Page 1 of Christmas Home

one

Prologue – Rutherford Crawford

The big old housewas creepy when I was home alone. Mom and Dad had put a TV in my bedroom—the big kind with all the “gadgets,” as my dad called them.

Mostly, it was to entertain me since I had no friends and didn’t know a soul my age in the area. We lived in New York but spent holidays and summers here at the family estate in Tennessee. Usually, Dad’s sister and her husband joined us, bringing my older cousin Farlow with them. But they weren’t here this year and I didn’t know why.

“As Quakers,” my dad loved to say, “getting away from the city and all that Christmas nonsense is what we should be doing.”

I was only ten years old and despite not having my cousin to keep me company, my parents left me home alone. They’d gone to Nashville and I knew it was to celebrate the holiday in their own way—their breath would be smelling of alcohol and they’d be laughing hysterically over nothing when they returned.

I turned off Cartoon Network. It got weird this late anyway. I stayed in my bedroom and hadn’t gone back down after Mom sent me upstairs with cookies and milk before they left. The house was too spooky to wander around at night by myself.

I fell asleep with my clothes on. Mom always kept the house so hot that I preferred my shorts over pajamas anyway. This side of the house was newer and had central heating, which meant it got superhot upstairs. Then it got cold when the Tennessee winds blew through the windows.

I never heard the fire. I woke up to the sound of sirens and saw flames clinging to my bedroom ceiling. Then, I didn’t know what to do. I hoped the sirens meant firefighters were coming. I hoped they’d come and get me.

I drew the covers over my head and cried out for Mom just as I felt blinding pain hit my stomach. Moments later, something else fell on my legs. I couldn’t see what it was. “Help me!” I screamed, unable to move.

Then I felt the fire burning through the blankets, scorching my skin. “Help!” I screamed again but no one answered.

The flames were eating me alive, blazing a path from my stomach to my chest and making their way up toward my face. “Help. Please.” I knew my cries were growing quieter. I was dying. I was going to die in this old house, alone and in unbearable pain.

I squeezed my eyes shut but couldn’t escape seeing the glow of the fire. Then the pressure on my body lifted and the burning covers were pulled back.

As I was picked up, I blacked out. I didn’t remember anything else until I woke up in a New York hospital room. I never learned who my rescuer was.

As horrific as the burning had been, my nightmare had only just begun.

two

Clyde Griffin

“Lewellen, you get yertrashy white ass back here!” I yelled as the seventy-six Boss Hog Cadillac convertible sped off, spewing mud and gravel back toward me. “Lewellen, yer such a bitch!!!” I screamed, but it was no use. It’s not like I should be surprised. My underhanded cousin was hightailing it and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

“What a shocker,” I could imagine my sister saying. “Lewellen betrayed you again, stole yer money, and left you high and dry.”

“Well, I ain’t a calling you for help, Emmylou. How about that?” I said to myself, and imagined sticking my tongue out at my ass of a sister.

I turned back toward the old, run-down motel and walked to my room.

“Crawford City looks nice,” Lewellen had told me when I needed to get away from the latest jackass I’d met. The man had a lot of fun using my face as a punching bag and almost put me inthe hospital. So that night, after he’d gone to sleep, I’d taken his wad of cash and foolishly called my cousin.

Lewellen was my mama’s first cousin’s daughter, which made us second cousins…or maybe third? Hell, I don’t know. All I know for sure is she loved doing this shit to me. Thought it was funny that I kept falling for it. I felt a whole lot like Charlie Brown on them cartoons when Lucy pulled the football away every time Charlie Brown got close to kicking it.

I looked around the dingy little motel room. Lewellen had agreed to stay here with me for a month. We’d used my jackass ex’s money to buy enough groceries to last until then. The idea being that until he or the authorities caught up to us, we would have food and shelter, at least.

That’d been one week ago. Now, the ol’ hag had run off with the groceries that were still in the car and what money I had left. Oh well, at least the motel room didn’t have bed bugs, and I had a safe place to lay low from my ex.

God, I hoped he hadn’t gotten the law involved. This wasn’t the first time a man had taken to hitting me, and it wasn’t the first time I decided not to be a punching bag. My old man used to hit me enough. I didn’t need a boyfriend doing the same damned thing.

Still, last time I’d had to sit in jail for just under a month while a judge decided my part in the fight had been self-defense. Not sure I’d be looked upon as kindly this time, considering I’d taken his money. That was a first for me.

If I was lucky, which I never am, I could avoid Georgia for now. Even if my ex did call the law on me, maybe Tennessee wouldn’t send me back down there for a legal whupping.

Why hadn’t I just left the man the first time he raised his fist to me? Isn’t that the million-dollar question? Why don’t people just leave? I mean, first it’s, “Oh, I was drunk. I didn’t mean it.” Then it’s, “Oh, you deserved it.” Then it goes on and on. Well, afterthis last time, I didn’t wait around to hear more excuses. I knew how it’d turn out. And I knew if he found me now, he’d whup me good. Kill me if he could.

I flopped on the old, musty bed. God, I hated sleeping in motel rooms. Even though I’d done it plenty growing up.

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