The Christmas Pony

by Melody Carlson

  “Oh . . .” Mama just nodded. “Well, you probably have figured out that I’m a little sad too.”

  “I feel like it’s all my fault.” Lucy started to cry now. “I did everything all wrong. I invited George and Veronica into our house. I trusted them. I thought they would pay for their rooms and they didn’t. And I made you believe George loved you and—”

  “Wait a minute, Lucy.” Mama pointed a forefinger in the air. “You did not make me believe anything. If I believed something, it’s because I chose to believe it.”

  “But I saw how he looked at you. I told you things that—”

  “I’m a grown woman, Lucy. I have eyes to see with.”

  With tears pouring down her cheeks, Lucy sat up and wrapped her arms around Mama’s neck. “I’m just so sorry, Mama. I wish I could go back and change everything back to how it used to be. If I found a genie in a lamp, I’d make a wish that George and Veronica never came to visit us. That I’d never seen them in town that day.”

  Mama stroked Lucy’s hair. “But maybe it was a good thing they came.”

  Lucy leaned back to look into Mama’s face. How could she possibly think that? George and Veronica had brought nothing but pain—and they didn’t even pay their bill.

  “Maybe it showed me something . . .” Mama sighed. “Something about myself . . . something I needed to be reminded of.”

  “What?”

  Mama made a smile—or maybe it was just half a smile, but it seemed genuine to Lucy. “Maybe it showed me that it might be possible to fall in love again, Lucy. Someday . . .”

  Lucy blinked. “Really, Mama?”

  Mama nodded. “Maybe so.”

  “But does it hurt to feel like that?”

  Mama shrugged. “Some kinds of hurts can be good for us.” She helped Lucy lean back into her pillow, tucking the covers snugly back around her chin again. “Remember that time you got a bad splinter in your thumb and how much it hurt to pull it out? But when it was done, you knew it was a good hurt because the sliver was gone and the wound would get better. So it was a healing kind of hurt. Does that make any sense?”

  Lucy nodded, although she wasn’t sure she really understood. Mostly she was just relieved to see that Mama wasn’t as sad as Lucy had imagined.

  “Don’t feel bad for my sake. And please, do not blame yourself.” Mama leaned over and kissed Lucy’s forehead again. “Because, really, I am fine.”

  “I’m fine too, Mama.”

  “Don’t forget, tomorrow is Christmas day. I’m sure we’ll all have a very good day now, won’t we?”

  “Yes.” Lucy smiled as she remembered the presents she’d made and wrapped. “Yes, we most certainly will!”

  Mama stood and pulled the string on the light. “Good night, darling.”

  “Good night, Mama.”

  Lucy closed her eyes and let out a long sigh of relief. Oh, she still felt a little bit sad and sore inside . . . kind of like her thumb had felt before it got well again. But she did feel hopeful. Mama was going to be all right. And she’d almost smiled again tonight.

  Lucy was just starting to drift off to sleep when she heard the sound of clumping and thumping and then footsteps in the house. She sat up in bed and listened hard—if Tommy Farley hadn’t ruined her childish hopes of Santa Claus visiting on Christmas Eve, she might have actually thought that he’d come to her house after all. As it was, she wanted to find out what was going on. Silently slipping out of bed, she tiptoed to the head of the stairs and, clinging to the stair rail post, she listened.

  “George?” Mama’s voice sounded shrill with surprise. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I thought I was staying here,” he told her. “But I’m terribly sorry to get in so late. I was hoping everyone would still be up . . . since it’s Christmas Eve.”

  Unable to believe her ears, Lucy ran down the stairs and into the front room, nearly crashing into Mama. “George!” Lucy exclaimed. “You came back!”

  He gave her a sheepish grin as he removed his snow-coated hat. “I hadn’t meant to be so late and to wake up the entire house. But yes, like a bad penny, I’m back.”

  “Where on earth have you been?” Mama asked. “And where is Veronica?”

  “It’s a long story.” George started to peel off his coat, taking it over to the hall tree by the door to hang it up.

  Mama frowned at Lucy. “You were in bed, young lady.”

  “But you told me I could stay up past my bedtime tonight,” Lucy reminded her.

  Mama nodded. “I suppose you deserve to hear this too.” She reached for the crocheted afghan blanket on the back of the sofa. “Wrap up in this if you plan to stay and listen.”

  Lucy draped herself in the blanket, and soon they were all seated as George explained what had happened. “Veronica decided that she had to leave here,” he began. “Unfortunately she made this decision shortly after midnight. It seemed a little crazy, but I was so relieved that she wanted to go that I finally decided to accommodate her. So I drove her to the railway station in Flagstaff.”

  “In the middle of the night?” Mama seemed a little doubtful.

  “And you took your things,” Lucy added.

  He looked confused. “My things?”

  “Your room was cleared out, George.” Mama frowned at him.

  He gave her a bewildered smile. “Did you check the closet and the drawers?”

  “Well, no . . . but all of Veronica’s things were gone . . . and your room looked vacated, and—”

  “I just like to put my things away,” he told her. “If you’d looked a bit more, you would’ve seen that everything, including my suitcase, was still here.”

  “Oh . . .” Mama’s brow creased. “So you took Veronica to the Flagstaff train station . . . and then?”

  “As you know, it was late at night. As it turned out, the next westbound train didn’t leave until six in the morning. So I gave Veronica enough money for a ticket and a room for the night, and then I dropped her off at a nearby hotel.”

  “She really was penniless?” Lucy asked.

  “That’s what she told me,” he said. “Just last night, in fact. Before that I had no idea she was broke.”

  “That’s what she said to me too,” Lucy confessed. “But she had enough to take us to the movies.”

  “Veronica Grant had no money?” Mama looked somewhat suspicious now. “Even though she dressed so finely, had so many expensive things?”

  Lucy explained about Veronica’s movie friend who’d taken all her money and dropped her off on the side of the road. “That’s when George gave her a ride.”

  “Then how did she plan to pay for her room here?” Mama asked.

  George held up his hands. “I have no idea. But don’t worry. I plan to cover that for her too.”

  “But why should you?” Mama demanded. “Furthermore, why are you buying Veronica Grant train tickets and hotel rooms and paying her room and board, George? What do you owe her?”

  “I don’t owe her a thing.” George held his hands palms upward, with a puzzled and somewhat tired look. “I suppose it was to get her out of your hair and on her way, Miriam.”

  “I heard Veronica talking last night,” Lucy told Mama. “She sounded really eager to get out of here. She’d told me lots of times before that she wanted to leave and go to Hollywood. But she had no money.” Lucy glanced at George. “I think she had another reason for staying too.”

  “What was that?” George asked.

  “I think she wanted George to marry her.” Lucy directed this to Mama.

  “What?” Mama’s brows lifted.

  George laughed. “Well, trust me, there was never the slightest chance of that happening, Miriam. Not a snowball’s chance in Tahiti.”

  “Why not?” Mama folded her arms across her front with her head tilted to one side.

  His eyes twinkled. “Because Veronica is not the kind of woman that interests me.”

  “Even though she is so beautiful?”
Lucy asked him.

  He looked directly at Lucy now. “I’ll be honest with you. When I first saw Veronica standing alongside the road, she did turn my head somewhat. For a moment I actually thought I was seeing things. But after she got in the car and as I got to know her—and, believe me, that didn’t take more than a few hours—I knew without a shadow of doubt that Veronica Grant, as pretty as she might be, would never be the one for me. But by then I couldn’t manage to shake her off. I tried to drop her off a number of times, but she kept making excuses to travel with me. I had no idea she was broke.” He rubbed his chin. “Come to think of it, that explains a lot.”

  Mama stood now, pacing back and forth across the room as if she was trying to grasp all this, as was Lucy. Then Mama went over to look out the big front window. “I didn’t hear your car drive up, George. Where is it?”

  “That’s part of the reason I’m so late.”

  “What happened to your car?” Lucy asked with concern.

  “It broke down again.” He chuckled. “I’m starting to think that it’s not just lemon yellow but a lemon as well.”

  “Huh?” Lucy had no idea what he meant.

  “How did your car break down?” Mama asked. “And where is it?”

  “It happened last night. I was on my way back here, hoping that I’d slip back into the house and into bed and no one would be the wiser. Then I’d be the hero at the breakfast table when I announced to everyone that Veronica was on a train to Los Angeles. It seemed a good plan to me.”

  “That would’ve been nice,” Lucy told him.

  “Instead, I was stuck in a broken down car, just outside of Flagstaff, and just as the snow was starting to fall. It was coming down heavy and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be buried alive in a snowdrift. But I pulled out the car robe and wrapped myself up in it and said my prayers and fell asleep. Well, I slept off and on. I did a lot of praying and thinking too.”

  “Weren’t you scared?” Lucy asked.

  “To be honest, I was. But I also had a sense of peace too. Somehow I knew everything would work out. Finally, about an hour after sunrise, which was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen, a farm truck happened along, and the good man gave me a ride back into Flagstaff.”

  George explained how he had to wait several hours in a Flagstaff coffee shop for a tow truck. “Being that it was Christmas Eve, not everyone was eager to work.” Then he told how his car was towed to Hempley’s Garage, but due to a couple of slippery incidents, it took nearly three hours.

  “Why didn’t you just go to a Flagstaff garage?” Mama asked.

  “Because I was staying here,” George told her. “And Hempley’s is nearby. I tried to call the house this afternoon, but no one answered.”

  “It’s been a very busy day,” Mama told him. “We had Christmas songs on the radio, and we might not have heard the phone ringing.”

  “Well, anyway, I had dinner at the café, and after Hempley finally had a chance to look under the hood, he told me that it was only a broken belt. He offered to fix it, but I felt bad for taking him away from his family. I told him it could wait until after Christmas, and then I walked on out here.” He shook his head. “Thanks to the snow, I somehow wandered down the wrong driveway, so it took even longer than expected.” He sighed. “It’s been a very long day.”

  “At least you’re back.” Lucy threw off the afghan now and ran over to hug him. “I’m so glad you didn’t stiff us on the bill, George.”

  “Lucy!” Mama looked aghast, but George just laughed.

  Lucy grimaced. “That’s what Grandma said.”

  “Well, I don’t want to hear you repeating everything your grandmother says.”

  “Sorry.” Lucy turned back to George. “Still, I’m so glad you’re back.”

  “Perhaps you should go to bed now,” Mama suggested.

  George nodded. “Especially if you expect Santa Claus to show up.”

  Lucy gave him a tolerant smile. “That’s all right. I’m old enough to know that Santa Claus isn’t real.”

  He looked surprised. “What makes you so certain?”

  “Tommy Farley told me.”

  “And Tommy Farley is an expert on such things?” George asked. “Has he been to the North Pole and done investigations?”

  “No. He’s only ten.”

  “Ten years old and you listened to him?”

  Lucy felt a bit foolish now. Come to think of it, Tommy wasn’t right about a lot of things.

  “If I were you, I would get myself to bed and to sleep as quickly as possible.” George went over to look out the window. “Just in case Santa is passing over your house right now and deciding not to—”

  “I’m going!” She made a beeline for the stairs. “Good night, Mama. Good night, George.” Faster than lightning, she zipped up the stairs, leaped into bed, closed her eyes, and tried her best to go to sleep. But first she told God thank you for bringing George back to them. She didn’t know how long George would stay or if he loved Mama, but at least he hadn’t run out on them like they’d thought.

  14

  Once again, Lucy woke up before the sun. But since it was Christmas morning, she couldn’t stay in bed a minute longer. She still had her doubts about Santa Claus visiting last night, but she was so glad George was back that she didn’t even care. She dressed as quietly as she could and tiptoed out to see that George’s door was still closed. She hoped he was sleeping in since he must have been tired after his long day yesterday.

  When she got downstairs, it appeared as if no one else was up down here either. She silently gathered the chicken bucket and egg basket and went outside. By the light of the moon, which was nearly down to the western horizon, she made her way out to the chickens. Just like yesterday, her footprints were the first tracks in last night’s snow. She tended to the chickens, tossing out some extra grain since today was Christmas. Before she left, she checked the nests and was delighted to find nine eggs! Carefully loading them into the wire basket, she could see the sky lightening in the east and knew it wouldn’t be long until the sun was up.

  With lighthearted steps, she was just heading back to the house when she noticed what looked like smoke coming from the back porch. Alarmed that something was on fire, she nearly dropped the egg basket and bucket, but then George stepped out and waved his pipe at her. “Merry Christmas,” he called out in a quiet voice.

  “Oh!” She let out a relieved sigh as she went onto the porch. “Merry Christmas, George. My goodness, when I saw the smoke, I thought the house was on fire.”

  He frowned at his pipe. “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t be—”

  “No, no,” she told him. “It’s all right. It just surprised me.” She held up her egg basket. “The hens are laying eggs again!”

  His eyes lit up. “The light trick worked!”

  “Seven eggs yesterday and nine today. That’s sixteen total!”

  “Your math is good, Lucy.” He grinned. “Now, how about if you put the eggs in the house and then come help me with something?”

  “Sure.” She opened the door, and seeing that the kitchen was still semidark, she quietly set the eggs on the table, then returned to see what George wanted.

  “Come with me,” he said as he led her toward the barn and then around behind it. “I have something to show you.”

  “I think I know what it is,” she confessed. “I saw the car yesterday, George. I couldn’t believe how good it looks. But does it run?”

  He grinned. “You’ll see.”

  Sure enough, the car did start and it did run. George even took her for a little ride. “Just to get the engine warmed up,” he told her. “Then we’ll surprise your mother.”

  “She’ll be so happy.” Lucy looked out the window as the sun crested the horizon. Today it was golden and bright . . . almost like a promise that things were going to get better.

  “This is a good old car,” George told her as he turned around to head back for home.

  “It sure
is.” Lucy beamed at him.

  “I think it’s a better car than my roadster.”

  Lucy was surprised. “But your car is so fancy and nice, George. I’m surprised you’d say that.”

  He shrugged. “Fancy and nice doesn’t always get you where you want to go, Lucy.”

  She remembered him telling about being stuck on the side of the road and nodded. “I guess not.”

  “Anyway, I told Mr. Hempley that I might be interested in selling my roadster to him.”

  “You’d sell your car?” She turned to stare at him. “How would you get to California?”

  He made what looked like a nervous smile. “Maybe I won’t go . . .”

  “Won’t go?” She tried to grasp what this meant. “Do you mean you’d stay here with us in Maple Grove?”

  “If your mother would let me.”

  Lucy didn’t know what to say.

  “What do you think? Would your mother be interested in a new husband? For that matter, Lucy, would you be interested in a new daddy?”

  Lucy swallowed hard. This seemed too good to be true.

  “Maybe I’m rushing things,” he said now.

  “No,” Lucy said quickly. “No . . . I was just thinking, George. I do think Mama would be interested in a new husband. I know I’m interested in a new daddy.” She turned and smiled at him. “As long as it’s the right one . . . someone just like you!”

  He grinned and drove the car a little faster. Soon they were parked in front of the house. “Why don’t you go see if your mother is up yet and if she wants to come out and—” But Lucy was already jumping out of the car and running into the house.

  “Mama, Mama,” she cried out as she went inside.

  “Lucy!” Grandma looked alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Lucy exclaimed. “Where’s Mama?”

  “She just went out to the barn. But what’s this excitement? I heard George is back, but what are you carrying on—”

  “I’ll explain it all later,” Lucy said breathlessly. “First I need to find Mama.” She ran for the back door. “Merry Christmas, Grandma,” she called over her shoulder as she shot out. She spotted Mama coming out of the barn now. “Mama,” she cried out, pointing to the car in front of the house. “Look!”