Christmastime 1940: A Love Story

by AGNES IRENE

  There he was – the boy with the red scarf. He opened the door and sauntered around the living room, examining the pictures on the wall, pulling the lamp chain on and off, glancing out the window.

  Drooms shifted in his chair to keep his back to the boy, willing himself to focus on his work.

  The boy moved about with a jaunty air, and then stood in front of the animal collection with his hands on his hips. His eyes opened wide when he spotted the new squirrel.

  “A new one!” He petted it, and then examined it closely, comparing it to the other squirrel. “Hey, this one has gray eyes.” He held up the other squirrel. “And you have brown eyes.”

  Drooms hadn’t noticed this and scooted his chair back to see for himself. He lifted his reading glasses and compared the two. Then he abruptly turned back to his papers, annoyed that he had paid attention to the boy. Drooms resumed his work, keeping his back to the intruder. He spoke softly but firmly. “Put those down.”

  “I won’t hurt them.” The boy picked up the snake and flew it through the air, causing it to swoop around at the squirrels and the other animals. “And there’s Alphonse!”

  Drooms snapped, got up suddenly and snatched the animals from the boy. “Leave them alone! And – go away! I don’t want you here.” He put the animals back in their places and whipped around. Except for the animals, he was alone.

  Chapter 5

  A few evenings later just after dinner, Tommy and Gabriel decided to write their letters to Santa, and they wanted to make a celebration of it with a fire and hot chocolate with marshmallows. But Lillian realized that they were out of all the ingredients, and had no more firewood; she would have to make a quick trip to the corner store before it closed. Tonight she felt the fatigue in her legs from her years of working as a sales clerk. But as she put on her old blue coat, she thought that at least her job in the department store had yielded a few special items, like her coat and matching hat that had seemed such an indulgence at the time, a few pretty dresses, and some furniture she would never have purchased if it hadn’t been for the discount.

  As she walked to the store, she wondered if she would still have the endurance for department store work, for standing all day. The pointed attentions from Mr. Rockwell were beginning to worry her. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. Not now. She had so wanted to make this a special Christmas that she had allowed herself to place a few toys and some clothes for the boys on layaway, something she rarely did. Perhaps she could take in sewing again. She could ask Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Kuntzman if they knew of anyone who might need some mending done. There was always some way to make a little extra money.

  Lillian walked to Mancetti’s and purchased a few items, along with the milk, cocoa, marshmallows, and fire wood, thinking that after the holiday season she would have to find some places to cut back. As she left the store, she ran into Mrs. Wilson who was just entering.

  “Evening, Mrs. Hapsey! Having a fire tonight?”

  “Yes. The boys are going to write their letters to Santa. Mrs. Wilson, I meant to ask you – I was wondering if you know of anyone who might need some sewing done. It’s something I used to do to make a little extra.”

  “Ah yes, with the Christmas season and all. I guess that pension doesn’t get you very far, does it? Listen,” she said, taking Lillian’s arm conspiratorially. “Just you hold tight. There’s talk about jobs opening up for women. Once this war starts, the men will be gone – and they’ll need us to do the work. And you can forget about ever doing sewing again. Mark my words.”

  Lillian sighed at this grim prediction. “The way things are going, it seems unavoidable. How terrible!”

  “It’s the way of the world. Ah well, enough of us will survive the war to ensure that we have many more. And on that cheerful note, I better get moving – Harry is waiting for his Epsom salts. Good night, dear.”

  The grocery bag seemed to grow heavier with each step. The threat of war. Fatigue. Worry. Fight it as she might, the world was often a lonely, unfriendly place. No sooner did she have that thought than she felt ashamed, petty, preoccupied with her small problems. What were they compared to what the people of England were suffering? Over fifty consecutive nights of air raids on London in the fall – she couldn’t begin to imagine the horror. And on Coventry last month. Who knew what was up ahead? At least she had a warm home to go to. At least she could safely walk to the store and buy food, and her boys were happy and well-fed. No bombs were falling from the sky. She gazed up at the starry night. I must never take it for granted, she thought. No one knows what the future will bring. She reached her brownstone and climbed the steps. At the front door, she fumbled with the bag of groceries and bundle of wood as she tried to get a better hold on the doorknob.

  Drooms had gone to the diner straight from work and was now returning home. As he approached the brownstone, he saw Lillian struggling at the door. He hesitated for a moment, and then hurried to assist her. “Here, let me help you.”

  “Oh, no. I can manage.” But the bag slipped from her grasp. Drooms caught it and held it as she opened the door. She felt too tired to insist and allowed him to help her. “Well, thank you.” She never knew what to expect from him, but it took too much energy to hold a grudge.

  “I’m going up anyway,” said Drooms.

  She wondered if he said that to make her feel better about accepting his help, or to diminish any meaning in his gesture. No matter. But as they entered the vestibule, Lillian became aware that this was the first time they had ever been alone together. She wanted to fill the space between them with words.

  “The boys are going to write their letters to Santa tonight, so I thought we’d have a fire.”

  Silence.

  They climbed the first flight of stairs. She tried again. “There’s nothing like a crackling fire on these cold snowy days.” She looked over her shoulder for a response. “Don’t you agree?”

  More silence. Lillian waited a moment, and then gave a little laugh. “You’re not much for small talk, are you Mr. Drooms?”

  They climbed the second flight of stairs, and as they arrived at the third floor, she heard a ruckus within her apartment and quickly unlocked the door. When she opened it, she saw that Tommy was pinning down Gabriel with his knee and Gabriel was squirming and kicking back with all his might, shouting, “I do too!”

  “You do not!” Tommy’s face was flushed red from his exertion to prove his point.

  “Yes, I do!!” Gabriel rolled over and broke free.

  Tommy made a grab for Gabriel’s leg but missed.

  Gabriel ran to the couch, with Tommy right behind him. Tommy was just about to jump on the couch when Lillian grabbed him by the collar.

  “What’s going on?!” she said, placing herself between the boys. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”

  Then she saw that Gabriel had blood on his shirt and under his nose. “Oh dear. Here, lie down. Put your head back.” She hurried to the kitchen to get a damp dish towel.

  She shook her head at Tommy. “Thomas Hapsey! I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. You were supposed to be in charge!”

  Tommy crossed his arms. “He started it.”

  Gabriel sat up, ready to go at it again. “He did! He said I can’t remember Daddy so I pushed him. But I can. How come he gets to be the only one who remembers everything?! I remember the Christmas tree falling.”

  Tommy was ready to burst from exasperation. “But it’s impossible! You weren’t even born yet! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

  Lillian sat next to Gabriel and placed the towel under his nose. “That’s enough! You’re both going to behave. Now!”

  That last emphatic word ended the argument. Tommy and Gabriel knew better than to keep fighting once their mother got to the point of raising her voice.

  Lillian inwardly berated herself for fabricating memories that didn’t include both boys. The falling Christmas tree story was the result of a desperate moment when Tommy was
five or six and she couldn’t get him to stop crying. The dramatic tale was just the thing to capture his attention and quiet him. Tommy still recounted the way the ornaments rolled all over the place and how he was the one to find them all, even the one under the couch, and he and his father had hung them all back up.

  Lillian saw that Gabriel’s nose had stopped bleeding. She went to Drooms, embarrassed that he had witnessed the family drama. She took the bundle of wood from him, laughing a little, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  “Goodness, what will Mr. Drooms think?” She placed the wood by the fireplace, and then took a deep breath. “Now, how about I make some hot chocolate? Doesn’t that sound cozy? You’ll stay for that won’t you, Mr. Drooms?”

  One of Lillian’s strategies after breaking up a fight between the boys was to keep talking, in order to ease the tension and get their minds focused on something else. But with part of her mind worrying what Mr. Drooms would think, she realized that she sounded scattered, nervous.

  She tweaked Tommy’s chin, and then unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the hall tree. “You know better, Tommy. Older brothers are supposed to take care of their siblings, not hurt them. Isn’t that right, Mr. Drooms?” She walked to Drooms and took the bag of groceries from him. “Isn’t that right?” But when Lillian looked at him for an answer, she saw that he had gone pale; he stood frozen in the doorway, staring at Gabriel lying on the couch.

  His voice was barely audible. “Yes.”

  “Come in, come in Mr. Drooms,” she said, placing the bag of groceries on the table. She wondered at his response – surely he had seen children fighting before. Surely he wasn’t that removed from family life.

  Gabriel was too wound up to lie still for long. He got up and brought the dish towel to the kitchen. “It already stopped a long time ago, Mommy.”

  “Boys, tell Mr. Drooms to come in.”

  Gabriel ran and took Drooms by the hand. “C’mon, I’ll show you our pirate fort.”

  “Pirates don’t have forts,” said Tommy. “They have ships.”

  “Yeah, I mean a ship.”

  Drooms gently released Gabriel’s hand. “I’m sorry. I have something to do.”

  “Mr. Drooms?” Lillian watched him as he left and walked to his apartment, closing the door behind him.

  Tommy and Gabriel looked at their mom. “Doesn’t he want to see our ship?” asked Gabriel.

  “Not now, Honey.” She closed the door and put an arm around each boy. “Come on, let’s make the hot chocolate.”

  The boys ran to the kitchen. Tommy pushed a chair to the cupboards. “I’ll get the mugs out.”

  “I’ll open the marshmallows.” Gabriel reached into the grocery bag and opened the box, plopping a fluffy white marshmallow into his mouth.

  Tommy opened a cabinet and pulled out some sheets of paper, then took a tin full of crayons and set it on the table. He chose a few crayons and lined them up, organizing them by color. “I don’t like Mr. Drooms.”

  Lillian turned to look at Tommy, surprised at his comment. “Why do you say that?”

  Tommy shrugged. “He’s crabby.”

  Gabriel rummaged around the tin and pulled out some crayons. “Well, I like him,” he said, with just a hint of antagonism in his voice. He held up two green crayons, trying to decide between them. “Besides, he’s nice when no one’s looking.”

  “Let’s have some music,” Lillian said as she found a station on the radio. She poured milk into the pan and stirred in the cocoa and sugar. She didn’t like that she so acutely felt Mr. Drooms’s pain, whatever it was. She had her own worries. But she couldn’t get over the stricken expression on his face as he looked at Gabriel lying on the couch. So vulnerable. So sad. She hadn’t thought such emotion was possible in him. She couldn’t help feeling protective of him, of anyone who looked like that.

  Gabriel sat with his knees under him, leaning forward on the table in anticipation. But it was taking too long. “Can we start, Mommy?”

  She continued to stir the hot chocolate, not hearing him.

  “Mommy! Can we start our letters? I want to color on mine.”

  “Hmmm? Yes, that’s a good idea. Maybe you can draw a Christmas picture.”

  Tommy had already started a drawing on his paper. “I’m going to draw a treasure map on mine.”

  “Yeah, me too,” said Gabriel. The boys sat across from each other, best of friends now, and drew pictures and wrote their letters.

  Tommy looked up after a few minutes. “Mommy, I didn’t give Gabriel the nosebleed.”

  “Yeah, Mommy, that just happened because.”

  The tenderness in Tommy’s face, the unwillingness he always had to hurt anyone, almost made her cry. “I know that, Sweetheart.” She stirred the chocolate and thought of Mr. Drooms, of her own pain, of all the pain in the world. Sometimes she felt overwhelmed by it all, and feared the dark creature of despair that was always gnawing inside her.

  The boys didn’t know what to make of her silence. Gabriel looked at Tommy, then at his mom, and back to Tommy.

  Tommy made his voice sound cheerful. “We’re having a cozy night, right Mom?”

  Lillian poured out the hot chocolate into three mugs and set them on the table. “Yes, we certainly are.”

  She sat at the table with her hands around the hot chocolate and watched the boys stir the marshmallows, waiting for them to melt. After a few moments she got up and took out another mug and filled it with hot chocolate. She forced a smile for the boys. “I’ll be right back.”

  She took the mug down the hall and knocked on Drooms’s door. “Mr. Drooms, it’s me. Are you there?” She waited expectantly, but didn’t hear anything. “The boys wanted you to have some chocolate.” There was no answer. She lingered a moment, hoping that he would accept this tiny gesture, just one human to another.

  Inside his apartment, Drooms sat alone in the dark. He heard the knocking as if it came from far away. He knew that on the other side of the door was happiness and life, a foreign world to which he did not belong. He had long ago carved a hole in emptiness, his refuge that always awaited him, and he now sat there quietly. All was still. A narrow shaft of pale light from the street slanted through the parting in the curtains, softly illuminating the animals. There they sat, frozen in a past of their own, enjoying their lives before whatever final blow had come to them. There they sat. Old, dusty, removed from their own kind. And utterly alone.

  Lillian returned to her apartment, the few steps down the hall seeming so far, as if she had left a long time ago. There were her boys, drawing made up worlds, chocolate moustaches above their lips, safely anchoring her to the day, the hour, the moment. Here was her life. No need to seek out anything else.

  They paused in their coloring and saw the mug in her hand. “Doesn’t he want it?” Tommy asked.

  Lillian shook her head and set the hot chocolate down at the end of the table. She looked at their drawings and the beginnings of their letters.

  “Look, Mommy,” said Gabriel. “It’s a map of the buried treasure by a Christmas tree. There are presents under the X and the pirate snowman is guarding it.”

  “That’s wonderful, Gabriel! Oh, the snowman even has an earring.” Her voice didn’t sound right, sounded false. She covered it with a smile and stroked Gabriel’s head. She looked over at Tommy who was working intently on his drawing. “Very nice, Tommy.”

  She went back to her seat and took a sip of the hot chocolate that she had left. She suddenly noticed that there were four mugs, each at a seat. Staring at the fourth mug, she felt herself slipping, slipping. The carefully constructed scaffolding over the empty hole in her life collapsed, unexpectedly, leaving her to fall dizzyingly into her own despair. The dark animal that she thought was securely chained at the bottom of the pit was now thrashing its way out, clawing wildly in its anguish, lurching at her chest; soon it would release its long pent up howl. She stood up shakily. “I’m going to take a bath. You’ll be in charge, Tommy?”


  “Aren’t you going to drink your hot chocolate?” he asked.

  When she didn’t answer, he looked up, and watched her closely as she turned up the volume on the radio, and put her hand on the counter, the couch, the wall, as she walked to the bathroom.

  She closed and locked the bathroom door, turned the faucets on full, then covered her mouth with her hand as she slid to the floor and leaned against the tub, her sobs covered by the sound of the foaming water.

  Chapter 6

  Mrs. Murphy found herself thinking increasingly about her boss. He was always difficult around the holidays, but this year something else was going on with him. She didn’t know if she should be concerned or not. As she went to the files, she passed his office and noticed that once again, he was staring out the window, lost in thought. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was 12:15. She knocked lightly on the door.

  “Excuse me, sir, but aren’t you supposed to be at the lunch meeting with Carson’s?”

  Drooms snapped out of his reverie and looked at the clock. “If they call, tell them I left.” He grabbed his coat and hat and dashed out the door, thinking that it was the first time he had ever been late for an important meeting.

  His mind was wandering lately, thinking of all sorts of things. Remembering, imagining, wondering. Not at all focused as it usually was. As he wove his way through the crowded streets, he had to admit that he would never have been late if Mason were still involved with the account. He realized how much he had come to depend on him, and enjoyed his company – ever sanguine, offering alternate points of views, possibilities. Mason’s way of thinking was quite different from his own. He couldn’t blame Henderson for trying to take him away, though it galled him every time he thought of it. But he had decided against speaking to him about it. If Mason wanted to leave him, so be it.

  As Lillian and Izzy left work, Mr. Rockwell was coming in from an outside meeting. He held the door open for them. “Hello, Mrs. Hapsey, Miss Briggs.” He faced Lillian with an expression of concern. “Is your son feeling better?”