The man in the third pew did not look like a man who had come for the carols. He wore a gray overcoat and held his hat on his knee, and all through the first hymn he never took his eyes off my grandson Tyler. I sat in the front pew of the Moravian church in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, eighty three years old, with a small unlit candle in my hand, and I watched the badge on his belt catch the light each time he leaned forward. Tyler was beside me in a borrowed jacket, and he had gone as white as the candle.
After the service, in the fellowship hall, the man introduced himself over coffee and sugar cookies. He was Agent Frank Lombardi of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. He had come to see me because eleven accounts at the Wind Creek sportsbook had been opened in my name, my Social Security number and my address, and used to place more than forty eight thousand dollars in bets on college basketball. The sportsbook had flagged it, for the simple reason that the accounts of an eighty three year old widower do not bet on the Big East at three in the morning.
“Mr. Pennington,” said Agent Lombardi gently, “I recognized your grandson the moment I walked in. I have seen him at the Wind Creek counter every Friday for a year.” He turned to Tyler. “Son, I am not here to embarrass you in a church. But I think you know what I need.” Tyler stared at the sugar cookie in his hand. Then he set it down on the napkin, very carefully, and put both palms flat on the table. Around us, children ran between the tables with paper stars, shouting. A candle on the windowsill guttered and went out.
A candle lit at a Christmas Eve service gave one widower the night to bring his grandson back to the church in Bethlehem.
I gave my terms in the fellowship hall on Christmas Eve, with the sugar cookies growing cold. “Agent Lombardi, you may do whatever the law requires, and I will not stand in your way. Tyler, you will go with him tonight and tell him how those accounts were opened, and you will repay what you can by your own labor. After the holidays you will go to the counselor on Linden Street that Pastor Weiss has found. I will pay for the first year. The candle money stays in my account. And Tyler, you will light the last candle on the altar before you go.”
Tyler sat across from me with his elbows on the table, a lanky young man of twenty six. His voice came out thin. “Grandpa, I started with five dollars on a Saturday. Then it was fifty, then five hundred, and then it was your name. I told myself you would never miss it. I told myself I was going to win it back by Christmas and give it to you in an envelope.” He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Grandma Dorothy used to say I could do anything. I have made a fool of the only good thing she ever said about me.”
Tyler then did the worst thing a frightened young man can do. He shot up from the table, overturned his chair, and ran for the fire door at the end of the hall, hoping to lose himself in the snow and the dark. He had his hand on the push bar when Reverend Weiss, who was sixty eight and had played linebacker in his youth, and eleven men of the church in their dark suits, stepped from behind the coffee urns. They formed a row in front of the door. One of them was holding a lit candle, and the others held cookies. It was an absurd barricade, and it was effective.
Tyler stopped with his palm against the cold metal, breathing hard. Behind him, the carol singers had stopped too. The little stars of the Sunday school hung from their strings above the tables, turning slowly. He turned around. I did not say a word. I held out my arms. Tyler crossed the hall in six long strides and fell into them, bending nearly double, and I felt him shake all the way down to the soles of his shoes. The singers began again, very softly, with Silent Night.
The money consequences were measured. Agent Lombardi closed the eleven accounts, and the sportsbook voided the bets and refunded what remained. Tyler gave a full statement, and because no one had lost more than the grandfather who forgave him, no charges were filed. The four million, six hundred thousand dollars from the sale of my dripless candle patent stayed in the bank. Tyler worked off the rest of the debt at the candle shop, one hour at a time, for two years, and he never once complained about the smell of wax.
In the name of Dorothy, who passed in 2019, I started the Dorothy Pennington Fund. It pays for gambling counseling and for winter heating help for seniors and families in Northampton, Lehigh and Monroe counties. In the first year we helped eighty seven households. One was a retired steelworker in Easton whose son had gambled away the oil money. When the delivery truck pulled up in the snow and the hose went into the tank, he stood at the window with his hand over his mouth, and watched the gauge rise.
Tyler came home for good the following Christmas Eve, one year clean. He stood at the altar of the Moravian church with a long taper in his hand, in front of the whole congregation. When the candles were handed out, he lit the first one from the Advent wreath and turned and touched his flame to mine. The light went down the row, from hand to hand, until the whole sanctuary glowed. I held my small flame and looked at the face of my grandson, and I thought, Dorothy, here he is.
