One Christmas Knight

She forced a laugh to explain the unexplainable tears, then sniffed, drew a breath and in a high, distressed voice, said, “Uh…can we go to the bathroom now? Please?”

He jumped as if she’d startled him out of a doze, lifting the errant hand and using it to push a fallen lock of blond hair back from his brow, letting out a breath with a sound not unlike the truck’s air brakes. “Oh-sure. Just let me get a flashlight…”

From yet another of the sleeper’s storage compartments he produced a battery-powered lantern, the kind you can either carry or set down on its base. He kept a light hold on her arm as he edged past her and reached across the passenger seat to open the door. Then, guiding her carefully after him, he backed out into the darkness.

The wind was brutal. The instant it touched her, she swore and began to shake uncontrollably. All she could say was, “Oh, God. Oh… God.”

Jimmy Joe switched on the flashlight and set his teeth and concentrated on not shivering so much himself, and also on resisting the strong temptation to lift Mirabella into his arms and carry her. It probably would have been faster and easier, and a dam sight warmer for both of them if he had. But a lot of stuff from those childbirthing classes was coming back to him, and one of the things he remembered was that laboring women were apt to be funny about being handled; that sometimes they liked to be touched and sometimes they didn’t, and that it wasn’t always easy to know what kind of mood they were in. He figured he and Mirabella had lots of time ahead of them to get to know each other’s ways, and he didn’t want to take a chance on messing things up before they’d gotten started.

Hugging her, now. Holding her. That had been nice. He thought about it as he crunched beside her through the frozen snow, supporting her with one arm hooked across her back and under her arm while she hung on to his hand with a grip like a vise. Yes…she’d seemed to like that. He’d liked it, too. Probably a lot more than he should have, considering the circumstances.

The fact was, he didn’t know quite what to do with the thoughts and feelings that kept coming over him where Mirabella was concerned. He kept thinking-and telling himself-that he ought to be ashamed. But he wasn’t. For one thing, what he felt for her wasn’t the usual kind of lust or desire for a beautiful woman’s body, which likely would have been shameful. It seemed to him it was more a kind of “connectedness” that had been growing on him for a while now, ever since he’d put her to bed in his truck and sat beside her and rubbed her back and watched over her while she slept.

Maybe even before that. When he’d ordered chicken-noodle soup for her. Or when he’d first offered her his bunk.

But whenever it had started, what it had grown into was a sense of closeness, a degree of familiarity he couldn’t remember having had with any woman since J.J.’s mama. Not even then. It was probably something to do with the drugs and alcohol and all that, but there had been a big part of Patti he’d felt closed off from; a part-maybe the most important part-that he could never reach.

What was even stranger to him was that in the years since their divorce he hadn’t met a woman he’d even wanted to get that close to. And he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why, when he finally did, he’d picked one about as different from himself as it was possible for two humans to be.

It didn’t make much sense to him. He didn’t know what it all meant or where it was going, and to be honest, he didn’t even want to think about it. Tonight, whatever happened, it looked as if it would be just the two of them, and a baby to be brought safely into the world. Right now he had to concentrate on that.

The rest-room building was dark and as cold as he’d thought it would be. If there was any power in the place it was evidently out-lines were down somewhere, probably. Any ideas he’d had about calling for help from here were fleeting; the phone was dead, too.

It made him think maybe it was time he got one of those cellular phones for his truck, which up to now hadn’t seemed like a high-priority expense to him. Between the radio and the table phones in truck stops, it just hadn’t been necessary-plus, he had a real strong dislike of people, mostly four-wheel drivers, he’d seen goin’ down the road with phones in their ears instead of payin’ attention to their driving.

Against her wishes, he helped Mirabella into the ladies’ side of the cinder-block building and got her situated in a stall. Then, although it made him uneasy to do it, he put the flashlight down on the cold concrete floor for her and left her there.

There was enough reflected light from the snow for him to see by as he made his way around to the men’s room, although inside it was so dark he had to take care of his own necessities pretty much by feel. The water in the lavatory was flowing, but the way it felt to him, it wasn’t much more than a degree or two above freezing. That made him think about that porta potty and microwave oven he’d decided not to have installed in the truck when he’d had the cab customized, but he’d figured he would never have much occasion to use ’em and it was just going to be a waste of money and space, so why bother?

Goes to show you, he thought. You just can’t predict where life’s gonna take you.

He had plenty of time to think about that while he huddled in the lee of the rest-room building shivering and stamping his feet and trying his best not to freeze to death while he waited for Mirabella to come out. You can’t predict life.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she’d said, which was her way of saying the same thing, he supposed.

Except that in his life so far, he figured he’d seen just about everything, and what he hadn’t seen he’d probably heard about, and the fact was, there wasn’t much about life that surprised him anymore.

He did still have a sense of wonder, though, which was a whole lot different than surprise or disbelief. And it was definitely wonder he felt as he stood there in the snow with a Panhandle wind blowing right through him and all around him a black sky full of cold, bright stars coming down to touch the edges of the whirling snow. There was a strange, desolate beauty about the night, and something more than that. A shivery kind of feeling. A sense of excitement. Anticipation, maybe.

He wondered if it had more to do with it being Christmas Eve, or the fact that just inside those cinder-block walls there was a woman about to give birth to a baby. What an incredible thing that was, when he really thought about it. And what a strange way to spend Christmas.

He thought about how it would have been, how it usually was: his family all gathered together-Mama, J.J., Jess and Sammi June, Granny Calhoun and his other sisters and their husbands and kids, and his brothers and probably a few odd aunts and cousins and neighborhood strays. Right now they would most likely be gathered around the old upright piano, Mama bangin’ out the accompaniment while everybody sang carols out of the hymnbook-“O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night.”

“Away in a manager,/No crib for a bed…”

That was when it occurred to him that maybe this Christmas Eve wasn’t so strange after all. And he wondered if this was how Joseph must have felt, pacin’ up and down outside that stable, all those years ago. And whether Joseph had felt the same kind of awe, excitement and fear.

It had been a long time since he’d thought much about praying. He’d been about Sunday-schooled to death when he was a kid, and through all the troubles and bad times with Patti he’d given up on the whole notion of religion; these days he left that aspect of J.J.’s education pretty much up to the boy’s grandmama.

Now, though, standing there all alone in the cold looking up at those stars, thinking about the woman and child who were depending on him, he suddenly felt more than a little bit overwhelmed. He figured what he needed now was some help, and it wasn’t the kind that was going to come in a chopper or with flashing lights and a siren. He also knew there wasn’t any way he was ever going to find the words to say what he wanted to say, or to ask what he needed to ask. So in the end he just stood real still and quiet and prayed that the Good Lord would know without being told.

With that taken care of, it began to seem to him like Mirabella had been in the rest room a long time. He was just thinking maybe he’d better chance it and go and see if she was okay, when he saw the shadows shift and the lantern light come splashing out onto the snowy walkway. He went to her and put his arms around her and hustled her back to the truck as fast as he could, neither of them saying anything until they were back inside, and shivering and shaking and rubbing themselves warm.

“I’m…sorry…I took…so long,” she said as soon as she could get the words out. “I had…a contraction…in there.”

It was pretty much what he’d thought, and concern made his voice harsh. “You okay?” She nodded, and he drew a big breath.

“Okay, let’s see…” He looked at his watch and tried to figure how long it had been between that one and the