The Christmas Secret (18 page)

A long and empty stretch of silence followed. I had no idea what to say. Winds blow us off course. I've been swept away myself by unexpected gusts but then there are storms of my own making and those have been more destructive and costly. This storm was Tamara's and the aftermath was devastating. There are days when it's hard for me to live inside myself because it's there that I'm most angry and hurt and the failure of my life beats the loudest. I looked at Tamara's small frame and blue-veined hands and wondered what it was like living inside herself. I couldn't imagine. She pressed the napkin to catch a tear on her cheek and looked me in the eyes for the first time. “Long story short . . . I ended up on the streets for seven months so I could support my habit. I lost consciousness after a man beat me when I wouldn't do something he'd asked and two hookers found me and took me to a hospital. I was out of it for days but I could hear a woman talking. I had no idea who she was or what time of day it was. All I could hear was this whispering
that sounding like a prayer in my head. ‘Help her. Open her eyes.' That's what I heard. When I finally came to I heard this whispering again and opened my eyes to see an overweight black nurse checking the monitor by my bed. I listened as closely as I could to her whispering and she was praying. For me. Rita has four children, seven grandchildren, and an adopted former meth addict-prostitute in her family. She convinced me to go to a treatment center, and when I got out she introduced me to someone at the women's rescue mission where I've been for seven months.” I was stunned and knew that anything I said would sound trite and stupid. “I know,” she said. “It's unimaginable that a mother could do those things.”

“No,” I said. “I mean—”

“It's all right,” she said. “I still can't believe it myself.” She took a few more bites of her oatmeal and I sat feeling awkward and stiff and not at all helpful. “We have to be out of the mission at eight each morning for work . . . or to look for work and then back by four for classes and dinner.”

“So when you're not working what do you do during those hours of the day?”

She smiled. “I go to the library and read. I like to read the books I always read to my kids at night. It makes me feel close. I sit in the park and think and hope and pray . . . a lot. I go to that church on the square and sit in the sanctuary and pray some more. They did a food drive for two weeks
before Thanksgiving and because I was already there I helped every day with that,” she said, laughing. “I do a lot of walking around town.” It sounded horrible to me. She looked at me and smiled. “It's not so bad. Rita says, ‘One step forward each day is the way back to the land of the living.' So that's what I try to do.”

“But why haven't you seen your children?” I asked. “If you've been through treatment and are making strides to get your life—”

She shook her head. “They don't want to see me.”

“How do you know that?” She didn't answer. “Did they say that?” She shook her head. “They
do
want to see you.”

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and she looked out the window. “No, they don't. They haven't taken my calls in months.”

“Because they don't understand what's happening to you,” I said. “They're confused. I know they'd want to see you.” She shook her head. “You're their mother. They love you. They'd want to see that you're doing well and that you love them. They'll see that you've changed and that you're still the mother they remember.” She shook her head back and forth hard in front of me. “Yes. They'd want to see you.”

“No!” she said, yelling. Karen looked up at me from the waitress station and Tasha stopped sweeping the floor.

I slipped out of the booth. “I'm sorry,” I said, whispering.
“I'll let you finish.” I walked to the kitchen and leaned up against the aprons, closing my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Karen asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“What happened back there?”

I reached for the right words. “Sad,” I said. “Just so sad.”

“Can you tell me later?” I nodded. “She left and you have a table.”

Tamara had finished the oatmeal and toast and I rang up her check, pulling four dollars out of my apron pocket for the oatmeal.
Four dollars for a story
, I thought. “Help her,” I whispered, remembering Rita.
Take her back to her kids
. My eyes filled at the thought of her not seeing her children.
Give them love for her
.

 

Gloria and Miriam met me in Betty's back parking lot a few minutes before three. Gloria stayed crouched in the seat as I drove through town and into Ashton Gardens to spy out her mystery man. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “What if someone sees us?”

“No one will see us,” Miriam said. “I've worn my super-secret magical crystal ring that will make us invisible when I turn it on my finger.”

Daylight flooded over the grounds of white and they sparkled and shone and nearly blinded me as I wound through the property. Two squirrels chattered in front of
the car and scurried up a tree. “No one seems to be here, which is only logical in twenty-degree weather,” I said.

“I'm going to throw up,” Gloria said.

I turned the car left and headed for the greenhouse. “Here's a car,” I said. The greenhouse windows were foggy and their borders etched with ice crystals. “I'll have to get out to look in the windows.”

“Do not do that!” Gloria said, whispering with force. “Do not get out of this car!”

“Run!” Miriam said. “Run while I hold her off.”

I opened the door as Gloria yelled again and I pulled my coat tight around me as I ran for the greenhouse. The first window was too foggy to see through and the next two were blocked with sprawling plants and trees. No one was visible from the back windows and I crept to the end where the entrance was found. I could hear voices inside. A brick retaining wall curved along the end of the greenhouse and I stepped onto it, hoping I could see through the trees that filled the entrance. I could make out the shape of a man's back as I lifted myself onto my toes to see through the leaves of the trees. It was a couple and they were kissing. The man turned toward the door and my heart raced when I saw his face. TS took the hand of the woman and walked toward the entrance.

I jumped off the wall and ran along the back of the greenhouse, keeping low. I jerked open the car door and
threw it into reverse. My face was hot and my breathing was heavy as I sped through the streets.

 

Jason held on to Ashley, longing for a love he couldn't get by his sexual prowess or wit but one he could only receive as a gift. He held on to her hoping for more but knowing there was only less. He looked into her face wishing for a smile that would catch his breath at the sight of it. He watched her eyes and listened to her voice, hoping, like his grandfather, for a look or a sound that would leave him breathless and humbled by the beauty of it. He watched. He hoped. He listened. But there was nothing.

 

I walked into the house and rehearsed a hundred things I'd say to TS tonight at seven but knew I'd never carry through with any of them. My mother said I never stood up for myself. Maybe she was right. I put a pot of water on to boil and reached for the package of hamburger in the fridge. Thoughts flooded my mind as I put it into a skillet to brown. Why would he do that? Why would he do that to me
or
her? I drained the grease from the meat and reached for a can of cream of mushroom soup and some sour cream. The phone rang and I saw it was my mother. “Hi, Mom,” I said, stirring the soup and sour cream into the hamburger.

“Hey, sweetness. How is everything?”

I shook my head. Somehow she had the ability to call at
the worst moments. “Good,” I said, lying. I just couldn't tell her the story of being evicted or about TS right now.

She was quiet. “Really? Your voice sounds different.”

“I'm just making something for the kids to eat before I head to work,” I said, watching the water bubbling up.

“Are you working nights now?”

I ripped open a bag of noodles and poured them into the pot. “Just a few nights. Gives me extra money for Christmas.”

“Who's watching the kids?”

I knew she'd ask that. I didn't dare tell her they'd be alone for more than an hour. “Renee, from Patterson's. Remember her?”

“I don't think so,” she said. “How's everything else? Has Brad been calling?”

“Of course,” I said. I really couldn't bring myself to talk. “Mom, can I call you back later because Zach and Haley should be running in any minute?”

“Okay,” she said. “Hey,” she added before hanging up, “I was thinking of coming a couple of days before Christmas if that works with you and the kids.” I glanced at my kitchen and knew it looked like the rest of my house. It was not welcoming for guests. “Richard will be traveling but he could meet me there the day before Christmas if that's all right.”

It wasn't but I was stuck. “Sure,” I said.

“I'll bring a big turkey and make those cookies the kids
like.” She was quiet on the other end. “Christine, your voice really doesn't sound like you.”

I laughed, trying to take her mind off it. “I assure you it's my voice, Mom. Maybe your ears are the problem.”

“Okay,” she said. “Love you.”

“Faster, faster, faster,” I heard Zach yell on the front porch. The key rattled in the door and I walked to it, turning the knob. “You can open your eyes now,” Zach said, tumbling onto the floor. Haley took her hands from her eyes. “She was actually
standing on her porch
this time,” he said.

“Mrs. Meredith?” I asked, taking his coat from him.

“The Bat Lady,” Haley said, throwing her coat on the floor. “That was the closest ever.”

“We could have been gone like that,” Zach said, crashing his hands together and making the sound of an explosion.

“All right,” I said. “Come into the kitchen. I want to give you your dinner before I leave for work.”

“Not again,” Zach said, heaving his backpack onto the sofa. “Who's watching us tonight?”

“Renee will be here again but she won't be here until five thirty. Look at the microwave. See, it says four o'clock. That means she'll be here in one hour and thirty minutes. Wash your hands. You can eat and start your homework and by then she'll be here. Okay?”

I reached for two plates and filled them with noodles and stroganoff. “Okay, let's go over the rules again for being
alone.” We went through the list of do's-and-don'ts. “And I'll call a lot to make sure you're okay.” I watched them eat at the table covered with unopened bills and the newspaper classifieds with apartments circled that I couldn't afford, and knew that moving, mothering, and just making a way was my life for the next dozen years.
All part of the muck and marvel
, I thought, kissing the top of their heads. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay and be with them in a way you want rainy days and warm blankets. They finished their dinner, I repeated the rules, kissed them again, and locked the door behind me.

 

It took a lot of strength to open the sliding glass door. The lock always stuck except on that afternoon. Haley turned it and slid open the door. Snow hung on the branches of the trees that lined the back of the duplexes and thin sheets of ice spotted the deck's surface. The argument sprouted up as they always did; one of the kids making an exaggerated effort to prove they're right. “Come back in!” Zach shouted from the door. “It's freezing in here now.”

“No,” Haley said, climbing up the deck railing. Her pink and purple princess nightgown wrapped around her knees in the breeze and she folded her arms to keep warm. “You said I can't fly.”

“You can't!” Zach said, yelling through the small opening he'd left in the nearly closed door. “Only bugs and birds fly.”

“I
can
fly,” Haley said, swinging her leg to the top railing. “Last night I was flying over these trees. If I had wings I'd fly to the top of that high, high one.”

“Wings are fake and people can't fly. You dreamed you were flying. Mom always tells you that.” He opened the door a few inches wide. “Get down before we get in trouble.”

She opened her arms and the wind took her breath. She took a small step forward and her foot slipped on the icy railing plunging her forward. Her shriek was piercing but short and then she was quiet. Zach shoved the door open and ran onto the deck, screaming her name. He ran down the steps. Her face was in the snow and one leg was bent beneath her. “Mom!” Zach yelled, touching his sister's back. “Haley! Mom!”

“Watch out, Zachary,” the voice said. A hand pulled his shoulder back and he stepped aside. She knelt down in the snow and Zach screamed at the sight of her.