The Christmas Clock and A Song For My Mother: A Kat Martin Duo

by Kat Martin

  Winnie had simply said, “Yes. Oh, yes, please do come home.”

  The memory of her mother’s voice on the phone made her chest feel tight. Older, but still as familiar as it had been when Marly was sixteen.

  Her father was dead now. Over the years, she had kept in touch with a few of her friends and one of them, a girl from Dreyerville High, had written to tell her that Virgil Maddox had passed away. Marly didn’t send a sympathy card.

  The inside of the Ford was beginning to feel airless and warm. Reaching over, she gently shook Katie’s shoulder and the little girl came slowly awake, blinking her big blue eyes as she straightened in her seat.

  “Are we there yet?”

  Marly smiled at the phrase she had heard a dozen times along the road. “Yes, sweetie, we are.”

  Katie stretched and yawned, reached for the soft pink knit cap she had been wearing and pulled it on over her shiny bald head. The doctors had promised the hair would grow back and though Katie had suffered the indignity of her baldness fairly well, she was still self-conscious. And she had always been shy.

  “So are you ready?” Marly asked.

  Katie nodded but her small hand shook as she reached for the door handle. She was a pretty little girl, tall like her mother, blond when she’d had hair, with the same blue eyes as Marly’s, the same heart-shaped face. Their features were similar, except that at twenty-eight, Marly bore tiny creases from the corners of her eyes and she was beginning to see a line or two across her forehead.

  She took a courage-building breath, opened the door, and stepped out on her side of the car. Rounding the vehicle to Katie’s side, she helped her daughter climb out. They linked arms as they started up the sidewalk that cut across the lawn, which was a little too long and in need of mowing but now brilliantly green after the end of the cold Michigan winter.

  The front door opened before they reached it and a gray-haired woman Marly almost didn’t recognize stepped out onto the porch.

  Her mother’s lips trembled. “Marly? Oh, dear God, it’s really you.”

  For an instant, Marly stood frozen. Time seemed to spin backward. For an instant, her mother was no longer wrinkled and gray and a little overweight. She was young and lovely with a stunning figure and laughter in her eyes. Drawn by the spell, when her mother reached out, Marly went into her arms and simply hung on.

  For long moments, neither of them moved. It felt so good to be there, so good to be surrounded again by her mother’s love. Both of them were trembling. The thick lump in Marly’s throat made it difficult to swallow.

  Another moment lapsed before the ugliness of the past began to intrude. Old memories rose up, bitter and dark. Memories that had her pulling away. Her mother wiped tears from her cheeks with the tips of her fingers and managed to smile.

  Marly worked to find her voice. “Mother, this is Katie, your granddaughter. Katie, this is your Grandmother Maddox.”

  Katie smiled shyly. Marly could read the joy in her little girl’s face. “Hello . . . Grandma.”

  More tears filled Winnie’s eyes. “Hello, dear heart. I am so happy to meet you.”

  Katie reached up and self-consciously straightened her cap. “I usually look better. I lost all my hair but the doctors say it’s going to grow back.”

  Winnie enveloped her in the same warm hug she had given to Marly. “You look beautiful, sweetheart, just the way you are.” She managed a watery smile. “You’re as pretty as your mother.”

  Unconsciously, Marly stepped backward. They had been so close once. But things had happened. Things she couldn’t forgive.

  “Let’s get your clothes out of the car,” Winnie said to her. “I’ve got your old room ready. There’s a set of twin beds in there, remember? I hope that’ll be all right.”

  Her stomach tightened. Staying in her old room was one of the things she dreaded. There were memories locked up in there. Memories too painful to recall.

  She turned toward the street, saw her mother and Katie hauling suitcases out of the trunk of the car, and hurried to join them. Her mother and Katie rolled the overnight bags toward the house while Marly carried the hanging bag the two of them were sharing.

  “It’s right this way,” Winnie said to Katie as they stepped into the living room.

  The room looked the same and yet different. The old brown sofa and chair had been covered with a blue floral throw. Plump, light-blue pillows brightened the sofa and a blue-and-brown fringed paisley rug had been placed beneath the maple coffee table. The brass lamps were the same but the shade that had been broken during one of her father’s rages had been replaced.

  She glanced toward the kitchen, saw freshly ironed, light-blue ruffled curtains at the windows. The blinds her father had mostly kept closed were gone, the windows now letting in the late April sunlight. The old Formica-topped chrome kitchen table remained but there was a merry little blue-and-white silk flower arrangement in the middle.

  “It looks good, Mother . . . what you’ve done. It looks very nice.”

  Her mother beamed. She was still pretty, Marly saw, just older and grayer and wearier.

  “I gave it a lot of thought,” Winnie said. “After your father died, I wanted something cheerful.”

  Silence fell. The invisible monster in the room had just reared its ugly head. A big, heavyset, beefy man, Virgil Maddox had dominated every inch of the house. There was no place to hide, no way to escape.

  In the silence, his presence slowly faded.

  “Well, you did a good job, Mother.” Not Mom as she used to call her. Somehow the word was too friendly, too intimate for the relationship they now shared.

  Her mother glanced away. Perhaps Winnie had caught the flash of remembered pain in Marly’s eyes, a reminder of the betrayal that stood between them.

  “Come on, Katie.” Winnie reached down and took hold of the little girl’s hand. “I’ll show you where you and your mother will be sleeping.”

  Katie grabbed the handle of her rolling bag and fell in behind the older woman. As Marly watched them walk away, she noticed a similarity in the way the two of them moved.

  Except for the faint limp that her mother carried that would never go away.

  Her father had been in one of his tempers that day and her mother had displeased him. She had broken the yolk on one of his eggs, Marly recalled. The fight that resulted had left Winnie with a broken leg and Marly with a broken heart.

  She steeled herself, shook the memory away.

  When she stood in the hallway and looked into the bedroom, her mother was showing Katie some of the trophies Marly had won when she had been on the Dreyerville High School tennis team. Her father had said tennis was for rich kids but for once, she had managed to change his mind. She had a knack for the game, she had discovered, and in her sophomore year had won the girls’ singles competition.

  Unfortunately, by the time she was a junior, things had deteriorated so badly at home that she had dropped off the team and, later that year, dropped out of school.

  Marly paused just inside the doorway, unable to take the final steps that would carry her into the bedroom. Inside, nothing had changed. The twin beds were still covered with the same pink quilted bedspreads and matching ruffled throw pillows that had been there when she had lived at home. The nightstands and dresser that she and her mother had painted white, very stylish at the time, were still there, along with the white-painted headboards.

  She watched her mother proudly show Katie the framed high school report cards Marly had received, a string of straight As. Her honor roll certificates hung beside them and her old grammar school science project sat on the dresser: a Styrofoam sun painted yellow surrounded by circles showing the orbit of each perfectly proportioned planet that rotated around it. She had gotten an A on that, too.

  Her tennis racquet was missing from its usual spot, she noticed, then remembered that her father had smashed it against the wall in a fit of temper.

  As Marly surveyed the interior of the room, a
wave of nausea hit her. So much had happened, so many terrible nights spent there, lying in bed listening, waiting for her father to come home. Trying to block out the shouting and crying once he had.

  Waiting for another awful night to end.

  2

  In the early-morning hours after Marly and Katie’s arrival, it rained, just a light sprinkling that cleared the air, a perfect little storm that left the day sunny and clear.

  Winnie Maddox sat at the kitchen table that afternoon, staring out at the garden and thinking it was time to plant. It was strange having Marly home again after so many years. It was strange and wonderful to have her darling granddaughter there in the house.

  Oh, the little girl was precious. She reminded Winnie so much of Marly it made her heart hurt. They were both tall and slender, with those pretty blue eyes that had come from Marly’s father. Not Marly’s no-good husband, Burly, who’d had blue eyes, too. His were pale and he wasn’t handsome the way Virgil had been. With a father as good-looking as Virgil, of course, Marly and Katie would be beautiful girls.

  They were smart like Virgil, too. She had only known Katie a short time but it was clear the child was intelligent. And Marly had been an honor student.

  Winnie’s hand shook as she lifted her coffee cup and took a sip. Because of Virgil, Marly had dropped out of school. She couldn’t stand to see her parents fighting or watch the physical assaults Winnie had been forced to suffer.

  Still, Marly had made it, done far better than just survived. She had gotten her GED and put herself through college. Winnie had kept up with the events of her daughter’s life as best she could through Peggy Ellis, one of Marly’s friends from high school. Winnie had never doubted that her daughter would succeed. She was strong and spirited and determined. Marly didn’t need anyone but herself.

  It was Virgil who had needed Winnie. And because she knew his secrets, she could not leave him.

  Marly pulled open the front door just then and walked into the living room carrying two brown paper sacks.

  “I went down to King’s Super and bought us some groceries. A few things Katie especially likes. Cheerios and chocolate milk, some Ruffles potato chips. I figured we’d use them up while we were here.”

  “I’m making stew for supper,” Winnie said brightly. “It was always one of your favorites. I’m planning on baking biscuits, too.”

  Marly paused in the middle of emptying the second bag. She glanced at the stove, noticed the rich aroma of simmering meat and vegetables that permeated the air and managed a smile that looked far from sincere.

  “It smells wonderful. I'm sure Katie will love it.”

  Winnie frowned. “What about you?”

  “I need to spend some time at the library. I’ve got a full-time teaching job that starts in September. Chrysler Elementary is one of the top-rated public schools in the Detroit area. I want to bone up on a couple of subjects I’ll be teaching in the fall.”

  “I see.” And unfortunately, Winnie saw perfectly. “What you’re saying is that you’re giving Katie what she wants—a chance to get to know her grandmother. But you don’t want to spend time with me yourself.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

  A muscle tightened in Marly’s cheek. “I left twelve years ago, Mother. I never planned to come back. You know the reason I went away. You stayed with a man who beat you rather than divorce him so that we could have some kind of normal life. I was your daughter. Dad ruined my life because you chose his side over mine. It wasn’t right then and just because the years have passed doesn’t make it right now.”

  “I tried to explain. You didn’t want to listen to—”

  “I know why you stayed. You were in love with him. You let him ruin your life and mine because you couldn’t control your sick feelings for him.”

  Winnie swallowed and looked away. Marly was right, at least in part. In the beginning, she had loved Virgil Maddox with every ounce of her soul but there was far more to the story than that. Unfortunately, even after all these years, she didn’t think her daughter was ready to hear it.

  “I’ll get something at the drive-through,” Marly said. “Tell Katie not to wait up for me.”

  And then she was gone.

  Winnie sank back down in her chair, her gaze fixed on the place her daughter had been. Her heart was aching, hurting the way it had during the weeks after Marly had left. The note Winnie had found on the bed hadn’t made it any easier.

  I’m gone, Mom. I’m marrying Burly, so you don't have to worry. It was signed simply, Marly.

  The ache expanded. Marrying a no-account like Burly Hanson was the last thing she had wanted for her beautiful, intelligent daughter.

  Winnie had made a mistake. She should have known something would happen, should have done something before it was too late. But twelve years was a long time and everything was different now. Virgil was dead and Burly was gone and there was little Katie to consider.

  Winnie sat there thinking of Katie and how much the little girl already meant to her. She wanted to see her granddaughter again, wanted to spend time with both of her girls. What could she say that could mend the rift between her and Marly? How could she make her daughter understand?

  How could she possibly gain Marly’s forgiveness for the things she should have done?

  Katie wandered around the backyard of her grandmothers’ old gray house. In Detroit, they lived in a four-unit apartment building. It wasn’t fancy but it was okay. The city was fun in some ways. She could skateboard on the sidewalk and there were ice cream stores and movie theaters right around the block. But car horns blared all the time and people yelled at each other. And they didn’t have a nice big yard like this. Some of her grandma’s spring flowers were already up and blooming. The weather wasn’t as cold as it had been and warm sunshine pushed through the few fluffy clouds in the sky. An old wooden fence surrounded the yard, in the center of which grew a big hickory tree, its branches flaring out over the long, green grass.

  Katie walked over and peered between the boards in the fence, into the yard of the house next door. It seemed about as old as Grandma’s, only it was two stories high and looked a lot better. A fresh coat of slate-blue paint covered the wooden siding and the white shutters looked newly painted. The yard was well kept and all the shrubs neatly trimmed.

  A pair of ice skates hung from one of the posts that held up the porch and a red Flexible Flyer sled sat next to a skateboard against the wall.

  Katie moved a little, peered through another crack to view the house from a different angle, wondering who lived there and making up imaginary people. A kindly old man and his grandson, a couple with a newborn baby, a handsome man who needed a wife and wanted to be a father.

  She laughed at this last thought, kind of a silly secret wish, then shrieked and jumped back as a big, black and tan, scruffy-looking dog with stiff, curly hair barked and lunged at the fence. She stood there shaking, angry at herself for not realizing the dog was in the yard, yet curious to get a better look at him.

  She got a closer look than she planned when the dog jumped over a low spot in the fence at the back of the yard and ran toward her. She might have been frightened if it weren’t for the sappy look on the mutt’s homely face.

  He stopped right in front of her and cocked his silly looking head.

  Katie laughed. “Hey, boy, what’s your name?”

  Clearly, he wasn’t a biter, for he nudged her hand, trying to get her to pet him. And he wasn’t as big as she’d thought, just a medium-sized dog with those little ears that stuck up and flopped over at the top, a terrier of some kind, she figured, since her friend, Cindy, had a dog that looked a little like it.

  “You won’t bite me, will you?” Tentatively she reached toward him.

  “He won’t bite,” came a boy’s voice from a few feet away. He was hanging over the fence, wearing a dirt-smudged navy blue sweatshirt and jeans. “His name’s Rufus.” He wa
s a good looking boy, maybe a year or two older than she was, with dark brown hair and brown eyes.

  Unconsciously, she reached up to her pink knit cap, saw his gaze follow the movement and jerked her hand away in embarrassment.

  “I had cancer,” she said because she knew he wouldn’t ask, just stare at her and wonder what had happened to make her bald. “My hair fell out but it’s supposed to grow back.”

  “Wow. Cancer. So are you okay?”

  She shrugged. “I hope so. The doctors think I’ll get well.”

  “That’s good.” He hopped over the fence with an ease that said he was good at sports. But she could have figured that from the stuff on his porch.

  “Was it terrible?” he asked. “The treatment, I mean. I heard it makes you really sick.”

  She didn’t like to think of the bouts of nausea, and throwing up everything she’d eaten, or the way her hair had come out in frightening handfuls. “It was awful.”

  “But it’s over, right?”

  She just nodded. He was even better looking up close, the kind of boy who used to pay attention to her but hadn’t since she got sick. “I missed a lot of school. My mom’s a teacher. She’s going to help me get caught up.”

  “My name’s Hamilton. Everyone calls me Ham.”

  “Ham. That’s cool. I’m Katie. My mom brought me here to meet my grandmother. Probably in case I end up dying.”

  “You’re gonna get well,” Ham said firmly. “I can tell by looking at you. You look really healthy.”

  She brightened. “Thanks.”

  “Mrs. Maddox is super nice. Whenever she bakes cookies, she brings some over for my dad and me.”

  “What about your mom?”

  He shrugged. “She died four years ago. It’s just me and my dad now.”

  “You must miss her.”

  He glanced away. “Yeah.”

  Katie reached down and picked up a dry hickory branch, twirled it in her hand. “My dad ran off when I was a baby. I don’t even know what he looks like.”