Under the Christmas Star

by Amanda Tru

  Well, by this point in the olden days, there were laws that said people could eat anywhere they wanted and sit anywhere they wanted. But would you believe me if I told you that waitresses at three different restaurants wouldn’t bring them their menus or take their orders? So even though there were laws by then that blacks could eat anywhere whites could, it was still almost impossible for them to find a place to eat.

  But they finally found a little diner that didn’t care what color they were, and they spent a few hours there and then went back at least once a week. We didn’t get to the part about what happened next, but at least now I know how they went from being two people working together to plan a retreat (and one of them already scheduled to marry someone else) to going on their first date.

  I’m glad they found that restaurant that agreed to let them sit there and eat because if Mom and Dad never went out together, he probably would have never found a way to ask her to marry him, and then where would I be? I might still be in that orphanage in South Korea or maybe adopted by a really bad family. Because every once in a while you hear about that, adoptive families that are really mean to the kids they get. I don’t know what I would have done in a situation like that, and it makes me a little worried for the kids I knew back at the orphanage. So I guess I can just pray that they all have as happy families as I do.

  But I know Mom and Dad weren’t always this happy. Dad said it was really hard once they started dating, even harder than when there were just rumors about it. He even got beat up once. He started telling me the story at the hospital, but then Becky Linklater and her mom came out and said the surgery had gone well and that they were going to spend a little more time with her grandma. And here’s something else that happened. Before I left, Becky gave me a note that said, “Thanks for coming,” and she signed it with something that looks kind of like a heart but it’s a little rounder and has eyes and a mouth so it might just be a smiley face. It’s hard to tell, but I was so distracted by it that I forgot to ask my parents to finish their story, and all night I wondered if Becky was just making a happy face and did it a little fast so it ended up kind of heart-shaped, or if she meant to do a heart from the very beginning.

  I’m thinking about writing her a note back and saying, “You’re welcome,” and then signing it with the same kind of smiling heart where you’re not entirely sure if it’s a heart or a circle or some shape in between. That way, if she meant for it to be a heart, she’ll know mine’s that way too, but if she meant for it to just be a happy face, she won’t think anything about it. Maybe you can email me back and let me know if you think that’s a good idea or not.

  Bye for now.

  Woong

  P.S. I really liked the video you sent about Orion catching the snowball. Do you think dogs can get brain freeze?

  P.P.S. What would you do if you got a note and you weren’t sure if the picture at the end was supposed to be a heart or just a smiley face?

  Hi Miss Sheldon, it’s me. Woong.

  Guess you’ve maybe been wondering what happened to me or why I haven’t written. I haven’t had the heart. Except that’s the wrong way for me to say it because I don’t want to think about hearts ever again. You remember that note Becky Linklater gave me, the one with that smiley face? Here’s what happened.

  I spent so much time looking at that stupid thank you note she wrote me that I was convinced it really was a heart. And I decided to make one back for her just like it. Except when I gave it to her, Chuckie Mansfield snatched it out of my hand and starting singing in this really annoying kind of voice, “Woong loves Becky,” and I tried to tell him it was a smiley face, not a heart, but he showed it to everyone else in the entire class, and now everyone thinks I’ve got a crush on her.

  I haven’t told Mom or Dad either. It’s annoying because they’re always asking why I’m just sitting around in my room doing nothing, but I don’t know what to say. Mom’s got enough to worry about. I have a sister who’s got that thing —there’s a word for it that I can’t remember it just now —but it’s the one where you’re pregnant and aren’t supposed to do anything at all except lie down in your bed or maybe sometimes on the couch, so Mom’s doing lots of extra cooking and cleaning and babysitting for her. I’ve got that foster sister all the way out in Washington, and she’s the one whose little girl had to be in the hospital, and Mom gets worried about her too. Plus there’s this guy from church who wants the elders to fire Dad from being the preacher. I don’t know what his problem is, but it’s got both my parents upset even though nobody there would ever seriously think of firing him really, and I just don’t feel like talking to either of them about Becky Linklater anyway.

  Have you ever had someone tease you for liking someone, only you didn’t want them to know you liked them that way? It wouldn’t be half so bad if Chuckie Mansfield weren’t so mean about it all. One day I hope God gives me some really big muscles so I can beat him up bad.

  Speaking of getting beat up, even with everything going on, I did get to hear another part of Mom and Dad’s story. It actually gave me a really good idea for a Christmas ornament (but it’ll be kind of tricky).

  Here’s what happened.

  Mom broke up with that doctor guy (I think I told you that already). She and Dad kept going to that one diner where the waitresses were nice and didn’t make them feel bad for being the kind of couple where his skin’s one color and hers is another. And eventually, he asked Mom to marry him.

  She said yes (although you probably could have guessed that on your own), but there were quite a few people in her family who weren’t very happy. Her grandma, for example, the rich southern lady who used to live in that mansion they had, she’d given Mom a set of china when Mom was engaged to the doctor. But when Mom broke up with him and started going out with Dad, her grandma made Mom give her the china back.

  Well, I asked Mom how she felt about it, and Mom said that’s just the way some southerners were, and she didn’t say it like she was angry either. But then something really neat happened. Mom had a grandpa, and that grandpa was blind. (I don’t think he was born that way, he just got that way later on.) But even though he was blind, he still knew from all the talk around the family that Mom was planning to marry a black man (they called them colored folks at the time or sometimes even used worse words I’m never allowed to say or even write out). And do you know what her grandpa did? He told Mom that she could have that china set after all, and he told his wife to give it to her along with some of the nice silverware they hadn’t even been planning on getting rid of until they were dead.

  So Mom was a little encouraged by that because even though most people in her family were angry with her for falling in love with a black man, her grandpa didn’t see anything wrong with it, and I think it was awful nice of him, don’t you?

  So Mom got all that pretty china back, and she even told me the name of the kind, but I don’t remember what it is just now but it’s so fancy you can only see it in museums anymore. So she and Dad were going to get married, which was good. The only other problem was she and Dad had a hard time finding a pastor to do their wedding for them, and the one they finally did find wanted a lot of extra money, and my parents couldn’t pay that much.

  So Mom came up with this idea and she went to her grandpa, the only one in the family who was being nice about the wedding at all, and she asked if he thought it would be okay if she sold the china to get enough money to do the wedding. I guess it was real expensive china too, which is why she asked.

  Well, her grandpa wanted to just pay for the wedding outright, but Mom and Dad didn’t want him to do that, so finally he agreed that they could sell the china because after all, it was a gift, and once you’ve been given a gift, you can do whatever you want with it, don’t you think? Mom was a little sad about having to sell it, though, on account of it being so pretty and having been in the family for so long. So Dad said he’d take it to the store to sell it for her so she wouldn’t have to, but do you
know what happened?

  The store owner saw Dad with that real expensive china and figured he must have stolen it, so he called the police. Honest to goodness. And the only reason he thought that was because Dad’s black, and he didn’t think a black person could ever have china that nice unless he were a thief. In the end, Mom had to come to the store, and then they had to get her grandpa on the phone to give Dad his permission for them to sell it, and the store owner was going to buy it too until he realized that they wanted to use the money so they could get married. Well, he was one of those kind of folks who didn’t think black and white people should ever marry each other, and that’s when he told them to leave.

  They would have done it, but by then the police had come on account of the store owner calling them back when he thought at first that Dad stole the china. And the shop was in a real crowded part of town, and lots of folks had stopped to stare once the police car showed up. And I guess there was this bar right across the street, and a few drunks came out. Mom said they were young guys too, probably just teens, but they were real mean and didn’t like it when they heard about a black man planning to marry a white woman. The police didn’t arrest Dad once he realized the china wasn’t stolen, but he drove off even though he saw those mean guys outside the bar watching everything, and then do you want to know what happened?

  Those guys from the bar beat up Dad really bad. They would have hurt Mom too, but the shop owner felt sorry for her and took her into the store where she stayed safe, but he didn’t do anything to help my dad. He had to go to the hospital and everything. And maybe you’d think it couldn’t get any worse than that, only that’s not what happened. Those drunks broke all the china, that real expensive stuff Mom and Dad were going to use to pay for their wedding. First they knocked the box out of Dad’s hands, and most of it broke then, but one of them found a few things that weren’t broken and made it a point to smash them on the sidewalk right as Mom and Dad were watching.

  And even though it was a really bad thing that happened, Mom and Dad both said things worked out in the end. Like you remember that nice grandpa Mom had? He ended up paying for all of Dad’s doctor bills, and he made sure Dad got treated at one of the nicer hospitals, not the kind where only the poor people went. And I didn’t ask, but wouldn’t it be funny if Dave were one of the doctors that had to fix him up?

  Another good thing was one of Dad’s friends who’d been a campus minister like he was said that they could drive up to Pennsylvania to have their wedding there, and so that’s what they did. That man was so nice he didn’t even charge them any money for it at all.

  And obviously I’m really glad Mom and Dad got married, but there are some parts that still make me pretty sad. Like none of their family went to the wedding. Dad’s family was too poor to drive that far, and Mom’s family had the money to get there if they wanted to, only they didn’t on account of them still being mad at her for falling in love with a black man in the first place. Her grandpa would have come, she thinks, except he was blind and nobody was willing to drive him, so they had to do their wedding with just my dad’s friend in Pennsylvania and a few people he knew up there.

  I’ve been beat up before, but never as bad as Dad. Mom told me it took about a month before he stopped hurting so much from what those guys did to him. We talked about it a little bit, Dad and me, when he was driving me to the grocery store to run a few errands for Mom. I asked him if he was scared because Chuckie Mansfield beat me up once, and I was really scared, but Dad said that he wasn’t, not even when all those men attacked. He said that even if he died, he knew he’d go to heaven, but he also knew God wouldn’t let him die until it was his time.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been beat up, Miss Sheldon, or maybe something else scary has happened to you before, but it’s probably a good thing to remember what my dad said, that God won’t let you die until he’s ready for you to be with him in heaven. I bet thinking that way could help you feel braver, don’t you?

  I asked Dad if he thought Mom was scared during that fight, and he said he didn’t know. She doesn’t like to talk about it because she was so sad, not only about what those men did to my dad but what happened to the china too. That china reminded her of how nice her grandpa had been, and Dad said she’s still sad about it all getting smashed. She liked it so much, she even saved the pieces after the fight.

  Well, when I heard that, I got this great idea (and now you’ll see why I’m telling you this part of the story in the first place). I asked Dad if he knew where they were, those broken pieces, and he does. So here’s what I was wondering. If I found a way to mail you the china that broke, could you turn that into some sort of pretty ornament for my mom? I think she would really like that, don’t you?

  It kind of reminds me of something Dad said in one of his sermons. He talked about how if you break a stained-glass window, you might feel like it won’t ever be as pretty as it was at first, but if you give those broken pieces to God, he can make something even better out of them. And seeing how nice the ornaments you make for folks are, I was wondering if you thought that would be a good present for my mom. Because they’ve been through a lot, not only Dad getting beat up so bad but all of Mom’s family being so angry with her. Things are better now, which is good, but there are some relatives who still don’t talk to her much, and I know that hurts her feelings. And it seems silly to me to still be upset over something like that after all these years, don’t you think? And she and Dad are so happy, I know that the people who thought they should never get married wouldn’t feel that way if they could see how much they love each other today. It’s a little gross sometimes how they’re always still kissing and cuddling and stuff and nonsense like that.

  And you know what? Thinking about what my dad said in his sermon about how God can fix broken pieces in our lives kind of reminds me of what I just went through with Becky Linklater too. In fact, maybe it’s good that Chuckie Mansfield saw that note and started to tease me because at least now she knows how I really feel, right? And remember how you told me some of those ornaments you’d been working on got broke? I bet you must be kind of sad out about that, but I have a good feeling that God’s going to take care of you too.

  Anyway, Miss Sheldon, I’m awfully glad I met you, and I really hope you’ll be able to make an ornament for my mom with that china. I know it’s not one of the ornaments you normally do, so I understand if you need to charge me a little extra. I’ll just ask Mom for more work around the house or more time babysitting to make up for it. But I hope you’ll be able to make something, and I’ll look forward to hearing from you soon.

  Your friend,

  Woong

  Good news, Miss Sheldon!

  After I got your last email, I decided I needed to explain to Dad what I was planning so he could help me get the china pieces to you. I didn’t tell him everything. I just said I wanted his help to mail some of the broken china to someone who could turn it into a Christmas present for Mom, and he thought it was a great idea. So we wrapped it all up (I chose some of the biggest pieces), and it’s all ready to go out in tomorrow’s mail. Dad’s going to drop it off at the post office on his way into work tomorrow, and we’re both being careful to keep the whole thing a secret from Mom so it’ll be a surprise. I can’t wait to see her face when she opens it up.

  So that’s the first bit of good news I wanted to tell you.

  The second bit of good news has to do with Becky Linklater. It turns out she doesn’t hate me. She just didn’t like Chuckie Mansfield teasing. We talked about it a little at lunch today, and we finally decided Chuckie’s stupid, so it doesn’t matter what he says. And we didn’t talk about whether or not it was a heart or a smiley face on either of our letters, but she asked me if I was going ice skating any time soon, and I said, “Sure, when do you want to go?” So we’re hoping for this weekend, and I think that’s a great way to end the story, don’t you?

  Speaking about ending the story, I guess I should tell yo
u something else good that happened after those guys beat Dad up so many years ago. Well, I guess it’s not something good that happened to them specifically, but it’s still good news, and it has to do with them. Those guys I told you about, the ones from the bar? They got arrested and were in really big trouble for what they did. Which today is exactly what you’d expect, but back in the olden days, Mom and Dad said they didn’t think anyone would get arrested at all. So all those things my dad did as a teen —when he sat at that lunch counter and wouldn’t leave even though he got arrested and when he went marching with Dr. King —all those things made a big difference because now nobody tells Mom or Dad where they can or can’t eat or who they can or can’t adopt. And they have three natural-born kids and lots of adopted kids like me and even more foster kids. Some of us have tan skin and others are peachy, and some are brown like my dad or even darker and others are so pale like my mom they get a sunburn after twenty minutes at the beach, but we’re all a family, and next week we’re having a big reunion, and there’s going to be over fifty of us, including quite a few relatives I’ve never even met.

  And some of us are Christians like Mom and Dad and me, and some have become atheists, and one of my foster brothers is married to another guy and they even have a son (he’s adopted too), so we’re all different, but we’re all going to get together and have a big ham dinner. Becky Linklater and her mom are coming over and even her grandma if she’s feeling well enough after her surgery, and I’ll have about a dozen cousins and nephews and nieces around my age to hang out with.

  Oh, and do you remember my Mom’s friend Missy? The one who got beat up so bad and had to move away? Well, she and Mom have stayed good friends, and Missy’s coming over for the party too. She lives all the way in Chicago, but her husband has a business trip this way, and she’s coming with him. I haven’t met her yet, but Mom’s really excited to see her again, and the day after the party, she and Mom are going to have a ladies day, which is where they go to malls and paint their toenails and stuff and nonsense like that. And of course, now they can both go into any store they want to and be treated nice.