by Ann B. Ross
Then my spirits fell as I thought of something. “Sam!” I almost wailed. “I forgot to get an electric train. You know, a Lionel, if they still make them. Little Lloyd would be thrilled to see one running on the tracks under the tree. Would anything be open this time of night?”
“Julia, it’s after midnight, so nothing but a few gas stations and convenience stores. Why don’t you save that for his birthday?”
“Oh, good idea,” I said, feeling a great relief that my lapse could be rectified. “When is his birthday?”
“Sometime in February, I think. I expect he’ll let you know in plenty of time to get a train.”
I nodded, then began to feel the consequences of a day on my feet, as well as the satisfaction of having spent the time well.
“What a day,” I said, as Sam and I took a seat across from each other in the Victorian chairs beside the fire. “I’ve never shopped so much or spent so much in my entire life. But I must say, it’s been a pleasant experience.”
I poured two cups of Lillian’s eggnog from the silver pitcher and handed one to Sam. “Unspiked, Sam. I hope you can stand it.”
“I think I can manage,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling in the light of the fire. “Especially in such good company.”
My face felt warm as I tried to think of some innocuous reply. Thank goodness, I didn’t have to, for we both lifted our heads as the sound of Deputy Bates’s patrol car pulling in took our attention. We soon heard him come in the kitchen and begin tiptoeing through the house toward the living room.
“Well, hey,” he whispered, as he came in with a great deal of squeaking leather from his deputy sheriff’s paraphernalia around his waist. “I didn’t expect anybody to be up. My lord, looks like ole Saint Nick’s already been here. Is there room for mine?”
He lifted a white board with a basketball net attached to it, while Sam hurried to clear a space for it.
“Would you like some eggnog, Coleman?” I asked.
“No’m, thank you, but if you don’t mind I’ll make like Santa and have the milk and cookies some little elf has left out.”
“Oh, good. I was about to offer it to Sam, because I certainly couldn’t eat it. Sam, there’re more cookies if you’d like some.”
“I’m perfectly content, Julia, with what I have, and what I hope to get one of these days.” He smiled at me, as Deputy Bates looked from one to the other of us, a knowing grin creeping across his face.
“I better get to bed,” Deputy Bates said. “Binkie said she’d be over at the crack of dawn. She can’t wait for Lloyd to see what all he got.” He started out of the room, then poked his head around the dining room door. “Don’t stay up too late, now.”
Chapter 30
What can I tell you about that Christmas morning? Little Lloyd came running down the stairs, calling for his mother and me. “Hurry, hurry,” he called. “I know he came. I heard reindeer feet on the roof last night. Hurry, Miss Julia. Mama, hurry up.”
I followed him down the stairs, somewhat more slowly due to the meager amount of sleep I’d had. Hazel Marie appeared in her robe from the downstairs hall, and we both came up against the child, who was standing stock still in the door to the living room.
“Mama?” he said in a quavery voice. “Mama, did Santa Claus get mixed up?”
“Oh, my goodness,” she said, holding her hand against her mouth as she got her first glimpse of the array around the Christmas tree.
The child stood there, trembling all over. I could see that wispy hair quivering with the fine tremors of his body. He seemed unable to move, so I patted his shoulder and urged him on.
“It’s all for you,” I said. “Santa told me that it was high time for you to have a good Christmas.”
And then he flew to the tree, excitement jumping in his voice as he said, “Look, Mama. Look at this. I didn’t know I was going to get this.” The first thing he went to was the bicycle, which gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure.
It wasn’t long before Deputy Bates came downstairs, looking half asleep. Then Binkie came in with her usual high spirits, wishing us a merry Christmas, then getting down on the floor with Little Lloyd to look through his presents.
Sam joined us then, his arms filled with packages, and his presence made the day even brighter. I was so glad I’d gotten him that clear blue cashmere sweater to match his eyes. I intended to watch his reaction closely when he opened it, like a test, you know.
He passed with flying colors, but it would be inappropriate to repeat what he whispered to me when he put it on. He wore it the rest of the day, and every day afterward until it had to go to the cleaner’s.
Hazel Marie lost her breath when she opened the jewelry boxes I had gotten for her. I’ve never seen anyone so thrilled with anything in my life as when she put on the pearls.
“Oh, they’re so pretty,” she gasped, fingering them at her throat. “I just love beads.”
I rolled my eyes just the least little bit, determining to set her straight on the difference between beads and South Sea pearls.
But, just as I’d thought, it was the charm bracelet that really capped her Christmas. She put it on, then ran at me with open arms. “Oh, Miss Julia, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve always wanted one. I just love it.”
She hugged me tight, as I thought I’d be more careful in my purchases from then on if they elicited such exuberance. For the rest of the day, the bracelet jangled and clanked on her arm. I think she made some extra moves just to hear it.
Binkie loved the dangly earrings I got for her, as well as the gold bangle bracelet. She hadn’t expected to be so well rewarded for the help she’d given me, but I believe in being generous. I never did learn what Deputy Bates had given her, for they had exchanged gifts the night before in the privacy of her apartment. She seemed mightily pleased with whatever it was, though. In the same manner, I am reserving the right to keep to myself what Sam gave me. It’s nobody’s business if it was something no lady should accept from a gentleman friend. Let us say that in general I received an abundance of completely useless and impractical gifts, and I treasured each one of them.
Lillian was almost as excited as Little Lloyd when she arrived and saw the proliferation of gifts under the tree. Before long she was crawling around under the tree, helping the boy examine first one thing and another. She turned to look up at me, nodding to indicate her satisfaction with my efforts.
But I wasn’t through. “Lillian,” I said, “that box over in the corner is for you.”
Her eyes lit up, as she and the boy ripped the paper off a television set. “Oh, sweet Jesus,” she cried. “It’s a teevee, an’ one of them big ’uns, too. Where we gonna put this in the kitchen, Miss Julia?”
“It’s not for the kitchen. It’s for your home, Lillian.”
Tears shone in her eyes, but she quickly wiped her face and said, “I better get these folk their breakfast.”
She soon came back with a tray of coffee and sweet rolls, while Sam and Deputy Bates began picking up the empty boxes and the mile-high pile of discarded wrapping paper.
The rest of the day consisted of consuming more food than anyone has a right to eat, although we managed, and sitting around the fire, talking together and listening to the exclamations of Little Lloyd as he discovered the ins and outs of each gift he’d received. Deputy Bates and Sam wanted to put up the basketball hoop, but a cold rain had started, so they had to defer their plans. It was just as well, for one of them might’ve fallen off the ladder, and wouldn’t that have put a cap on the day?
When our guests left after a light supper of leftovers, I climbed the stairs so tired out I could hardly manage them, yet so full of the Christmas spirit that I was sorry the day was over. We were such a disparate group, it was a wonder that we’d enjoyed each other so much. But I decided not to question it. It was enough to know that I had brought pleasure to each one of them, not the least being that child.
I collapsed in my easy chair, too s
pent to ready myself for bed. I didn’t even turn on a lamp, content to sit in the dark and experience the fullness of my heart.
There came a tap on my door, and a muffled voice asked, “Miss Julia? May I come in?”
“Yes, come on in.”
Little Lloyd opened the door and slid silently over to my chair. “I want to tell you a secret,” he whispered. I had to strain to hear him.
“What is it?” I whispered back.
He leaned close, so that I could feel his soft breath against my face. “I know there’s not a real Santa Claus.”
“How do you know that?”
“ ’Cause he never brought me a lot of toys till we came to live with you.”
“Who do you think brought them, then?”
He ducked his head and looked up at me over the top of his glasses. A smile started at the corners of his mouth and spread across his face. I smiled right back at him, and, at that moment, something was signed and sealed between us.
As he leaned on the arm of my chair, smiling at me, I thought to myself that Wesley Lloyd should be pitied for his cold and stingy ways. He had never known what it was to truly enrich a child’s life. Money’s not everything, you know.
The child bent over and whispered, “Don’t tell Mama, okay? She thinks he’s real.”
“We won’t tell her, then. It’ll be just between the two of us. Now, you better get to bed. Maybe it’ll clear up tomorrow and you can ride your bicycle. But not in the street, just in the driveway. And you have to wear your helmet every minute you’re on the thing.”
“Yessum, I will. Night-night, Miss Julia.”
“Sweet dreams, Little Lloyd. Sleep well.”
He slipped through the door, then turned again to me as the hall light backlit his slender figure. “This has been the best day of my whole life.”
“Mine, too,” I said, and leaned my head back as he closed the door and the room was engulfed in darkness again.
I smiled to myself, more at peace than I’d been since Wesley Lloyd’s unexpected departure and the equally unexpected arrival of the two who’d turned my life upside down. This day had proven to me that all things work together for good to those who give of themselves and their assets.
With a sigh of complete satisfaction, I considered all that I had accomplished, simply with a little unrestrained outlay of funds that Binkie had assured me I would never miss. Making a child and his mother, as well as a few others, happy is what the season is all about, isn’t it?
Besides, Christmas had always been my favorite time of the year, even if I hadn’t known it until this one rolled around. And, if I had anything to do with it, this was just the first of what that little boy had called the best day of his whole life.
Chapter 31
I came awake with a start when the last log broke into embers, and light flared in the room. I don’t know how long I’d sat there, but it was now up into the wee hours of the morning, long enough to put a crick in my neck from leaning against the chair wing.
It was past time to be in bed, and I wondered why Sam hadn’t missed me and come looking to see where I was. Well, some people can put aside worries and sleep like babies, but it doesn’t work that way with me. Carefully placing the screen in front of the fire, I tiptoed back into the bedroom and eased into bed so as not to disturb his rest.
My feet were like blocks of ice. I edged them up close to Sam’s without touching them, not wanting to shock him so bad he’d rise up out of bed. Then, inch by inch, I moved my feet closer to his warm ones, gradually inuring him to the drastic change in temperature. He moaned and moved his feet, giving up his warm place—a pure pleasure for me.
By morning, I was feeling the effects of sitting up half the night, but of course one does not stay in bed half the day to make up for it. So, by the time Sam and Little Lloyd were off to office and school, I was dragging, my mind still so full of what ifs and should Is and shouldn’t Is that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
Easy enough to have told Sam in the dead of night when I was at my lowest point that I would stop worrying and let him take care of the mess. I expect that is exactly what Pastor Ledbetter and his ilk would counsel me to do. More than once, the pastor had told us that marriage creates one person out of two. That sounded mystical and romantic, if your mind is so inclined, and if you don’t care that the newly created person retains the mind, will, and abilities of only the husband.
But how many wives actually give up themselves to their husbands? Not many that I knew. Take LuAnne Conover, who couldn’t do anything but complain about Leonard. I’d never heard her say a kind word about him, and she did all the thinking—and the talking—for both of them. And Mildred Allen kept Horace on a tight rein, deciding when he could spend her money and when he couldn’t. Then there was Helen Stroud, who seemed to have a happy marriage, but she’d been known to put her foot down and have her way.
And look at Emma Sue Ledbetter, who, more than anyone I knew, submitted herself to her husband. That woman had never had a thought or opinion of her own in her life. She just replayed, sometimes in a garbled form, whatever the pastor thought or opined. And what was the result? Why, I was convinced that the effort it took to restrain herself showed up in the tears that constantly threatened and frequently leaked out of her eyes.
As much as I admired and cared for Sam Murdoch, I had a mind of my own that didn’t need somebody else doing its thinking for it. So, stop worrying and leave everything to him? Not on your life.
In fact, I was thoroughly vexed with myself for even considering such an unnatural turn of events. He’d known what he was getting when he married me, and it certainly wasn’t an Emma Sue Ledbetter.
So I immediately took up where I’d left off and started worrying again. And in the midst of it, it came to me that there was one way to either put my mind at rest or else open a real can of worms—I could just ask Hazel Marie. Except how do you pose a question to someone about who they’d been on intimate terms with? It wouldn’t do to simply ask if she’d known Deacon Lonnie, because she might have—in a perfectly normal and innocent way. So an affirmative answer wouldn’t tell me anything. Besides, she’d want to know why I was asking, and what would I say then?
I could be blatant about it, and ask if she’d ever been on a date with him. But a yes answer to that wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know. Even in this day and age, going out could mean nothing more than seeing a picture show together.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to figure out how to approach her. There was just no way in the world I could flat-out ask Hazel Marie about having Biblical knowledge of any man at all, even though Little Lloyd was living proof that she’d had some with somebody.
I made my way to the kitchen, relieved to find it empty. I could hear Lillian walking around upstairs, and the sound of her and Hazel Marie in some lighthearted conversation. Pouring a cup of coffee, I sat at the table, pondering my next move.
And the longer I sat there, the more determined I became that the next move had to be mine. Sam was counseling patience, saying that we needed to draw Vernon Puckett out and see what he could prove.
Well, I’d seen his proof, and it was making me sick to my stomach.
The ring of the phone disturbed my planning session, and I hurried to answer it.
“Julia,” Emma Sue Ledbetter said, the tone of her voice telling me that she was upset about something, “tell me it’s not true.”
Lord, my heart sank to my feet, fearing that Brother Vern had already started spreading the word.
“Tell you what isn’t true?”
“What I heard about . . .” Emma Sue stopped and blew her nose not too far from the receiver. “Excuse me, I had to blow my nose.”
“I know.”
“Julia, I can’t believe that you allowed that immoral party to be held at your house.” She sniffed wetly, forecasting another blow headed my way.
“Oh, that,” I said, a sense of relief sweeping over me. I drew up a c
hair and prepared for a long discussion of Tina’s passion party. “Emma Sue, that was ages ago.”
“It was last week!”
“Well, but time is relative, and it seems like a long time ago. But I agree with you, Emma Sue, if I’d known what it was going to be, I’d never have had any part in it.”
“But you had it at your house, and what kind of testimony is that to all those young women who look up to you?”
“Oh, I doubt they give two thoughts to anything I do.”
“Well, they certainly do!” Emma Sue was steaming up, and I cringed at what was coming. “Julia, I am going to give you my best advice, based purely upon Biblical principles and my concern for you. You need to tell Larry that you can’t run for the session, and tell him why. That way, you will be a witness to all those young women who might think twice before leading their husbands into such depravity again.”
“I think it’s too late for that, Emma Sue. They’ve already placed their orders. Now listen, I got roped into that party, and I left as soon as I saw what it was about. So I’m not the one you should be talking to. In fact, it might not be a bad idea for you to discuss this with Tina and her preacher’s wife. Tina might listen to her. And, if I were you, I’d do it right away, because Tina’s in a full selling mode, and she’s having parties all over the place.”
Emma Sue didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then in a quieter voice, she said, “That’s a good idea. If all the pastoral wives get together on this, we can put a stop to it. Thank you, Julia, for pointing me in the right direction.”
“I’m happy to do it. But, Emma Sue, a word of caution. You should be careful and not get the pastors involved. I know they’re men of God, but they’re men, too, and, I’m telling you, some of the things that Tina’s selling are enough to turn the head of any one of them. And, like you say, we don’t want them to get corrupted or anything.”