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Authors: Donna VanLiere

The Christmas Hope (8 page)

BOOK: The Christmas Hope
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“But you need them,” Mom said. “You need people who care about you.”
I didn’t need them and I didn’t want to be around them or anybody else, but I didn’t say that to her. I just wanted to be left alone. I found that I couldn’t even talk with Mom about Sean. It was selfish on my part; she had lost her grandson and wanted to connect with me but I kept her at arm’s length. It was easier that way. Time and again she sat down and tried to talk with me.
“Patti, God promised that He would never leave us,” she said after dinner one day.
I felt anger at what she was saying but didn’t show it. “I know that, Mom.”
“No, honey, you don’t,” she said.
I felt my jaw tighten.
“I just know that God was with Sean, helping him hold on until he could talk to that young doctor at the hospital.” Her voice broke and tears flowed over her cheeks. I wanted to be angry but I couldn’t. “If God left Sean during those last moments of his life then God’s a liar, Patti, and I don’t believe that.”
I squeezed her hand. She could believe whatever she wanted to help her through Sean’s death but as far as I was concerned God could have prevented the accident. He could have wakened Sean so he wouldn’t have hit the semi or he could have saved Sean’s life at the hospital. If God hadn’t abandoned Sean I would still have him today.
The kitchen door opened and I jumped. Emily was finishing her eggs and I realized I hadn’t paid attention to her in the last few minutes. I looked up to see Mark coming through the door. “Well, hello,” he said, looking at Emily. “I didn’t know we had company.”
“This is Emily,” I said, trying to gather my thoughts.
Mark extended his hand. “Hello, Emily. It’s very nice to meet you.”
She looked at him and remained quiet. It was enough for her to get to know me—now she had to add yet another stranger to her life.
“My mom died,” she said, as a way of introduction. I had wanted to prep Mark before he got home and tell him what was happening. I hadn’t imagined Emily would tell him herself. I could see it took Mark off guard.
“I’m really sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry your son died.” Her words left a lump in my throat.
“Did you stay here last night?” Mark asked.
She nodded.
“You can stay here as long as you like.”
“Are all airplane flyers tall?” she asked, looking up at him.
Mark smiled. “No, some of them aren’t, but we tall ones don’t hang around with them.”
“Are you going to help with the Christmas tree?” She was already at ease with Mark; he always had a way with kids. Mark looked at me and I tried to smile. “Santa’s helper brought it.”
“You mean an elf brought a tree?”
“Yes. My mom and me didn’t have one last year but she said we’d have one this year. Can you help us?”
He looked at me. The last tree we had decorated was the year Sean died. That was nearly four years ago.
“I’d love to.”
There. It was settled. The three of us would be decorating a Christmas tree and it’d be the first time for all of us in a long time.
“I meant to call and tell you about Emily,” I said to Mark in the garage as he looked for extension cords.
“It’s okay.”
“She’s sleeping in the guest bedroom.”
He stopped. “That’s okay. I’ll sleep in the other room.” Sean’s room. I turned to walk back into the house. “Where will she go from here?”
“I’m trying to contact one of the foster families today.”
“But it’s so close to Christmas. She’s so little.”
I knew what he was saying but Emily couldn’t stay with us. We weren’t foster parents. Plus, I’d already put my job on the line by bringing her home in the first place.
“Does she have a dad?”
“Somewhere. Who knows?”
“Any grandparents?”
“In name only.”
“How did her mother die?” he asked.
“Car accident.”
He shook his head. It hit close to home. He unwrapped the extension cords that were in a tangled ball and I walked back into the house. That was the longest exchange Mark and I had had for days.
I walked into the living room. It was a mess. Decorations and boxes were everywhere. In the months following Sean’s death I began to clean and organize the house. It was the one thing I could control and I wanted things to be in their place and to be clean. I pushed the thought of the mess out of my mind. This tree was for Emily. I could clean later.
We strung the lights first. We started at the bottom of the tree and worked our way up. Then we hung a string of braided gold-and-green garland. “This is what a queen wears,” Emily said, admiring a strand of garland.
“The king wears it, too, doesn’t he?” Mark asked.
“No,” Emily said, matter-of-fact. “The king wears purple and pointy shoes.” Mark laughed.
I stood back to survey the tree. “I think I need to put more garland in this area,” I said, pointing.
“Let me get it.” Emily ran for the garland and rushed it over to me. I had to smile. Roy was right; despite what she’d been through, she enjoyed doing this.
The bulbs came next. I picked up a box filled with bright green, red, and blue bulbs and opened them. Mark picked up a red bulb and slipped a hook through the loop at the top. I bent down to open another box and discovered it was filled with angels. “Oh, these are pretty.”
Emily ran to it and peered inside. “Let me see.” She bent the box toward her. There were gold and iridescent angels piled on top of each other. “Angels,” she said, clasping her hands together. “We have to make sure they’re way out here on the limb,” she said, pointing, “so they can see everything.” As Emily and Mark decorated each limb I slipped into the kitchen to make some cocoa. I’d always made cocoa when Sean was a little boy and it seemed appropriate today. I stirred it on the stove and heard Christmas music filtering from the living room. Mark had pulled out some old favorites and I could hear him humming.
“Frosty’s not real,” Emily said, listening to the words of the song.
“He’s not?” Mark asked. “How do you know?”
“Snowmen can’t talk.” She said it as if he really should have known that.
“Rudolph talks.”
“That’s because he’s a reindeer.”
“So Rudolph is real?”
“Yes! Don’t you watch TV?”
I heard Mark laugh for the first time in weeks. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to talk with a five-year-old. I walked into the living room and handed a cup of cocoa to Emily and Mark.
When the tree was finished Mark took the angel out of her box. “I think we’re getting another angel,” I said, remembering Emily’s disappointment.
“No,” Emily said, pointing at the tree. “God put her in charge of all these other angels so she has to be on top so she can see what they’re doing.” She took the angel from Mark and looked up at him. “Can you lift me high?” He lifted her so she could place the angel and she fussed with it till she got her straight. “There,” she said, indicating that her work was finished. I sat on the sofa to get a good look at the tree and Emily sat next to me. Mark straightened a strand of straying garland, then sat next to Emily. She was quiet and stared at the tree for the longest time. “Is that what Christmas trees look like in heaven?” she asked. Mark glanced over at me.
“I bet they’re even more beautiful in heaven,” I said.
“Can my mom see me right now?” She was remembering our conversation from earlier.
“I’m sure God has parted the clouds so she can see you.”
“She sees the tree?”
“Yes.”
“Does she see all the angels?”
“Yes, and she sees lots of angels in heaven.”
“As pretty as these?”
“Even more beautiful.”
“Do you think she’s happy seeing me?”
I smiled and nodded. I wondered if Sean was happy seeing what his dad and I had become?
We had nothing in the house to eat so Mark offered to go to the grocery store. “Get some chicken,” I said. “And maybe some ground chuck and hamburger buns. I’ll need potatoes and bread, and oh, don’t forget eggs. Get some more juice and milk, too.”
When he returned Mark’s arms were loaded with bags. He’d gotten much more than just the few items I’d mentioned. I pulled out boxes of cereal, bags of chips, blocks of cheese, a couple of boxes of crackers, soup, applesauce, several types of juices, packages of candy, and fruit galore. I put the groceries away and found a small bag filled with videos:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman
, and
A Charlie Brown Christmas
. It looked as though Mark had our evening planned for us.
Emily helped me peel potatoes and put them into a pot. “Greta lets me cook, too,” she said. I could have kicked myself. I meant to follow up with Greta better than I had done in the last few months. “I go to her house a lot and cook.”
“You like Greta?”
“She’s my favorite friend.”
Now I really felt bad. I had to call Greta right away.
“Was Greta with you that last night in your house?”
“For a while, but it was her eightieth anniversary.”
I smiled. That would make Greta a hundred and something. “So she was holding your hand?” For some reason, the statement Emily made to the police about someone holding her hand had always bothered me.
Girl ran into the kitchen and stole a potato out of Emily’s hand, which brought an end to our conversation. I dried my hands and dialed Greta’s number. Hal answered the phone and I asked for Greta three times before he understood what I was saying. “Go put your hearing aids in right now,” I heard Greta say before she picked up the phone. She said they would love to come over for dinner, and within the hour they pulled into our driveway.
Emily ran outside and threw herself into Greta’s arms. The old woman’s voice cracked when she saw her. “You’re okay,” she said, holding Emily. “You’re safe and sound and you’re okay.”
Emily nodded.
After we ate, Emily took Hal’s hand and walked into the living room so she could look at the tree again. Mark followed holding the videotapes he had purchased. I caught a glimpse of Emily sitting on the sofa staring at the videos in her hands.
Greta helped clear the plates. “What’s going to happen to her now?” she asked.
“She’ll go into another foster home for a while and then when the Delphys get back she’ll go back into their home.”
“All that moving around,” Greta said under her breath. “It’s not good for a child.” I didn’t say anything. “Will someone adopt her?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve heard that older children have a hard time getting adopted. Is that true?”
I hated to say it. “Sometimes.”
Greta dabbed her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. I handed her a tissue. “When you said she’d go into another foster home, when did you mean that she’d go?”
“Soon. Probably tomorrow.”
“But she’ll be uprooted again and it’s almost Christmas.”
“I know, but the state requires her to be in a foster—”
“She should stay here till after Christmas,” Greta said, cutting me off. “She likes you and your husband. I can tell. She needs to stay here.” Greta said it as if her word was final.
“We’re not set up by the state to be foster parents,” I said, trying to explain. “I’m not even allowed to have her in my house.”
“But it’s Christmas! Doesn’t the state understand that? If her mother was here and she was unable to care for Emily she’d be grateful that her daughter could stay in a home like this with people like you. How could the state move her right now after everything that’s happened? How could you do that to her?”
I couldn’t look at Greta. The state had rules that I had to follow but I knew she wouldn’t understand that. But I knew, too, that she’d never understand that I just couldn’t have another child in my house. It was too painful. A child hadn’t stayed in our home since Sean died and I preferred to keep it that way.
“Come on, ladies,” Mark said, calling from the living room and saving me from further conversation with Greta. He put
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
into the VCR and sat on the sofa. Emily sat next to him. He put his arm around her and patted her shoulder. Greta sat next to Emily and Emily reached over and held her hand. I knew she was making herself feel safe. “Reindeers talk, don’t they, Greta?” Emily asked.
“Everybody knows reindeer talk,” Greta said, assuring her.
“Mark didn’t know,” Emily said.
I laughed out loud.
“Did you know they fly, Mark?” Greta asked.
“Of course! I pass them all the time in the air.” Emily smiled the faintest of smiles and slid closer to Mark’s side and I swear I saw him melt a little.
BOOK: The Christmas Hope
12.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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