Merry's Christmas: A Love Story (3 page)

F
ar
across town—quite literally on the other side of the tracks in her single
apartment—Merry strung lights around a tabletop Christmas tree. It didn’t
matter to her that she was the only one who would ever see this tribute to the
season. She was used to spending the holidays solo, except for her cat.

Rudy watched, batting a paw at the
dangling light string. Merry swayed side to side as she worked out a tangle,
while Christmas music scratched on her radio. There was something about
trimming a tree and listening to carols that buoyed Merry’s spirit. It kept her
hope astir that life wouldn’t always be this way. She wouldn’t always be
working so hard, struggling just to barely make ends meet. She wouldn’t always
have to accept Kiki’s hard-earned tips to keep Mr. Grabinski off her back about
the rent. She wouldn’t always be alone.

“What do you say, Rudy old boy? Look good
to you? Maybe a little higher here.” Merry picked Rudy up and stood back with
him to admire her work. It wasn’t anything fancy. The ornaments weren’t store
bought. They were pieced together with scraps of felt, loose buttons, shells,
and colored glass beads, small treasures gathered by a girl who knew the true
meaning of the Yuletide season, one who was quite sure that anything made with
love was worth much more than all the store-bought Christmases in the world.

“Now, we’re set. Come here, baby. Okay,
moment of truth.” Merry stepped over and, with a celebratory flourish, she
flipped the light switch. Disappointingly, only about half of the bulbs lit.
One sparked a few times before the whole string started to flicker, and then
went completely dark.

“Perfect,” Merry sighed.

♥    ♥    ♥

The clinking of
lavish dinnerware did nothing but accentuate gaping pauses in the Bell dining
room. No matter how much Catherine tried to tell herself that she wasn’t
responsible for carrying the conversational ball, she couldn’t help feeling
that she should. She smiled lightly at Tara. “That’s a pretty ensemble you’re
wearing, Tara. You have an eye.”

Tara readily responded. “I’m thinking of
going into fashion.”

Catherine caught Daniel’s reassuring
glance. “Really?” she replied. “I have a friend who’s a buyer. Very chic, high
end. Could mean contacts.”

“I already wear lenses, but thanks,” Tara
replied cluelessly.

Daniel was quick to intervene. “I think
Catherine might have meant the other kind of contacts. People in the fashion
business.”

Tara darkened sheepishly. “Oh.”
 

Again, silence reigned. Catherine counted
the seconds that passed. It seemed an eternity.
Where were the witticisms
that usually came so easily?
She searched her mind for something to say,
anything to ease the awkwardness.

Finally, Daniel piped up. “Hayden is
quite the computer aficionado, you know.”

Hayden grimaced. “Yeah, I’m a real techno
marvel.”

“Designed and built her own website,”
Daniel continued. “Maybe she’ll show you.”

Hayden was expressionless. “Yeah, I can
help you with your Facebook page.”

As collected as Catherine was among
adults, she felt herself faltering. “Yes, well... I’m afraid I don’t actually—”
She caught herself, finally getting Hayden’s cynical drift. “You were being
facetious, weren’t you?”

“Attempting it,” Hayden droned.

Ollie twirled spaghetti on his fork.
“I’ll show you my worm farm. If Dad lets me have one.”

Grateful for the interaction, Catherine
turned to the boy. “Oh, thank you. Is that what you want for Christmas?”

It seemed an innocent enough question to
Catherine. In fact, she reassured herself it was. But Catherine quickly
realized that somehow she’d managed to step in it once again.
But how?
All she knew was that, as soon as she’d mentioned the holiday, uncomfortable
glances had darted amongst the family. She saw Joan shake a discreet head at
her, warding her off the subject.

Catherine flushed with embarrassment.
She’d never tried so hard to fit in or found herself failing so miserably. “I’m
sorry. I seem to keep saying the wrong thing,” she said.

“We don’t ever have Christmas,” Ollie
blurted.

“Not anymore,” Tara muttered.

Even Hayden chimed in. “Not since what we
never talk about. More to the point,
who
we never talk about.”

Joan tried to intervene. “Honey, maybe
your father would rather—”

Daniel respectfully silenced his mother.
“Actually,” he began. “I... You know, I’ve been thinking about it for a while,
now. Since last year, and it seems to me like it’s about time we brought
Christmas back again. That is, if that’s okay with everybody.”

Ollie lit up immediately at his father’s
suggestion. “With presents and everything?”

Catherine breathed a sigh of relief.

“All the trimmings. And don’t worry,
Mother,” Daniel assured. “Lord knows, you do enough already. I’ll take care of
it. It’ll be good. For all of us.” Then taking her hand in his, he added,
“Catherine, too.”

Abruptly, Hayden got up from the table.
“Imagine my joy.”

Joan reached for Hayden as she skulked by
toward the stairs. “Hayden—”

Daniel quietly turned to Catherine. “You
okay if I...?”

Catherine promptly acquiesced. “Of
course. Please.”

Quickly, Daniel followed Hayden up the
stairs.

No one said anything at the table. They
just picked at their dinners, the silence more conspicuous than ever.

Catherine resolved not to take the floor
again. She blotted her lips, then picked up her fork and began to eat, if for
no other reasons than to fill the aching void. Within the privacy of her
thoughts, Catherine did what she could to bolster her flagging confidence. She
told herself that, in time, the children would get used to the idea of a new
woman in their father’s life. Surely, they’d come to know and love her, just as
Daniel had.

♥    ♥    ♥

Across town,
Merry paced about, on the phone in her apartment, a maxed-out credit card in
hand. Holiday muzak lilted through the line. Rudy brushed against her leg,
hinting that he wanted attention. She gathered him up into her arms and sat down
on her bed. She scratched between his ears, just the way he liked it.

How long have I been on hold
?

Merry checked her watch. Seven full
minutes had passed since she’d been asked if she could wait just a moment and
the never-ending loop of muzak had begun.
What is the definition of a
moment?
She wondered if she’d been forgotten, if her call was nothing more
than a blinking light on some abandoned who-knows-where switchboard that no one
would ever notice again.

Merry was used to being cast aside. Her
mind drifted back to her childhood, to the orphanages and foster homes of her
youth, to the time or two when it had seemed that a couple might actually adopt
her. How was it that so many years had passed and yet it seemed like yesterday?

The thought of how she’d once been chosen
for a home visit floated into her head. She remembered it all, how she’d gotten
up before the birds to scrub herself clean. She’d brushed her teeth for two
whole minutes and combed every last snarl out of her unruly curls.

A social worker had driven her all the
way out to the country, to a little white farmhouse with a dark red door and a
sprawling apple orchard in the back. The people who lived there had seemed so
nice. They’d had plenty of questions and she’d answered them as politely as she
could. She’d played with their little boy and been shown the room that she
would have gotten to share with their daughter. There had been a macaroni and
cheese lunch with homegrown tomatoes and snap beans they’d just picked fresh
from their garden. When the time had come to say goodbye, the lady had hugged
her what seemed like a very long while. She remembered how they’d kept waving
at each other, till the van pulled out of sight.

For weeks afterward, Merry had kept her
heart on hold. She had waited and hoped for a reply that never came.

The social worker had explained things as
well as anyone could. It wasn’t Merry’s fault, she said. People wanted babies,
little children with no memory of a time when they weren’t part of a family.

Merry switched the phone to her left ear
and sighed. Yes, she was well accustomed to being abandoned, but the fact that
it was the story of her life didn’t make it any easier in the financial crunch
of her here and now.

Abruptly, the muzak on Merry’s phone line
clicked off. The disembodied voice returned, mechanically quoting the company
line.
 

“Yes, I understand your policy,” Merry
tried, “but I’m in a little pinch now and...I know I’m at my limit. I can’t
tell you how acutely aware of that I am, but I was wondering, praying actually,
that you could up my limit. Just a few hundred dollars to get me...No, I don’t
have anybody I can...Okay, thank you.”

Merry hung up. She spoke to the phone in
sheer frustration. “Why am I thanking you?”

♥    ♥    ♥

Outside in the
driveway, Daniel opened the door of Catherine’s silver Mercedes, stealing a
glance at the living room window from which his entire family monitored his
not-so-private goodnight.

“We seem to have an audience,” Catherine
observed with a bemused grin.

“Apparently,” Daniel agreed.

Catherine apologized again for her faux
pas in mentioning Christmas. She explained that she’d hadn’t realized that the
topic was off limits.

Daniel felt for her. He knew the evening
couldn’t have been easy. He just hadn’t realized it would be quite as hard as
it had been. “No, it’s fine,” he reassured, not entirely believing it. “It’s a
fair assumption after three years.”

Catherine nodded softly. A moment of
silence passed between them. “Are you still...?”

Daniel took time to run the question over
in his mind. He wanted to be completely honest with her, even though it was
hard to explain. “We got through the worst of it the first year, but then
Christmas rolled around again the next year and nobody seemed ready to...”
Daniel trailed off, searching for words. “Then same thing last year. It’s just,
with losing their mom during the holidays, it’s been a while since the kids
have felt like celebrating.”

Catherine took Daniel’s hand. She
intertwined her fingers with his. “The kids. What about you?”

Again, Daniel took a moment, wanting to
be sincere. He thought about what he couldn’t say, then gazed into Catherine’s
eyes warmly and offered what he could. “Suffice it to say, I’m in the mood to
celebrate now.”

♥    ♥    ♥

Merry knelt
down beside her bed. Rudy curled up lazily beside her. Her elbows sunk into the
thin batted mattress, making it pop up on the sides. Her hands clasped at her
chin, Merry looked up, in earnest.

“So...is it okay to admit that I’m just a
teensy bit freaked? Me and Rudy, here, we’re cutting it kind of close. But I
was wondering maybe, if—”

Merry’s eyes filled. They teared the way
they always did when she talked to the only Dad she’d ever known, the one who
knew her best of all, the only one she could turn to and say whatever it was,
no matter how terribly she was doing.

“Lots of people worse off than me, I
know,” Merry acknowledged respectfully. “I don’t mean to ask for extras.
Really, I don’t. Just enough to get by. That’s all I want this year.”

The next morning, Merry made her way
toward the train station. It was a new day, she encouraged herself, filled with
new possibilities. She reminded herself that there really was an upside to
living so close to the tracks, especially now that she needed public
transportation.

“Spare some change?” a bag lady pleaded.

So in need herself, Merry passed the
woman, then stopped and turned back. She dropped some of what little she had
into the woman’s cup and wished her a Merry Christmas.

“Merry Christmas to you, too. God Bless
you, Miss!” the woman waved cheerily, flashing a rotten-toothed grin.

If that woman who had nothing could find
reason to smile, Merry resolved that she would, too.

Entering Strong Bank & Trust wasn’t
quite as daunting for Merry the second time around. She had remembered to toss
her coffee cup outside at the corner receptacle, and she navigated the heavy
revolving door with quite a bit more ease. Spotting Daniel’s now familiar face
where he sat behind a handsome mahogany desk, Merry took at seat in his waiting
area. He was on a call, so she took the time to gather herself.

Things had been tight for Merry before,
but never so dire that she’d had to ask for a loan. She pulled out her loan
application and smoothed over the folds. There was her entire financial
history, summed up in less than three pages. Showing this to a stranger was a
little like walking down a hospital hallway, she thought, like wearing one of
those thin cotton gowns that gapped disconcertingly in the back.