The Christmas Promise (Christmas Hope) (10 page)

She shook her head, clenching the sheet in her hands. “No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t call anybody.”

He sat down and looked at her. “There are people who care, Carla.” She looked up at the ceiling. She didn’t believe that any more than he would have; once you’ve convinced yourself it isn’t true it’s impossible to think anything else.

“They say somebody beat you up,” Chaz said.

Another tear fell onto the bed. “Thomas.” She lifted the sheet and wiped her face.

“You could have died,” Chaz said. She nodded, and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “Donovan would have been alone just like that.”

“He’s better off alone,” she said.

He leaned close to her. “
No
. He’s not. Don’t
ever
believe that. Nobody’s better off alone.”

A nurse ushered Chaz out of Carla’s room before he had a chance to ask her if Donovan was still with Miss Glory. He walked out the front doors of the hospital and the cold air stabbed his lungs. His coat was still at Carla’s but he pulled the hood of the sweatshirt over his head. He wandered through the hospital parking lot into the street and started to run. He stopped after two blocks and tried to catch his breath; it was too cold to run. He had to find Donovan; he needed to see him.
Help me find him. Help me find Miss Glory’s home.
He hadn’t prayed in years, and he felt foolish.

The bartender from a few nights before saw Chaz as he was driving home and gave him a lift to Wilson’s. From there he ran through the town square over to Baxter, then behind the homes on that street to Maple.

What was the address Donovan had rattled off? He thought hard but he couldn’t hear the number in his head. It was something 14. 214? 514? His hands ached and he shoved them deep inside the sweatshirt pockets, pressing them close to his stomach. The frozen asphalt seeped through his tennis shoes and he realized his toes were numb. What was he doing? He ran farther still and saw a porch light on in the distance. Snow sat on top of each mailbox like a frosty top hat, and he swiped it away from the top of one: 860. Snot drained out of his nose and onto his hand; he hadn’t even felt it. He wiped it away with his sleeve and his nose stung at the touch. He walked farther and knocked snow from another mailbox: 832. Was the house number 814? He thought it was, and tried to speed up but couldn’t. He put his head down in the direction of the snow and counted the steps he took. What if no one answered the door? What if they called the police? The air burned his lungs and he buried his nose in his sweatshirt. He flicked snow from another mailbox and held on to his side as he read the number: 820. It hurt to take deep breaths, so he took shallow ones instead, counting the number of houses down to 814. It was the one with the porch light on. He pulled his sweatshirt up over his nose again and headed toward it. The street was empty and all the lights were off inside the house. It was two o’clock in the morning. He stood at the bottom of the driveway and hated himself for coming all this way, but the image of Carla lying on her bed jumped into his mind and he had to know that Donovan was safe. Even though the doorbell was lit he chose to knock on the door instead, hoping not to wake everyone in the house. He knocked again and heard footsteps.

“Who’s there?”

“Miss Glory, I gave you the bags filled with hats and gloves at Wilson’s the other day,” he said, shivering.

The dead bolt clicked and the face of the woman that he knew as Miss Glory appeared in the opening. “What are you doing?”

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “Something’s happened to Carla and I just needed to know if Donovan was here.”

“Yes he is, but…”

“What’s wrong? Who is it?” Chaz heard another woman’s voice. She came and stood beside Miss Glory inside the darkened entry.

The chain lock fell, the door widened, and the second woman screamed the loudest, most hair-raising scream he’d ever heard.

His hands were shoved inside his pockets just as I remembered seeing him as a child waiting for the school bus. His face was thinner and masked with stubble, but his father’s brown eyes peered out beneath the hood of the sweatshirt. I reached for him, trembling as I pulled him inside. “Matthew, my Matthew,” I said over and over, holding his arms so my knees wouldn’t buckle. “It’s you. It’s you.”

“Mom.” His voice was so small that I barely heard him. He cried as he held on to me and I wrapped my arms around him, weeping.

“It’s you, it’s you, it’s you,” I said, burying my face in his. I cupped my hands on his face and searched his eyes. “You’re home,” I said, my voice failing me. “You’re home.” I led him to the sofa. “Miriam, bring blankets.” She ran from the darkened room in slow motion but was back in an instant, and wrapped blankets around his shoulders.

Miriam flipped on a lamp beside Matthew; tears were on her face but she didn’t say anything. She helped take off his tennis shoes and socks, then wrapped his feet in a blanket. She draped blankets over his legs and then backed away and fell into a chair. I sat beside him, not fully comprehending what was happening, and touched Matt’s cheek to make sure he was real. “Every day I saw your face.” I choked on the words. “Every single day I prayed and prayed that you would come home.” My throat tightened and I squeaked out the words “my son, my baby.”

I threw my arms around his neck and we sobbed as we held each other. There was nothing pretty about it. There are no words to describe how much I had missed my son and the sound of his voice. Words were lodged somewhere in my mind but I couldn’t form them in my mouth. I just kept saying “I love you” over and over again. After years of hiding, my child was finally home.

When the haze started to settle Matthew began to shake and I clutched his hands to warm them. Miriam brought him a cup of hot coffee but it sloshed over the cup’s rim when he took it. He was embarrassed and ran his hands through his hair; they trembled as he rubbed his face.

“Miriam, there’s a bottle of wine above the stove. Could you bring that in so we can celebrate?”

“What you cook with? You want…”

“Above the stove,” I said, over her. “Please.” Miriam poured what wine was in the bottle into a glass and handed it to Matt. She looked at the bottle and then at me. There wasn’t enough to go around. She poured a small amount into the bottom of my glass and I cocked my head toward Matt. She glanced at me and then filled his glass again.

Matthew wouldn’t face me; he kept his head down, holding the empty glass between his knees. “After seven years this is all I have to give you, Mom.” He began to cry and I leaned over, wrapping my arms around him.

I put my hand on his face and looked into the brown eyes I had seen in my mind every day for the last seven years. “You are your father’s son. You look just like him.”

He shook his head. “I’m not the son you remember.” He leaned onto his knees. “I’m nothing like Dad.”

It was the first time he’d really grieved for his father, and huge tears streamed down onto his hands. Years of running and hiding and disgrace washed over him. “I’m sorry, Mom.” His voice was high-pitched and strained. “I hurt you and Dad so much. I thought it would be better somewhere else, but it never was.” Miriam tried to excuse herself more than once but I motioned for her to sit down. There were no secrets as far as I was concerned.

I called Dalton and Heddy as soon as I learned about Carla. Dalton was asleep and I found myself shouting into the phone to make him understand. I didn’t tell them everything, but I let them know that someone ended up at my house who had found Carla. They were going to go to the hospital to be with her right away.

In the early morning hours I learned that Matthew had been living just an hour north for the last two years. “You were so close,” I said over and over again. “So, so close.” When I discovered he’d moved here just three weeks earlier to take the job at Wilson’s I threw my hands on top of my head.

“I thought you were Miss Glory when you came to the store a few nights ago,” Matthew said, looking at Miriam.

She tossed her head back and laughed. “Oh my, no! Your mother is the only Miss Glory around here.” He looked at me, confused; there was so much to talk about. “But your name was Chad or something, wasn’t it?” Miriam asked.

He looked at me. “Chaz. I went by Chaz.”

“Your dad’s middle name?”

He nodded. “Chaz McConnell.”

My maiden name. Although he had been hiding, Matthew managed to keep a part of his family with him. He couldn’t leave everything behind.

I showed him to Erin’s room just before sunrise. By the looks of him I thought he’d sleep for days. I felt like I would, too.

“Our other roommate normally sleeps here,” I said, tossing some of her things into the closet. “But she just had a baby and is with her mom.” I pulled the shade down and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s finally Christmas,” I said, squeezing his hand. It was the first time he’d stood in front of me in the light and I noticed his shoulders, hands, and chest. They were no longer underdeveloped as I remembered. His face had lost the baby fat he used to have and was now covered in stubble; his cheekbones stood out full and strong. It was a man’s face. His father’s eyes looked at me but they didn’t light up the way Walt’s did, and it broke my heart.

“So many times,” he said. He ran his hand over his chin and looked around the room. “I wanted to come home…but couldn’t.” He shuffled his feet and stared at the floor. “I’ve done so many things…” His eyes glistened and he glanced up at the ceiling, clearing his throat. “I just couldn’t come back then. I couldn’t do that to you.”

I grabbed both of his hands. “You could always have come home. No matter what you had done.”

He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t.” Shame is a bully; it likes to hang around, tapping us on the shoulder from time to time; then it pounds us in the face. Matthew had taken a lot of poundings over the years.

I put my hand on the side of his face. “You’ve always been my son. Nothing could ever change that.” I sat on the end of the bed with him. “After you left and your father died I couldn’t wait for some days to be over. I was so lonely and so angry that I’d rant and rave and finally say, ‘I need a new day right now.’ And another day
would
come and I’d manage to get through it.” I held his hand. “There was always enough mercy to manage.” I turned his face to look at me. “There is
always
enough mercy to manage.” I kissed his forehead. “You’re home.
You are home,
” I said, whispering in his ear. He nodded and I prayed that he’d believe it.

“Get some sleep,” I said, and closed the door behind me. The banister held me up as I crept downstairs. In my heart I knew what my son had become and felt sick to my stomach.

Miriam met me in the kitchen. “I was present at a miracle,” she said, handing me a cup of coffee. I sat at the table and felt my muscles turn to butter; every bone and ligament went soft. “It was a miracle, wasn’t it, Gloria?”

“I don’t know,” I said, finding my voice. “If it was a miracle, why am I so scared?”

She knelt in front of me, keeping her voice low. “Because miracles make our knees buckle and our palms sweat. They leave our heads spinning and our hearts racing. If miracles didn’t make us feel like jumping up and down one second and vomiting the next, then it’d be just another day.” She stopped and smiled. “And this was not just another day, Gloria.”

Stephanie was out of state with her family visiting her husband’s brother when I called the next morning. From her brother-in-law’s phone she was able to conference in my other two sons. I was hoarse and exhausted after I finished talking with them.

Heddy screamed when I called her. She dropped the phone and ran to get Dalton. I heard her hollering through the house, followed by muffled dialogue as she described details of the night to Dalton. “Hello,” I said, yelling into the phone. More conversation followed and Heddy got louder the longer she talked. “Hello!” I screamed. She made me laugh as I listened, pressing the earpiece close to my ear.

The phone rattled and thumped on the other end before Heddy picked it up again, breathless. “Hello? Gloria?” She heard me laughing and I could envision her slapping her head.

We talked about Carla and her situation and decided that it wouldn’t be enough if she just changed the locks on her apartment doors. If Thomas wanted in he’d figure out a way to get past the locks. Heddy suggested that Carla and Donovan stay with them until Carla could find another place to live. Donovan would stay with them until Carla got out of the hospital.

They picked Donovan up thirty minutes later, after he’d eaten breakfast. He wanted to get home as fast as he could to check on the Christmas bush. After three days without water he was certain the bush must be close to death. “Santa won’t put presents under a dead Christmas bush,” he repeated throughout the meal.

As I bundled him up to go, I kissed his face. “Thank you, Donovan.”

He wiped away the kiss. “What for?”

There wasn’t enough time in the day to help him understand. He had slept through Matt’s arrival, camped out, as usual, in my room in a makeshift tent of quilts and blankets. I kissed him again and hugged him close before lying down on the sofa to sleep. If Matthew came down the stairs I wanted to hear him. Images from the night reeled through my mind and I smiled.

Miriam was right. A miracle
had
taken place, and we had all played our parts in it.

When I awakened I felt terrible and wondered if I would have been better off not sleeping at all. I opened the curtains in the kitchen. Through the window I saw Miriam at her house, surveying the work the men were doing there. I hadn’t heard her walk past me and wondered if Matthew had left also. His shoes sat by the door, however, so I crept upstairs to shower. I put on my navy blue jersey knit pants with a white turtleneck and a matching blue jacket before running a pick through my curls. I pinned back the unruly ones and put on some makeup. I stared at myself in the mirror. “The barn sure needs more paint today.” The brush flew across my cheeks. I was reaching for my Morning Rose lipstick when the doorbell rang. I ran the tube over my bottom lip and looked at myself, shrugging. “It’s the best I can do.” The doorbell rang again and I ran down the stairs, tripping over the cat. “Move it, Whiskers!”

Erin held the baby on the porch and her mother, Lois, stood behind her with a diaper bag. I took Gabe and led them inside, then told them what happened, blabbing as fast as I could. “Long story short—Matthew is sleeping in your room right now!” Erin fell onto the recliner and her mother gaped at me, searching for words.

“He’s here?” Erin asked. “He’s actually in this home?”

“He’s home.” I kissed Gabe and looked down at his face. “Babies are being born and children are coming home. Now that’s what I call Christmas!”

“I was going to pick up some of my things,” Erin said. “But I’ll come back another time.”

“No, stay. You can meet him.”

“This is your time,” Lois said. “We’ll come back.”

“Are you going back to Layton and Associates?” I asked.

Erin threw the diaper bag over her shoulder. “I’ll go back on Tuesday. Jodi said they’ll be needing someone full-time soon, and I don’t want to miss my chance at it.” She ran her finger over Gabe’s nose. “It’s a new chapter, you know?”

It seemed we were all learning about new beginnings and starting over.

After years of working with folks in this town, I’ve discovered that people want to change when what they’ve been doing doesn’t work for them anymore. Call it what you will—an epiphany, an awakening, or a stirring of the soul—whatever it is it raises you to your feet, maybe for the first time in your life, and you are determined that this time you
will
change. That’s why Matthew called AA—not because I told him to, but because his life wasn’t working for him anymore. His head pounded and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he looked up the phone number in the yellow pages late that morning. Sometimes when you want a new life, you want it to start as soon as possible.