by Billy Romp
Patti stopped walking and pulled on my arm to stop me as well. It was her signal that she needed my undivided attention. “Billy, it’s December twenty-second. There are two full days before Christmas, and I want them to be peaceful, happy days.” She didn’t point any fingers but the implication was clear: she viewed me as an obstacle to family harmony.
“The old ‘peace-at-any-price’ message,” I heard myself saying. “That’s what you’re trying to sell.” I know it sounded sarcastic, but it just came out.
“I’m not trying to sell anything,” she responded. “I’m just asking you to grow up. Be a man, be a father.”
“Me—grow up?”
“You. Ellie’s got to go her own way, forge her own path. And not you or anyone should try to stop her.”
“This is not about forging a path in life,” I said. “This is about her breaking rules and not having consideration for us, her parents. I grounded Ellie, and she ignored me. It may sound old-fashioned, but she disobeyed me.” Just thinking about how she’d behaved fueled my anger. “What I ought to do is go over to the Abbotts, collect Ellie, and bring her home.”
“Billy, you’re doing nothing of the sort.” There was that tone again.
“But once you start bending the rules with children, once you let them run the show,” I protested, “you’re lost. Patti, we’ve been over this. You can’t let your kids openly disobey you. You’ve always agreed with me on this point.”
“I do agree with you—in principle—but this time I think you’re the one who’s being unreasonable. You don’t ground someone who’s worked as hard as Ellie has all season for not calling home one night. It was late. She didn’t want to wake anyone. She’s a kid, Billy. She got swept up in the moment. She never expected us to say no. You’ve got to show your child that you trust her. That’s the most important thing.”
“She has to show that she’s worthy of trust,” I replied. “She hasn’t done a very good job of that. She wasn’t thinking about the fact that I stayed up half the night worrying about her. We’re a family. Rule number one in a family is you’ve got to show others consideration.”
“She’s a kid, Billy. She got caught up in the moment.”
“Well if that’s the case and if she gets away with it, that sets a dangerous precedent.”
Patti gave me one of those searching looks as if she was really trying to find an answer in my face. “Billy, how could you even think of forbidding her from going to the big Christmas party? It’s just about her favorite part about Christmas. She looks forward to this party all year.”
As we walked up the stairwell to their apartment, silence parted the two of us. I didn’t understand why Patti couldn’t see my position, didn’t see things the way I did; evidently, she felt the same way about me. But from my experience, I knew that sometimes you have to draw a hard line. “She’s already been to The Nutcracker, which preoccupied her all month. Now she’s wrapped up in going to Christmas parties. My life is not about supporting Ellie in some fairy-tale fantasy, Patti.” I cleared my throat. “Life is not a fairy tale. This is not how we can afford to live.”
Patti’s breathing had grown markedly heavier—not from the stairs we were climbing but from something she was wrestling with inside. When we arrived at the Abbotts’ landing, she took a deep breath, as if to bolster her confidence. Then she said: “This is all about fear, isn’t it, Billy? You’re afraid of losing her.”
“What are you talking about?”
We were standing right in front of Anne Abbott’s substantial door, decorated with a Balsam wreath, one of ours. Fancy chocolates, wrapped in bright foil, dangled like ornaments from the wreath’s boughs. Conversation from the party mingled with music and came out in waves through the cracks around the door.
Patti’s jaw was set. “I’m not walking in there with you acting like this. You’re thinking of yourself and only yourself.” When she said this, I recognized that at some level it might be true. But her comment only served to make me feel even more estranged from the party, from Christmas, from myself. Standing there just then, I felt like a stranger in my own family.
When I made no response, Patti continued. “You can’t do this to your daughter. You’re tearing her up, Billy.”
My voice was small: “I don’t think I’m having any impact at all.”
“Ellie is capable of putting on a good front. Just like the rest of us.”
“I don’t think we’re seeing any front. She’s made herself clear. She wants to be Ellie Abbott.”
“Billy,” she said in a way that caught my attention. For the first time that night, I really looked at my wife. Patti is a slim, petite woman who always looks youthful and energetic. But tonight something was different about her—her eyes were dashed by a streak of sadness. “Billy,” she repeated, sounding exhausted and defeated. “Just go home. With this attitude, you’re going to spoil the party, and I don’t even want you to be here.”
Her words stung. As I stood there, stunned, an image of my father from many Christmases ago flashed before me. When he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, my father was sent off to live year-round in a sanitarium, where he was supposed to regain his health. He was allowed to leave for special occasions, like Christmas. But when he came home for the holidays, when I was about Ellie’s age, I remember that he seemed more like a visitor to our home than the head of the household. As I thought of him, it struck me for the first time that even though we didn’t live apart, I, too, was becoming a stranger in my family. Ellie and Patti were going around me, making their own plans, plans that didn’t involve me. Perhaps Patti was right—at the heart of my conflict with Ellie was my fear of losing her.
Before I was able to respond, the apartment door swung open. Anne Abbott was at the door, showing out guests. “Merry Christmas to you!” she said, pecking them on the cheeks. “Give my best to your folks!”
Behind her was their formal oak dining table, covered with a fancy lace tablecloth. A giant spread—enough food to feed a proverbial army—lay on the table, including an enormous turkey with all the trimmings, ham, cranberries, baked apples, vegetable dishes, and breads of every variety. Monogrammed napkins and bone-china plates were neatly arranged on one end. Guests traveled around the table nibbling on the food, heaping their plates high, and talking loudly to one another. An amazing array of desserts—cakes, tarts, cookies, nuts, and sweetmeats—sat on a sideboard.
“Patti, you look wonderful!” said Anne, hugging my wife. “Billy, welcome,” she said, a bit more tersely, before motioning us inside.
Beyond the dining room was a spacious, high-ceilinged living room. Holding center stage was a huge, magnificent Douglas fir tree. A mound of wrapped presents sprawled out around and beneath the tree, isolating and protecting it. Standing before two long windows, the tree flaunted its beauty to the street.
An enormous crystal punch bowl, surrounded by delicate cups, occupied its own table in the living room. When I looked over I saw Ellie, dressed once again in the same magical outfit as the night before. She was merrily bantering with guests of all ages—an eclectic Greenwich Village mix—and playing hostess by ladling up eggnog. One of the guests, an older man who looked and sounded Italian, said to Emma, “Where have you been hiding your delightful friend?”
“She lives in Vermont,” Emma explained. “She’s just visiting.”
This time, I recognized Ellie instantly. Though she looked as dazzling in her black velvet jumper and lacy white blouse as she had the night before, having seen the entire effect once, I wasn’t as startled by it. Still, as I stared at her, I realized that I wasn’t fully accustomed to this Ellie either—Ellie, the poised young lady, no longer a child.
“Billy Romp,” called out a tree customer who quizzed me about the season. “Had a good one?”
I told him that I had.
“How is it stacking up compared to last year?” he wanted to know.
“I can’t complain,” I said, not wanting to get into it.
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He reported that the tree he’d bought from me was the prettiest ever. “Did they get their tree from you?” he asked, nodding at the Douglas fir. When I glanced back at the tree, I saw that Ellie had vanished. After my customer and I parted, I began moving around the elegant apartment, trying not to engage with anyone, looking for my daughter.
I’d been in the apartment before, of course. I’d been to Anne’s Christmas parties in years past. But I’d never set foot in Emma’s bedroom. It has always struck me as off-limits, inappropriate somehow for a man to be entering the territory of a little girl who is not his daughter. Ellie had described Emma’s bedroom as being off a circular stairway. So when I came to a circular stairway in the hallway behind the kitchen, I decided to give it a try. Quietly, I climbed the stairs, not wanting to startle anyone. I crossed my fingers that I’d find Ellie up there, so that the two of us could have a private talk.
The landing at the top of the circular stairway opened to just one door. That door was ajar, so I could peer inside without stepping in. What I saw of Emma’s room took my breath away. An elegant cherry canopy bed with frilly white eyelet bedding and matching curtains looked like a boudoir fit for a princess. Floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with dolls like I’d never seen before. For an instant, I wished that I could afford something like this for Ellie. It occurred to me that girls’ attraction to this fantasy world was similar to boys’ fascination with sports and hunting. I flashed on my own boyhood fantasies about the wilderness experience.
I heard girls’ voices: Ellie’s, Emma’s, and several others I didn’t recognize were coming from inside the room.
“The Nutcracker really was amazing,” I heard Ellie saying. “Of course, I loved the dance of the sugarplum fairies. And the Nutcracker when he came to life, and the costumes and the ballerinas and all that.” The tone of her voice took a turn when she asked the others a question: “But do you know who my favorite character was?”
“No. Who, Ellie? Who?” one of the girls said.
“Dr. Drosselmeyer, the godfather. Because he’s a clever inventor who can make anything. He made an eye patch from plaster and a wig from spun glass. He reminds me of my dad. Dad carries his toolbox with him everywhere, and he can fix anything—everything that no one else can, that everyone else has given up on.”
“Do you have to fix more things when you live in the country?” another girl chimed in.
“Of course, you do, silly,” Emma answered for Ellie. “No one has a superintendent up there. Everyone has to do for themselves.”
Ellie told the girls about all these projects that I worked on in my spare time back home—the woodshed that I’d put up, the fences I repaired, the furniture I made from salvage pieces from condemned houses. She talked about how I’d bought the very camper that we live in when we come to New York for peanuts. “Dad said it was held together with chewing gum and bailing twine. He worked on it for one whole year—putting in new lights, a roof, and redoing the plumbing—making it livable again.”
“You live in a camper!” one of the girls exclaimed. “You mean, right here in the city?”
“Yea’—right down the street!” Ellie answered.
“It’s right on the corner of Jane Street and Eighth Avenue,” Emma added. “You know, where all the trees are.
Ellie proceeded to describe life in the camper. How she slept on a bunk that was really a large shelf over the dining room table. How every day she and Henry lugged water in gallon jugs from Bonsignour across the street. She talked about her mom’s homemade biscuits and how Santos was around to protect us, but he never had to because everyone on Jane Street was so kind and loving. As I stood there listening, I was entranced by the life she was depicting, the life she was leading. My heart was turning somersaults as I realized, standing there, that Ellie was not running away from our life together. It was clear that she loved our simple life and would bring it with her into every new world she entered.
“Tell them about the candles,” Emma said. I knew I had no right to continue eavesdropping like this, but I couldn’t seem to tear myself away. I felt like a dry tree that’s just been put in a pan of water. I was absorbing Ellie’s words like water, and they were feeding my soul.
“Well, this year I went into business for myself,” Ellie said, sounding like a veteran entrepreneur. “I’ve learned a lot of stuff about business from my dad so I decided to sell candles. And guess what—in less than three weeks I made $327.50!”
I was touched, overwhelmed, and delighted by what I was hearing. Ellie had spunk, drive, and enough self-confidence to pursue her dreams. Even though I hadn’t been able to give the material things she might yearn for, I realized that I had given her something as valuable—the tools to make her own way in life. I saw in an instant that despite my fears, my daughter didn’t want to be Ellie Abbott of Manhattan after all; she was happy as Ellie Romp of Shoreham, Vermont!
I retraced my steps down the stairs and tried to find a place to do some serious thinking. I saw a side room, went inside, and shut the door. I stepped over to a wall mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. It was true that the season had been demanding and that we were all tired, but that was no excuse. I had to own up to it: I had seriously misread my daughter. Even though I saw her constantly, I had fallen dangerously out of touch with Ellie, just as my father had with me and my sisters when we were children. If it continued this way, it would become a strain for my own children to talk to me, just as it had been for me as a boy to speak with my father. I thought of what Patti and Ellie had said about me and realized how poorly I must have behaved for them to come out like that. I had been the one with the problem that year.
Time was running out on the holiday season—and the year for that matter—but, as Patti had mentioned, there were two full days before Christmas. There was still time to make amends. And already, ideas were churning.
A soft knock interrupted my thoughts. As I stepped toward the door, it inched open. Next thing I knew, I saw Ellie peering out from behind it. At first, she appeared startled to see me. “Dad,” she said sheepishly. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Wouldn’t have missed this party for the world.” I felt cheerful and slightly mischievous. Ellie looked at me, searchingly; I could tell she recognized that my mood had changed—and maybe more than my mood. I led her to the mirror and stood her in front of it, she in her elegant outfit and me in my suspenders and wool pants. We weren’t dressed alike, but I’d never felt closer to Ellie than at that moment. I laid my hands on her shoulders, feeling the soft velvet of her jumper under my hand. “Ellie, you look wonderful,” I said. “Just like a princess.”
She beamed, not saying anything, not wanting the moment to end.
I touched her velvet hair bow, which set off her hair so beautifully, then moved my hand to a resting spot on her back. It occurred to me then that she might want to stay on at Emma’s, maybe until we left for Vermont. I saw then that it was good for her and, for the first time, I actually wanted her to stay. “You’d probably like to spend the night with Emma. And you have my blessing. You always have my blessing—even when I’m acting like an old grouch.”
“Oh, Daddy,” she said, stretching her arms around me. “Thank you. But I don’t want to spend the night here. I want to come home.” She looked impish. “I miss Santos.”
“And what about your candles? You’ve got to keep an eye on Henry, or he’ll move in on your territory,” I teased.
Together, Ellie and I walked into the living room to find Patti. Arm in arm, we were the picture of happiness. When Patti saw us, she could tell instantly that I’d come around, as I generally do. “Are you ready to go?” I asked. “Or do you want to stay awhile longer?” Whatever she wished, I would have gladly obliged.
Patti sunk her eyes into mine and then she smiled. “Let’s head back.”
Patti, Ellie, the boys and I took the long route back to the camper. Our pace was slow and leisurely; we were in no hurry. We drank in th
e sights and smells of Christmas all around us. We savored every minute together, a family once again.
When we approached a corner florist, I reached into a bucket and plucked out the prettiest long-stemmed red rose. I paid the clerk and told him to keep the change. I dropped to one knee and offered it to my wife. “Patti, for you,” I said. “For my beautiful wife. For putting up with me.”
She raised the rose up into the air theatrically. “Here’s to a wonderful Christmas! It starts this minute.”
Once again, Patti was prophetic. It turned out to be the beginning of the most wonderful Christmas of my life.
7
Our Conspiracy of Kindness
I don’t know where the idea came from but I suspect it had something to do with my reconciliation with Ellie. While loading a beautiful ten-foot Balsam into the vehicle belonging to a couple who lived in the neighborhood but spent every Christmas at their country house, I had an impulse not to charge them.
“On the house,” I told Donna and Mark. From the way their eyes glistened, it was obvious they were touched. Suddenly I became possessed by the idea of taking it one step further—shutting the stand early and distributing my wreaths around Jane Street, not for money but for love.
Trees and wreaths had been flying off the racks all morning. On Christmas Eve, customers rarely lingered to chat. They made up their minds in a snap, pointing to a tree and putting cash on the barrel head in one continuous motion. Actually, Christmas Eve can be surprisingly busy. Any other season, I would have tried to squeeze out last-minute sales, like the racer who can see he’s won but keeps pushing to improve his time at the finish line.
But this year was different. This year, I was overcome by a celebratory feeling, like I’d come to a crossroads and made a turn that was profound and significant. I know it might not seem important to someone outside the family, but I see now that my struggle with Ellie over her going to The Nutcracker was really a struggle with myself. It was a struggle over what kind of parent I was going to be—a gatekeeper or a guide, a disciplinarian or a friend. On this Christmas Eve, I felt relief, like I’d made the right choice, having almost chosen wrong. It was similar to how I felt when I first fell in love with Patti—I was grateful, gleeful, and shaken up inside, almost like I’d been reborn.