Silver Bells

by Luanne Rice

  “Not till I know,” Bridget said. Again Murphy licked her chin. Mrs. Quinn stared at her for a few long seconds. They ticked by, and Bridget wished she would go back into her quarters. Not because Bridget didn’t like her, but because the door to her room was open and Bridget could hear the TV talking about Danny.

  Finally, Mrs. Quinn patted her gently on the head and returned to her rooms, pulling the door shut behind her. Bridget tried to pick up her knitting again. The needles felt solid in her fingers. She liked the idea of making something, having it grow with every stitch. In a way, it was like farming trees. Start with a seed, or one stitch, and watch it get bigger.

  Bridget stared at her knitting. If Danny was still alive, the scarf would be for him. She’d give him everything she had. If only her father hadn’t fought him so hard last year. If only he could have talked to Danny, reasoned things out with him. Maybe none of this would be happening!

  She knew that December was flying by. Next week was Christmas, and she and her father would be returning to Nova Scotia, to their farm way at the very north of Cape Breton. So far from New York City … so far from Danny.

  The snow began falling harder. It obliterated the streetlights and looked like an orange blur, almost like a blizzard, just as it had the other night, when her father had gone chasing after Danny. He thought Bridget hadn’t seen, but she had heard him bellow her brother’s name: Danny!

  And peering out the window, she had seen her brother jump on the M11 bus and pull away, with their father picking up the dropped hat, then running down the middle of the street behind the bus. She shook her head now, starting to knit. Until they told her Danny was dead, she wouldn’t believe it. Even then, she might not believe it. All she could do was sit here and knit her brother a scarf.

  Her needles clicked, and so did the snow against the windows. The clicking seemed to get louder, ice crystals in the flakes. Or …

  Something really loud clunked against the alley window. Murphy jumped up on the armchair to see out, barking. Bridget flew off the sofa, scattering her needles and yarn.

  “What was that?” Mrs. Quinn called.

  “Danny,” Bridget whispered, her heart exploding as she stared out the window into the dark alley below.

  Danny stood between the buildings, looking up at the bright windows above. He saw his sister’s face, the most welcome sight in the world. She motioned that she’d be right down. He felt weak and pale, as if he wasn’t quite right in his body. He was hovering inches above the ground. He felt like a sleepwalker. When he blinked, he saw stars.

  He leaned against one of the buildings, feeling the cold of the brick penetrate his thick down jacket. He had taped up last year’s tear, from where his father had grabbed his sleeve. And now he’d have to do the same again. Somewhere in the tumble he’d taken, he’d snagged his side, and half the feathers had gone flying. The snow pile had broken his fall, but he’d cut his wrist—and his head, too.

  A door slammed, and he heard small footsteps running toward him. It was Bridget. She came down the alley with the compact force of a pilot whale, jumping into his arms and pinning him against the building.

  “Danny, oh Danny,” she cried.

  “Whoa, Bridey,” he said.

  “I thought, we all thought … ,” she sobbed.

  Danny held her, trying to steady himself. He had to think. Those cops at the castle had really wanted to catch him. He knew that he was in trouble for some really serious things, nearly all of which he’d done. He had wrongfully inhabited Belvedere Castle, breaking lots of Central Park rules and city laws. Penelope’s father hated him now, for abusing their trust. He just really hoped Penelope wouldn’t get blamed for what he’d done. And then there was the money they were saying he stole.

  “Where’s Pa?” he asked his sister.

  “He’s at the park!”

  Danny shook his head, trying to clear it. What was she talking about?

  “What’s he doing there?” he asked.

  Bridey pushed back, giving him a look of incredulity. “He’s looking for you. He’s waiting for them to find your body.”

  “My what?” Danny asked. Shocked, he had to lean against the wall again.

  “They think you’re dead,” she said. “People saw you jump from the top of that castle.”

  “I didn’t jump.”

  “I know that. Pa does, too. We thought you fell.”

  “I did,” Danny said. “And I landed right in this big, soft snowbank. I couldn’t even believe it myself. I felt the impact and thought that was it. But I climbed out …”

  “Your head …” Bridey said, reaching up. Her fingers touched the cut, and Danny flinched.

  “I’m really in trouble,” he said, talking fast and feeling dizzy with his sister’s news. “They think I stole Pa’s tree money. Did you see the newspapers? You must have.”

  “I’m so sorry about that,” she whispered.

  “Why? You know I didn’t do it, don’t you, Bridey? And Pa knows, right? Tell me he knows.”

  “I think he thinks …” Bridget said, trailing off.

  “Tell me he knows me better than that,” Danny said. “Oh Bridey, he doesn’t think I’d steal from him, does he? I’d never do that!”

  “He thinks your life on the street was so terrible, that you needed the money to take care of yourself,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’d give it to you anyway, we both would. We love you so much, Danny.”

  His head had really started to bleed again, trickling into his eyes. He pressed the sleeve of his jacket to the wound. It felt warm and sticky. Danny knew that cuts to the head always bled the most.

  He remembered seeing his pa get hit with a falling branch once, during a surprise storm. They’d had no advance warning—it had been sunny and calm one minute, then dark and windy the next. His father had been pruning trees when the windstorm struck with brutal force. If only they’d had some preparation, maybe his father wouldn’t have been up the tree. Danny was six years old, and he’d cried really hard because of all the blood coming from his father’s head. He had thought his father was going to die.

  And that memory was like a burst of cold water.

  “Pa thinks I’m dead?” he asked.

  “We all did.”

  “I’ve got to go find him,” Danny said, remembering that terror he’d felt so many years ago, thinking he was going to see his father die of that head wound. “Let him know it’s not true.”

  Grabbing for his sister’s hand, he realized she was holding a pillowcase full of things. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “I brought you cookies and an apple and some of Pa’s dry socks, things you need,” she said, her eyes glittering in the streetlight.

  Danny put his arm around her. He couldn’t think or take it all in. His head was spinning, and his wrist and head hurt. His whole left side felt bruised. His sister was crying, and Danny knew that he had done it to her.

  “Let’s go,” Danny said.

  “Where?”

  “To find Pa,” he said.

  A shadow fell across the streetlight, and they heard footsteps in the alley. Danny shaded his head to see who was coming. He flinched, thinking maybe it was the police. But it wasn’t. No one said a word. Danny just saw his face, shadowed by the snowy light, and he felt his father’s huge embrace.

  His father just stood there and rocked him in the snow.

  When Christy could register the reality of it, the fact that his son was alive, he took his arms away and stood back to make sure it was really true. There Danny stood. It was really him. Christy glanced over at Catherine to make sure she saw the same thing. She did—she was beaming. How had she known? How could Danny have survived that fall?

  “You’re hurt,” he said, turning back to his son, touching his head.

  “He’s bleeding a lot, Pa,” Bridget said.

  “I cut my wrist on the roof,” he said. “And I think I scraped my head on the snowbank. And tore my jacket.”

 
“I saw the feathers,” Christy said. “And the blood.”

  “And you thought I was dead in there?”

  “You’re lucky, Danny—it was so deep.”

  Overwhelmed with the miracle of it, Christy grabbed him close again. He hadn’t held his son in a year—the last time had been that terrible fight, when Danny had been trying to get away. And now here they were, standing together, practically in the same spot. Christy couldn’t believe it—his son had come back. Just yesterday he had run away from him, right across the street at the bus stop. Christy flashed on the cashbox, but he couldn’t bring himself to think of it now. He just looked across the top of Danny’s head and saw Catherine with her eyes closed, as if in gratitude for this moment.

  “We have to get you to a doctor,” Christy said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your father’s right,” Catherine said. She stepped forward and touched Danny’s cheek with such affection, Christy could see that they knew each other, and that Danny trusted her very much. Her eyes were luminous, full of mystery and reflection, reminding him of northern bays. He stood beside her, and seeing her caress his son’s face made his heart melt. “You’re hurt, Danny,” she said.

  “It’s nothing, C. I saw Pa get hurt much worse, a hundred times. He always just shakes it off. That time with the tree branch, Pa. After that cold front rolled in so fast? Remember?”

  “Let’s go to a hospital,” Christy said.

  “Pa, the weather changed so fast—you had no warning. You got hurt. I thought you might die. Remember?”

  “The weather—what does that matter? It just is. Come on, Danny, now …” Christy said, shocked by Danny’s expression—he was hanging on to Christy’s sleeve, insistent, refusing to move. Suddenly Christy’s stomach dropped. Was this what it was all about? His son’s desire to know about weather? Because this was a magical night, Christy’s mind was crackling with awareness. He wanted to know what had pulled his family apart, and what was drawing them back together. He wanted to know Danny.

  “You live by the sword every day,” Danny said, his voice cracking. “That’s what it’s like out on the hill, with the wind and the ice, and the heat and the fires. Someone has to help you, Pa. And I don’t mean just by planting and cutting.”

  “We have to help each other,” Bridget suddenly screamed.

  “Bridey,” Danny said.

  “We can’t be apart anymore!” Flinging herself toward her brother, she let go of the pillowcase that—until now—Christy hadn’t even noticed. It fell to the ground, and all the contents spilled out.

  A napkin filled with Mrs. Quinn’s cookies, a cut-up apple turning brown around the edges, a few pairs of Christy’s rolled-up socks, and the cashbox.

  “It was for Danny,” Bridget sobbed. “I couldn’t bear to think of him living alone here—all by himself in this city. Going to the soup kitchen, sleeping wherever he could. I wanted him to be safe and fed.”

  “Sweetheart,” Christy said, reaching for her in shock.

  But she pulled back. She was only twelve, but the strength in her eyes shot a bolt right through him. “I’m sorry, Pa,” she said. “I shouldn’t have taken it. But I love my brother, and I’d do anything for him. He can’t come back to the farm with us, because he has to become a weatherman. He has to stay here.”

  “We’ll figure that out—” Christy began.

  “Danny,” Catherine said, stepping toward him, putting her arms around him.

  Christy grabbed Danny, seeing that he was losing his balance. He picked his grown son right up into his arms, the way he used to when Danny was a baby. His head was reeling, the whole world was rocked, but for now all he knew was that he had to get Danny to a hospital.

  14

  We stitched his head, and he has a concussion,” the doctor said, standing in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. “And we’re concerned about the possibility of internal injuries. He’s a lucky young man to have survived that fall.”

  “What kind of internal injuries?” Christy asked.

  “We’re running tests. We’d like to keep him for observation.”

  Christy stood there stubbornly. Now that he had his boy back, he didn’t want to leave him for a minute. The police had asked their questions, reporters were lingering outside. New York City welfare agencies had sent people to investigate. They were talking about taking the kids away, filing criminal charges against Danny, maybe arresting Christy for neglect.

  Christy wanted to go into the ER cubicle where Danny lay, bundle him up, and take him back home—tonight. He had to get him away from New York, had to leave this city that had caused him and his family so much trouble. He felt like a wounded buck: shot, backed into a corner, ready to fight to the death to get free.

  “You have to let him stay,” Catherine said.

  “They’re talking about arresting him.”

  “They won’t arrest him, Christy.”

  “How do you know? How can you say? They’re after us. Can’t you see the way those cops looked at me? As if I’m the worst scum in the world? One kid ran away from me, the other has to steal to get what she needs for her brother—” He broke off. Why couldn’t Rip have been the one questioning him? Because it wasn’t his precinct, his jurisdiction. Everything in New York came with rules, regulations, boundaries foreign to Christy. His mouth was bone dry, his skin crawling. He was on high alert, feeling under attack.

  “I know,” Catherine said calmly. “All he did was sleep there, at the castle. He didn’t steal anything, hurt anybody.”

  “They’re saying—” Christy choked up. He knew the story behind the story was that last year he had hit Danny, that charges had been filed and dropped. He was so afraid that the law would paint his son with the same brush—two no-good Canadians causing trouble on the streets.

  “Christy,” Catherine said, “just concentrate on him getting care. Let him stay in the hospital.”

  “Then I’m staying with him.”

  “You should go home and get some rest,” said the doctor, who had been standing off to the side. “He has a long night of tests ahead of him.”

  “I’m staying,” Christy growled.

  “As you like,” the doctor said. “We don’t have room on the floor yet, so we’re keeping him in the ER. You’ll have to wait here, in the waiting room.”

  It was two in the morning. Catherine stood beside him; she hadn’t left him for a minute, except to call Lizzie around midnight and ask her to come and pick up Bridget. Christy had registered the ease with which Catherine could ask her friend for help, and the willingness of Lizzie and Lucy to get up in the middle of the night. He thought of his daughter screaming out “we have to help each other,” and the memory rifted his heart—a tree being pulled out by its roots. Bridget—how had he missed what she was going through? He’d never seen her like that, mad with panic, wanting to pull her family together.

  Christy looked at Catherine. Her clear gray eyes were fixed on him. As she stared back at him, he blinked and looked away. He felt so confused by the night’s events, by both of his children’s behavior, and by his own feelings about it all. Worrying about the city coming in, taking the kids from him, drove him to the brink of madness.

  As if Catherine could read his terror, she touched his arm. He felt a shiver quake through his body. He wanted to hold her right here in the bright, seething waiting room of St. Vincent’s ER. Her body against his, as it had been just nights ago, one with each other. But tonight was a nightmare he had to get through alone.

  “Thank you for everything, but go on home now,” he said. His voice shook. Could she see the tremor in his hands? As strong and stern as he sounded, inside he was the opposite. He was falling apart, right at her feet.

  “That’s okay,” she said, seeing right through him. “I’ll stay with you.”

  He tried to catch his breath.

  “But why?” he said. “I don’t understand. What do we mean to you? We’re just tree people from Canada. M
y kids—look at my kids. The questions the cops ask tell you what they think of us. Danny ran away from me, Bridget stole the money I earned. What a terrible person I must be.”

  But Catherine was looking at him as if she thought he was anything but terrible. Her lucent eyes were still and grave, clear as calm water.

  “Weren’t you listening?” she asked. “Danny wants to become a meteorologist for you. Because he knows how dangerous the weather can be on the farm. And Bridget took that money to give to Danny. You all want to help each other. You just have to figure out how.”

  “What if they take them away from me?” he whispered. “What if that’s what happens when morning comes?”

  “They won’t. We won’t let them.”

  We.

  Christy stared at her. He remembered that night in the front hall of her brick house, holding her. In that one moment, everything had slipped away—the facts and realities and the differences between them. All he’d felt was the tilt of the earth on its axis, the two of them hurtling through space together, the solidity of her body against his, the crash of their hearts together. That’s all he had felt.

  “Just tell me,” he said now. “Why do you care about us? Why are you here right now?”

  “Why did you invite me sledding with you? Why did you trust me to take Bridget to see the tree lighting?” she countered, her gray eyes glinting. “Who can explain connection? Why should we even try?”

  Christy gazed at her, hard. Something had changed since that night in her house. She had seemed too vulnerable then—pulled away from herself and the Christmas season, haunted by the specter of her husband. Right now the bruised sadness in her eyes was gone. She looked radiant, as fierce as a warrior.

  “What happened tonight?” he asked.

  “You and Danny found each other again,” she said.

  “No, something else. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She glanced from side to side. There were so many people close by. He saw her holding herself back. His stomach flipped, as if he’d fallen out of a tree.

  “If it has to do with Danny, you have to tell me.”