Second Lives

by P. D. Cacek

  “Right. So we’re not giving her any presents?”

  Elisabeth tapped an ornament and watched her reflection dance within the bright silver ball.

  “No, this year and perhaps for a few more, Emily’s gifts will only come from Mr. and Mrs. Claus.”

  “Okay, but she’s a little young to care about that now. I don’t even think she’ll understand what she’s getting or why.”

  “You’re probably right, but it’s important to have a tradition.”

  “Like putting the presents out on Christmas Eve.”

  “That’s when Santa comes, isn’t it?” She handed him a small present wrapped all in green.

  “Yep.” He shook the gift and smiled when it rattled. “I guess my folks did the same thing, I mean, there were gifts under the tree before Christmas, but there were always new ones on Christmas morning.” He looked up at her. “I know because I counted them before I went to bed.”

  “You see, Santa came to you as he will come to Emily.”

  “Is that what your parents did for you?”

  Elisabeth took the present from his hand and placed it back under the tree, letting the delicate pine fronds brush against her cheek as she reached beneath the branches for the present she’d wrapped in gold paper.

  “No,” she said as she sat up, “my mother had no patience for fantasy in any form. Gifts were given, naturally, as the custom demanded, but in my mother’s house Christmas was a time of contemplation and reflection. We’d go to church for the Christmas Eve service and exchange gifts in the morning. But Christmas Day itself was rather bleak.”

  Daniel took her free hand and squeezed it gently.

  “That sucks.”

  Elisabeth was getting used to the twenty-first century’s language.

  “Yes, it did indeed suck. But that’s not to say my brother and I didn’t appreciate the gifts we received. My mother had wonderful taste, but none of the presents were ever from Santa or Mrs. Claus. A child’s wonder lasts for such a short time. I want Emily to have that and cherish it and to pass it on to her own children.”

  The pressure on her hand grew to a warm caress. “I want that too. So…what other traditions do you have in mind?”

  “Besides finishing the activity center?”

  Daniel looked back at the unfinished project and made a face.

  “I think…that both her grandfathers should help me put it together when they show up for dinner tomorrow. Okay?”

  Elisabeth sighed and turned her hand so she could hold his. “Fine, but just this once and only because she is still so young. I suspect there will be a number of things Santa will be bringing over the next few years that will require your sole help in assembling – tricycles, doll houses, a hope chest—”

  “A hope chest?”

  “Another tradition,” she said and held out the gold-wrapped present. “Like this one.”

  Daniel let go of her hand to take the gift and sat up. Smiling like a child, his eyes reflecting the twinkling lights, he shook the box gently.

  “Heavy, what is it?”

  “Why don’t you open it and find out.”

  “Now?”

  “My mother allowed us to open one gift on Christmas Eve…it is the one tradition of hers that I’d like to keep. Go on. Open it.”

  “Okay, but I’m not going to be the only one doing this.” Standing up, Daniel walked to the back of the tree and pulled out a small present wrapped all in white with a silver bow. “You’re not the only one who hides presents. Go on,” he said, kneeling in front of her, “you first.”

  Elisabeth took the present and noticed her hands were trembling ever so slightly. He’d given her gifts before – some small, like new clothing and driving lessons, some beyond measure, like his hand in marriage and allowing her to be Emily’s mother – but this would be their first Christmas exchange and that made it so terribly important.

  Beneath the white paper was a white velvet jewel box and when she opened it, Elisabeth felt the air within her body swell to near bursting. The cameo, carved of pink coral and set in a filigreed nest of bright yellow gold, showed the side view of a woman with hair piled high and pearls gracing her long slender neck.

  The woman in the cameo looked exactly as Elisabeth remembered herself.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “Thank Santa Claus.”

  Elisabeth leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Santa…now, open yours.”

  She expected him to tear open the paper the way she’d seen children and adults do on the television commercials that had started just before Halloween, but he stopped to read the small card she’d included and that almost brought tears to her eyes.

  To Daniel, Thank you for giving me back my life. Yours – Bess

  “Bess?”

  “Open it, please.”

  And while he did, she held her breath, wondering what his reaction would be. When she first found it, it seemed the perfect gift, but now she wasn’t sure. If he hated it or it hurt him in some way, she’d never forgive herself.

  “Oh…Bess.”

  He lifted the framed photograph out of the box and let the box fall, forgotten. The picture showed two young people very much in love. They stood hand in hand at the edge of the green field, looking back at the camera over their shoulders and smiling.

  Elisabeth watched him touch the woman’s face in the photo.

  “I found it in a box of photos at your in-laws. They said they’d never gotten around to putting them into an album. I asked if I could have it.”

  He looked up at her. “This is the day we got engaged.”

  “Your mother told me. It’s such a wonderful picture it needs to be set out where Emily can see it as she grows. This was her beginning as much as it was yours and Sara’s. I don’t know what we’ll tell Emily about what happened to her mother or if she’ll ever be able to understand it, but the past you and Sara shared needs to be remembered.”

  “It will be.”

  Standing, Daniel crossed the room and put the photo on the mantle, beneath which three filled stockings hung – bearing the names Emily, Daniel and Elisabeth embroidered in gold thread.

  “Thank you…Bess. Bess, yeah, I like that name, it suits you. Now—” He held out his hand and waited for her to stand and take it, then led her to the sofa and motioned for her to take a seat. “One more tradition and then I’ll put the activity center back in its box.”

  Walking to the bookcase to the right of the fireplace, he pulled out a large, thin volume, the cover of which reflected the Christmas tree’s lights as he sat down.

  “My dad found this and brought it over when he dropped off the activity center. Have you ever read it?”

  Daniel turned the cover toward her. The Night Before Christmas. Elisabeth took the book and opened it. It’d been designed for children, the pages filled with colorful illustrations of a modern artist’s concept of what the Victorian era looked like. The poem itself was relegated to a narrow white band down the middle of the page.

  “A Visit From St. Nicholas. I know the poem very well, my brother read it every Christmas Eve.”

  “Good, then that’s one tradition we have in common. My dad read it to me every Christmas Eve before I went to bed. I’ve never read it out loud before, but—”

  Emily woke up, the sound of her still-sleepy cry whispering through the baby monitor on the end table. Daniel handed her the book and was starting to get up when Elisabeth stopped him.

  “I have a bottle all ready for her. Stay here and we’ll be right back.”

  Elisabeth hurried off, shushing the air and calling, “Mommy is coming,” as she hurried to the nursery. Emily had pushed herself up onto her hands and turned her head, smiling, when Elisabeth entered the room. Using the hall light to see by, Elisabeth changed
Emily’s diaper then wrapped her in a knit blanket to keep away the chill.

  After a momentary detour into the kitchen to warm the bottle, they came back into the living room – mother and child – and took their place on the sofa.

  “Go on,” Elisabeth said, placing the nipple between the baby’s lips, “we’re ready.”

  “Okay. Here we go.”

  As Emily drank Elisabeth listened while Daniel read the poem. He didn’t sound like her brother, Benjamin, but the time and setting – though this home, their home was warmer in both atmosphere and spirit than her mother’s house had ever been – brought back the few moments of joy Elisabeth remembered. If she and Daniel had another child, a possibility she found herself longing for, and if that child were a boy, she would ask if they could name him Benjamin.

  But that was still a hope yet to come, her health permitting, and a decision they both needed to make. For now she was more than content to be Emily’s mother.

  “….to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

  And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

  But I heard him exclaim, ’ere he drove out of sight,

  ‘Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Ryan

  Ryan circled the modest, middle-income, Simi Valley split-level with attached garage cul-de-sac slowly, checking the number of the house against the one listed on the invitation. It was the same, and a moment later the GPS’s annoying female voice reaffirmed that.

  “You have arrived at your destination.”

  “Thank you, very much,” Ryan muttered and turned the device off.

  “Shutting down in ten seconds…ten…nine…”

  Ryan put it face-down on the passenger’s seat and covered it with his jacket. The electronic front-seat driver had been last year’s ‘Are-You-Kidding-Me?’ Christmas gift from Jamie.

  “You know you’re always getting lost and won’t ask for directions…you are such a guy sometimes.”

  A truer statement had never been uttered, but he never got lost anymore.

  Ryan gave the house – the only one on the street that wasn’t decked out in holly, a million lights and had either full-sized nativity scenes or animated non-partisan holiday displays (or both) in the front yard – another look before pulling away in search of a parking space.

  He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, this being Christmas Eve when visions of sugarplum martinis and other festive drinks danced in many a head, and it wasn’t. When he finally found one, in the Albertsons’ parking lot five blocks away, and walked back to the house (using the GPS app on his phone), he arrived twenty minutes later than the time listed on the invitation.

  Please join the Rosowsky-Gerstle-Leavitt

  Celebration of Lights

  December 16th – 24th

  Hallel and the Reading of the Torah will begin at 5p.m.

  Festivities to begin at 7p.m.

  Food, drink, family and friends

  All are invited

  An address and phone number was listed, along with Aryeh’s handwritten scribble along the bottom of the card: Ryan, if you can, please come?

  When he opened the invitation his first thought was that the mail carrier had dropped it into the wrong box, the second – quickly following the first – was that Jiro and Oren’s traditional Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Saturnalia party had gotten a bit more formal than in years past, but who the heck were the Rosowsky-Gerstle-Leavitts?

  Then he remembered: Rosowsky was the name of the cousin or nephew or grandwhatever on the list of Aryeh’s relatives. Aryeh was inviting him over to celebrate the eight days of Hanukah with him and his newfound family.

  Ryan called the number on the invitation, identified himself as best he could to the woman who’d answered and said he’d try to make it…one night…and hung up. He marked his office calendar and then kept putting it off as the first, then second, then third, etc., nights came and went. He went to Jiro and Oren’s on the sixth night and suffered through an evening spent by answering variations of the same question “How are you doing?” with the same lie.

  “I’m fine…thanks.”

  Jiro had tried to get him to promise to come over and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with them and the baby – “So you won’t be alone.” It was such a pure act of friendship that it was all Ryan could do not to haul off and belt Jiro right in the mouth.

  But he didn’t.

  If they thought that spending Christmas with them and their precious little baby would help, then they didn’t understand that one day out of the next 365-plus wouldn’t make much of a difference. He’d still be alone the day after Christmas and the next day and all the days and weeks and months and years to follow.

  He was alone and would be alone…but tonight, even though he knew the soul inside the body was different, Ryan needed to see Jamie’s face one last time.

  Christmas had always been their holiday.

  They might spend Christmas Eve with friends and Boxing Day with family, but Christmas Day was theirs and theirs alone.

  “I must be out of my mind,” he reassured himself as he stepped into the glow of the porch light and rang the bell.

  A little boy wearing a South Park sweatshirt and blue yarmulke opened the door.

  “Um… Hi, ah…I’m Ryan Massie – Hi – I got an invitation from Aryeh Rosenber—”

  The little boy turned his head and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Uncle Ari, someone’s here for you.”

  Uncle Ari?

  A young woman hurried over instead.

  “Nathan, where are your manners? Go play. I’m sorry, kids, y’know?” Smiling, she opened the door a bit wider and motioned Ryan in. “It’s a bit of a madhouse, I’m afraid – the kids got tired of playing dreidel and started eating their winnings. It’s sugar high central at the moment, but please…come in. I’m Rebecca Rosowsky, welcome.”

  They shook hands and Ryan stepped farther into the tiled entryway to let her close the door behind him. Trapped.

  “I’m Ryan Massie. Aryeh invited me.”

  “Ryan, yes. Aryeh told us about you and your kindness to him. Please…come in. There’s food in the dining room and the bar’s out on the patio – keeps it out of sight of the little ones. We also have soft drinks in the fridge, if you’d rather. Come in, come in.”

  He took another step forward to show her he was moving in the right direction and held up the bottle of wine.

  “I brought this – I don’t know if it’s any good but the man in the liquor store said it was kosher.”

  He handed her the bottle and she took it like it was some rare gem, holding it carefully in both hands and smiling.

  “Oh, my. Baron Herzog Merlot 2009 is one of my favorites.”

  “Good. I didn’t know there were any kosher wines besides Manischewitz.”

  She laughed and nodded toward the crowded living room. “We have that too. Come on, you fix yourself a plate and I’ll go find Aryeh. Here you go.”

  She gave him a white guest yarmulke similar to the ones Oren handed out and left him to enter the lion’s den by himself. Ryan stuck the yarmulke on his head and made his way through the crowd. No one stared at him, no one nudged each other as he passed and whispered, no one even seemed to notice him at all unless it was to say hello or wish him a happy Chanukah or to tell him to try the brisket which, apparently, was to die for.

  And who could argue with an endorsement like that?

  Standing next to a banquet-sized table that could easily have sat twelve, Ryan surveyed a spread of meats, fish – herb-baked salmon and two kinds of pickled herring – breads, platters of cheese, vegetables (more bread) and a mound of potato pancakes that would have been the envy of any East Coast delicatessen and make Oren weep outright. Since he didn’t know where
to begin, Ryan started with the brisket and worked his way toward the potato pancakes.

  He was adding a shmear of sour cream to the latkes when he heard his name called.

  “You Ryan?” an elderly man with a beard asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ari says for you to come to the kitchen. He’s stuck in there.”

  “He’s stuck?”

  The man shrugged and toasted him with the red plastic cup – “L’chaim!” – before melting back into the crowd. Since the front of the house obviously wasn’t the kitchen, Ryan popped a piece of wine-pickled herring into his mouth – heaven! – and zigzagged his way toward the back of the house.

  “Ryan! You made it! Kumt aher and save me!”

  Aryeh wasn’t just stuck in the kitchen; he was literally trapped in a corner between a large woman in an apron and a table piled high with platters that hadn’t yet made it out to the dining room.

  His hair was longer and his beard had filled in completely, and he’d put on just enough weight to round off the sharp lines and ridges in his face. He didn’t look like Jamie anymore, but there was still enough of a resemblance to make the pickled herring in Ryan’s stomach do a flip-flop.

  But it was okay…standing there in the steaming kitchen, looking at the man, it was finally okay. Jamie was gone and something opened up inside Ryan’s chest and made it just a little easier to breathe.

  There was a smudge of flour on Aryeh’s right cheek, just above the edge of the beard, and he was wearing a flowered bib apron.

  Ryan laughed out loud. “You look good. I think that’s your color.”

  Aryeh looked down at the apron and raised his arms in a wide shrug. The silver thread on his yarmulke shimmered in the light. “What’s a man to do?”

  “Oh, don’t listen to him,” a young woman said as she crossed the room and held out her hand. “He volunteered to help. You must be Ryan…I’m Rachel Moss.”

  “Hi.” They shook hands and she let go first. “Oh, and… A lichtige Chanukah – I hope I said that right.”

  “Perfect,” Rachel said, “and Merry Christmas to you. Ari, are you going to sit there all night or go visit with your friend?”