The House Without a Christmas Tree (7 page)

BOOK: The House Without a Christmas Tree
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“How do you know it was a he?” I asked.

“Was it a she?”

“No more questions,” I said firmly. “I'm not going to talk about it.”

Then Grandma put her hand in her apron pocket, and walked over to the table where I was working. She brought her hand out of her pocket and dangled Billy's locket in front of me.

I grabbed it quickly out of her hand. “You looked in my private drawer!”

“Nobody looks in anybody else's private drawer in this house, Addie.”

“Oh, I know where you found it,” I said, turning crimson with embarrassment.

“Under your pillow,” she said, nodding her head.

“I meant to hide it this morning, but …”

“You've had a lot of things on your mind,” she said, smiling. “Besides, it sure wasn't hidden last night at the pageant. Sparkled like a star itself up there, even with you fussin' around tryin' to cover it up!”

I opened my hand and looked at it again. “Isn't it disgusting?”

“I think it's real pretty,” she said. “From Billy Wild?”

“How did you guess that?” I asked, more embarrassed than ever.

“Because I'm a smart old character!”

“I'm never going to wear this disgusting thing again as long as I live!”

“Why not!”

“If I wear it again, he'll really think I like him!”

“Guess he likes
you
all right,” said Grandma.

“Ha!” I said derisively. “How do you know?”

“Wouldn't give a heart locket to a person he didn't like,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You like him a little too …”

“I've told you a thousand times I despise him!” I said angrily. “I won't even speak to him!”

“Mmmmmmm,” said Grandma.

“What do you mean, ‘Mmmmm'?”

“Some people don't speak much. Doesn't mean they don't feel anything.”

I thought about that for a minute as I finished another row of gingerbread men. Finally the delicious aroma got the best of me, and I chose one to eat.

“Doesn't he look just like Billy Wild?” I asked Grandma, as I held the little man up in front of me.

“Yes,” she laughed, “I guess he does a bit.”

“Good!” I said. “I'm going to bite his head off and chew him up!”

“Glory, Addie!” she said, laughing.

“What's so funny?”

“I pity the fella you really fall for some day,” she said. “He'll be black and blue before he realizes that's your way of likin'. Heavens! It's all right to let on you like people, if you do!”

I looked at her skeptically, then picked up the gingerbread man and bit his head off.

We had almost finished decorating all the gingerbread men when I heard Dad's truck in the driveway. Instead of coming in through the kitchen door as he usually did, he walked slowly around to the front door.

“Addie, open the door!” he shouted, pounding on the door.

I couldn't imagine what was going on, and I ran into the living room and pulled the front door open. I couldn't see Dad at all—the whole doorway was filled with a huge Christmas tree. He pushed it inside and shoved some boxes of ornaments toward me.

“Don't stand there,” he said, in his usual impatient manner. “Help me.”

I was speechless.

“Careful, now,” he said, as I took the boxes. “Those are breakable.”

Grandma came into the room, and stopped, staring at the tree. “Oh, James!” she said softly.

“If we're going to have a Christmas tree, we can buy it ourselves.”

“Isn't it beautiful!” said Grandma, coming over and putting her hand on my shoulder. I just stood there holding the boxes, frozen to the spot.

Grandma took the boxes from me. “Oh, look, Addie. Decorations—silver icicles and lights!”

Dad was setting up the tree at the end of the room, and I finally came out of my daze and looked down at the boxes I was holding.

“Is there a star?” I asked.

“Oh, James,” said Grandma. “You forgot to get a star.”

“The one I made is still on the other tree,” I said.

“Maybe you can make another one,” said Grandma.

“I haven't got any foil left,” I said.

“Maybe Carla Mae has some,” Grandma suggested, “You can go over and ask her.”

“She won't have to do that,” said Dad quietly. “Just wait a minute.” He went through the kitchen and downstairs into the basement, and came back with a dusty box. He handed it to me.

I looked at him for a second and then sat down on his footstool and unwrapped the box. Inside was a wonderful glittery gold star with tiny bells and shiny Christmas balls trimming the front of it.

“It's the niftiest star I ever saw in my whole life!” I said. “Where'd you get it, Dad?”

“It was … put away,” he said hesitantly.

I saw Grandma smile and go back into the kitchen then, as though she wanted to leave us alone.

“I … I was saving it,” he said.

“For what?”

“Well, for our tree, I guess.”

“It shines! Gee, Dad, it must've cost a lot of money!”

“Your mother made it,” he said quietly, and he sat down in his chair beside me.

“My mother made this? She must've been an artist!”

“She … liked to paint and draw, the way you do.”

“I didn't know that! Nobody ever told me that!”

“She made this star for your first Christmas tree.”

“I don't remember … I don't remember.”

“You were only a few months old. She made presents for you, too.”

“What?”

“Knitted booties and a sweater. And she made you a bib with a … a big yellow duck in the middle of it.”

“A bib? Was I a messy eater then too?” I asked, laughing. “Didn't my mother give me any toys?”

“There was a thing—it was like a bunch of jingle bells suspended from a ribbon. We tied it across your crib, and when you kicked at it, the bells rang.…”

“Wow. Do you think I look like my mother? Grandma says I do!”

He gave me a look that seemed a little sad, and then smiled. “You've got the same hair … you look like her, especially when you smile.”

“Did I smile a lot when I was a baby?”

“Yeah, but your mother said it was indigestion. She'd put you on her shoulder and rub your back …”

“Oh, I wish I could remember! What else did my mother do?”

“Well, she sang to you …”

“Is my voice like hers? When I sing?”

“The other night, during that Christmas carol … you sounded like her.”

“I'm a real combination, aren't I? Because I'm going to be very tall, like you!”

He smiled at me, and I held out the star to him.

“Put it on the tree, Dad.”

Instead of taking the star from me, he picked me up in his arms and held me up high so I could put the star on the tree. I placed it carefully on the top branch, and he put me down.

“It looks terrific, Dad!”

“It's yours now, Addie,” he said, and I turned and put my arms around him, and he hugged me close.

Epilogue

We never talked to each other about what happened to us that Christmas—we still weren't much for telling our feelings in my family—and I won't pretend that it solved everything between my father and me. We continued to do enthusiastic battle for another twenty years. But after that, each of us knew that there was a person somewhere behind the defenses on the other side, and we never forgot it.

We had a Christmas tree every year after that. Even after my grandmother had died and I had moved away to the city, and my father was there all alone, he would have a tree waiting in the living room when I came home for Christmas, and we would decorate it together. And when it was all finished, I would unwrap the star and put it on the top. Then we would both stand back and admire it and not say much, but I know we were both thinking of that Christmas in 1946.

Turn the page to continue reading from The Addie Mills Stories

Chapter One

It all began on a Saturday morning in November, 1947. I was up early, and it was one of the few mornings of my life that I managed to get out of the house before breakfast. My grandmother had the idea that, if you didn't eat breakfast before you left the house in the morning, your whole body would fall apart by noon. I had visions of my bones going soft and my fingernails turning black and all of my long, brown hair dropping off on the ground behind me as I ran—all because I didn't eat my oatmeal before I went outside.

The only reason Grandma let me out that morning was that I had promised to be back in ten minutes. I wanted to run uptown to the post office and see if the special mail I was expecting had come. I ran the three blocks, burst through the post office door and stood gasping in front of our box, hoping to get the combination right the first time.

We had an old post office in Clear River, and the boxes were finicky. If you didn't get the dial turned to the exact place where the number clicked in, the box wouldn't open, and you'd have to start over again. Our combination was 3 to the right, 6½ to the left and 8½ to the right. I missed twice, and finally took off my gloves. I rubbed my hands together vigorously and tried to think of myself as a safecracker. I turned the dial delicately right, then left, then right again, and it finally clicked open.

There, with the other mail, was the pink “package” slip I had been waiting for. I ran to the window with it and asked Mrs. Dillon, the postmistress, if I could please have my package. She handed me a big manila envelope addressed to me, “Miss Adelaide Mills.” Up in the corner was the return address, “Hollywood, USA.” I ripped it open, and stood there looking at the photograph with an ecstatic expression on my face.

“Looks like something good,” Mrs. Dillon said, smiling.

“It's terrific!” I said, and turned the photo so she could see it.

“My!” she said. “That's something!”

“I gotta go,” I said, and tore out the door so I could get home within the promised ten minutes. Otherwise Grandma would be ready to send out the county sheriff to look for the starving child who hadn't eaten her oatmeal before leaving the house.

I barreled through the kitchen and dumped the other mail on the table in front of Dad and Grandma.

“It came, it came, it came!” I shouted.

“My Glory! What a racket!” said Grandma. “What came?”

“From Roy Rogers!”

“That all?” said Dad, going through the other mail. “Thought somebody left you a million dollars.”

“This is worth more than money to me,” I said. “Look at it!” I held it up for them to see.

“Sure looks like Roy Rogers,” Dad said sarcastically. For some reason he was not thrilled by Roy Rogers.

“All dressed up in his fancy duds,” said Grandma, admiring the photo. She understood because she had loved horses too, when she was a girl.

“And look at Trigger, Dad. Isn't he nifty?”

Dad looked skeptically at the photo. He was always hearing hints about horses from me, and he did his best to ignore them.

“It's autographed!” I said.

Dad squinted at it and read, “Keep smilin', Roy Rogers. Trigger, Smartest horse in the movies.”

“Sit down and eat, Addie,” said Grandma, giving me the quick once-over to see if I had suffered any ill effects from traveling six blocks without breakfast.

I propped the photo against the sugar bowl so I could look at it as I ate. “I'm going to put this on my bedroom wall where I can look at it first thing in the morning, when I wake up.”

“It's your Grandmother's bedroom too,” said Dad. “She might not like that cowboy on her wall.”

“I don't mind,” Grandma smiled. “I like Roy Rogers movies. They always have happy endings.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but Roy and Dale always spoil it at the end by acting icky with each other.”

“That's a happy ending!” said Grandma.

“Yuck!” I replied emphatically, and finished my oatmeal in a hurry. Dad was putting on his coat and getting ready to go uptown for some gas.

“Dad, can you take my bike in the back of the pickup? I need air in my tires.”

“Can't you just ride up and get it yourself? I've got a lot of errands to run.”

“Dad, you
told
me never to ride on flat tires. It'll ruin them! And new bike tires are very expensive!” I could always get to Dad by mentioning money. It was the thing he seemed to think about most.

“OK, OK,” he said, and I grabbed my coat and went out with him.

Dad was always acting irritated about one thing or another, but I knew that was just his nature. Actually I believed he enjoyed my company, even if he wouldn't admit it. Of course I did have quite a talent for annoying him, and sometimes it would flare up into a real battle. Grandma usually played referee and kept things from getting out of hand, and I was learning to watch my step around Dad and not provoke him.

BOOK: The House Without a Christmas Tree
2.91Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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