The Christmas Promise (Christmas Hope)

by VanLiere, Donna

  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.

  On Monday morning he drank half a carton of orange juice to help his dry mouth, and stood for ten minutes in the shower at his apartment before popping a couple of Xanax pills. He walked to the AA meeting at the church alone—it’s how he wanted to do it. The smell of cigarette smoke filtered up onto the street from the stairs that led to the basement. People lined the steps, taking one final puff before entering. Matt made his way through the smoke and the steel door clanged shut behind him as he walked down the darkened hallway to an open door. A table with coffee was set up at the front of the room. He poured himself a cup.

  “You new?” Matt turned and saw a man dressed in khakis and a turtleneck sweater looking at him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good to have you,” the guy said, as he stirred cream into his coffee.

  Smoke clung to the drapes, and the carpet bore coffee stains from the members’ presence in the building. “What in the world do the people upstairs think of this?” Matt said.

  The guy shrugged. “They think enough of it to let us come back each week.” A man started to talk behind them and the guy in the turtleneck motioned for Matt to sit. The room was set up in two semicircle rows of metal chairs. Matthew sat in the second row, behind a post and next to the cumbersome air ducts, hoping no one would notice him. He slunk down and studied what lay beneath his fingernails.

  The room hummed with chatter as it filled to over fifty people. There were mechanics and bank presidents, beauticians and corporate trainers. They wore suits, flannel, scrubs, silk, khakis, and blue jeans, and ranged in age from teenagers to a seventy-seven-year-old man. They were a diverse bunch. By all appearances they had nothing in common save one thing. They wanted a new way to live.

  A gruff man in a denim shirt and jeans brought the meeting to order. “My name’s Lukas and I’m an alcoholic.” Everyone greeted him, and Matt leaned over on his knees, feeling awkward and obvious and embarrassed to be there. An older man walked in late and sat next to him, but Matthew didn’t look at him. Lukas read about community from the AA Big Book. He opened the floor for discussion, and within seconds the room was buzzing.

  A man named Coley took the floor. “When I look back, I know that I’m capable of repeating anything I’ve ever done, and that scares me to death,” he said. A few members nodded and Matthew leaned over in his seat to hear Coley over the heating system. “For the longest time I thought life had to be lived up here where everything is exciting and you do what you want, when you want. But as much as I tried that I’d end up down here, just scraping along. Now I know that life’s good right here in the middle.” He smiled and threw his hand in the air, indicating that he was done.

  The conversation ricocheted from person to person for thirty minutes without a break, when the man next to Matthew cleared his throat.

  “Hello, Frank,” the members said when he introduced himself.

  “I’ve been sober for twenty years this month,” Frank said. The room erupted in applause. “When I first started coming to these meetings a man spoke up and said, ‘We’re as sick as the secrets we keep.’” Matthew turned to look at him. “My addiction was private, and as a man I wanted to be able to fix myself in private but I couldn’t. Pain’s a great motivator. We weren’t meant to be isolated. We need each other. That’s why I come here.”

  Around it went for another twenty minutes before Lukas took control again and somebody gave out “sobriety chips.” Tim got a thirty-day chip, and Frank received one for twenty years. When the meeting ended, Matthew avoided the other people and raced up the stairs to the street. It was snowing again, and he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and zipped his coat up to his neck. Words from the meeting flew through his mind. I brought on a lot of chaos in my life, Tim had said. I hated what I had become, a woman in her fifties had said. A dusting of snow blew across the sidewalk and Matthew walked faster. He heard a truck, and turned when it slowed down next to him. It was Frank.

  “Need a lift?”

  “I’m headed to the Lexington Apartments,” Matt said.

  “I go right by there,” Frank said, stopping. Matt slid in and closed the door. “I’m Frank,” he said, extending his hand. “First meeting?” Matthew nodded. “The steps work if you work them.”

  Matthew stared out the window. “What if you can’t get through them?”

  “Then they don’t work.”

  “It’s not easy, is it?” Matt said.

  “Adult problems are never easy,” Frank said. “Seems someone along the way should tell us that. Have a little graduation ceremony or something.”

  “What if I’m not sure if I really have a problem?”

  “Anybody suggest you come to this meeting?” Matt shook his head. “Anybody force you to come? Court ordered?” Matthew looked at him. “You came on your own?” Matt nodded and watched out the window as Fred Clauson spread salt on the sidewalk in front of Wilson’s. “Then you’re sure you have a problem.” Matt liked Frank. He was blunt but kind.

  “It seemed pretty raw back there,” Matt said.

  “They’re the most honest people you’ll ever be around,” Frank said. He looked over at Matt. “So why’d you come?”

  “I left home when I was seventeen, right before my father died,” Matt said. “Drinking helped…”

  “Numb the shame?”

  Matthew nodded. “For months I haven’t been able to put a thought together in my head. I was losing ground every time I turned around, but I couldn’t stop—I couldn’t stop anything I was doing. I found my mother and thought…” His eyes filled with t
ears and he turned away.

  “This is it?” Frank asked. Matt nodded. Frank pulled into the apartment parking lot, stopped the truck, and looked at him. “You want to come back?”

  “Sure, but I’ve never finished anything in my life.”

  Frank laughed. “Then you’ll fit right in!” He folded his hands over the steering wheel and leaned into it. “Here’s the nuts and bolts: Don’t go in your apartment and think that you’ll never take a drink again. You will. But when you do, don’t let it keep you pinned to the floor.” Matt nodded. “What are you popping in the morning to help you get up and out?”

  “Xanax.”

  “Don’t convince yourself you’ll be stopping those cold turkey, either. You want a sponsor?”

  “I don’t know what one does.”

  Frank wrote down his phone number. “I won’t call you, but you can call me anytime, day or night. Call me when you want to take a drink. Call me when you wanted to take a drink but didn’t. Call when you did drink and you hate yourself for it afterward. Call me if you’re happy, sad, excited, or mad as hell. That’s what a sponsor does. See you tomorrow?”

  Matt got out of the truck. “Sure.”

  “Call me if you want a ride.”

  Frank waved and Matthew watched him pull out of the driveway to the home across the street. He stopped at the end of his driveway and fixed the Christmas lights that were drooping on the baby pine tree. “You’re kidding me,” Matt said beneath his breath, watching as Frank went from tree to tree, shaking snow from each light strand. Matthew laughed and ran up the stairs to his apartment.

  Eleven

  If the will to walk is really present,

  God is pleased even with your stumbles.