The Christmas Hope

by VanLiere, Donna

  “Until failure?” I asked, choosing my words. He nodded. “When would that happen?”

  He looked at Mia. “It could happen soon. With this procedure her heart function should recover and the valve leakage should resolve but it’s important that we admit her right away.”

  I never expected this. I assumed it was the virus that was going around and he’d send us home with some medications. I nodded. For the first time in my career I was admitting a child into the hospital. I gathered my things to leave the exam room.

  Dr. Andrews knelt in front of Emily and Mia. “Mia wasn’t afraid one bit and that’s because you were holding her,” he said to Emily.

  She smiled and he stood to leave. “How long did you miss your mom?” Her eyes were anxious; she needed to know.

  Dr. Andrews knelt in front of her again. “I still miss her.”

  Emily’s face was blank. She was hoping he’d say something different.

  “But not in the same way I did after she died. It comes and goes in waves. When I was in track meets or when I graduated from high school I missed her a lot. I just really wanted her to be there. When I got married I missed her because I wanted to look out and see her sitting next to my dad. It’s not all the time but there are times when I still do miss her an awful lot, but that’s okay.” He patted her hand. “If I didn’t miss her I’d be afraid that I’d forget her, and I never want to do that. So I’ll go ahead and be sad every once in a while, because if I’m sad I know I’m remembering her and how much she loved me.” My eyes pooled over and I pretended to need something in my purse. I don’t know if Emily understood what he was saying but realized she’d understand someday. Dr. Andrews led us to a desk for admittance and excused himself.

  I called Sandra and explained the situation to her. She’d come to the hospital just as soon as her husband could leave work to watch their son. She said she’d arrive no later than nine: another hour and a half. I filled out the paperwork needed to admit Mia, filling in the state as legal guardian. For the first time I was grateful that Bridget had been arrested for selling drugs and was thankful she’d left Mia alone for so long. If she hadn’t, I wasn’t sure that Mia would have ever received medical attention. I took Mia from Emily and smiled at her. “Hello, sweet girl.”

  She smiled and kicked her legs.

  “You’re going to stay here for a few days. Now, you might be afraid every now and then because doctors are going to be poking around, but they’re only doing it so you’ll feel better, so don’t be scared, okay?”

  She giggled and I heard her breathing become labored.

  I kissed her head. “You’re going to be okay, Mia.” Oh, God, please hear me. She’s so tiny and her life hasn’t been good yet. Help her through this. Please give her a family who will love her. Please give her a strong heart.

  Emily leaned over and kissed Mia’s face and head. She whispered something into Mia’s ear and looked up at me and smiled.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said. “If I told you it wouldn’t come true.”

  I smiled. She had watched a lot of fairy tales in her five years. A man dressed in scrubs came and took Mia from me. Emily held on to my hand and waved as he disappeared with Mia around a corner. I had a sick feeling, as if he’d just taken my own child. Emily and I waited the last few minutes for Sandra to arrive.

  “They’re going to perform the procedure in a few hours,” I said. I knew I needed to find a foster home for Emily so I doubted I would be able to return to the hospital. “There are things I have to take care of, so I don’t think I’ll be back today.”

  “Yes, we will,” Emily said. “We have to come back.”

  I didn’t say anything. I took hold of her hand and walked toward the elevator.

  “We need to come back,” Emily said, looking up at me. I pushed the button for the elevator. “Mia needed me to hold her hand because she was scared. She’ll be scared again today and wonder where I am. When I was scared in my room she held on tight, tight, tight, and then I wasn’t scared anymore. So I held on tight to Mia’s hand, too.”

  I nodded but didn’t understand. I’d forgotten how children ramble, throwing lots of thoughts together as they talk.

  She looked up at me. “Can we please come back?”

  What could I say? It was against my better judgment but Emily needed to do this. I’d just have to find a foster home for her tomorrow.

  When we got home I sliced an apple and put it on a plate in front of Emily before making several slices of toast with jelly. Mark walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck. He was so handsome. He bent down and hugged Emily At our core, Mark and I were still decent people and we wouldn’t allow the distance that was between us to hurt her in any way. Emily had eaten half of the apple when Mark saw Girl sitting by the back door. “All right, little miss,” he said, grabbing his coat. “Let’s go for a walk.” Girl began to prance in front of the door.

  Mark opened the door and Girl bolted past him toward the woods that ended our property line. “Can I go with you?” Emily asked.

  He zipped up her coat to her chin and pulled up the hood. It stood at a perfect point and she looked like a packed missile. Emily took hold of Mark’s hand and they walked toward the woods, an all-too-familiar sight when Sean was a little boy. He and Mark would tramp out toward the woods to “hunt” bear or lions, build a secret tree house that only men could know about, or collect leaves for me. “Man stuff,” Sean said time and again when I asked what he and his dad talked about. I watched Mark and wondered if he and Emily were talking about “girl stuff” this time around, or maybe about her mother.

  “There’s so much sadness on this journey,” Pastor Burke had said at Sean’s funeral. “Life is short. Thank God, heaven is forever.” I watched as Mark and Emily walked toward the woods. Life is short but it feels so long for those of us who are left to live without someone we love.

  “Did you live in a castle when you and Patricia got married?” Emily asked.

  Mark shoved his hands into his coat pockets to warm them and shook his head. “Not unless a one-bedroom apartment is a castle. Is it?”

  She shook her head to let him know it wasn’t. “Did you have lots of money?”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d she marry you?”

  He laughed. “That’s a good question.”

  She sat down on a log at the edge of the woods and put her chin in her hands. Mark sat down beside her. “I think Patricia’s pretty.”

  “I think she is, too.”

  She looked up at Mark. “Will she always be sad?”

  Mark looked at her. Somehow she’d seen right through me and he knew it. “A part of her will always be sad, but she has memories of Sean and those are good memories, too. We had him for eighteen years, so that’s lots of memories.”

  “My mom was my mom for five years.”

  “You can have a lot of memories in five years.”

  “Sometimes we’d skate up and down the street.” She thought for a moment. “But she wasn’t very good. She fell down a lot.” Girl sniffed around the log and followed the scent into the woods. The wind blew and Mark pushed her hair behind her ears. “Do they know each other?”

  Mark didn’t understand. “Who?”

  “My mom and Sean.”

  “Yes, I think they do.” He put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her toward him. They watched Girl sniff around a tree in the woods and jump as a squirrel darted past her up the tree. Girl stood on her back legs and put her front paws on the tree, barking.

  “Where do I go after I leave here?”

  Mark was quiet. He didn’t know and he didn’t want to answer. “Patricia will find a really good foster home for you.”

  “Can I stay here?”

  Mark looked at her. Why would she want to stay in a home with two fractured people? “It’s not up to me,” he said. “The state has rules.”

 
“I promise I’ll be good.”

  She looked up at Mark but he couldn’t look at her. He watched Girl through the trees. “You are a good girl,” Mark said. “But the state has rules and—”

  “I’ll do the rules,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. “I’ll do all the rules as long as I can stay here.” He put his arms around her and she pressed her face against his. “Please let me stay.”

  Mark didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. “Let’s get back before we freeze through and through,” he said.

  I had the kitchen clean and in order again when the back door opened. “We’re froze through and through,” Emily said, chattering her teeth.

  I pulled off her coat, hat, and gloves and felt her hands. “Oh, my goodness, you are frozen.”

  “Through and through,” she said.

  I grabbed a blanket from the hall closet. “You better sit by the fire in the living room and get warm,” I said. She sat on the sofa and I snuggled the blanket around her. Girl jumped onto the sofa and I swatted her off. “Get off, Girl. You smell like a dog. Go to the garage. Go!” Girl tucked her tail between her legs and headed toward the kitchen.

  “Can she stay with me?” Emily asked. It was no use. Since Emily had arrived I was outnumbered. I snapped my fingers and Girl darted back to the living room.

  “Stay on the floor,” I said, holding her head down. I made Emily some hot chocolate and took it to her. Girl lifted her nose toward the cup. “Don’t even think about it,” I said. I kissed Emily on the head. “I’m going upstairs to throw in a load of laundry but I’ll be right back.” I walked upstairs and could see Mark through the crack in Sean’s door. He’d be leaving for work soon. I gathered the dirty clothes out of the hamper in my bathroom and walked into Emily’s room to clean the clothes she’d worn yesterday. When I walked out of the room I saw Mark in the laundry room straightening the arms of a sweater.

  “It says ‘lay flat to dry’ but I like to lay on my side,” he said.

  I smiled. It was the first time he’d said anything funny to me in months.

  “Will she be adopted?” His back was to me as he worked with the sweater.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “She wants to stay with us.”

  For some reason those words hurt. Why did Emily ask Mark and not me? I shook my head. Of course she asked him. I had brought her into our home but I had been guarded. And she sensed it. Kids always do. I went through all the proper actions but Mark was the one who made Emily feel at ease. I sighed. No matter what I did or how hard I tried I would never be comfortable with children in the house again. None of that would make sense to Mark, though. I needed to approach him with reality. He knew as well as I did that Emily couldn’t stay with us because we weren’t foster parents.

  “She likes it here,” he said. Despite what Mark and I had become to each other Emily felt safe with us. He didn’t look at me but kept fussing with the sweater.

  “She couldn’t stay with us,” I said. “It would never be allowed.”

  We were quiet. For too long now we’d let the silence rule in our house.

  “You’ve bent the rules before, Patricia. She could at least stay with us through Christmas. A couple more days aren’t going to make a difference. It just seems that she should spend Christmas with Hal and Greta and …” I waited for him to say it. “And with us.”

  “I’ve bent the rules for an overnight stay, Mark. Never for several days. I could lose my job.”

  He stopped his work and looked out the laundry room window. “Everybody needs a break, Patricia; especially a little five-year-old girl who doesn’t have her mother at Christmas.”

  “I can’t, Mark. You know that.”

  “You can’t or you won’t? There’s a difference. There hasn’t been a child in this house since Sean died. Over the years you’d bring one of your cases home for a meal or something but not anymore. Why is that, Patricia?” I could feel heat on the back of my neck. I just couldn’t have a child in the house. Not now. Not ever. It hurt too much.

  “Because it’s just never worked out.” I didn’t even convince myself when I said it.

  “Well, now it is working out, and that little girl needs a place to stay for Christmas. Years from now I don’t want her to remember being in a home with strangers after her mom died. I want her to remember that she was with people who cared about her. That’s all.” Mark had always been a kind person; it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I crossed my arms and leaned against the door, staring at the floor.

  “Then she’ll stay,” I finally said. “But aren’t you working on Christmas Day?”

  His back was still to me. “No. I rearranged my schedule yesterday.” He continued to straighten the sweater.

  I wanted to say something, I wanted to touch Mark, I wanted to help him with that stupid sweater or do anything that would keep us talking but I didn’t know what to do so I walked into the hallway, closed the laundry room door, and went downstairs.

  SIX

  There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

  —Leonard Cohen

  Emily was asleep on the sofa. Girl lifted her head when I walked into the living room. “Shh,” I said, motioning for her to lie back down. The phone rang and I ran for it. “Hello?”

  “You never answered my question,” Roy said.

  “What question?”

  “Do you want to come over here for Christmas dinner?”

  I paused before I answered. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” It sounded like he was eating.

  “Because Mark’s going to be home.” The chewing stopped.

  “Well, that’s good because we weren’t going to have enough food anyway.”

  I laughed.

  “Do you still have your little one?”

  I told him I did and that we planned to keep her through Christmas. If Roy thought that was a bad idea he kept it to himself.

  “I’m going to watch Jasmine tonight so my daughter and son-in-law can get some shopping done. Do you think your clan would be up for pizza?”

  “I’ll need to ask Emily but she’s sleeping right now. It’d just be Emily and me tonight. Mark’s working.” If Emily was up for it, we agreed to meet after I took her to the hospital to visit Mia. I peeked in on Emily. She had to be exhausted. So much had happened in one day. Find a home for her, I prayed, watching her sleep. Please find a home where parents will love her. Mark was right. Everybody needed a break. I sat down in the den and picked up a magazine. I was asleep before I finished the first sentence.

  An hour later I jumped awake. Emily and Girl were staring at me. “Girl was dreaming and she woke me up,” Emily said. “She was growling and whining because she was chasing another dog.”

  “She was?”

  “Yeah. She was chasing another dog because he was taking away her bone.”

  I smiled at her. Her hair was a mess and her sweatshirt was bunched up over her belly button. Somewhere along the way her sweatpants had been lost and all that was left was her pink Winnie the Pooh panties.

  I reached out and held her hand between both of mine. “Emily, would you like to stay with us through Christmas?”

  “Can I?” Her voice sounded relieved.

  “Yes.”

  “Can Greta and Hal come, too?”

  “That would be great.”

  She lifted onto her toes and Girl nudged her with her nose. “Are we going to the hospital now?”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled on my hand and I got up from the chair. The doorbell rang.

  It was Mom. I walked to the back door and heard her before I saw her. She was wearing a red cardigan covered with tiny bells so she jingled when she walked. “I tried calling several times but there wasn’t an answer,” Mom said, leading Dad inside. She saw Emily and raised her hand to wave. “Hi, there. I’m Charlotte. Patricia’s mom.” She leaned down toward Emily. “What’s your name?”

  “Emily.”r />
  Mom threw her head back. “Oh, what a pretty name! You know, Emily was one of the names I had picked out for Patricia. Isn’t that funny? And you know what? You’re just as pretty as your name. Isn’t she, Les?”

  Dad moved in next to Mom and smiled. “Prettier,” he said. “How old are you?”

  Emily held up five fingers.

  “Five! That’s the best age of all.” Mom and Dad knew enough about my work not to ask Emily any personal questions beyond that.

  “We took Mia to the hospital because she’s sick,” Emily said.

  “Oh?” Mom looked at me.

  “One of my cases,” I said.

  “And we’re going to see her now,” she said, pulling on the pair of cotton sweatpants she had abandoned in the living room. She hoisted them over the sweatshirt and I smiled. She looked like a little old man.

  “We won’t keep you,” Mom said. “I was just wondering if you’ve thought about going to see the living Nativity.” I didn’t do it but I wanted to roll my eyes. I thought I’d made it clear that Mark and I wouldn’t go to that.

  “I don’t think we’ll do that,” I said.

  “Can I go?” Emily asked.

  I knew I’d been beaten. “Yes, you can go with us,” I said. I tried to usher Mom and Dad to the door.

  “Do you want to see the tree?” Emily asked. Mom looked toward our backyard assuming the tree Emily spoke of was back there. Emily took her hand and led her to the living room. I could see by the look on Mom and Dad’s face that they were surprised, to say the least.

  Emily ran to plug in the lights. “Now my mom can see it.”

  Mom looked at me and understood why I had Emily. “What a beautiful tree,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Did you decorate it all by yourself?”

  “Nope. Patricia helped and Mark did the branches way up high.”

  Mom was even more surprised now that she knew Mark had helped us. She didn’t know what to think.

  “There will be all sorts of gifts under here for Christmas and me and Mark and Patricia and Greta and Hal will open them.” She looked up at my mom. “You can come, too.”