Read The Christmas Hope Online
Authors: Donna VanLiere
The Christmas Hope (5 page)
Emily was uncertain of what was happening. “Can I take my toys?”
I picked up the teddy bear and handed it to her. “Yes, and I’ll pack some of your clothes. Okay?” I waited for an answer.
“Are you going with me?”
“I’m going to drive you there.”
She shook her head. I hadn’t answered her question. “Are you going with me?”
I patted her hand. “I won’t be staying with you but I’m going to make sure that you have everything you need.”
She was quiet as I packed up what few clothes she had in her closet and drawers. I noticed a small catalog sitting on top of her chest of drawers and it was turned to a page with a little girl wearing a flowing lavender-and-pink princess gown. In my mind I could see Emily turning the page there and setting it atop her chest of drawers so her mother could see it. If she saw it, Emily was certain her mother would get the hint and buy it for her birthday or maybe help her petition Santa for it for Christmas. I stuck the catalog in my bag. I held out my hand for Emily but she didn’t want to take hold of it. She wanted to be held. An officer helped with Emily’s suitcase and I picked her up.
She looked into her room. “Can I ever come back?” she asked. This was the end of her memories in this house with her mother. For whatever part I played in that I wanted to make sure that Emily had a chance to say good-bye.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll bring you back.” I opened the back door and set her on the passenger side of the car. She looked so small as I secured the seat belt around her. I thanked the officers, told them I’d be in touch, and drove her to the Delphys’ home.
I woke up the next morning and opened the door to let Girl out. I looked through my notes and called the number for Tracy’s mother. It was out of service. I tried the number for her father and it rang several times before he answered. He had been notified of Tracy’s death by someone in the police department but because he had been in bed with vasculitis for several months he would be unable to travel for the funeral. I asked if he’d ever seen his granddaughter, Emily, and he said after she was born he had, but then he lost touch. I got a current phone number for Tracy’s mother and hung up. I dialed the number before I let the sadness of the situation sink in. Tracy’s mother had also been notified of Tracy’s death and was packing her bag for the funeral. I told her how sorry I was. “I have to take off work,” she said, out of breath from running to the phone. “They don’t like it when people take off work at the last minute.” I was stunned. She hadn’t mentioned Tracy or Emily.
“Emily is in a foster home,” I said.
“They could fire me for this,” she said. “I hope they don’t but they could.”
“Would you like to see Emily?” I asked.
She sighed into the phone. I could envision her throwing her arms in the air. “If there’s time. There may not be any time. I’ve got to drive in and drive out. That’s all the time they’re going to give me off work.”
“Do you know Emily’s father?” I asked.
“If I knew who he was he wouldn’t be walking around today getting other girls pregnant.”
That’s as close to a conversation about Tracy or Emily that we were going to have. I called Tracy’s brother but he was single and worked the midnight shift at a warehouse. He was kind but made it clear that he was in no position to care for a child. I hung up the phone and doodled on the papers in front of me. This was the part of the job that I hated: discovering that family members can’t or don’t want to care for the children who are supposed to be close to them. It seemed the only person who cared for Emily or Tracy was Greta Larson. I called information for her number. An older man answered the phone. It was obvious he was hard of hearing and by the third time of asking for Greta I was losing my patience. He finally handed the phone to Greta.
“Thank you so much for calling,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’ve been so worried and none of the neighbors knew what happened to her.”
I assured her that Emily was with a loving family.
“Do you know anything about her mother’s family?” I asked.
“Tracy’s mom and dad are divorced,” she said. “Her dad is sick and her mother is strange. I know she talked with her brother quite a bit, especially during the first year after Emily was born, but I never saw him. He lives a couple hours from here.”
“Do you know anything about Emily’s dad?”
“To be honest, I don’t think Tracy knew anything about him. They were teenagers. He probably went off to college, got a job, got married, and has kids of his own now. Nobody knows. And I’m sure he doesn’t care. Tracy didn’t list his name on Emily’s birth certificate. I don’t know why. Seems the least he could have done was pay child support, and the state would have made sure he did, too. But I guess Tracy thought that was a battle she didn’t want to fight for the rest of her life. Poor thing.”
Her voice trailed off and I could hear her clear her throat.
“She was too young to be raising a child. She never could make ends meet but she was a good soul and that little girl of hers is a sweet child.” She was quiet. Greta was the closest thing to a mother Tracy had had for several years.
“Did you watch Emily at all last night?” I asked.
“No, it was our anniversary. Something in me told me that Tracy wouldn’t be able to find anyone to sit with Emily but she kept telling me she could. I never should have left.”
“So you don’t think anybody was with her last night?”
“No, and I can’t imagine how afraid that sweet little baby was when the police knocked on her door.”
There was no point in asking Greta again about who else could have been with Emily because she didn’t know. But the thought nagged me: who was holding Emily’s hand? What if it had been someone from the neighborhood who knew Tracy wasn’t home? What if someone had questionable motives for being alone in a house with a child? I pushed the thought out of my mind. I promised to stay in touch with Greta and hung up the phone.
Greta and Hal knew the landlord of Emily’s duplex would want to rent it out as soon as possible and they didn’t want anyone else to go through Tracy’s and Emily’s things so they loaded their car with empty boxes and drove down the street. Hal emptied the refrigerator as Greta packed personal items from Tracy’s house into boxes: a few photo albums and home movies, some of Tracy’s clothing she thought Emily might like to have someday, what little costume jewelry Tracy owned, and all of Emily’s toys. As Greta packed boxes filled with sheets and towels from the hall closet a small package dropped to the floor. She picked it up, opened the box, and discovered a small silver cross covered with pink stones. She turned it over and saw there was an inscription: “For Emily—Love, Mom.” Greta looked at the bottom and saw that it had been inscribed with the word “Christmas” and the year. “She was a good mother,” Greta whispered. When the house was clean and organized and Greta felt certain that she had packed away everything that would one day be important to Emily, she stood with Hal in the doorway and took one last look inside the tiny kitchen and living room she’d been in so often over the past four years. She wiped her eyes and Hal pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. They both wished they could have done more for Emily and Tracy but what they didn’t realize is that taking the time to show love to someone is more than some people will ever choose to do.
Ten days later I was sitting at my desk in the office when Greta called. The landlord of Tracy’s duplex needed the rest of her things to be removed so he could make repairs and rent it out. I had told Emily that I would take her back to say good-bye and now that time had come. I picked her up at the Delphys’ and held her hand as we walked through the front door of the small rental. The walls were bare, boxes were scattered throughout the kitchen and living area. It smelled like cleaning agents and stale air.
“Where is everything?” Emily asked.
“Greta and Hal packed everything,” I said. “They have several boxes of things for you. Why don’t you look around and see if there’s anything else that you’d like to have.”
She held my hand as she walked toward her bedroom. The closet and chest of drawers were empty, the bed was stripped and the toys were gone. I looked at Emily’s face and wondered if she really understood what was happening.
“Can I have my bed?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll have Hal come pick it up.” We walked into Tracy’s room and Emily sat on the edge of the bed. Her forehead crinkled but she didn’t cry. I knew that she and her mother had probably spent many nights giggling or reading together in this bed.
She looked underneath the bed. “All my books are gone.”
“Greta has them,” I said. She opened a box sitting next to the dresser and began to rummage through Tracy’s clothes. Near the bottom of the box she pulled out a pink sweatshirt with Mickey and Minnie Mouse on it. She took off her coat and put on the sweatshirt.
“Can I have this?”
“Of course,” I said. “You can have anything. It’s all yours.” She pulled out another sweatshirt, a gray one with frayed cuffs, and held it. Tracy’s favorite, I was sure. We found a box marked “Christmas” and Emily opened it. There were a few bulbs and tinsel and a tiny Nativity set. I watched as she walked through the boxes, dragging her fingers over the tops of them. We spent an hour filtering through boxes, sitting in the quiet, looking out the windows, and collecting things. When she was finished we walked toward the door. I turned to grab the handle and felt Emily’s arms wrap around my leg. She didn’t want to leave. She let out a highpitched cry and fell to the floor and I knew then that she understood that she would never see this tiny duplex again. She’d never see her mother wearing her favorite gray sweatshirt and putting on makeup in front of the bathroom mirror. There were no more Disney videos while sitting on Mom’s lap or snuggle time in Mom’s big bed with her favorite books. She now had the impossible task of saying good-bye and she couldn’t. I held her as she cried. We sat together in the front entrance and looked out over the boxes into the home that would now exist only as pieces in her mind. I wanted her to remember what it looked like and how it smelled and the love that had filled its tiny space. I prayed that she would never forget because it held her first memories. Nothing can prepare a five-year-old to say good-bye to her mother, but Emily did. I don’t know how long we stayed; it doesn’t matter. We left when she was ready. She held on to my hand and closed the door behind her.
I pulled on my gloves and got in the car, turning the heat on high. It was one of the coldest Decembers that I could remember in recent years. I tried to contact two foster families on my way to the Delphys’ to pick up Emily but there wasn’t an answer at one home and the other family had already left the state for the holidays. I pulled into the Delphys’ drive and Karen greeted me at the door. “I’m so sorry, Karen,” I said, closing the door behind me. “How’s Eric?”
“He’s upstairs talking to his mom. They’ve been expecting this and trying to prepare for it but …”
“You’re never ready,” I said.
“No.” She shuffled her feet and I knew something was terribly wrong.
“What is it, Karen?”
“Eric and I are going to have to stay with his mother for a while to settle the estate. He’s not the oldest child but he is the only one capable of taking care of his mother right now. We need to help her move out of the house she’s been in for forty-five years and get her settled into a nearby retirement village and we have no idea how long all of that is going to take. It could be several weeks.”
I understood what she was saying. There was no place for Emily right now.
“I just don’t know how we could—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about her.”
“She’s a sweet little girl,” Karen said. “But the funeral and everything isn’t going to be the right environment. I feel awful about this, Patricia. We want her to come back just as soon as we’re home again.”
“Thanks, Karen,” I said. “I’ll make sure she’s taken care of in the meantime.” Emily walked into the entryway holding her suitcase. Karen knelt down in front of her and zipped her coat. Emily looked at the floor. Karen kissed her forehead and opened the door for us.
“Tell Mr. Eric I’m sorry that he’s so sad.”
Karen smiled and kissed her again.
I helped Emily into the backseat of my car and got behind the wheel. I needed to find another long-term foster home for her soon. I drove through the streets toward Wesley House, a home built by Methodists during the Civil War to help care for widows and orphans. Over the years it had been used to house children six years and older who weren’t in foster placement at the time. Emily could stay there for a few nights till I could find her a temporary foster home. I looked at her in the rearview mirror. She was holding her teddy bear and looking out the window. She hadn’t changed much in the five months since I first met her. She was still quiet and her eyes held the same uncertainty I saw in July. I turned onto the road that led to Wesley House. I drove slowly and soon realized that I had let off the gas entirely and the car was coasting. Emily didn’t notice. She continued to look out the window. I stopped at the yield sign before the entrance of Wesley House and sat there for the longest time watching her in the rearview mirror. She realized the car had stopped and looked at me. I turned to look at her and tried to smile but couldn’t. She was afraid and I knew it. She held my gaze and my heart broke. There was too much sadness in the world. Five-year-old little girls shouldn’t be faced with life without their mothers, especially at Christmas. My mother always reminded me that life was made up of choices.
Sometimes the choices you make will lead to trouble, and you’ll have to deal with that
, she said more times than I could remember.
Other times, a choice may change your life, and you’ll have to deal with that, too
. What I was about to do was against the code of conduct for social workers but I didn’t care if I was reprimanded or even fired. I pulled into the end of the Wesley House drive, turned around, and drove away. I had no idea what that simple choice would mean.
Sometimes the choices you make will lead to trouble, and you’ll have to deal with that
, she said more times than I could remember.
Other times, a choice may change your life, and you’ll have to deal with that, too
. What I was about to do was against the code of conduct for social workers but I didn’t care if I was reprimanded or even fired. I pulled into the end of the Wesley House drive, turned around, and drove away. I had no idea what that simple choice would mean.
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