Christmas karol, p.26
Christmas Karol, page 26
“I’m serious, Annabel. The least I can do is leave him some cookies.”
“Da-ad!”
The car pulled away from the curb.
“I love this song!” Karol squealed.
“Me too!” yelled Alfie. “It’s my favorite.”
~ ~ ~
Karol stood in the doorway to the church, clutching her program. She’d told Beau and Alfie to go on ahead and slipped into the bathroom to tidy up as best she could. But she’d spent most of the time staring at her reflection in the mirror—grinning at it, really—remembering that other reflection and that other life, those other children, that other husband. It wouldn’t happen now. She wouldn’t let it. And the thought of the life to come—this new life unfurling out in front of her—thrummed in her so that she could hardly contain it.
Her face was scrubbed of makeup and she’d pulled her wet hair into a simple braid down her back. She held her dirty coat over her arm and looked into the cavernous space. She could see Beau and Alfie from where she stood. They were sliding into a pew—the same pew they’d slid into the last time Karol had been here. That time she’d been here with Santa Claus.
The déjà vu was palpable, like something she could reach out and grab if only it would hold still long enough. The giant old organ at the front of the church blasted out “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” The candles flickered, the light from the stained-glass windows slanted in, and the people shuffled to their seats, sidling past Karol where she stood on the flagstones, her heart fluttering.
She looked at the altar. At the cross on a stand sitting on the white linen cloth. She didn’t remember that from last time, this simple metal cross. It must have been there. She just hadn’t noticed it. She took a step toward Beau and Alfie but a movement to her right made her turn. A tall woman in a beige wool dress and pink ballet flats was hurrying toward the aisle. Without thinking, Karol reached out for her and touched her shoulder as she went by. And the woman turned to look at her. Her eyes widened and she reached up to pat her hair, yanking her glasses down and blushing.
“Nancy,” Karol said. “Hi.”
“Karol! I . . . it is Karol, isn’t? Sorry . . . I . . . I recognize you from the photos at your house. I . . . I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Karol nodded. “It’s really nice to meet you. Is Melanie singing today?”
“Oh, um, yes. She’s . . . she’s in the choir.”
“Do you want to sit with us? Beau and Alfie are just up there.” She didn’t know what made her say it. But that didn’t really surprise her. She was doing all sorts of strange things today.
“Oh . . . no, I don’t . . . I . . .” Nancy patted her hair again and looked over her shoulder. She looked back and Karol thought she saw tears in her eyes. For some reason she felt tears pricking her own eyes and she blinked them away.
“It’s alright,” Karol said, “you don’t have to. I just . . . I just want you to know you’re welcome to. If you want.”
“Um . . .” Nancy took a step back. “I . . . well . . . I think I see someone else I know over there. I’ll . . . I’ll just sit with them.” She hurried away down the aisle.
The organ soared into its final crescendo and Karol turned back to Beau. He was looking at her, his brows knitted together. She took a deep breath. She wouldn’t have sat with them either, if she’d been in Nancy’s shoes. But she found that she felt sorry for her—desperately sorry. She walked down the aisle and came to sit down next to Alfie.
“Mommy! I have a candle!” He shoved it into her face.
“It’s awesome! Is there one for me?”
“This one’s for you, Mommy.” He handed her a candle and she took it into her lap.
She looked up and met Beau’s eyes. There was a question in them. She smiled at him and leaned over Alfie’s head to whisper in his ear.
“That woman’s in love with you.”
Beau sighed. “I know.”
Karol shrugged. “It’s understandable.”
Beau let out a startled laugh. “Well she can’t have me.”
“Certainly not.”
“Mommy, you never been here before so I’ll help you, okay? This candle is for lighting when Ambel sings her song.”
Karol held Beau’s gaze a moment longer. She smiled at him over the top of Alfie’s head and he smiled back at her. He took a breath, opened his mouth like he wanted to ask her a question but seemed to think better of it.
“I love you,” he murmured.
She nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “I love you too,” she whispered.
“When the lights go off, Mommy, you have to light the candle right there on that big candle. See it?”
Karol bent and kissed Alfie’s head. “Thank you, Alfie. This is really helpful.”
“You’re welcome.”
The organ held its final note then cut off, leaving an echo swooping and circling overhead. With a loud click, the lights went off. Just as they had that other time before. That time that had never happened, except that somehow it had. The congregation stood, and pinpricks of light began to flare up throughout the church.
“Okay, Mommy. This is it. Light it. Light it!”
Karol turned and lit her candle from the sconce at the end of their pew. Then she turned back and carefully passed the flame to Alfie, who passed it on to Beau. When she looked up again, Annabel was walking out onto the platform. Karol felt her fingers begin to shake against the stem of her candle. The flame fluttered. She watched her daughter stride to the center of the platform, clutching her candle and staring out over the crowd. She shook back her hair and took a deep breath. Her eyes scanned the candlelit pews and locked on to Karol’s. Karol felt her heart speed up. She grinned at her daughter and waved discretely—but enthusiastically—with the hand not holding her candle. Annabel’s eyes went wide. A smile flickered over her face before she pulled her lips down over it and turned to look up at the window at the back of the church. But Karol saw her eyes flick toward her again. And her heart swelled with love. Beau reached around Alfie’s back and found Karol’s hand. She turned to find him looking at her, candlelight reflected in his glasses. She squeezed his hand.
The organ droned one low rumbling note and then went silent. Karol turned back to her daughter and caught sight of that cross again. That simple cross on that simple white cloth on the altar.
“Um . . . thanks,” she whispered.
“What?” said Beau.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
And then Annabel began to sing.
“You really don’t think we should have called? I mean, it’s Christmas Day, they might have other visitors, or just want to be alone, or . . .”
Karol flipped down the car’s visor mirror and looked at her face for no reason. She was absolutely terrified but she was grinning. The warmth and hilarity of Christmas morning under the tree had filled her up like fuel. She was brimming with it—overflowing. Cloaked in gratitude and joy.
She hadn’t been able to sleep—hadn’t wanted to sleep. She had wanted to be exactly where she was: lying there beside Beau in the bed, wrapped in his arms and listening to him breathe. And then, when it could reasonably be considered morning, she had crept away, filled with that feeling—that little kid, Christmas morning feeling. She’d tiptoed downstairs to set the hot chocolate simmering on the stove, the coffee brewing in the pot. She’d whipped up a batch of apple cinnamon muffins and thrown them in the oven. And then she’d stood for a while, alone, in the den in front of the tree looking up at that angel—a perfect angel for my perfect angels—her eyes welling up, filled with that love. That enormous, insane, magnitude of love. And it didn’t hurt anymore. It didn’t hurt at all. And she had just stood there feeling that—the absence of the pain.
And then little footsteps had come pounding down the stairs. And the children had come tumbling into the room, exclaiming over the presents and the hot chocolate and the smell of muffins baking and of their mother—most of all their mother—standing there waiting for them, her arms held wide.
And then the joy had cranked into overdrive and she had just let it all wash over her. Beau’s arm around her shoulders on the couch. The children ripping open their presents. Everyone drinking the hot chocolate she’d made herself. And Beau’s gift to her: a painting of two owls nestled together in a snow-covered tree. The painting he’d been trying to finish on Christmas Eve. A painting for her.
Now, in the car, she was filled with all of that, and full, too, of anticipation. Of the certainty that, whatever was about to happen, she was opening a door that she would never let close again.
Beau had convinced her not to call first. To let it be a surprise. They’d all piled into the car in the late afternoon and driven through the gathering dusk, the kids complaining all the way. Beau reached out and took her hand. He pulled it onto his lap and turned in his seat to face her.
“Can we get out now, puh-lease?” Annabel said from the back seat.
“My face is cold. Why is my face cold?” Alfie muttered.
“Because the car’s off. And it’s cold outside. If we could just get out . . .”
“We shouldn’t have called,” Beau said. “This will make her so happy. So much happier than a phone call.”
Karol nodded, her heart fluttering in her chest, her skin tingling in anticipation.
“Okay, kids, you can get out!” Beau called over his shoulder.
“Finally!” Annabel yelled. She flung the door open and launched herself out of the car onto the snowy sidewalk. Alfie unclipped his car seat and scooted over, tumbling out beside her. Beau got out too. He jogged around the car and came around to open her door. He held out his hand to her and she took it.
“My feet are, like, really cold! Is there something wrong with my snow boots?” Annabel said. “Oh! There’s a hole in them! In the bottom! Look!”
“Whose house is this again? Auntie Fart?”
“Alfie!” Annabel said, forgetting about her boot and dissolving into giggles. “It’s Auntie Fran!”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“No! You said Auntie Fart!”
“I did?” Alfie let out a high-pitched squeal and started laughing so hard he doubled over. The two of them slammed into each other and stood there, propping each other up, giggling and repeating “Auntie Fart” at intervals.
Karol got out of the car. It all looked just the way she remembered it—the way it had looked when she hadn’t been here at all. There was the little two-story cottage, the chimney puffing smoke, the red door and shutters standing out against the dark. There was the snow-covered lawn, the tinseled tree. The little plastic snowman by the door. The air smelled of pine and woodsmoke, the way it had before. But now she could feel the bite of the cold, the promise of snow in the air. She looked at her children, falling all over each other, and back at her husband. He grinned at her.
“We’d better get them inside before they fall in the snow.”
Karol smiled, caught up in her children’s hilarity and Beau’s infectious smile.
“Come on you goofballs,” Beau said. “Go ring the doorbell. We’ll be right behind you.” Annabel straightened up and wiped a mittened hand over her face. Alfie turned and looked up the snowy walkway.
“Doorbell? I’ll ring it!” And he took off, Annabel following along more slowly, tiptoeing through the snow to try and keep the water out of her boots.
“Karol,” Beau said and she turned. He was looking down at her, his eyes intense and searching. He had on his black knit cap, one curl poking out onto his forehead. The tip of his nose was red with cold. “She’s going to be happy to see you. I promise.”
“I know.” And she did know. She’d seen it. She reached for Beau’s hand and weaved her gloved fingers through his. She pulled their entwined hands up to Beau’s chest and stepped closer to him. “I’m just not sure I should be allowed to be as happy as I feel. Maybe this . . . maybe I don’t deserve . . . all this.”
He reached out and tipped her chin up so she was looking at him again. For a minute he looked like he was trying to find the right words, just the right thing to say, and she waited. But, in the end, he just kissed her. Drew her chin toward him with his finger and pressed his lips to hers. And she kissed him in the cold, as dusk turned to evening and the lights of the house glowed bright against the snow. And she knew, with a certainty that passed all understanding, that whether she deserved it or not, it was hers. To do with what she would.
“Is that . . . is that . . . Annabel?!” Fran’s voice cut through the darkness, a shriek of excitement and confusion. Karol pulled away from Beau and looked up the walk. There was her sister—just as she’d seen her before—her long blonde hair whipping over her shoulder in a sheet as she knelt down to scoop Annabel up into her arms. Karol expected her daughter to protest, to push her aunt away and stand primly waiting for her parents. But she didn’t. She wrapped her arms around Fran and leaned into her.
“She remembers her,” Karol whispered. “All this time, she . . . she’s been missing her.”
Beau squeezed her hand but said nothing.
“Is this Auntie Fart?” Alfie’s hands flew to his mouth. “I mean Fran! Auntie Fran!”
Fran pulled back a little, her arms still wrapped around Annabel, Annabel’s head still leaning on her shoulder.
“Alfie?!” Fran squealed. “Are you Alfie?”
“Yup! That’s me! I’m Alfie!”
Fran reached for him with her free arm and he flung himself happily into her side, not caring that he’d never seen her before in his life. Fran leaned her cheek against the top of Alfie’s head, a kind of awed confusion on her face. Behind her, Joe stepped into the open doorway, cradling the baby against his barrel chest. Fran turned to look at him.
“Joe!” she said, and Karol could hear the tears in her voice. “Joe, look, it’s . . . it’s Annabel! Annabel and Alfie! They’re . . . they’re just . . . here! Did you . . . did you come with . . .”
She turned toward the street, trying to figure out where the children had come from, and froze. She had spotted Karol and Beau, standing on the sidewalk by the car. Karol’s eyes locked onto her sister’s and the years fell away. The stubbornness and the anger and the grief and the hurt crumbled to dust and mingled with the fallen snow. It was Fran, her sister, who had known all along what she wanted and risked everything to make it hers. Standing there waiting for Karol to walk back into her life, as if she’d never left. As if she’d been holding a place for her all this time.
Karol gripped Beau’s hand and they moved forward together. Annabel and Alfie watched them come. Fran stood, a hand on each of their shoulders. Joe waited in the doorway, the baby cradled in his arms. Karol stepped into the circle of light that spilled out of the door onto the snow. The baby wriggled in Joe’s arms and began to cry—a wail piercing the gathering dark.
“Is that a baby?!” Alfie said, turning to stand on tiptoe and craning his head in Joe’s direction.
“I’m sorry,” Karol said. “We should have called.”
And then Fran was launching herself at Karol, flinging herself into her arms and wrapping her up tight. And Beau was coming forward to shake Joe’s hand, and Annabel and Alfie were peering curiously into the bundle that Joe held down for them to see. And everyone was tumbling into the house, warm from the fire and smelling of woodsmoke, and the baby was crying, and the children were arguing over which one of them should sing her a song to get her to stop. And Joe was laughing a deep baritone rumble of a laugh, and Beau was striding over to examine the artwork on the wallpaper, calling out something about scrollwork. And Karol, her arm around her sister, found that her eyes were filled with tears.
One Year Later
“Mom! They’re here!” Annabel ran into the kitchen, swiping up a cookie from the cooling rack on the counter. “Ooh! That’s hot!” She juggled the cookie between her two hands as she came to stand next to Karol and Alfie in front of the sink.
“They just came out of the oven,” Karol said. She was scrubbing Alfie’s face with a wet washcloth. He had somehow gotten chocolate in his eyebrows. She turned to smile at Annabel who was taking a careful bite of her cookie, holding a prim hand underneath her chin to catch the crumbs. “Will you get the door? I’ll be right out.”
Annabel popped the rest of the cookie into her mouth and dusted off her hands. She reached up to smooth down her bangs and tighten her ponytail. Karol watched a faint blush creep over her daughter’s cheeks and smiled to herself.
“You look beautiful,” Karol said.
“Very beautiful!” Alfie said, pulling away from the washcloth.
“Ugh! Seriously Mom!” Annabel said.
Freed from the washcloth, Alfie dodged around Karol and skidded out into the hallway just as the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it!” Alfie yelled.
“No!” Annabel shrieked. “I’ll get it!” She ran out of the kitchen, overtaking her brother.
Karol grinned and wiped her wet hands on her apron. She turned to survey the kitchen a moment, checking the kitchen timer on the counter and peeking under the dishtowel covering the rising dinner rolls. As the sound of talking and laughter filled the hallway, and a gust of cold air swirled into the kitchen, she stepped out into the hall.
Roberta and Alan stood in the entryway, their children tumbling inside in front of them. They were all pulling off hats and mittens and stuffing them into coat sleeves and hanging things up on the coat rack in the hall. Annabel stood to the side, one foot hooked behind her other ankle, holding the door open and looking at Peter from under her bangs. Alfie ran into the middle of the scrum and held a candy cane up to no one in particular and yelled, “Merry Christmas!” Everyone laughed and the kids—Peter, Martha, and Timothy—surged forward into the house.
