Raine took the hug the doctor offered and squeezed hard. “I’m so glad you love it!”
“I need to bring my son Blake by. This looks as good as any of the department store displays. Better. Money well spent.”
Chapter Five
Once the excitement died down a little she realized that Noah was wandering his way around the room, looking at everything she’d done. He stopped at a small nativity scene on the far side of the room. As she stopped beside him he glanced at her. “My grandmother used to have one just like this. She would put it out every year and we always swapped out the baby Jesus with other things. He was a Twinkie one year, and a stuffed bear another year. We changed it all the time and Noni would get aggravated at us but never mad. Thank you for the reminder.”
“Maybe you should call her for Christmas.”
The lines around his mouth deepened. “Would if I could. She passed on many years ago.”
Raine brushed his arm with her fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It happens, you know?” He glanced at the people milling around the room. “This is a good thing you did here, Nurse Walters.”
Raine smiled softly. That seemed like high praise from Noah. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Did you send your mama pictures?”
Raine blinked at the totally innocent question. It took her a moment to shake her head. “No,” she said softly. “She died a few years ago, too, on Christmas Eve.”
Noah blinked at her, then muttered a curse. “I’m sorry. The way you talked I thought…”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her in a quick hug, and for a timeless moment Raine let herself absorb the comfort. Raine loved the feel of his arm around her and missed it as soon as it was gone. Technically she wasn’t on duty but they were at work, so, him pulling away was probably the right thing to do.
“I understand why Christmas is so important to you now,” he murmured.
She sighed, her eyes filling with tears. “Yeah. It’s the most important thing I shared with my mother. Her love of lights and the hope of the season. Amazing things can happen during the holidays. I don’t know how she pulled off some of the things she did because very often we had zero money. And it wasn’t that my dad didn’t work, he did. But it just wasn’t enough to keep us all afloat. And then mama got sick…” her voice trailed off. This was too perfect of a night to blemish it with hard, hurtful thoughts. “Anyway,” she said, smiling brightly, “I want this room to be about finding new joy. And reminding the men that even though they may not be with their real family, we’re happy enough to step in for now.”
Noah grinned crookedly. “You know, that’s good enough for me,” he said softly.
Throughout the night people wandered through. Raine loved seeing the joy break over their faces as they entered the room. It helped to beat back her own sadness. She thought that by building this room she would be able to feel closer to her mother, but it wasn’t working that way yet. Instead it was making her feel like she was that much further away and she found herself fighting tears.
Inevitably there were stories, some from the men from the states and others from around the world as the men spied things from their culture. The two Germans shook their heads when they spied the pickles, but loved the rest of the decorations. One man cried when he found a menorah display and sat down to stare at it for a long time. His joy at being recognized made her cry as well.
When Paul rolled into the room pushing Haven in a wheelchair, she was surprised and a little worried. If Haven went into an attack it would be difficult to control all the people in here. There were men sitting at the rec tables, some talking, some just sitting as they absorbed the wonder of the long room. Even the nurses were hanging around talking, enjoying the ambiance. Raine would like to think that the room had brought good memories and enjoyment for everyone.
Haven’s eyes had gone wide as he rolled in, but he didn’t appear to be panicking. Raine walked over and held out her hand to him. After a short hesitation he took it, his gaze connecting with hers. “This is really something,” he whispered.
Raine grinned. “Thank you. I’m glad you let Paul bring you down.”
Haven stared at her, blinking. “Why aren’t you happy?”
Tears filled her eyes again and she tried to pull away. She shouldn’t cry because a resident asked her a question. She started to turn away and brush her tears away, but she stopped. If she wanted to build trust with Haven he deserved truth. “Because it reminds me how sharply I miss my mother. She died at Christmas two years ago, and this is the first time I’ve gone all out to decorate anything. I thought it would feel like I was honoring her, but I only feel pain at her loss.”
The tears rolled down her cheeks and she just let them. When her mama had died Raine had thought she was going to die, the pain was so devastating. It had taken her months to even feel like she was living again.
“What would your mother say about this room?” Haven asked, cradling her hand in both of his.
The question forced Raine to look around, and see. “She would love that it had brought
