The Christmas Clock and A Song For My Mother: A Kat Martin Duo Read online

  The Christmas Clock and A Song For My Mother: A Kat Martin Duo

  Kat Martin

  The Christmas Clock and A Song For My Mother: A Kat Martin Duo

  Kindle edition

  Copyright 2020 (as revised) Kat Martin

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kindle ISBN 978-1-64734-239-5

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64734-240-1

  Contents

  The Christmas Clock

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Afterword

  Q & A With Kat Martin

  A Song For My Mother

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  A Conversation with Kat Martin

  A Look at: Tin Angel

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  About the Author

  The Christmas Clock

  To the people of the Heartland, for your solid values, honesty, courage, integrity, and your strong sense of community, God, and country. You represent the best of America.

  Christmas sings to the ages, to those who wish to hear it.

  The song fills the hollows left by faded dreams, lost youth, and the pain of missing loved ones, gone before their time.

  The young hear it, too. The melody whispers promises of what might be, of golden dreams, of a future brighter than the present in which they live.

  This is a Christmas story, a tale that changed the lives of the people who lived it. It’s a story of miracles that might have been . . . or yet could be.

  Foreword

  There are years in our lives that change us, mold us forever in some way. I was eight years old that Christmas, too young to really understand all the undercurrents swirling around me.

  It is only now, fourteen years later, as I graduate from Michigan State University and prepare for a job in the health care industry that I am able to look back with the clarity to see that Christmas for the miracle it truly was.

  Back then, during that summer of 1994, with the trees leafed out and the sun warming my shoulders through a T-shirt that hung down to my knees, I didn't realize disaster lay just a few months ahead. I only knew I wanted to buy the beautiful clock in the window of Tremont's Antiques as a gift for my grandmother, Lottie Sparks.

  I didn't know that in trying to buy the clock, I would meet the people who would change my world, and my life would never be the same.

  1

  Sylvia Winters was going home. She had only been back to the small Michigan town of Dreyerville once in the past eight years. Her mother’s funeral had demanded a return but she had left the following morning. Only a few close friends had attended the brief, graveside service held at the Greenhaven Cemetery. Marsha Winters had started drinking the day her husband disappeared. Abandoned with a month-old baby in a ramshackle house at the edge of town, she took up the bottle and didn't put it down for twenty years. Neither she nor Syl ever saw Syl's father again.

  Times had been hard back then but the years Syl had spent in the charming rural community surrounded by forested, rolling hills held memories she cherished. She was a good student and she was popular. In high school, a glowing future spread out before her: a scholarship to college and a career in nursing, a husband and children, the sort of life Syl had always dreamed of and never had.

  But life was never predictable, she had learned, and oftentimes cruel. At nineteen, during her first year at Dreyerville Community College, Syl had fallen in love. She and Joe Dixon, the school's star quarterback, were engaged to be married the summer of the following year. Syl couldn't imagine ever being happier.

  Then her world came crashing down around her and all her dreams along with it. A routine doctor's appointment had brought news so grim that the week before the ceremony, Syl called off the wedding. She packed her belongings that same afternoon and left for Chicago.

  If it hadn't been for Aunt Bessie, her mother's sister, Syl wasn't sure she would have made it. Aunt Bess and Syl's dearest friend, Mary McGinnis Webster, had been responsible for getting her through the most difficult time of her life.

  But things were different now.

  Syl studied the double yellow line in the middle of the two-lane highway leading into Dreyerville. The air conditioner hummed inside the car while outside, the temperature was hot and a little humid this late in the summer. The dense growth of leafy green trees lined both sides of the road and a narrow stream wove its way through the grasses, bubbling and frothing in places, lazy and meandering in others.

  As she drove her newly washed white Honda Civic toward the turn onto Main Street, a feeling of homecoming expanded in her chest. She recognized Barnett's Feed and Seed, just down the road from Murdock's Auto Repair at the edge of town.

  Making a left onto Main, she spotted the old domed courthouse built in 1910 and the ornate clock tower in the middle of the grassy town square. A little farther down the street, Culver's Dry Cleaning held the middle spot in the long, two-story brick building that filled the block on the left, and there was Tremont's Antiques, right next to Brenner's Bakery.

  Sylvia smiled. The apartment she had just rented sat above the garage at Doris Culver’s house. Doris worked at Brenner’s Bakery, had for years. The middle-aged woman was practically a fixture behind the counter of the shop.

  Syl's friend Mary had found her the apartment. A job as a nurse in a local doctor's office had recently appeared in the employment section of the Dreyerville Morning News and Mary had convinced her to send in an application. After flying out for an interview, Sylvia had gotten the job.

  She was coming home at last. She wasn't sure what sort of life she could make for herself in the town she once had fled but something told her coming back was the only way she could conquer the demons that had haunted her for the past eight years.

  Doris Culver didn't believe in happily ever after. She hadn't since she was nineteen, madly in love, and found her boyfriend, Ronnie Munns, in the backseat of his parent's '55 Chevy with Martha Gladstone, the local librarian. Love, Doris believed after that, was for fools and dreamers and she never allowed herself to succumb to its lure again.

  At fifty-six, Doris Culver felt old but then she had for most of her life. Her husband, Floyd, the retired owner of Culver's Dry Cleaning, was a nondescript, balding man who wore horn-rimmed glasses and built birdhouses to fill up his empty days. Floyd was six years older than Doris, whom he had met when she came into his store with an armload of laundry. After cleaning her clothes for nearly five years, Floyd asked Doris out on a date. This July fifth, they had celebrated twenty-two years of marriage.

  Doris felt as if it were fifty.

  She rarely saw her husband except at dinner, which he ate mostly in silence. Afterward, he returned t
o his woodshop in the garage at the back of the house, where he stayed until he trudged up to bed at exactly nine P.M.

  Though the sale of Floyd's business three years ago had provided them with a comfortable living, Doris had kept her job at the bakery, where she had been employed for years. She loved her job, especially decorating the cakes and cookies the shop made for holidays and other special occasions. With little else to fill her time, she went to work early and usually stayed past closing. Afterward, she returned to her two-bedroom, white stucco house on Maple Street, cooked Floyd's dinner, cleared the dishes, and spent the rest of the evening painting ceramics.

  It was a consuming hobby. Every table, every bookshelf, even the window sills, held miniature clowns, birds, horses, dogs, cats, vases, and pitchers all done in the bright colors Doris used in an effort to cheer up her lonely world. Instead, somehow the crowded rows of objects, often in need of dusting, only made the house more oppressive.

  Doris was glad for the hours she spent at the bakery, where the fragrant aroma of chocolate chip cookies and freshly baked bread was enough to buoy her spirits. The shop on Main next to Tremont's Antiques was a narrow brick building with big picture windows painted with the name Brenner's Bakery in wide, sculpted gold letters. Frank Brenner had died sixteen years ago but the bakery, now owned by his son, remained a landmark in Dreyerville.

  It was Saturday morning. Doris stood behind the counter wiping crumbs off the top when the bell chimed above the door, indicating the arrival of a customer. She tucked a strand of gray hair dyed blond under her pink and white cap and smiled at her next-door neighbor and her grandson, Lottie and Teddy Sparks, as they walked into the shop.

  “Good morning,” Doris beamed. “How are you and Teddy today?”

  Lottie set her shopping bag down on a little iron chair. “Darned arthritis has been acting up some, but aside from that, both of us are fine.” She looked down with affection at her grandson. “We're kind of hungry, though.” Lottie was wrinkled and slightly stoop-shouldered and her hair was as white as paper. Still, there was always a sparkle in her eyes and the hint of rose in her cheeks.

  Doris smiled. “Well, we can certainly take care of that.” She turned toward the dark-haired, fair-skinned boy, who looked up at her with big brown, soulful eyes. “So what's it going to be, Teddy? A glazed or a maple bar?” It was a Saturday morning tradition. Doris always looked forward to seeing Lottie, who had once been her fifth-grade teacher.

  The pair lived in the yellow and white wood-framed house on Maple Street next door to Doris but they didn't get to visit much, not with the hours Doris worked. But she had always admired Lottie Sparks and Teddy was purely a treasure.

  The child stared into the case that was filled with donuts: jelly, chocolate frosted with walnuts, powdered, and crumb. There were also bear claws and all manner of coffee cake rings. He nibbled his lower lip, then pointed toward the top shelf of the case.

  “A maple bar, please.”

  “My, that does sound good.” Doris plucked a piece of waxed paper from the box on the counter, reached into the case and drew out a fat, maple-frosted bar. “Here you go, Teddy.”

  The little boy grinned. “Thank you, Mrs. Culver.”

  Lottie ordered a cinnamon roll and Doris handed it over on another sheet of waxed paper. When Lottie turned to leave, Doris reminded her that she had forgotten to pay for her purchase.

  “Silly of me.” Lottie reached into her handbag for the little plastic coin purse she always carried. She asked again how much she owed, then dug through the money to find the right change, fumbling with this coin and that until she finally put the money up on the counter and Doris picked out the sum she needed.

  Doris watched the woman cross the room, feeling a hint of concern. Lottie was getting more and more forgetful. Doris couldn't help wondering what would happen to Teddy if the old woman's memory continued to get worse.

  The pair sat down at one of the small, round tables in front of the window to savor their purchases, and Doris watched with only a small twinge of jealousy as the boy looked up and smiled so sweetly at his grandmother.

  When Doris had married Floyd at thirty-four, she was already too old to have a child, or at least she had thought so at the time. Floyd, whose two boys by a previous marriage were living with their mother in Florida, didn't really care. Occasionally, Doris wondered if, all those years ago, she had made the right decision but deep down she knew that she was never cut out to raise a child.

  Grandmother and grandson finished their treats and got up from the little round table. Doris waved good-bye as they tossed their used waxed paper and napkins into the trash can and walked out the door. She thought of Teddy and the mother he had lost four years ago, the reason he now lived with Lottie. If he lost his grandmother as well...

  She shook her head, worried what the boy's future might hold.

  Lottie exchanged places with her grandson on the sidewalk, positioning herself between him and the light passage of Dreyerville traffic on Main Street. At seventy-one, Lottie never would have suspected she would be raising an eight-year-old boy, though it shouldn't have surprised her.

  Her only daughter, Wilma, had never been the responsible sort. In her early teens, Wilma had run away from home more than once. She missed school and started smoking in secret when she was fourteen. Lottie found her drunk the first time two years later. The girl had graduated high school by the sheer force of Lottie's will, though she never went on to college as Lottie had hoped.

  Instead, at the age of thirty-seven, after two failed marriages and a string of deadbeat, live-in boyfriends, Wilma had wound up pregnant by the married man she was dating. Four years later, after drinking and partying with a friend, she had lost control of her car on her way home and died when she hit a tree.

  Lottie had wound up with Teddy but he wasn't a burden. The boy had become the joy of her life.

  As they walked along the sidewalk, she felt his small hand in hers and smiled. Glancing ahead, her steps began to slow and Teddy came to a halt beside her. Both of them looked into the window of Tremont's Antiques, a favorite place to visit on their Saturday morning outings. Today, they didn't go in but Lottie could see the small Victorian hand-painted clock she had been admiring for nearly a year.

  “It's still there, Gramma.”

  “Yes, I see it is.” Lottie loved clocks. She owned four beautiful antique clocks she had purchased over the years and a big grandfather clock her late husband, Chester, had bought for her on their fortieth wedding anniversary.

  But this little clock was special. It reminded her of the one her mother had on the wall in the kitchen when she was a little girl. She used to sit at the old oak table and watch the hands move over the face while her mother baked cookies. The clock at Tremont's reminded her of the happy days of her childhood, memories that were rapidly fading.

  Lottie's chest tightened with sudden despair. Something terrible was happening to her, something she couldn't fight and simply could not stop.

  Two years ago, she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. At first, the signs were subtle: misplacing objects, forgetting the date right after she had looked at the calendar, not remembering little words like cat or comb, saying another word in its place. Worried, she had gone to see her longtime family physician, Dr. Waller. He had referred her to a doctor named Davis, who specialized in Alzheimer's cases.

  Several visits that included a medical history of her family, a physical examination, a brain scan, and a mental status evaluation revealed the truth. She had a very progressive form of Alzheimer's, a type of dementia that destroyed brain cells and robbed the mind of memory. She could expect the symptoms to worsen at a very rapid pace and she needed to be prepared. Eventually, the disease would kill her.

  Lottie looked down at Teddy, who was staring up at her with big, worried, brown eyes.

  “Gramma? Are you all right?”

  How long had she been standing there? She had no idea. She managed a smile for
Teddy. “I'm fine, sweetheart. Why don't we go on home?”

  Teddy looked relieved. Lottie gazed off down the street, which suddenly seemed less familiar. Their house was located two blocks farther down Main, then left on Maple Street. So far, she hadn't forgotten how to get there but the doctors had warned her it could happen.

  Teddy took her hand as they started walking. She let him lead the way. She wondered if he had noticed the subtle changes coming over her and she suspected that he had. Lottie was a deeply religious woman. She was ready to meet her maker, though she would have preferred another path to glory. She would go without complaint but there was Teddy to consider.

  Her husband had passed away eight years ago. Her sister and daughter were dead. She had some distant cousins but they were more feeble than she was and certainly not suitable parents for an eight-year-old boy. For the past two years, ever since she had learned of her condition, Lottie had been hoping to find an answer to the problem of Teddy's future.

  Before it was too late, she had to find Teddy a home.

  2

  Sylvia was supposed to meet Mrs. Culver at one o’clock on Saturday to get a key to her new apartment. Arriving a little early, she drove around for a while, enjoying the feeling of homecoming, grateful that few changes had been made in the little town she since had moved away.