Ten minutes later, four steaming paper cups in hand, they settled on a bench. Richard hunched forward, elbows on his knees.
"What's in your backpack?"
Richard glanced sideways, his expression serious. "What's not in my backpack. Who's in my backpack."
"Huh?" Ben looked at Abby, his brow a scrunched line identical to his father.
"What's on second," she explained. "I don't know is on third, right?"
She looked at Richard for confirmation. She'd always loved that particular Abbot and Costello skit, even if she didn't follow baseball at all--much to Ben's father's consternation.
Richard tossed back his head and laughed. "You like Abbot and Costello, too. My mother taught us the whole routine. Complete with accents. My sisters and I would go round and round. Mom would laugh until she wet her pants."
Abby looked at her mother who seemed near tears. Her look said, "I told you she was a special lady."
To Ben, Richard explained. "Abbot and Costello were an old time comedy duo. One of their most famous skits is called Who's on First. But, in answer to your question..." He handed his cup to Abby and shrugged off his backpack. "My best friend's in here."
"My best friend lives two floors down from me."
Richard shrugged. "We moved around a lot when I was your age. But someone very special gave me this guy when I turned six and he went with me everywhere." He unzipped the bag and pulled out a scruffy looking brown bear with matted fur and a lopsided ear.
Ben stared, his mouth open. Her brilliant son didn't take long to connect the dots. "You're him? You're Dickie Daniels? From Mom's book?"
Richard nodded.
Ben appeared stunned. Tears clustered in his eyes but he scrubbed them away as he looked at Abby. "Santa got my letter this year."
"What?"
"I asked him to bring you Dickie. You always seem sorta sad and happy at the same time when we read the book. I thought you'd like to see him. To know he grew up okay. Y' know what I mean?"
Abby was too overcome to speak. Mom clamped her gloved hand over her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. Only Dickie had words.
"I've thought about your mother every Christmas, too. I wondered if she was happy. If she married and had children. Seeing her--and you--makes me feel like I've come full circle. Our paths were meant to cross and now they've crossed again. Do you know the symbol for infinity?"
Ben shook his head.
Richard used the heel edge of his skate blade to lightly draw the elongated eight on the ice. "Here's where your mother and my paths crossed thirty years ago today...and here's where we met again. Whole and infinite."
Abby recognized the truth. She might not understand the how or the why of their connection, but her heart knew a sense of congruity--of wholeness--she hadn't truly admitted was missing from her life.
"Are you free to join us for dinner tonight? As is tradition, some people will be opening a single gift," she said for her son's benefit.
"If you come, could you bring your bear?" Ben asked.
Richard nodded. "I'd like that very much. And, yes, Ben would love to come, too." He toggled the bear, making it wave.
Her Ben's eyes went wide. He looked from her to Richard and back. Wow, he mouthed for her benefit.
"Salmon, red potatoes and salad," Mom said. "No more red meat."
Richard looked at Abby and smiled. Her entire being reacted, as if touched by an angel's hand. She couldn't predict what would come next--who could? But if you believed in miracles--and Christmas angels--anything was possible.
Maybe now, she'd be able to write the ending her story was missing--one filled with hope, friendship and, yes, love.
The End
Dear Reader,
Kindness gets to me every time. Maybe that's because my mother, Daisy Bagby Robson, was one of the kindest women I ever met. I have numerous memories of her generosity, including once when she decided I wasn't using my bike anymore so it should go to a poor child I'd never met. As I recall, I reacted as any spoiled baby-of-the-family might. I threw a fit. She patiently described this other's child's circumstance as it compared to mine...in other words, she guilted me into agreeing.
I wish I could say I instantly became as giving and generous as my mom, but that would be a lie. Still, the memory stuck, and when my children were very young I wanted to share the essence of this memory in a way that might teach and entertain. I wrote "My Christmas Angel." Longhand, on lined paper. I read it to them every Christmas for a few years then tucked it away in my files.
A few years ago, my daughter asked, "Didn't you write a Christmas story once? Where is that? I'd like to read it to Daisy (my granddaughter)."
I pulled out the story and read it. And, as happens with writers, I immediately wondered what happened to Abigail and Dickie--the little children in the story? Why, they'd be thirty-some years old by now. All grown up. With children of their own...and so the story begins.
As an added bonus, I've included a copy of my very popular short story, A Hundred Years or More. Readers call it "poignant," "heartwarming," and "a seriously awesome story that stayed with me long after I finished it."
Deb
~~~
Debra Salonen is a award-winning, nationally bestselling author with 27 published novels for Harlequin's Superromance and American lines. Several of her titles were nominated for "Best Superromance," including UNTIL HE MET RACHEL, which took home those honors in 2010. Debra was named "Series Author of the Year" in 2006.
Debra's current single title release is the romantic comedy ARE WE THERE YET?-- one woman's funny, quirky, risqué journey of self-discovery on the road to love.
ARE WE THERE YET? is available in trade paperback from Createspace.
And, just in time for the holidays, read the spin-off: IS IT CHRISTMAS YET?
To buy any of her titles and to find out more information about Debra's "Expect the Unexpected" publishing endeavors visit her website at http://www.debrasalonen.com.
Discover delicious family recipes from Deb and her wonderful writer friends every week on her EAT=LOVE=TUESDAY blog.
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A Hundred Years Or More
By Debra Salonen
Copyright 2011 Debra Salonen
Smashwords Edition
cover by Kimberly Van Meter
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A short story of love and friendship
The funeral is finally over. Four days, start to finish. A chaotic time with scores of adults in and out. Men in uniforms. Women in black dresses with somber demeanors. Such a fuss, but nothing compared to the party that just concluded. Drinkers. Talkers. People who couldn't stop pushing food into their mouths to speak even a few words of kindness for the dearly departed. And, not surprisingly, a few too many children for my taste.
There was mention of the reading of the will. The disposition of the deceased’s possessions. That would include me, I suspect.
I should have gone first. It would have simplified things. Being the one left behind isn’t easy, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter, of course. Parrots can live a hundred years or more. I know this because I’ve heard her children and grandchildren repeat this dire prediction every time they pass by my cage. They shake their heads sadly and speculate out loud, as if I'm dumb as well as mostly mute.
“What will become of Jack?” one will ask.
“I don’t know,” another will answer. “Such a shame. He’s always been a one-person bird.”
“How old is he?”
“No one knows for s
ure…”
They wouldn’t know. How could they? Even I don’t know the year I was born because such things aren’t measured the way humans attempt to partition and document each and every second of each and every day. In the rainforest where I started my life, all living things understood that there were seasons. I knew without being told the time would come for each young bird to mate and begin a new phase of life. That never happened for me. I was captured before my season of juvenile freedom and foolishness was over.
I like to think that was one reason why I was so angry when I first came to this new world that would become my life. I’d lost everything familiar to me--my family, my group, the tastes, smells, colors, and sounds of the only life I’d ever known and was thrust into a metal cage by brutal hands.
Touch. To go your whole life knowing only the touch of the wind and rain upon your feathers, then suddenly feel a clamp of leather-gloved fingers, musty burlap and wire boundaries curtailing one's freedom can not be expressed by words in any language.
Those early years in captivity remain in my memory as a white background blurred from time to time by scars of red. Blood – drawn anytime some foolish human came close enough for my razor sharp beak to leave a mark.
The sound of the human voice was a grating, industrial noise that roared in my ears like an engine that never turned off. Music, they say, soothes the savage breast. Not mine. Not at that time. The pet store, that eventually bought me from the merchant who bought me from the trapper, piped in music around the clock. I later learned that the radio belonged to the owner who was slightly deaf. He honestly didn’t realize the radio was still playing when he closed for the night.
I have no way of knowing how long I lived in this prison of harsh light and constant noise. I never slept. I rarely ate. I wanted to go home, and if that wasn’t possible, then I wanted to die.
Neither happened. Instead, I was sold to an unsuspecting family with two young children: Todd, a serious ten-year old with thick glasses, and Delia, who was eight.
The only good part about this move for me was it meant a bigger cage. The children’s father considered himself a bird man. He’d raised pigeons as a boy on a farm in some country I’d never heard of. An exotic parrot seemed the likely next step in bird ownership, naturally. “The pet store guy told me parrots can live a hundred years or more.”
We were a poor mix, to say the least. But the noise level improved. The house was silent at night, for the most part, and best of all, the mother insisted that my cage be covered. Since she couldn’t trust her irresponsible husband or her very young children to do this chore, she would take care of this herself, gingerly, every night. “Sleep well, poor thing,” she’d say.
Poor thing. Since very few human words made sense to me then, I began to think that was my name. Poor thing. The father made sporadic attempts to teach me words. Yes, even the very lame "Polly wannacracker?" I did my best not to encourage him. He eventually gave up – on me, on his family, on his life, in general. He died after a short illness that was only spoken about in whispers. “Polio.” A very bad thing, I came to learn. I wondered if I’d be next. But no, the little girl was its victim.
Delia left us for what seemed like a very long time. Her mother still covered my cage at night, but I was no longer, “Poor thing.” I was a habit. One she probably resented, but she seemed too weary to even muster the energy it took to be resentful.
The silence around me grew as the family's possessions thinned out, one by one. I was certain I’d be next to go, but then the unexpected happened. The little girl came home. She couldn’t walk at first, so they converted “my” room--the parlor--on the first floor of the house into a place for her to stay. The sofa disappeared, traded, I assumed, for a skinny bed made of metal.
I had a roommate.
Delia was the one who officially named me. Prior to this, I’d been simply “the bird.” But Delia told her mother the second morning she was home, "He looks like a Jack to me. We’ll call him Captain Jack." I liked the name, but nobody bothered with the title.
From that night on, when she closed her eyes, instead of falling straight to sleep, she’d tell me a story about how Captain Jack, a brave and virtuous pirate--virtuous? I wondered the same thing, but since she didn't understand my squawks at that time, I wasn’t able to ask. Anyway, in various renditions of the same basic theme, the esteemed captain happened across a mean and bothersome witch who turned him into a bright green parrot with red markings and coal black eyes. All because he refused to tell her he loved her. “He couldn’t lie,” Delia stated with such gravity it seemed the inescapable truth.
Each night, she would add another chapter to Captain Jack's adventurous life. As her strength returned, she'd talk about other things, too. Her fear that her mother would have to go to work. Mothers didn’t do that, but they were terribly poor now that her father had died. And there were hospital bills. So many.
Until that time, I'd acquired words that humans made a pointed effort to teach me. I gave into their coaching partly for the treats they proffered, and in part because I was bored. Did these rote "Hello," "Hi, Jack" or "Pretty bird" make sense to me? No. Of course, not. But, listening to Delia was different. For one thing, her delivery was slow, slightly breathless and very deliberate. And she spoke to me as though I were capable of understanding everything she said. That's how I came to learn that each of the harsh, guttural sounds that had been around me all those years were actually words, with meaning. That revelation changed everything. As odd as it sounds, this was the moment I ceased to be a bird--not physically, of course, but in my mind that last remaining connection to the distant, shadowy memories imprinted on my DNA slipped away. I remained a bird, but I became--then and forever--Delia's bird. She was my family, her flock would be my flock. I could never return to my old world, so, instead, I would go forward. With her.
Delia. She was so many things to so many people: daughter, sister, friend, woman, warrior, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. Transitory labels, at best. The one that never changed was: Jack's owner.
Her life probably wasn't all that special or unique. I've been privy to many such stories over the years--first, when school chums came to spend the night with the young girl who had recovered from her illness and its lingering effect with such resolute determination and good cheer that people never saw the crutches, the cane, the limp. I was happy to witness each stage of recovery. But each new triumph took her further from the sick room--my parlor.
As if sensing the impact this physical separation would have on me, Delia arranged for surrogates. First, a dog. An old dog because the thought was an old dog wouldn’t try to eat me. He didn’t. But he wasn’t much company, either. All he did was sleep. And eat. I don’t know what they fed him, but he had terrible gas.
Later, she procured a television, which Delia mistakenly thought I might enjoy. To my surprise, I did become rather attached to the folly played out daily on General Hospital, but I'd rather not talk about it. Those old friends left me, too, you know.
One thing I've come to understand about the human species is its capacity for selective blindness. For years, Delia chose to pretend her mother was a strong woman. But Mama was not. She married the first man who asked her. Todd, who was two years Delia's senior, tried his best to disappear any time the new father came into the room. Delia played the role of peacemaker--except where I was concerned. The new father called me dirty, disease-infested, a waste of birdseed. Delia turned into a warrior, as inflexible as the bars of my cage--which had turned into a refuge whenever Delia wasn't around.
Lucky for all of us, the second father dropped dead one afternoon while pushing the lawn mower in the back yard. I won't say how long Delia's mother stood at the window and stared outside without moving or calling for help, but I can say she waited long enough. His money was a kindness the man himself was incapable of giving. It kept the roof over our heads and paid for both Delia and Todd to go to college.
College
was a bleak time for me--and the mother. “You miss her, too. Don't you, poor thing?” Yes. Yes, I did, and I molted to prove it.
But college took less time than usual because Delia fell in love. And married impulsively. A man I truly loathed. The words I longed to be able to say stuck in my craw, bitter tasting and caustic. “Why, Delia? Why him? He doesn’t respect you. He thinks you’re handicapped. He acts like he did you a favor, when, in fact, he doesn't deserve your sweetness, your grace.”
The divorce was almost as swift as the wedding, but Delia's grief lingered. So many nights she'd sit beside my cage and tell me how devastated she felt, how stupid, how distrustful of her ability to read people. Always, I paced my perch, angry and frustrated because I couldn’t make her see how wonderful she was. How unique and gifted. I have the vocabulary but I lack the ability to have the words make sense. My curse, I've come to understand, is to observe without comment.
But that doesn’t mean I’m mute. Oh, no. Once Delia began dating again, I did my best to influence her choices. We called it the Squawk Rating System. A frenzied ruckus meant jerk alert. Giving the new contender the silent treatment meant: "Why bother?" But a feathers-forward, head tilted to the right “Hello there, big boy” was a clear sign that this one had potential. That’s how we met Andrew.
Wisely, he courted us both. He brought her candy. He brought me sunflower seeds. Unsalted, of course. No bloody fingers for Andrew.
Their marriage wasn't perfect, but it was worth fighting for. Three summers later on a bright, fragrant morning in May Delia gave birth to a baby girl. A tiny thing with wisdom in her eyes. But the toll on Delia's body had been extreme. There would be no more children, she told me, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.
My Christmas Angel Page 3