab for his own fistful of dirt. Maggie let J.J. have some dirt and he hurled it onto the casket, but then he laughed. At the time, Maggie gave a small laugh, too, just because it was hard to ever look at J.J.'s smile and not laugh. She didn't notice that her in-laws smiled a bit, too. The moment alleviated some of the grief.

When the funeral was over and done, they all returned to the mansion. There was plenty of food and drink and there were plenty of visitors, and everyone began to tell stories on the oldest Barkley son. Remember the time he tried to break the horse and broke his leg instead? Remember all the times he had to bail Nick or Heath out of jail? Remember the case where his client paid him off in chickens and a pig, or the time the Basque man he thought was an enemy brought him some Basque wine to make peace?

Tears flowed and then turned into laughter, over and over again. J.J. played on the floor and now and then begged to be lifted up where he could see his baby cousin in her crib.

Over time, life began to return to normal. When there were children around, that was inevitable.

It wasn't until autumn came that life really began to lighten up again. It was then that Maggie decided that she and J.J. would move back into the mansion, if Heath and Suzanne moved into The Grove. The baby Jarrod had hoped to leave with Maggie never came to be, and Maggie was not going to need the room. And it just seemed to be natural that the newly married couple had a home of their own. Heath and Suzanne talked about it very carefully – could he live in his brother's house? Could she live in a home that was built for another woman? It was no snap decision, but in the end they decided they would move in there, and add onto it to make it more their own. The bottom line was they did want their own place, and they wanted Maggie to have company and help raising J.J.

Maggie was grateful for Victoria's company, and Victoria was beyond grateful to have her and that little replica of Jarrod living with her. It relieved so much of the grief, just to watch J.J. play and laugh and be a little boy. Maggie loved watching Victoria's eyes when she looked at J.J. and when Nick played with him on the floor. Time began to do its healing.

Christmas Eve was a bit rainy and cold. In the Barkley mansion they lit a fire and set out the holiday candles (safely out of J.J.'s reach), and the living room was as warm and cozy as ever. Adding to the warmth - in a couple months, Nick and Nancy would be welcoming the next member of the Barkley clan, and Heath and Suzanne were hoping for a new addition sometime later in 1882.

Carl handed out the ornaments for the tree, and Nick and Heath hung them while Maggie kept an eye on J.J. Toddling for real now, he kept going for the shiny ornaments and Maggie kept having to grab him before he snatched one. Victoria, Nancy and Suzanne strung popcorn for the tree together while Audra kept an eye on her daughter sleeping nearby in the crib that her Uncle Nick had made for her. She also kept the mugs filled with wassail and played backup for Maggie when J.J. got away. There was laughter everywhere, but there was an emptiness, too.

It was just last year that Jarrod said that this year, all of Victoria's children would be happily married. At the time, no one expected that he would not be among them, but he was gone, and everyone felt it, down deep inside.

Carl lifted the last ornament out of the box. It was the glass angel that went on top of the tree, the one Victoria's children had given her the first Christmas after Tom Barkley's death. Nick took it from Carl, and for a moment he held in front of his eyes. The light from the fireplace caught it and lit it up.

"Maggie," he said, "what do you say I let J.J. put this on top of the tree this year?"

Maggie looked at J.J. and then at Nick. "He's a bit short, Nick."

Everyone laughed.

"No, I mean let me lift him up to do it. It won't break if he drops it – the tree branches or the carpet will cushion any fall. You know, when I was little, I always put the angel on top of the tree."

"He broke it when he was six – tried to throw it up there and he pitched it clear across the room before anyone could stop him," Victoria said.

Everyone laughed again, and even Nick smiled. "I won't let him pitch it."

Maggie looked at Victoria, and both women nodded.

"J.J.!" Nick called.

J.J. had been across the room with Carl, looking in the empty ornament box. At his Uncle Nick's call, he tottered over to him and let himself be lifted up.

Nick gave him the angel but kept a hand around it and the boy's smaller hand. "Now, I'm gonna lift you up and we'll put it on the tree together, okay? NO throwing it."

J.J. looked baffled, but he kept his grip on the angel as Nick stepped up onto the second rung of the ladder. Then, together, they put the angel on the top of the tree – even though Nick had to work to get J.J. to let it go. Nick stepped back down and backed up, letting J.J. look at the tree.

"There," Nick said. "What do you think, J.J.? Isn't it pretty?"

J.J. had a rather confused look on his face as he stared at the tree, and for a moment Nick saw his brother Jarrod, large as life. The highly intelligent Jarrod Barkley wheels were turning in his son's head, and Nick could have sworn the boy was thinking about the absurdity of cutting a tree down, bringing it into the house and putting shiny things on it.

Nick laughed.

"What's so funny?" Heath asked.

"Take a look at this little guy," Nick said and turned so everyone could see what he was seeing. "Is this Jarrod Barkley overanalyzing a Christmas tree, or what?"

Everyone saw it and laughed. J.J. looked more confused than ever. Nick put him down and he headed for the string of popcorn the women were making.

"We have one more ornament for the tree," Audra said.

They looked at her as Carl reached for a small box he'd been keeping under his chair and handed it to her.

Audra brought the box where everyone could see her open it. A small porcelain angel was inside, not the kind you put on top the tree but the kind to hang from one of the branches. "Carl and I found this last week, and we thought it would be a good idea to have a second angel on the tree from now on. Jarrod's in heaven keeping Father company. He should have an angel keeping Father company on the tree, too. Mother?"

Audra handed the ornament to Victoria, who took it but said, "Perhaps Maggie – "

Maggie quickly shook her head, smiling through grateful tears. "No. This year, I think you should put it on the tree."

Victoria wiped her own tears away, stood up from the settee, and took the angel to the tree. She found a good spot for it and hung it there, letting her touch linger a bit.

Heath let his gaze fall. Things were better, but it still stung him, how and why Jarrod had died. It was still bitter in his mouth and bitter in his heart. Suzanne could always see that. She left the settee, came beside him and put her arm around his waist. He smiled for her.

"Time for me to bring something out," Nick said, and he pulled a bottle of scotch out from under the piano. Victoria and Heath recognized it for what it was. "The last of Jarrod's hidden stash he told us about," Nick announced with a grin. "Pappy had this bottle hidden away, but I found his last hiding place!"

Maggie laughed her tears away. "Well, you're one up on me. I never did know where it was."

"Neither did I. Where was it?" Victoria asked.

"In one of the book cases in the library," Nick said, took the bottle to the refreshment table and opened it. As he poured some into several glasses, he said, "I was thinking about him. I went looking through some of the books he left here – they remind me of him. Would you believe some of those books in there are phony? He had half of the book chopped off, so all we saw was the binding! They looked like real books while the bottle was hidden behind them."

"Oh, my goodness," Victoria said and began to laugh. "We never realized that!"

"Silas knew!" Nick said. "After I found this, he told me he knew all along. He saw it every time he dusted in there."

Silas had come out from the kitchen to refill the wassail bowl just as Nick mentioned his name. Startled, he stopped dead, and everyone looked at him. If a man so black could blush, he'd have been blushing.

"Did Jarrod know you knew, Silas?" Heath asked.

"Yes, Mr. Heath, he knew," Silas said, "but I told him I'd keep his secret."

"And there aren't any more bottles he had hidden?" Victoria asked.

"No, Ma'am," Silas said. "This was the last one. You should have seen the twinkle in his eye when I found it. He was tickled to be fooling you all."

Heath chuckled a little as he took his glass and shook his head. "Ol' Pappy had one more secret left, I guess."

"But I found out about it," Nick said, his eyes twinkling as he passed out the glasses of scotch. When he finished distributing, he raised his own glass, looking up at the sky. "Last laugh, Big Brother!"

And everyone did laugh, especially Maggie. She remembered how Jarrod was afraid his family's last memory of him would be his refusal to take digitalis. Well, now she knew that their last memory would be finding his comical hiding place for his scotch, which was clearly something he intended all along. She could feel him at her shoulder, and she could picture him laughing about it – his real last secret.

It was a good one.

The End