Page 34 of Trusting Trey
I watched as the driver set a chair down in the snow, and held it while Trey set me in it. “You’ve thought of everything,” I said, laughing with joy.
“I told you to trust me, remember?” He winked and took the saw from the sleigh driver. “Are you ready to fell this tree?”
He handed me one end of the two-man saw and walked to the other side of the tree. After a few swipes of the blade we got the hang of it and worked in harmony, cutting through the trunk of the tree while the sleigh driver held the top of it to keep it from falling into the snow. After a few minutes of sawing, we made it through the trunk and the sleigh driver quickly tied the branches together.
Trey lifted me from the chair again and the driver carried the tree and chair behind us again as he walked back to the sleigh. The tree went in a space on the back of the sleigh and Trey set me back into the seat, tucking me into my blankets to keep me warm.
“I love you, beautiful.”
I leaned into him as the sleigh started and looked up into his sparkling blue eyes. “I love you, too,” I said. “Merry Christmas, Trey. I never expected to be here tonight with you when this school year started.”
He kissed my nose and wrapped himself around me as the horse moved from a slow trot into a canter. “I had no idea when I moved to Duluth that by Christmas Eve I would be this much in love with one woman. I never dreamed I would be afraid to go to sleep at night at my age.”
I grabbed the front of his coat as the sleigh bounced over a chunk of snow. “Why?”
“In case it’s a dream and when I wake up, you’re gone. I don’t care about my job, or lack thereof, or any of my material possessions. All I care about is making sure when I wake up every morning you’re in my arms.”
I looked up at him and in the fading light of the afternoon I saw in his eyes how true his words were. I took my glove off and held my warm hand to his cold cheek. “I’m real and I’m not a dream. I think if this were a dream, you wouldn’t have chosen the disabled girl in a wheelchair to dream about.”
He held my hand to his cheek and shook his head at me. “You aren’t a disabled girl in a wheelchair. You’re the woman I love who happens to use a wheelchair, big difference. You’re also the woman I’m going to marry and the woman who will be the mother of my children, eventually.”
I chuckled, my voice carrying across the open field as we slid through the snow. “I know you’ve got big plans about us marrying, but I’ve thought about it and I don’t want you to join the Orthodox Church.”
He lowered a brow and looked disappointed. “I thought it would make you happy.”
“The fact that you’re willing to do it at all, does make me happy, baby. What doesn’t make me happy is that you and your traditions would be lost. I like that we don’t both worship in the same way. I like that we can celebrate Christmas twice, once your way with just the two of us and once my way with all the loud Greek family I have. Don’t be offended by this, please. I know if you asked to join the church, they would welcome you with open arms, but I like the idea that we can be diverse in our religion and beliefs. If we both stay true to what we believe then we can teach our children to make their own choices about religion and beliefs. Does that make sense?”
He looked straight ahead for a few moments as the horse slowed to a trot and the sound of the bells carried back to us on the wind . By the looks of the waning light, the sun would be set in an hour, and by then I hoped to be gazing at our tree in the corner of his little house.
He pulled me tighter and stared off in the distance across the field. “I didn’t think about it that way. I just thought you would want to get married in your church some day and I didn’t want to take that dream away from you.”
I hugged his arm as I lay on his shoulder. “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a rather poor Greek Orthodox church goer,” I said and he laughed, sliding my glove back over my cold hand.
“I noticed you never want to go to church. I just thought it was because it’s hard with the wheelchair.”
“I like to think of myself as spiritual more than religious,” I explained. I shrugged and stared straight ahead. The pain in my heart when I thought about what I used to be was still forefront in my mind, even in the midst of this joyful day.
He whispered in my ear, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not see.”
I sighed, letting the phrase from Hebrews flit through my mind. “I’m having a hard time with faith, Trey. I feel like I don’t have any left in my heart.”
He squeezed my shoulder and kissed my forehead. “I can see that, so I’ll have enough faith for the both of us until you can find yours again.”
December 25
13 Years Prior
“Allie, wake up honey, it’s Christmas morning,” Trey said, his voice filled with happiness.
My eyes opened slowly, blinking a few times as the light from the bathroom shone in my eyes. I looked at the clock and groaned. “It’s only six a.m., Trey.”
“I know, but I want to spend the day with you,” he said, his voice excited.
“I do, too. How about we spend the next hour in bed?” He laughed and rubbed my arm. When I woke enough to sit up, I smelled something cinnamon in the air. “Did you make cinnamon rolls?”
He kissed my lips and grinned. “I sure did. I want this to be a very merry Christmas. That requires lots of good food.”
I stretched, my back a little bit sore from being out for hours yesterday. It was dark by the time we got back to his house, so while I fixed some dinner, he brought in the tree. He said it had to sit and warm up before we could decorate it, so it was our first plan for the day.
