A Place to Call Home

by Deborah Smith

  I reached a new level of self-control that Christmas. I was always the first one up on Christmas morning, always, and my first act was to fly downstairs in my nightgown and robe and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers, when the pale light of dawn was just shading gray outside the windows and the house was filled with magical, expectant silence. I would open the double doors to the living room and slip inside, alone.

  But this time I hurried downstairs and tiptoed along the back hall to Roanie’s door, and with every shred of willpower I could muster, I knocked softly and persistently, whispering, “Roanie, wake up,” until he finally opened his door a few inches and looked down at me in sleepy confusion, a quilt wrapped around him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

  “Nothing. It’s Christmas. Come with me.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Oh, you don’t know. I forgot. You don’t know what that means.” I cast furtive glances up and down the quiet, dark hall. “Come on!” I whispered urgently.

  “Hold on. I gotta get dressed.”

  “No, no, no. Nobody gets dressed right away on Christmas.” I peered through the opening at him, eager to see what kind of pajamas he slept in. Above the quilt I saw the frayed neck of a gray sweatshirt. Below it I saw bleach-stained gray sweatpants with a hole in one knee and sagging white gym socks, thin at the toes. “You look swell,” I swore. I grabbed the edge of the quilt and tugged. “Come on. Hop and Evan’ll crawl out in a few minutes and then everybody’ll wake up. We don’t have much time.”

  Frowning, he slipped down the hall behind me. I led him to the front of the house and stopped before the doors to the living room. “Now watch,” I whispered. Holding my breath, I turned the long brass handles and eased the doors open so they wouldn’t creak.

  It was like looking through a mirror into Wonderland.

  Glowing and winking with lights, the Christmas tree shimmered next to the fireplace, where a low fire crackled. By that age I knew, of course, that Santa hadn’t plugged the tree in or built the fire, that Mama had slipped down thirty minutes ahead of me and done it, but I didn’t say so to Roanie, who needed to see the wonder that Santa left behind.

  The brightly wrapped presents stacked around the tree’s base by mere mortals had mushroomed into a bonanza during the night. That whole corner of the room burst with packages. The soft voices of some Christmas choir purred from the stereo receiver.

  I heard Roanie’s quick intake of breath behind me. I looked up at him hopefully, and the expression on his face was open and easy. “Come on,” I urged. He edged into the room with me. I pulled him to the hearth. “Look.” An empty, milk-stained glass sat there, and a china plate dotted with crumbs from Mama’s cinnamon cookies. “Of course Daddy ate ’em,” I allowed solemnly. “But I used to think it was Santa.”

  “I never thought I’d see nothing like this. ’Cept on TV.”

  “Oh, it’s real. Sit down. Sit on the hearth. I get to open one present before everybody else ’cause I get up first. So you get to open one of yours, too. It’s okay.”

  He stared at me as if I were joking. “I got presents?”

  “Of course.” I shuffled over to the tree and pushed the stacks aside and crawled behind them, then popped up with a deep, rectangular box wrapped in red foil paper and topped with a fluffy gold bow. “This is from me.”

  I held it out anxiously. He was absolutely still for a second, then he angled carefully behind the tree and dropped to his heels. When he stood, he held a tiny box in his hand. It was wrapped in green paper printed with tiny red bells. There was as much Scotch tape on it as paper, and the green bow was bigger than the box.

  “I got this for you,” he said in an offhand way. “The grannies helped me pick it out.” He shrugged. That shrug told me it was important.

  I felt as warm as a light on the Christmas tree. “Gimme.”

  We traded, then sat down side by side on the hearth. “Open yours first,” I ordered, though my fingers automatically began prying at the tape on his gift to me.

  He was so careful with the paper on his gift, not wanting to tear it, I guess. I shifted my feet and squirmed. He opened the box and took out the blue pullover sweater I’d gotten him. He examined it the way he’d dealt with the wrapping paper, tenderly, uncertainly, drawing his fingers over the thick cable knit. “It’s new,” I blurted out. “I mean, that’s why it’s still got that tag on one arm. So if it doesn’t fit right or you don’t like it, you can exchange it for another one.”

  “No moth holes,” he said. “Smells new. I like it.”

  “Put it on.”

  He let the quilt fall around his waist and donned the sweater over his sweatshirt. He looked bulky, but fine. “I was gonna get you something fun,” I said, hedging against any nonchalance in his reaction. “Like a hunting knife or something. But Grandma Dottie said you’d like this.” I sighed. “Clothes aren’t much fun, though.”

  He looked at me. “It’s the first new anything I ever got, Claire. It’s great.”

  I grinned. “Well, I knew you’d like it.”

  “Open yours.”

  My fingers moving as fast as ants at a picnic, I ripped the paper and bow off the tiny box on my lap and flipped the top off. Inside, on a bed of white cotton, lay an enameled green shamrock pendant about the size of a dime. It hung from a thin gold chain.

  “Oh!” I loved jewelry the way Hop’s squirrel loved nuts. Mama limited my collection to a few delicate necklaces and a silver wristwatch and a pair of clip-on earrings with a single pearl on each of them. Otherwise I’d have decked myself out in every dime-store bauble my allowance could provide. “It’s beautiful!”

  The necklace was just long enough for me to squeeze it over my head without unfastening the clatch. I put it on and freed my tangled hair, then closed one hand over the shamrock. “It’s the very best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.” I looked at him with my heart racing. “I love you.”

  “Ssshh,” he said, glancing around as if we weren’t alone. “I know how you mean it, but nobody else would.”

  “Say it back to me anyhow. Say it.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to say it.”

  “Just say it’s forever.”

  He looked at me without blinking. “It’s forever,” he admitted softly.

  The day was a whirl of visitors. Roanie watched from the corners, absorbing it all with the quiet intensity of an animal that had been caged too long to step out quickly just because someone opened a door for him.

  I had to admit, finally, that I was glad he kept to himself, because some of the things that went on that day shook my optimism a little.

  My cousin Aster, the one who got knocked over with her tuba the Christmas before, was the leader of the female anti-Roanie faction. She was one tough bloomer. Sixteen, chunky even by our well-fed standards, with fat, sturdy legs that angled in at the knees, she still wore braces on her teeth. It takes a tough girl to play the tuba through a wire grill. She wore her brown hair long and straight with the ends permed to a fare-thee-well. And she wore blue eye shadow. She was a sight.

  “Where’s your boyfriend, Claire?” Aster taunted. She had wandered into my bedroom, where Violet and Rebecca and I were examining our presents.

  “Let me see that necklace,” Aster said. She bent down and snagged my shamrock with her fingers.

  I pushed her hand away. “Hey, that’s personal.”

  Aster snorted. “It’s cheap. If you think it’s green now, wait a couple of months.”

  “Oh, go away,” Rebecca said. “We don’t want to know what you think.”

  I gave Aster a sour look and tucked my necklace inside the collar of my red Christmas sweater. I sat cross-legged on my bed, cradling the small portable typewriter Mama and Daddy had given me. Aster leaned against the canopy post and waved a hand at me. “What are you going to be? A secretary?”

  “No, I’m going to be a writer. And someday I’m going to write about you. So watch out.”


  “You’re spoiled rotten. I guess Aunt Marybeth just doesn’t care what people think. If you were being raised by my mama she wouldn’t let you accept a piece of junk jewelry that Roanie Sullivan probably stole from some dime store.”

  I looked her right in the eye. “Why don’t you pull your butthole over your head ’cause you’re full of shit.”

  Violet and Rebecca gasped. It suddenly dawned on me that I almost never said “shit” in front of anyone but Roanie. “Shithead,” I added cheerfully.

  Aster gaped at me. “I guess you learned that from Roanie Sullivan.”

  “No, I thought it up on my own.”

  “That boy is just plain trash. He’ll chase whores exactly like his daddy does. I wish he’d just leave.”

  “I wish you’d just leave. He’s fine. We all like him. I like him.”

  Aster smirked. “So you’re going to be a writer and a whore?”

  Violet and Rebecca clamped their hands over their mouths. Not over their ears, of course—they wanted to hear every filthy word. They just didn’t want to take the chance that what they heard would go in one way and pop out the other.

  I smiled at Aster. “Sure! I’ll be the biggest whore in Dunderry! But at least I won’t waddle around knock-kneed, suckin’ on a tuba.”

  “I can imagine what you will suck on,” Aster retorted. She stalked out of the room.

  Angry and embarrassed, I shrugged. Her eyes huge, Violet lowered her hand slowly. “What do you think she meant by that?”

  “Aw, who cares?”

  Rebecca, blushing, cupped a hand to Violet’s ear and whispered something. Violet’s nose wrinkled and she stared at me. “Oh, my.”

  We sat there in frazzled silence. They studied me furtively, as if a river of shocking plans ran beneath my familiar surface. My shamrock pendant felt hot against my chest. “Oh, I’m not going to be a whore,” I assured them. “I was just kidding.”

  “Then don’t say the s-word again,” Violet begged.

  Rebecca leaned toward me eagerly. “What else did Roanie Sullivan teach you?”

  “He did not teach me to say it.”

  “I think it’d be exciting if he stole that necklace just for you,” Rebecca added.

  “He didn’t steal it! He doesn’t steal!”

  Rebecca and Violet traded solemn looks. “I think it’s exciting,” Rebecca repeated. “After he gets a driver’s license, I bet he’ll steal a car.”

  I was so angry I almost said “shit” again. But that was when I realized that everyone measured Roanie by the yardstick of my indecencies.

  Considering my natural inclinations, he was under more of a burden than I’d ever realized.

  We went to church that night.

  Roanie in church. Wearing a sharp blue suit of Josh’s and a wide, pinstriped tie of Daddy’s. He was a sight that made more heads swivel than a Ping-Pong match.

  He sat there in our pew with all the animation of a bump on a log, but he was a handsome bump. “Sing,” I whispered during “O Holy Night,” elbowing him in the side.

  “I ain’t no singer,” he whispered back. “And you sing loud enough for the both of us.”

  “I am not a singer,” I corrected. “You are not a singer. We are not singers.”

  “Right.” His lips quirked. “You ain’t no singer neither.”

  Daddy asked him, after we got home, if he thought he’d like to take Bible study and be officially recognized at the altar sometime. Be saved, Daddy explained. Getting saved was like trying out for a football team. God’s football team. It meant you were willing to play by the rules.

  “I’ve done been saved, Mr. Maloney,” Roanie answered quietly.

  Daddy, bless his gruff heart, let it go at that.

  On New Year’s Eve I heard Josh’s and Brady’s deep voices in the hall outside my door. I could smell intrigue like a mouse smells cheese. I went over to my door and cracked it open an inch, then listened.

  “I thought we might have to tackle him.”

  “Did you see the look in his eyes? When Dad told him about talking to Aunt Bess and Uncle Billy? Yeah, I was sure he was about to bolt before Dad explained why they were filing papers in court.”

  “The kid’s tough.”

  “He’s not a kid. He hasn’t been a kid for years.”

  “Yeah, well, this ought to be interesting.”

  “Mama says he’d fight tigers to protect Claire. I’d say she’s right.”

  “Hey, listen to the way the Old Grannies talk about him. I think they’ve got a crush on him, too.”

  “Yeah, what a gas.”

  Roanie. They were discussing Roanie. I popped out of my room and stared at them. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Josh shot a startled look at Brady. “Little pitchers have big ears.”

  “You’re talking about Roanie. What’s going on?”

  They traded careful, adult glances. I gave them a dirty look and ran downstairs, my heart in my throat.

  Mama and Daddy were sitting at the kitchen table, their faces serious. I halted. “What’s going on with Roanie?”

  They traded solemn looks. Then Daddy waved me over and curled an arm around my waist. “We made sure Roanie’s not ever going back to the Hollow. It’s permanent, sweetie pie.”

  “You mean Roanie can live here forever?”

  Daddy studied me as if something about my reaction worried him. I could barely breathe. “That’s what I mean, sugar.”

  “Y’all promise?”

  “Promise,” Daddy said. Mama crossed her heart and held up two fingers. “We signed some papers at the courthouse.”

  I ran outside. It took me a while to find Roanie. He was out in a back pasture, sitting on a knoll. “I heard,” I said, flopping down beside him. “You’re permanent!”

  “Ain’t that something,” he said, his eyes glowing. “You was right.”

  I touched his arm carefully. “I love you, boy.”

  He looked away. Then back. “I love you, too,” he said. “Don’t tell nobody.”

  Just before sunset, Roanie and I walked up to the top of Dunshinnog. We lit some bottle rockets and watched them burst against the cold purple and rose streaks of the evening sky.

  Standing beside me with his head thrown back, Roanie was quieter than usual. I looked up at him and the expression on his face made my chest feel full.

  He would not, could not sing in a church, but he was singing then without a sound. He’d grown up in Sullivan’s Hollow, about as low as a person could get. He loved high places.

  The Great Monopoly Game of February established what I’d suspected for a long time: When it came to land and money, Roanie was as flint-eyed as any Maloney or Delaney.

  All of the Atlanta TV weathermen said it was too warm for an ice storm, but Grandpa Maloney knew better. “It’ll be icier than an Eskimo’s nose hairs,” he warned as Daddy and Mama loaded Great-Gran Alice and Grandmother Elizabeth into the car that Saturday morning for a trip to Atlanta. The Old Grannies were determined to see Carol Channing in the road show of Hello, Dolly! They’d have crossed the Arctic in a dogsled to see Carol Channing.

  “We’ll be back before the roads close,” Daddy said. “I’d rather risk frostbite than tell the Old Grannies Carol Channing’s a no-go.”

  “Son, you’re going to think you’re at the Ice Capades,” Grandpa promised.

  But off they went. Hop and Evan were over in South Carolina for a weekend teen retreat sponsored by the church. They’d asked Roanie to go with them, but he backed out. Said he had a term paper to work on. But maybe his decision had something to do with the dull picture I’d painted of those church shindigs. “You’d have to do Bible study and eat stale hot dogs and then pray a whole lot,” I explained. I just forgot to mention that teenage girls went to the retreat, too.

  At any rate, Roanie and I stayed home with Grandpa and Grandma Maloney, and just as Grandpa predicted, by four o’clock the farm was covered in a white crystalline layer of sleet
and the state patrol had closed all the roads. Grandma and Grandpa settled in at our house, with me, Roanie, General Patton, the rest of the dogs, all the cats, and Marvin the squirrel curled up by the living-room fireplace. Daddy called and told Grandpa that he, Mama, and the Old Grannies were stuck at a hotel for the night. When he got off the phone, Grandpa turned to Grandma Dottie, chortling. “That’ll teach him. Mother and Elizabeth are arguin’ over the price of room service.”

  I couldn’t have been happier. Roanie and I watched television and made popcorn. We trudged outdoors with Grandpa and nearly froze helping him feed the livestock. General Patton chased Marvin without much serious intent. The cats thought of Marvin as a small, long-tailed kitty that hid pecans in the upholstery. The dogs, other than General Patton, were too lazy to care.

  The electricity went out shortly after dark. We ate some sandwiches. Grandpa went to sleep in the recliner with a blanket wrapped around him and a cat asleep on his stomach. Grandma lit a pair of kerosene lamps on the library table, cracked her knuckles, and asked slyly, “Who’s ready for a game of Monopoly?”

  “Not me,” I said immediately. “She’s a shark,” I whispered to Roanie. “She’ll win all your money and giggle when you ask for a loan.”

  Roanie was great at Monopoly. He always won Hop’s and Evan’s money before they could bat an eyelash. I sold everything and took wild chances, but Roanie held on to his real estate like a miser.

  “I’ll play,” he said with a wicked smile.

  So Grandma and Roanie sat across from each other at the table, the Monopoly board spread out between them like a battlefield, the light of the fire and lamps flickering on their steely eyes. I watched from a couch, snuggled in a quilt and yawning. “She never loses,” I murmured, and then I fell asleep.

  When I woke up, shivering, it was early morning. The fire was out, the lamps were out, General Patton was balled up inside the circle of my arms, and Grandpa was snoring.

  “One more game,” I heard Grandma say hoarsely. “Best four out of five. You can’t quit now. I deserve a rematch.”