Through Indigo's Eyes (24 page)

“Indie,” I said to myself, “think of Christmas and John and nothing else.” I just wanted to feel fluffy like the snowflakes, and I didn't want anything deep surrounding me.

I smiled. I could do this. I reached my hand into one of my shopping bags to feel the soft cotton of the simple navy V-neck sweater I had bought John. Would he like my gift? I had also bought him cologne and some shaving things and … I couldn't wait to give him his gifts.

I grinned as I wondered what I was going to get from John. He had said he hated Christmas, but I just knew he had gotten me
something.
Whereas I loved to give, he thought it excessive and ranted on and on about how Christmas was materialistic and over the top, and didn't I know there were starving people in Africa? Yes, I did know there were starving people around the world, but I still wanted to give to my family and friends. Warm, fuzzy feelings surrounded me as I thought of Brian and how he was going to love the vampire VHS series I had gotten for him. Brian loved anything to do with vampires.

I heard a car pull up, and when I saw it was my dad, I threw my packages in the backseat and hopped into the front.

“How was shopping?” he asked.

“Great!” I said. I glanced at my dad. “How come you're picking me up? Where's Mom?”

“She's busy.” He winked at me.

For the rest of the drive, we talked trivial stuff, which I totally appreciated, as it took my mind off everything. Snow fell in soft flakes, landing on the windshield, and the wipers swished back and forth. Our drive was slow and easy, unlike the rush of Christmas. My dad made me feel normal. When a Beach Boys Christmas song came on, I started to sing along, and Dad laughed, turned up the radio, and joined in.

When we got home, Sheena and Sasha met me at the door, tails wagging, smacking against my parcels. As I patted them, I heard the voices from the kitchen, so I quickly slipped out of my wet shoes, hung up my coat and scarf, and went to the kitchen. Grandma was drinking tea at our kitchen table, and my mom was using a spatula to lift sugar cookies from an aluminum pan. A beautiful heat, and fresh-baked-cookie aroma, flowed through the kitchen.

Suddenly, I smelled roses. I glanced around the room. Had Grandma bought flowers? I couldn't see the vase anywhere. This was not the first time I'd smelled roses in our house.

“Indigo!” Grandma stood and hugged me.

“Grandma! When did you get here?” I hugged her back.

“Just a few minutes ago.”

I sniffed the air. “Did you bring us roses?” I asked, looking around the room once again.

Mom turned from the stove and gazed at me over the rim of her reading glasses. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

I shrugged. “I smell roses.” Then I sniffed again, like Sasha did when beef was cooking. “I still smell them.”

“Indie, I just made shortbread and sugar cookies, but nothing that could possibly smell like roses. Butter perhaps, but not roses.” She shook her head and turned back to the stove.

No one said anything for a moment. Then my grandmother smiled at me and clasped my hand in her worn but warm one. “My mother always wore rose perfume,” she said softly.

My mom stopped moving, and I froze on the spot. The air took on an unruffled silence, and I instantly knew we were more than three in the room. I quietly said, “It's not the first time I've smelled roses in our house.”

“You've never mentioned this to me,” said my mom as she continued to put cookies on the waxed paper, her back to me.

Grandma pointed for me to sit. As I did what I was told, she went to the cupboard and pulled out a Christmas mug. When we were both sitting, she poured me a cup of tea. “Tell us about the roses,” she said.

“Well, I don't know,” I said, tapping the table with my fingers, trying to think back. “I guess I smelled them first after Great-grandma died.”

Grandma put some milk in my tea and two heaping teaspoons of sugar, exactly how I liked it. “Continue,” she urged.

I took a sip of tea, then I said, “Well, once when I walked into the front hallway after school, I smelled the roses and looked around, but I couldn't find any. Then another time, I thought I smelled them in the kitchen.”

Grandma placed her hand on my forearm and whispered, “You are like her.” Then she winked. “I bet she's with us right now.”

My great-grandma had passed away three years ago. I felt lucky that I had seen her just before she died. We had traveled to California for a visit because she had just had a stroke, and my mom wanted to see her. I guess the thought was in everyone's mind that she didn't have much time left on the earth. When I saw her on that trip, Great-grandma couldn't talk, but she kept squeezing my hand and trying to speak, as if she wanted to tell me something. I couldn't stop looking at her and noticing that, even after her stroke, she was still beautiful: translucent skin, sparkling blue eyes, long gray hair pinned in a perfect bun. From Paris originally, she had this aristocratic quality that had always intrigued me, made me wonder about her life when she was little. My mom had told me that she had been a hatmaker.

She died a couple months after we got home.

My mom put a plate of hot cookies on the table, and Grandma picked one up and took a tiny bite. Then she put it on her plate. “When I was little,” Grandma said, “people would come from all over town to pick up the hats my mother had spent hours and hours making. Velvet and pins and lace were a huge part of her hat-making room. I remember that I loved watching her work. As she adjusted the hats on the women's heads, they would ask her questions, and she would tell them things.”

My body warmed just listening to Grandma tell her story. I loved the sound of her melodic voice. She continued talking, and from the faraway look in her eyes, I knew she felt as if she were a child again.

“I remember once, the woman was the owner of a store in town. I wore a little yellow sundress. Oh, how I loved that sundress. It was gingham with a white ribbon around the high bodice. My mother had bought me little white patent leather shoes to go with the dress and socks with yellow trim. I sat as quietly as I could in the corner, away from my mother working, just watching her adjust the pins and bows. The woman tilted her head one way, then another. Then she started to cry. I remember almost wanting to cry myself. My mother patted her shoulders and told the lady not to worry. Yes, her husband would lose the store, but my mother could see horses and cows and lots of land. They would move to the country and be very happy. The woman wiped her tears and nodded her head and said that they were looking at land. Then my mother said, ‘Well, buy it.' Just like that—'Well, buy it.' Months later, the woman came back to the house with a little gift for my mother to say thank you. They had bought the land and were very happy.”

Grandma paused for a minute to sip her tea. Neither my mom nor I said anything. My mother was now leaning up against the counter, motionless, with the spatula still in her hand.

Then Grandma continued. “Sometimes it took my mother a long time to fit the hat because she talked so much. But I also knew there was this code of silence among her customers because none of them would talk about what she said outside our house. And she told me that if I were to listen, then I had to keep what was said a secret. I never said a word on the swings at school. I understand now that this had to happen because her seeing things went against our religion.”

Grandma looked my way, smiled, and patted my arm. “She always told me she saw pictures in her mind, like little snippets or photographs, and she used what she saw to talk to the people who came to see her. And she also saw angels, and they sometimes told her what to say. Inside the house, she was known as a seer. Outside the house, she was a hatmaker.”

Again Grandma winked at me. “You are like her, my dear.”

“If I am,” I said quietly, “then I want to
really
be like her and keep all of this a secret.”

 

Chapter
Fourteen

On our last day of school before the Christmas holidays, I took the angel wings to school and discreetly taped them on Lacey's locker. Then I walked away and stood at the end of the hallway, watching as she approached her locker and furrowed her eyebrows. After glancing up and down the hallway, in obvious confusion, she fingered them and put them to her face and smiled.

I knew she thought they were from Burke. For some reason, that didn't bother me at all, as they were going to give her comfort, no matter who she thought they were from.

Comfort from what?

Although I felt lightened from being able to give someone something that might be soothing, I also had this heavy feeling surround me as if something were very wrong. I didn't like the feeling so I turned and headed down the hall and away from Lacey. With every step, the heaviness got lighter and lighter, until I was almost running.

Christmas Eve. I sat in my bedroom, listening to Christmas music, bouncing up and down on my bed. I was so excited that John had agreed to come with me and my family to my grandparents' house on Christmas Day.

As I bounced, I talked to myself. “We're going to exchange gifts. And kiss under the mistletoe. And maybe I can get him to help me make a gingerbread house. Yeah. So fun.”

I kept bouncing. Then I glanced over at my desk at the pile of presents I had wrapped for him. I couldn't wait to give him his gifts.

I jiggled my leg and tapped my fingers, wishing tomorrow would hurry up. I picked up my book of Jim Morrison's poetry and quotes and flipped through it. Maybe if I read something serious, I would calm down.

I stopped when I read, “There are things known, and there are things unknown, and in between are the Doors.”

My movements did slow. What did I know? What did I not know?

Suddenly, I thought about John's dad. Had John ever spent a Christmas with him? Just yesterday I'd asked him about his father, and he'd clammed up and gotten moody with me. I hated that. Would he keep his dad in the unknown forever? I knew that I couldn't do that. I would have had to try to find
my
dad.

Could I keep my visions in the doors forever?

I drew in a sharp breath. I
hoped
my visions would stay hidden. Maybe that was how John felt about his dad. If anyone could understand that logic, it should be me. I flipped a page in the book, stopping to read another quote: “Love cannot save you from your own fate.”

I snapped the book shut and put it back on my nightstand.

I didn't want to read anymore. I wanted to think about Christmas.

The day crept by, but soon it was evening. On Christmas Eve, as a family, we always went to a candlelight service at our church, St. Thomas Apostle. On the drive over, I stared out the car window at the snow-covered ground and the colorful outdoor lights strung across roofs and hanging on evergreen trees. Ever since I was little, Christmas Eve had been the most enchanting time of the entire holiday, and I honestly liked it better than Christmas morning, because I loved staring at the tree with all the presents underneath. It was like fresh snow before anyone walked through it.

Mom, Dad, Brian, and I silently entered the church, and I absorbed the reverence of the magically darkened room, lit only by candles. Blissful little flames flickered throughout the sanctuary, and I thought that perhaps this was what heaven would look like. I inhaled to take in every bit of solemn peace I could.

All too soon, it was over and we were back at home. “Brian and Indie,” said my mother after we had hung up our coats, “I think it's time to open one present.”

Brian nudged me, winked, and laughed. “I wonder what it is.”

I laughed back. “Hmm. Could it have something to do with sleep?”

Jokingly, Brian tapped his face with his fingers, scrunching up his face as if he was thinking hard. Then he held up his hand. “I got it. It's pajamas!”

“Stop it, you two,” said my mother, pushing us into the living room, where the Christmas tree stood.