Before I Wake

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “Yeah.”

  “And how is our little Sherry?”

  I shifted in the bed. “I haven’t been down yet,” I confessed. “She was fine at midnight.”

  “Was Santa Claus good to her?”

  I had to close my eyes and squeeze my face tight to keep from bursting into tears.

  “Yes,” I managed to say.

  “I lit a candle for her last night.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

  “I lit one for you too.” She was silent for a long moment, waiting for me to say something. “I wish I could be there for you.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” I said, a little glad that she was worrying.

  “I just don’t like the idea of you being alone on Christmas. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “We’ll be all right. I decorated the tree yesterday, and I rented It’s a Wonderful Life to watch this afternoon. Simon’s coming for dinner.” I tried to slip that in so she wouldn’t notice.

  She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then, “That’s interesting.”

  “Let’s leave it alone, Mom.”

  “He ran out on you and Sherry when you needed him most, and you’re inviting him for Christmas dinner?”

  “Mom.”

  “Karen, I know you’re lonely but this, this is—”

  “Mom.”

  “I won’t say anything. You know me. I know how to keep my peace.”

  I did know her, and braced myself.

  “I just think it’s a big mistake. I don’t know why you haven’t been in contact with a lawyer—”

  “Jesus, Mom.”

  “Language, Karen,” she scolded. “Not another word. Not from me.” A distant crash claimed her attention. “Listen to that. The kids are wanting some breakfast and have started to take the dogs hostage. I should go. Give me a call a bit later when you’re up and about. Give a kiss to Sherry.”

  “I will.”

  “I love you, Karen.”

  “I love you too, Mom,”

  We both hung up without saying good-bye, like always. My relationship with my mother was an ongoing telephone conversation.

  SIMON

  I stopped on the front porch with my key in my hand. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t feel right to let myself in today.

  I rang the doorbell, and stood up straight, shifting the weight of the bag in my hand.

  Karen opened the door quickly, as if she had been waiting. “Hi,” she said, smiling almost shyly. She was wearing a light gray dress that seemed to float around her, touching her curves, falling to her knees. Her cheeks were pink—was she blushing?—and she was wearing lipstick. There was perfume in the air.

  “Hi,” I said, like an idiot. “You look lovely.”

  Her cheeks got pinker. “Thank you,” she said. “You made it through okay?” She gestured toward the sidewalk.

  “It was fine. All they’re doing today is reading the Bible to each other.”

  “Maybe the article in Monday’s paper took some of the wind out of their sails.” She stepped back from the door. “Come on in,” she said. “You must be freezing.”

  For a long moment I felt like all of this was new, that I had never been in this house, that I was meeting this beautiful woman for the first time. The night seemed portentous, full of promise.

  “You brought presents,” she said.

  “Ho ho ho,” I slipped off my shoes and hung my coat.

  “You look,” she started awkwardly. “I meant to say before, you look nice too.”

  I smiled, not sure of how to respond.

  “And how’s your head?”

  I swept the hair back from my forehead. I knew what she was seeing—I had stared at it long enough in the mirror. Where a few days before there had been a jagged split, roughly stitched, now there was only the faintest white line.

  I hadn’t even noticed the change until I woke up in my hotel room the morning after the attack and started to peel the dressing from my feet. The bandages were stiff with blood, but underneath my feet were entirely healed: not a trace of the cuts remained.

  A quick glance in the scratched mirror confirmed my suspicion. The wound on my forehead had vanished as well, leaving behind only a thin line and, on the pillow, a smear of blood and a length of black thread, still knotted from Stephen’s stitches.

  Karen surprised me by touching my forehead, running her fingers lightly over the skin.

  “Does that hurt?”

  Her touch was so sudden, so unexpected, I could barely speak. “No, not at all. It’s…”

  “Healed,” she finished for me. “I don’t even think it’s going to scar.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so either.”

  She sighed and shook her head.

  “Do you want something to drink?” she asked, changing the subject. “There’s mulled wine.”

  I could smell the spices.

  “I’d love some. Do you need a hand?”

  She shook her head and touched my arm as if to stop me from following her. “I’ll be right back. You go say Merry Christmas to your daughter.”

  I could still feel her touch after she turned away.

  Coming from the family she did, Christmas was a big deal for Karen, so I wasn’t surprised to see that she had rearranged the room, sliding the couch over and moving the chairs to clear the corner where we always put the Christmas tree. It was a beautiful tree, almost brushing the ceiling, filling the room with a fresh smell of pine. There was a poinsettia on the coffee table, and along the windowsill Karen had placed pictures of Sherry with the Santa Claus from the mall. You could see her grow from year to year, until the pictures stopped.

  And there she was, still in the middle of it all.

  “Hey, pretty girl.” I crouched at the side of her bed, setting my bag on the floor so I could smooth the hair away from her forehead. “How are you doing?” Karen had dressed her in a white flannel nightie with reindeer and snowmen playing along the front. “Merry Christmas, baby. I’ve got some presents in here for you.” I pulled packages out of the bag and set them on the bed next to her. “We’ll open them a little later.”

  I stacked the other gifts I’d bought under the tree. I was still looking at it when Karen came back with the warm wine in Christmas mugs.

  Strings of white lights flashed slowly from deep within the dark branches, all hung with familiar ornaments. I fingered one, a Renaissance snowflake that we had bought at gift shop at the Met in New York one year. “Nice tree,” I said.

  “Thanks.” She sat down on the couch and I sat down next to her.

  We fell silent, looking at Sherry, looking at the tree, looking down at our mugs. Neither of us knew what to say. Was she feeling as strange, as pleasantly confused, as I was?

  “This is very good,” I finally ventured, after another sip of the wine.

  “Are you hungry? We can eat whenever you like. I just need half an hour or forty-five minutes’ notice. Are you hungry now?” The words spilled from her.

  “A little,” I confessed. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Whatever you like. Young’s is delivering until eight.”

  She let the words hang in the air with a strange expression of vulnerability, waiting to see how I would react.

  The first Christmas Karen and I had spent on our own in Victoria, rather than making the frantic flight to visit her family—our annual Guilt Trip, as we had come to call them, separate bedrooms and family singalongs—we had ordered Chinese, rounding it off with a couple of bottles of wine and a night of lovemaking under the tree. The dinner had become a Christmas tradition, the way some families go to church.

  I smiled. “Do you want me to call?”

  Her tension seemed to break. She shook her head and got up. “No, I’ll call.” As she left the room, she turned back. “You can pay.” She grinned at me.

  My heart was beating almost in time with the blinking of the lights.

  LEO

 
Father Peter told me to meet him in the church basement after Mother went to bed. He told me that he would leave the side door open for me.

  I bought two turkey dinners from the grocery store, and Mother heated them up in the oven after Mass. She said the blessing. I didn’t say anything when she asked God to watch over that “precious little girl.” I just smiled at her and said “Amen.” Loose lips sink ships.

  I closed the side door behind me. It took me a second to see him in the dark. “Merry Christmas, Father.”

  He grunted. “Christmas.”

  “Don’t you like Christmas? It’s the birthday of Jesus.”

  “We don’t have time to talk about that. We need to talk about what comes next. Our holy mission.”

  Of course. Our mission.

  “I need your advice.”

  I smiled. He wanted my advice. “All right.”

  His teeth were shiny in the candlelight. “I knew I could rely on you, Leo,” he said. “I knew that from the first time I saw you. Do you know what tomorrow is?”

  I was sure I knew the answer. “Boxing Day?”

  He shook his head. “Saint Stephen’s Day. Do you know the story of Saint Stephen?”

  I knew that it was one of the churches in town, but I didn’t want to make any more stupid mistakes, so I didn’t answer.

  “Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr. The first of us to be killed for the truth, the first to die in the service of God.”

  I nodded as if I knew that already.

  “We’ve tried to stop them, haven’t we, Leo? We’ve tried every other means. But now, these big-city newspapers are spreading the lies too! We need to stop them, Leo. We need to stop the Barretts before they can spread their poison any further. We need to find someone to take the next step in this battle, Leo. We need to find someone who is willing to follow in Saint Stephen’s footsteps.”

  I listened very carefully.

  “Think back to the meetings, Leo. Was there anyone you noticed who looked like they might be brave enough to take on this fight against the darkness?”

  I tried to think of all the people who had come to the church, but the only face I could see in my head was the man who tried to hide, who didn’t pray.

  “Is there someone who believes strongly enough to be a tool in the hand of the Lord?”

  “I—”

  “We’re looking for a lion, Leo.” He was talking like he hadn’t even heard me. “A lion of God, willing to kill or die in the Lord’s name.”

  My heart began to race.

  “It has to be someone strong, someone powerful. Someone strong enough and pure of heart, to fight off the devils who will try to stop them.”

  A lion. Leo.

  “I could, I could be the lion of God.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t ask that of you. The dangers are too great, I couldn’t—”

  “You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’m offering my life to the Lord.” I stood up taller. “I want to do this. Please? Let me be your lion. Let me do this.”

  He nodded. “All right,” he said. He was so proud of me. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You’re willing to be the lion of God?”

  “I think God wants me to be. I felt him take my hand when I was throwing that bottle. I think God wants me to be his lion.”

  “I think so too.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “In a few hours, it will be Saint Stephen’s Day, and we’ll go forth. We’ll finish this battle with the Barretts.”

  KAREN

  Simon picked up my plate from the coffee table and stacked it on his own. “Do you want anything else? Coffee?” he asked, standing up.

  “Just a fortune cookie.”

  He smiled. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

  “And bring the wine,” I called after him.

  I flushed Sherry’s feeding tube while he was gone and tucked her under the covers before looking out the front blinds.

  “Should I take them out some leftovers?” Simon asked, coming back into the room.

  “There’s no one there to eat,” I said, my words misting the glass.

  “What?”

  I turned to face him. “They’re all gone.”

  “Maybe they didn’t want to miss their turkey dinners.”

  He was joking, but there was something unsettling about the sudden absence of the protestors.

  “It’s kind of strange not having them out there.”

  “I could get used to it.”

  I didn’t know whether I should hope that this might be the end, that maybe they would leave us alone now. I settled for temporary gratitude.

  He set the wine on the coffee table and held his hands out toward me, a fortune cookie hidden in each. “Pick one,” he said.

  I touched the back of his right hand, and it opened.

  I suppressed a laugh as I read. “God, they’re getting predictable with these. ‘Fortune favors the bold,’” I read.

  “In bed,” Simon added, observing our traditional fortune-cookie game.

  “In bed,” I echoed. “Fortune favors the bold in bed.”

  “So let’s see what I’ve got.” He broke the remaining cookie. “What the? ‘The only time people prefer crunchy to smooth is in peanut butter.’”

  “There’s no sensible way to make that dirty.”

  “Actually, there’s no way to make that sensible.”

  He tossed the slip of paper onto the table and crouched beside the tree. “Should we do the presents now? There’s actually quite a bit under here.”

  “I saved the stuff from my family so we could open them together. Don’t get your hopes up, though. I don’t think anyone sent you anything.”

  “I would imagine.” He sorted the presents into piles. “Did anything come here from my mom?”

  I shook my head. “She called from Maui to wish us a merry Christmas, and to tell us that the gifts should be coming in the mail in the next few days.”

  “Good old mom.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t hear from your dad.”

  “I did.”

  I was stunned. “What? When?”

  “I called him.”

  I couldn’t get over the thought of Simon calling his father, on Christmas no less. “And how was he?”

  “The same. Unhappy. Alone.” He sorted through the gifts. “It was good to talk to him, though.”

  His voice had dropped as he mentioned his father. I knew how hard it must have been for him to call.

  “Shall we open Sherry’s first?”

  “Sure.” I felt like I’d been opening presents for Sherry for weeks: letters from people too sick to visit the house, parcels from people who had read her story, gifts from people who had been to see her. Every day more packages came from people we had never met: stuffed animals and nighties, children’s Bibles and baubles. Now I left the letters in a sack by the bed—I hadn’t had time to open them—but I had donated the parcels to a gift drive sponsored by one of the radio stations. I didn’t think anyone would mind making a different child happy.

  Simon had brought her a CD of children’s music by Fred Penner and a collection of picture books. Santa and I had brought her new pajamas and a book by Robert Munsch.

  “You’ve got a lot of reading to do, hon,” I said.

  Simon rubbed my back.

  “These are nice,” he said, examining the slippers that my mother had sent me while I unwrapped the rest of the gifts from my family. “There’s something oddly familiar about them, though.”

  “That’s because they’re exactly the same as the pair she gave me last year.”

  “And the year before that,” he added. “Ad infinitum.”

  Simon and I kept our packages from each other until the end.

  “A harmonica,” he said, turning it over in his hands.

  “I thought if you were doing the whole folksinger thing, you might as well go all the way.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “This�
��ll irritate the hell out of 314 and 318.”

  “So should I open these now?” I asked, looking at the pair of packages marked “from Simon.”

  He shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Your wrapping’s gotten better,” I joked. When we were together, wrapping had always been one of my responsibilities.

  “I had them wrapped at the store. More wine?”

  I nodded and extended my glass to him. “Is there a special order these should be opened in?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t really matter. But I guess—open the big one first.”

  I picked up the package. “This feels suspiciously like a book.”

  “Just open it,” he smiled. “No fair guessing.”

  I peeled the paper off carefully, revealing a beautiful, soft plum leather binding, tooled with a Celtic design. “It’s gorgeous,” I said, cradling it in my hands. It was a slipcover, with a plain sketchbook inside.

  “I know how much you love notebooks, but you never use the fancy ones with the good paper. What are you doing, saving them for a rainy day?”

  “They’re too nice.”

  “Exactly. This way you can have a nice notebook that you can actually use.”

  “Thank you, Simon. I love it.”

  He shrugged, but I could see how pleased he was. “You’ve got one more,” he pointed out.

  I picked up the smaller package and opened it just as carefully, already suspecting its contents. Simon has always had a hard time resisting thematic gifts.

  “It’s German,” Simon explained as I took the fountain pen from the gift box. “It’s got a good weight, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded, making small circles in the air with the nib.

  “Try it,” Simon urged. “I had them fill it before they wrapped it up.”

  I looked around for a piece of paper, then sat back as Simon opened the notebook on the table in front of me. “Here,” he said. “That’s what it’s for.”

  The pen laid down a beautiful wet green line. “That’s gorgeous, Simon. The ink…”

  “I’ve got the bottle in my jacket pocket.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just use it,” he said. “The pen and the notebook. I want you to use them. Really use them.”