Author's note: Hi, all! I probably should NOT be starting another new story, when I have several existing ones to (eventually) finish (or at least continue!), but alas, here I am. It would have been wonderful if I had started posting this Sam and Lillian story, which is loosely Christmas-themed, during the holidays, but with them being such a busy time, it didn't happen. I still wanted to start publishing this story now, though, and to continue it/finalize it within the next few months (hopefully!) in hopes that it would bring you all some hope, cozy feelings, and extended Christmas cheer amidst the winter. Admittedly, the first chapter starts off pretty gloomy and things are far from being all sunshine and rainbows, as Lillian is not in the best place mentally, but, ultimately, the story is one of hope as suggested by the title. I'm *planning* on it only being a few chapters, but we shall see...stories tend to have a mind of their own. I really am only planning on it being around 3 or 4 chapters though in total. Haha!

I also just want to say: To all of you who had a challenging 2023, and/or are having a challenging 2024, I hope this story helps bring you some comfort and encouragement and joy. You're not alone in the struggle!

Additionally, though average low temperatures for December in Powassan, Ontario, Canada (where When Hope Calls was filmed) are around 14 degrees Fahrenheit according to a Google search, for purposes of this story and not giving Lillian and Sam frostbite, I took liberties and had the December night when this story begins just be "slightly below" freezing.

Also, this story does not follow the timeline/events of my "Surrendering" story with Lillian and Sam. In that story, they are "getting together" as a couple in Summer 1917, but in this story, they are "getting together" in December 1916. Technically, the first season of When Hope Calls took place in 1916 (not sure which month it started). Let's just pretend that Sam met and started working as the orphanage's handyman in early 1916, something's been "brewing" between Lillian and Sam throughout the year, and they are about to start courting in December 2016. Also, I took some liberties regarding the deaths of Lillian's birth parents, her age when they died, etc.

Lastly, a big thank you to Paths Through Lavender Fields for inspiring the paragraph that begins, "Sam was, after all, a handyman, and a man" via one of our conversations! :-)

Have a blessed rest of your week, all!

Making Her Spirits Brighter

Ch 1: Releasing and Holding

For weeks now, Lillian Walsh had been fighting a swelling tide of tears. Imminent, her tears had originated from somewhere deep within her soul and had repeatedly surged upwards, through every hollow and chamber of her chest and burrow in her throat, pleading to be emancipated, time and time again.

But her brain had continually stood guard at the gate of her lips, squashing her tears' escape, forcing them backwards down the channel from which they had come. And each time, her throat had burned with the residue of caged emotion, while her heart had simultaneously stung with a swarm of trapped sentiments.

Emotionally bone-weary, the thought of staying strong for another second seemed a feat more arduous to her than if she'd been tasked with climbing one of the world's tallest mountains. And much like one of those mountains, she could feel her constitution crumbling fast under an abruptly materializing tremor: the tremor of her forthcoming tears.

For what felt like the thousandth time, her brain tried barring her tears from breaking through, from rupturing her normally nonplussed countenance with rarely outwardly displayed sullenness. Be strong, Lillian. Stay strong. What's the use in crying? She half-told and half-asked for once, her brain wasn't successful in keeping her tears contained. The ache of her heart was too unbearable to brush aside, and her suppressed emotions had to break free. They had stayed under the surface of a seemingly resilient smile for far too long.

It's okay to surrender to the sadness, Lillian, the kinder part of her conscience stated with solicitude. For once, let yourself truly feel it.

Not wanting to wake the children or New Hope Orphanage's hardworking housekeeper, Eleanor, Lillian climbed out of bed. Normally a refuge of comfort for her, it had provided her with none tonight.

She promptly pulled out her boots from underneath her bed, putting them on over her thick socks that blocked the chill from her feet during cold nights. Afterward, she quickly seized her long beige coat from the coat rack in her room and put it on over her nightgown. She then glided down the stairs as briskly as a sled slides down a hill freshly powdered with snow, aiming to make it out the front door and to the destination of the front porch before her tears could catch her in their fullness.

As she did, she surveyed the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, bedecked in a draping gown of colorful bulb lights, strings of popcorn, and sweet ornaments handmade by the children. Her mind burdened by an overabundance of thoughts, she had forgotten to turn off its electric lights before she had attempted to sleep. Seeing the tree look so spirited and luminescent in its attire—it practically looked like it was beaming—wrought repugnance upon her. The fact that she was momentarily so repulsed by such a lovely symbol of the season only served to exacerbate her sadness. Normally, she loved Christmas. With only two weeks left until Christmas Day, she hoped she could somehow locate her absent Christmas spirit soon.

She had barely made it outside, barely turned on the porch light and closed the front door gently behind her, before a sob snuck out of her throat. She lowered herself into one of the front porch chairs in doleful surrender to her heartache.

Before long, one sob had multiplied into many, and they kept coming, one after another, in rapid succession. They were not quiet, either. How Lillian wished she could cry more gracefully, more silently! Then again, a poised, mute cry seemed like its own special kind of torture: like a cry that would just prolong a heart's agony.

You should probably at least move to the porch stairs, so Eleanor and the children have less of a chance of hearing you and having their sleep interrupted, Lillian's wise inner voice her benefit, Eleanor and the children were pretty heavy sleepers, but she feared that the vigorous volume of her crying would break through their bedroom windows and cut through even their thicker-than-profuse-fog Zzzzs.

She transferred her fatigued-on-the-inside-and-out self, oppressed by dense stress and emotions, to the porch stairs as she continued to sob. Her whole body quaked vehemently with those burdensome, entangled emotions that she had held firmly under lock and key for too long, unsure how she could even begin to properly unravel them. She had been afraid to let herself truly and fully feel the messiness of her emotions. Yet, their many knots had tugged on her heart so hard that she finally had to acknowledge and release them in their muddled chaos.

"Lillian?" An empathetic and warmhearted, yet markedly worried voice, deeper than Eleanor's or any of the children's and sweetly soulful, like a bass drum, pierced through her woeful weeping. It seemed to spill over with consternation and reflect her inner pain.

Sam! How could she forget about waking Sam, the orphanage's handyman, in the little side house he resided in next to the orphanage? She must really be out of sorts, because he was hard for her to forget. Normally, he was impossible for her to forget.

There had been a special something mulling and brewingbetween her and the handsome, considerate, and contemplative handyman for a while now, ever since he had started working for her early that year. And it was something that was starting to be too consequential to ignore.

In response to Sam's sudden presence, Lillian's heart became an erratically beating drumstick, pounding unpredictably against the drum of her chest. It seemed as if it had immediately launched itself into an audition to be the next Little Drummer Boy—or, more accurately, Drummer Girl.

Momentarily self-conscious, she roped in her sobs right away, as if they were troublesome, insubordinate, and shameful cattle, and she strived to stuff her tears back down her throat, as if they were classified communication that she was too apprehensive to show Sam.

But he saw through her attempt at suppressing her crying. After all, her sobs from just seconds earlier still echoed in his ears like a haunting refrain.

"What's wrong, Lillian?" As Sam got closer and made his way into the tail ends of the rays of the porch light, Lillian could clearly make out the expression contained in his eyes. Substantial worry struck his pupils, worry that was hammered into them by her sobs from just moments ago and further forged within them by her distraught, tear-afflicted face he could now more clearly make out in the porch light.

The meld of his compassionate question and distressed eyes set her tears free again.

"I...I..." She attempted to put her emotions into words amidst her once again turbulent bawling, and to use such words as a sort of buoy to anchor her, but then just as soon gave up. She needed several minutes to just cry, to let her heart and soul liberate the jumbled complexities that her brain momentarily could not.

Sam sat down on the porch steps, next to Lillian on her right. Sensing she needed comfort, he supportively placed his left arm around the middle of her back, leaving a distance of a few inches between them for propriety's sake, for her to maintain or close as she wished.

At first, the consoling gesture, paired with her potent emotions, prompted her to cry more forcibly. Lillian's soul, parched from incessant sadness as of late, was refreshed by Sam's clear demonstration that he was there for her in her time of need. How she needed someone to simply be there for her, someone other than the children and Eleanor, as dear as they were! Someone to provide fresh fortification, comfort, and perspective. Her sobs rang out sonorously, and, struggling to inhale enough oxygen, she took deep, trench-like breaths.

Well, this is more than a bit embarrassing, Lillian thought to herself, cringing inside at her crude, unrefined display of emotions. Still, now that she'd started crying so vigorously again, trying to stop her emotions from coming out felt as futile as attempting to push down the rising batter of one of Eleanor's renowned Christmas sponge cakes.

After a few moments, she scooted closer to Sam, conceding her pride to his show of support. She let her right side be propped up by his left, which felt like a steel beam in its soundness and strength.

Then, after several minutes of steady crying, of sobs which continued to wash ashore from the unsettled ocean of Lillian's soul and evaporate into the crisp, near-winter air, her weeping was soon completely swept back like low tide, as her sadness gradually gave way to an awe-filled appreciation for Sam's soothing, staunch presence. Through all her crying, he had sat there, unfaltering in his patience and his quiet, but concrete and tangible, aid. With a beautiful, heartening simplicity he had imparted his strength to her, reinforcing her floundering self with his sturdy and warm arm and side, heedful of her momentary need of silent support.

Thanks to Sam, she was starting to feel recentered, like the churning flurry of emotions that had suddenly caught up to her and made her feel momentarily unstable was lessening in its ferocity. She felt like she was beginning to recover her bearings.

Once a few moments had passed in which silence had taken the place of Lillian's sobs, Sam ventured to speak, turning his head toward her. In response, she turned her head towards his to observe his facial expression. A soft blush filled her face at their closeness.

Sam cinched his eyes firmly to Lillian's, and she felt her eyes being pulled in by their sincere lapis.

He beckoned, "You don't have to talk if you don't want to, but...I'd like to know why you're so sad and try to help you, Lillian."

Sam was, after all, a handyman, and a man. A proclivity for fixing severed structures, and even splintered situations and struggling people, continually flooded his veins. And when it came to a heartbroken Lillian Walsh...well, he wanted to restore her and fix her deep sadness most of all, even though he figured doing so would be a great deal more complicated than simply mending a fractured fence or filling in a hole-stricken wall. Human hearts were not patched so easily. Seeing her heartbroken made his own heart feel like it had been run over and smashed by a steamroller, though he had strived to present to her an exterior of calm amidst his concern, so that she might be more effectively prompted to reclaim some peace of her own.

"Although," he noted, building on his original statement, "I think I might have an idea of why you're upset, Lillian. This past fall has been quite unkind, hasn't it?" His eyes continued to hold tight to hers, probing them like a telescope trying to uncover their untold secrets.

Tears bounded upward from behind Lillian's downcast eyes again, which were Carribean blue in their beauty and intensity, and she fought, tooth and nail, to foil their falling. Sam was on target at reading her. As he usually is, she noted.

"Yes...it...it has been incredibly difficult..." Lillian started, her voice ragged, rocky, and uneven terrain on which she struggled to find her footing.

"Little Fred...he...he almost didn't live to see this Christmas, Sam." Engaged in a horrific vision where she was watching a casket, which held the body of precious Fred, being lowered to the ground, Lillian fell into a hushed state. Despite her best efforts to resist crying again, a mournful sob bolted out of her throat before she could stop it, and a handful of tears swiftly dove down her cheeks, a few even taking desperate plunges to the porch steps.

Sam side-hugged her tighter, with more protective force, his warmth palpable. "I know, Lillian...it was awful and harrowing and terrifying." Painful memories tore across his eyes, making their usual at-rest waters storm-tossed, emblazoning their azure with driving gales of gunmetal gray.

"I am afraid of the influenza returning again with similar force, or of another sickness wreaking havoc on the orphanage," Lillian admitted. Her hands began to convulse against her will, exposing how deeply traumatized she was from Fred's near-death experience and how anxious she was about another epidemic assaulting the orphanage. The death of any of the orphans would very well shatter her heart, already brittle from having endured so much prior loss in her life.

In looking down at her shaking hands, Lillian also realized that, in her haste to get outside to the front porch, she had forgotten her mittens. Distracted by her emotions, she had not fully perceived just how cold her hands were in the slightly below-freezing December night until now. Their frigidness was certainly not helping their unsteadiness! Part of her wondered how they could still quake so fervently when they were starting to feel like frozen fossils. Urgently seeking a warm refuge, and feeling mortified by their intense inability to stop quivering, they plunged into her coat pockets with more haste and agility than an Olympic diver.

Maybe Sam didn't notice my shaking hands, Lillian prayed, eyes still lowered, feeling abashed by her forgetfulness and especially by her terror and panic on display. After all, she didn't want to be so anxious about potential future troubles that may very well not even happen. She wanted to be her usual poised, untroubled self who didn't let past events dictate how she lived her life in the present and didn't let them sever her hope for the future. If only it were that simple.

It had seemed simpler until now—after all, Lillian had been through the deaths of both her birth and adoptive parents, and she had marched on after every one of those heart-rending instances, sadly but surely—but somehow, she was having a hard time bouncing back to her typically self-composed nature after the past few months. The truth was, Fred's near-death experience had brought back layers of trauma and grief from her own birth parents' passings, peeling them back and laying them bare. It had reopened old wounds and renewed their razor-sharp sting that perhaps she had never fully allowed herself to feel to begin with.

In spite of her hope that Sam would not see her shaking hands, or at the very least, pay them no heed, almost immediately upon hoisting her eyes back up to his, she saw his eyes flinch in pain. He had, indeed, taken stock of her trembling and noticed her hands' lack of protective covering.

Sam always notices. And he always cares.

These were two characteristics she deeply appreciated about him, even if they made her feel rather vulnerable when he was near. She could never truly hide her real self in his presence. This enduring truth felt simultaneously as terrifying and nerve-wracking, and as freeing and comforting, to her as how it must feel for a secret vessel out at sea to be illuminated by a lighthouse, its true existence made known and its passage kindly guided amidst choppy seas.

Lillian observed a compelling expression surface on Sam's face. His handsome cheekbones became more pronounced as his eyebrows exerted powerful pressure on his eyes, converting them into two tight, concerned canals. There looked to be two conflicting currents in those canals: one surging with the need for him to do something, and one that pulled back in restraint.

What was Sam debating with himself about? She wondered.

Now that she had started speaking, Lillian was finding it easier to unyoke her thoughts from their heavy chains.

"I...I've been trying to stay strong but...I...I just couldn't anymore, Sam," Lillian conceded through her tears. A bit ill at ease from the way her unruly, undisciplined emotions had taken center stage, she dropped her eyes again. This time, they fell sharply to the bronze buttons of her coat, which glistened with a hopeful shine that seemed rather incongruous with the melancholic moment. "All the heartache and anxiety of the past few months seems to have caught up to me..."

"Acknowledging that you're feeling overwhelmed, and letting your feelings fully surface is strength, Lillian," Sam assured her, his eyes extending down toward and tugging on her sunken ones, striving to pull them back up toward his and reestablish their confidence.

His outstretched eyes soon came to a halt on a couple of stubborn tears that still lingered on the lower part of Lillian's cheeks, obstinately staying put and refusing to plummet to the porch steps below.

Sam wanted nothing more than to help restore Lillian's peace, nothing more than to help quell her intense sorrow. He knew that physically removing tears from her face would not ultimately remove her inner sadness, but it felt like a start in repairing her heart. The inclination to help alleviate her pain however he could too strong, he reached his right thumb to her cheeks, whisking a few obstinate tears away easily, like he was simply sweeping them out the door in swift, authoritative farewell.

As he did so, Lillian's eyes quickly leapt up to his, and her breath momentarily made itself scarce, as scarce as those remaining tears soon became due to his thumb that effortlessly commanded their departure. The moment felt tender, his thumb warm and reassuring even in its swift nimbleness.

After he had lowered his right hand back to his side and Lillian was reunited with her breath—a most essential companion for living, but one that ironically took leave from her at times when Sam closely accompanied her and demonstrated what he would be like as her potential companion—more words overturned themselves from the now-tumbling waterwheel of language that had come to life in her throat.

She went on, "I am feeling stressed and overextended with trying to run the orphanage without Grace, even though I know I have Eleanor's help, and of course, all of your help with the house repairs, which I'm so grateful for.

"Just when I found Grace, distance has separated us again...With Grace in England with Chuck until further notice, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get all of the daily tasks done at the orphanage as it is...and there are still more new children coming in the new year...I don't know how I'm going to manage it all..."

"And I love what I do, Sam, I really do. But lately...I've felt exhausted...every day feels like the same battles with the dear children, mixed in with some new ones...and I'm not winning them," she sniffed, dejectedly.

"And to be truly honest, Sam," she continued, her words continuing to capsize over the rails of her lips, one at a time, "Fred almost dying brought back some terrible memories of my birth parents' deaths...

"I was only five when my birth parents passed away from influenza, but I can still recall some terribly painful things from the days they died...and it seems his death reawakened certain memories I'd rather soon forget." She brought her right hand out from its coat pocket sanctuary and resolutely rubbed her once-again waterlogged eyes with the back of it. She then laid it on top, but not back in, her coat should she need it again shortly.

Not nearly the same effect as when Sam tenderly brushed my tears off, she observed.

Lillian hadn't planned on sharing that deeply personal tidbit of information about her birth parents' deaths, but there was something about those eyes of Sam's—which had expanded from concerned canals to vast, intent, swirling-with-compassion whirlpools as he listened to her with total concentration—that spurred her on. The trembling of her exposed hand worsened significantly as she felt her words make their savage impact with the silence, disclosing grim difficulties of her past.

Too shy yet to completely divulge all her heart's secrets, Lillian left out her additional struggle about how her growing feelings for Sam sometimes kept her mind awake at night—and her thoughts preoccupied in the day. When I should be focused on carrying out all of my orphanage responsibilities...she reprimanded herself.

Still, in her defense, Sam and his long-standing kindness towards her and the children; his serene and unrushed, yet profoundly pensive nature; and his conspicuous physical strength, which wonderfully complemented his mental prowess, were hard to disregard. She couldn't really chide her mind for the way it tended to fall back continually on him throughout her days, or her heart for becoming a modern-day Little Drummer Boy—well, Drummer Girl,to be more precise—when he was near.

A little inner voice wouldn't stop filling her ear with the repeated question: Should you and Sam take a step forward and start courting, even amidst all the current hecticness and challenges of life? And another little voice kept replying, Yes. Tell him yes if he asks you soon, Lillian. There will never be a perfect time. As proprietor of the orphanage, you'll always be busy...

While the little voices whispered their enlightening conversation in Lillian's ear, the continued trembling of her still-exposed right hand gave Sam the answer he needed on what to do about his own inner conflict. His head and heart had been trapped in a tug-of-war match between showing restraint and reaching out for Lillian's hand.

"I'm so sorry, Lillian, about all you are going through," Sam imparted. The aqua in his eyes swelled, authenticating his sympathy and demonstrating his sincerity, and Lillian found herself a touch taken aback by all the compassion those eyes transmitted to her without words.

Unable to withstand any longer the upheaval and unrest that Lillian's tremors caused in his heart, or the knowledge that her willowy hand was exposed to the frosty air, Sam reached for her right hand with his right, leaving his left arm anchored on her back.

"You don't have to face your struggles alone. I'm here for you, here to help. And if you ever need to talk about those painful memories, I'm here. I'll listen," Sam noted with keen willingnessas he affixed his hand to hers. Once he did, her tremors came to a near-instantaneous standstill, and both his heart and head were restored to solace, though his heartbeat settled into a sporadic cadence from holding her hand.

It was an action that was, in one regard, easier to execute for Sam than any of his handyman tasks, because Lillian's need for support was most pressing. Yet, in another regard, it had taken a lot more courage for him to do than to fasten fresh paneling to the orphanage's roof or to reinforce its fence. He and the redhaired beauty who selflessly gave of herself to the children in her care, day in and day out, to his continual soft-eyed admiration, had never held hands before.

Until now.

For some time though, he had been pondering asking her to court him. The question had taken up residence in the upstairs of his mind, where it was waiting to be escorted downstairs, out of his lips, and into Lillian's ears. And now that he had unexpectedly joined hands with her this evening, and her hand in his felt so lovely and so right, he knew he needed to officially ask her soon. Not tonight, amidst her tears and the late night sky as a backdrop, both of which, he knew, could complicate the brain's thoughts and confuse the heart, but soon.

Sam was a man typically as even keeled and unshakeable as the sun's presence on a summer day. Yet, Lillian's gorgeous burnt orange hair that looked like the fiery splotches of color on the wings of Red Admiral Butterflies; her gentle, yet continually stirring turquoise eyes, which both soothed Sam's soul and upended the steady beating of his heart; her graceful way of carrying herself in which she seemed to float around like a parasol elevated by a refreshing September breeze; and her sweet soul with its otherworldly goodness all had a way of reducing his normal, consistently burning confidence to a woodpile of nerves.

So, asking her to court him would demand the same audacity he'd had to garner when reaching for her hand. At least for the time being, Sam could take great comfort and find abundant assurance in the fact that she had made no motion to detach her hand from his.

After several sustained moments of silence between Lillian and Sam, ironically caused by the loud volume of each of their thoughts, Sam added, "Lillian, you really need to remember your mittens. We don't want to add frostbite to your list of struggles."

His statement was met with cranberry cheeks on the part of Lillian, who was experiencing a mélange of feelings: sharp chagrin at her forgetfulness and how icy cold her hands must feel to Sam, though he was swiftly warming them; bashful gratitude at how watchful he was for her well-being and at his consoling use of the word We, which was not lost on her; and still-very-present, joyous surprise that he had reached for her hand and taken it in his, a gesture she was still processing.

"You need to remember yours, too," Lillian softly, yet insistently, boomeranged back at him. Though part of me is quite happy you forgot them, and I can feel the steadfast, deeply rooted strength and soothing warmth of your hands without interference, Lillian's heart admitted privately, heat paying her cheeks a visit at the thought.

"In my defense, my mind was elsewhere." The slightest blink-and-you'll-miss-it twinkle took shape for a split second in Sam's eyes, like a silver medallion sparkling against their backdrop of dazzling blue. "I heard crying and got concerned."

"And my mind was elsewhere, because I was the one doing the crying," Lillian laughed through eyes still damp with traces of tears in their corners, eyes that now met Sam's in headstrong, yet easygoing banter. How delightful it felt to laugh! Her laughter felt like a blazing rainbow rupturing the relentless storm clouds that had been obscuring her heart's joy as of late. Sam laughed in unison with her, their dual playful, mock-defensive statements a much-needed respite from the overall somberness of their conversation.

In truth, Lillian's mind was still elsewhere, as her attention had become diverted by how secure and safeguarded her hand felt in Sam's, and how defended she felt as a whole. It was a wonderful new feeling, this feeling so rooted in the strength of another.

She hoped that Sam was also finding great contentment and comfort in holding her hand. She knew Fred's almost dying had deeply affected him, too, and Sam had made it more than clear that he was worried a great deal about her.

"In all seriousness, I appreciate all of your concern for me, Sam. Very much." Her blue-green eyes bravely treaded the sea in his own eyes before shyly losing their stamina and looking away.

Being concerned for Lillian, and longing to protect her and the children in her care from any kind of suffering or harm, felt more natural to Sam than how it felt for a wolf to vehemently defend its pack. Part of him wanted to express that truth through words. However, feeling a shred overwhelmed by his zealous eagerness of wanting to shield her from pain, as well as unsure how to put such an admission into words and nervous that he might unsettle Lillian and come on too strong if he did, he opted to just give her hand a sweet and impactful squeeze.

They had reached a recess in their conversation, but it was not stark. Instead, it was beautifully and expertly filled in by the near-winter night, which draped them in an unconventional blanket of cool obsidian, and cozily filled in by their hands' continual, determined alliance. The frigid temperature, as well as propriety, would soon call upon them to bid each other good night, but not yet. Further conversation was within reach, and neither the proprietor of the orphanage nor its handyman were quite ready to relinquish the other's hand.