Comfort and Joy

by Comfort

  “C’n Joy . . .”

  “No.”

  Bobby throws me a “see?” look and climbs to his feet. “I’m coming, Emperor.”

  It’s all I can do not to smile at the tender defiance.

  I would have called my dad a hell of a lot worse than emperor at his age. “Bye, you guys,” I say from my place on the floor.

  Bobby looks back at me longingly. “You can keep playing if you want. You can even be Frodo.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  Daniel herds his son out the door. A few minutes later, I hear a car start up and drive away.

  Then it’s quiet again.

  I try to figure out what to do next. I could walk to town for clothes and film and food, or take a walk in the woods, or borrow a canoe and go out on the lake, or sleep. Last night was hard: nightmares plagued me.

  I close my eyes. It feels so great here, lying on the soft woolen carpet, feeling the heat from a fading fire, listening to the quiet.

  In my dreams, I’m lying on an air mattress, floating on Lake Curran. The sun overhead is hot and bright; when I try to open my eyes, it hurts. I can feel people around me, splashing in the water. My sister’s voice is the most constant: I’m sorry. The apology is repeated over and over. I know she wants me to open my eyes, take her hand, and tell her it’s okay, but it’s not okay. She’s broken my heart. I hear my mother in my dreams, too, telling me to wake up. I’m sure that she wants me to forgive Stacey also. I want to tell them I can’t do it, but then I’m floating away on the tide. I’m on the ocean now, alone . . . then I’m in a child’s bed, then in a white room.

  “Are you KIDDING me?”

  The sentence shakes me, jars me. With great effort, I open my eyes. At first, I expect to see water, blue and lit by the sun.

  I see green carpet and wooden planks and the lower half of a plaid sofa.

  I’m in the lodge, asleep on the living room floor. I blink, trying to focus, and push up to my knees.

  Daniel is in the registration area, pacing, talking on the phone. “What do you mean, a fight?”

  I frown, sit back on my heels.

  “He’s eight years old,” Daniel says, then curses under his breath. “Sorry, Father. And do you think I’ve not tried? God’s the enemy now. And me.”

  I get slowly to my feet and stand there by the fireplace. He hasn’t seen me yet, but when he does, I know he won’t be happy. He doesn’t want me in the lodge, let alone eavesdropping on personal conversations. But I can’t seem to move. He looks so . . . the right word escapes me. Not angry, not upset.

  Wounded.

  “Aye,” he says after a pause. Then, “I’ll be right down.” He slams the phone down on the table, then curses loudly and runs a hand through his hair. Slowly, he turns toward the living room.

  I’m standing there, frozen, staring at him. “I’m sorry,” I say, lifting my hands.

  “Well if this isn’t just what I need.”

  “I was on the floor. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

  His gaze slides past me—a pointed reminder that I don’t belong here—and catches on the photographs on the mantel to my left.

  Family photos.

  With another curse, he storms out of the lodge and slams the door shut behind him.

  Outside, I hear the car engine start, and wheels sputtering on wet gravel. Only then do I move.

  I turn to the mantel, pick up one of the photographs. In it, Bobby is a pudgy-faced baby in a blue snowsuit. Daniel is smiling brightly and holding a beautiful, dark-haired woman close. There’s no mistaking the love in their eyes.

  No wonder Daniel is rude to me. This time is tough enough on him and Bobby without an uninvited spectator.

  For the next half hour, I busy myself in the kitchen, making lunch and then cleaning up my mess. When I’m done, I return to my room, where I wash out my other clothes and hang them over the shower rod to dry, then I wander back to the lobby.

  The fire is fading now, falling apart in a shower of sparks.

  I am standing in front of it, warming my hands when they return.

  Bobby comes in first, looking utterly dejected. “Hey, Joy. Dad says I can’t play my GameBoy for two days. And I didn’t start nothin’.”

  I turn to face them.

  Daniel sits in the chair opposite me. I can tell by the way he looks at Bobby that he’s been as bruised by this fight as his son. He doesn’t look angry; rather, I see sadness in him. “This is a family matter,” he says pointedly. “Don’t talk to her. Talk to me.”

  Shut up, Joy.

  Shut up.

  I can’t do it. Daniel’s been out of his son’s life for a few years; maybe he hasn’t been around children in that time. “Kids get in fights,” I say as gently as I can. “I’m a high school librarian. Believe me, I know.”

  “Not my dad,” Bobby says, sidling up beside me.

  “Not me what?” Daniel says, irritated. When he looks at us—Bobby and me—he’s not smiling.

  “You’d never get punched at school.” Bobby’s voice quivers. In the tremor, I hear how much he wants not to have disappointed his father.

  To my surprise, Daniel smiles. “When I was a lad in Dublin, I got into plenty of scraps.”

  “Really?”

  “Aye. And I got my arse kicked, I’ll tell you. My own Da used to go after me. He said he didn’t wanna raise no Mama’s boy.” His smile fades. “There’s nothing wrong with bein’ a mama’s boy. She loved you something fierce, Bobby.”

  “I know.”

  “But she wouldn’t want you fighting at church group.”

  “I know that.”

  I want to jump in with some stellar bit of advice that changes their lives and draws them together, but I know it’s not my place.

  For too long, we’re all quiet.

  Finally Daniel stands. “I’d best get to work on the bedrooms upstairs. No one is going to buy this place in the shape it’s in. You coming?”

  “I’m gonna show Joy my arrowheads.”

  Irritation flashes in Daniel’s eyes and then is gone. “Fine. I’ll work alone then.” Without another glance, he goes up the stairs and disappears.

  As soon as Daniel is gone, I look down at Bobby. “You aren’t too nice to your dad.”

  “He isn’t too nice to me.” He pushes the hair from his eyes, revealing an angry purple bruise above his eye. “He yelled at me about fighting, and it wasn’t even my fault.”

  I wish I could reach out for him, but he doesn’t seem ready for comfort. So, instead, I say, “How does the other guy look?”

  “I missed,” Bobby says miserably. “And I wanted to hit him. I was so mad.”

  “What happened?”

  His shoulders lump in defeat. “Arnie Holtzner punched me.”

  “The butthead? How come?”

  “ ’Cuz I’m a crybaby.”

  “You are no crybaby, Bobby. You’re a very brave boy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We were makin’ Christmas ornaments out of cotton balls and Life Savers. I said I din’t want to make one, and Arnie asked why, and I said ’cuz the ornaments were stupid and he said I was stupid and I said I wasn’t. Then he socked me.”

  I want to say, Arnie’s an ass, but I hold back. “Why didn’t you want to make an ornament?”

  “ ’Cuz we aren’t gonna have a tree.” His voice catches. He glances at the door his father just slammed. “My mom would never forget Christmas.”

  I know I should keep my mouth shut, but when I look down at this bruised little boy, I am drawn by some force that can’t be denied. “You never know, Bobby. Christmas is full of magic.”

  For the remainder of the afternoon, Bobby and I play board games and watch Winnie-the-Pooh movies. All the while I can hear Daniel working upstairs—hammering, sanding, walking from room to room.

  I tell myself to stay out of their business, but the admonition has a hollow, empty sound.

  Thes
e two need help, and it’s Christmas. I may have lost my own holiday spirit, but I can’t watch a little boy lose his. Besides, this is my first real adventure. What kind of adventurer ignores the needs of others?

  “Let’s play again,” Bobby says, reaching for his game piece.

  I laugh. Three rounds of Candy Land are all any adult can reasonably be expected to survive, though, with Bobby drawing my cards and moving my game pieces, I must admit that I’ve hardly been paying attention. “No way. How about we do something else?”

  “I know!” He pops to his feet and runs upstairs; moments later he’s back, holding a mason jar full of rocks. “It’s my collection.” He flops down on the floor and dumps out the jar. Dozens of stones splatter out. Several arrowheads are mixed in with the pretty stones. Bits of beach glass add color to the pile.

  I kneel beside him. “Wow.”

  He picks them up one by one; each piece has a story. There are agates, beach rocks, and arrowheads. His voice runs fast, like a weed eater in summer as he talks. Mommy found this one by the river. This one was at the beach, hidden underneath a log. I found this one all by myself. When he’s finished, he sits back on his heels. “She always said she’d find me a white arrowhead.”

  I hear the drop in his voice, the way grief sidles in beside him. “Your mom?”

  “Yeah. She said we’d find it together.”

  To change the subject, I say, “What’s that nickel doing in the jar?”

  He barely looks at it. “Nothing.”

  There’s definitely something in his nothing. “Really? No reason at all? Because those are your special things.”

  He reaches for a perfectly ordinary nickel. “Daddy gave me this when we were at the county fair. He bought me a snowcone and let me keep the change.”

  “And that blue button?”

  It’s a moment before Bobby answers, and when he does speak, his voice is soft. “That’s from Daddy’s work shirt. It came off when we were playin’ helicopter. I . . .” He throws the nickel in the jar, then scoops everything back in. The arrowheads and rocks rattle and clang against the glass.

  I smooth the hair from his forehead, but he is so intent on the nickel that he seems not to have noticed my touch. He looks as bruised on the inside right now as he is on the outside, and the sight of this poor kid, looking so lost, tears at my heart.

  “How about if I read you a story?”

  A smile breaks across his face. “Really?”

  “Really. I don’t suppose you have Professor Wormbog and the Search for the Zipperumpa-Zoo?”

  “No, but I got one my mom always read to me.”

  I hear the tiny upward lilt in his voice, the single note of hope, and it makes me smile. “Go get it. And if you have a Dr. Seuss, get that, too.”

  Bobby runs upstairs. I hear his hurried footsteps overhead, the banging of doors.

  In moments he is back, clattering down the stairs, clutching a pair of books. “I found ’em,” he yells triumphantly, as if they were big game animals he’d bagged.

  I sit down on the sofa and he curls up next to me, handing me a lovely blue book that is the Disney movie version of Beauty and the Beast.

  I take it gently, open it between us, and begin to read aloud. “Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a magical kingdom where just about everything was perfect . . .”

  The words take us to a place where plates and candelabras can be a boy’s best friend and a beast can become a prince. I lose myself in the words, and find myself. In the past years, as my job became more and more about computers and technology and Internet searches, I’d forgotten why I started. The love of books, of reading. There’s nothing a librarian likes better than sharing her love of words with a child. When I close the book, Bobby is beaming up at me. “Again!” he says, bouncing in his seat.

  I put down Beauty and the Beast and pick up the bright orange Dr. Seuss. “Now it’s your turn.”

  His face closes tighter than a submarine hatch. “I don’t read.”

  “Come on.” I open the book, point to the first sentence, and read: “I am Sam.” Then I wait.

  When the quiet stretches out too long, Bobby looks up at me. “What?”

  “I’m waiting. It’s your turn to read.”

  “Are you deaf? I can’t read.”

  I frown. “How about just the first word?”

  He glares at me, his chin jutted out. “No.”

  “Try. Just the first word.”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  I can feel his surrender. He goes limp beside me and sighs.

  He stares down at the book, frowning, then says, “I. But that’s just a letter. Big deal.”

  “It’s also a word.”

  This time when he turns to me he looks scared. “I can’t.” His voice is a whisper. “Arnie says I’m stupid.”

  “You can. Don’t be afraid. I’ll help.” I smile gently. “And you know what I think of Arnie.”

  Slowly, he tries to sound out the next word. When he stumbles, I offer a tiny bit of help and a heap of encouragement.

  “S . . . A . . . M.” Bobby frowns up at me. “Sam?”

  “You read the whole page.”

  “It’s a baby book,” he says, but a smile plucks at his mouth.

  “Babies can’t read I Am Sam. Only big boys can do that.” I turn the page.

  By the time we get to Green Eggs and Ham? Bobby has stopped frowning. It takes a long time, but he finally sounds out the entire story, and when he finishes, he is laughing. “I read the whole book.”

  “You did really well,” I say. Gently, I add, “Maybe you could read with your dad.”

  “No. I heard him tell my teacher that I needed a too-tor. That’s something for dumb kids.”

  “A tutor is not something for dumb kids. I tutor kids in the library all the time.”

  “Really?”

  Before I can answer, I hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Bobby and I both look up.

  “Come on, boyo,” Daniel says tiredly. “Let’s go get some dinner in town.”

  “C’n Joy come?”

  “No.”

  The curtness of Daniel’s answer hurts my feelings—as ridiculous as that is—until I see his face. The question has wounded him. He is jealous of me—of Bobby choosing to be with me. I know a thing or two about jealousy, how it can cut you to the bone and bring out the worst in you. I also know that it is grounded in love.

  “Talk to him,” I whisper; the irony of my advice doesn’t escape me. Apparently a woman running away from a conversation with her sister has no problem telling others to talk.

  “Come on, Bobby. They run out of meatloaf early on weekends. And it’s your favorite.”

  Bobby gets up. His shoulders droop sadly as he walks away from me. “No, it isn’t. I like pizza.”

  Daniel winces. His voice tightens. “Let’s go.”

  After they’re gone, I sit on the sofa, listening to the dying fire. Rain hammers the roof and falls in silver beads down the windows, blurring the outside world. It is fitting, that obscurity, for right now, what I care about is in this lodge.

  I have to do something to help Bobby and Daniel.

  But what?

  That night, I have trouble sleeping again. There are too many things on my mind. Sleep comes and goes; too often I am plagued by nightmare images of my sister and Thom, of the wedding invitation she handed me, of the plane crash.

  But when dawn finally comes to my small, small room and taps on the window, I have only one worry left. The others I have let go.

  Bobby’s Christmas.

  This is a problem I can solve, unlike the issues in my own life. Here and now, I can do something that will make a difference in someone’s life, and perhaps that—the simple act of helping someone else—will help me in my own.

  After a quick shower, I redress in my “new” clothes and head for the lobby.

  As I suspected, Daniel is outside already. I can see him on his tract
or, clearing the area down by the lake. Already, I know him well enough to know that he will work most of the day. Now is the time.

  Running upstairs, I go straight to Bobby’s room and find him still in bed. “Bobby? Wake up.”

  “Joy?”

  “I have a plan.”

  He rubs his eyes. “What for?”

  “A secret mission.”

  He sits up. “Like we’re spies?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  He throws back the covers and climbs out of bed. In his Spiderman jammies and clotted hair, he looks incredibly young.

  “Downstairs,” I say, checking my watch. “It’s 9:07. You have five minutes or you’ll miss the mission. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

  He giggles.

  I’m smiling, too, as I head for the door. Four minutes later, he comes barreling downstairs like a Saint Bernard puppy, all feet and exuberance.

  “Did I make it?”

  “Right on time. Now, Agent 001, we need to be quiet and careful.”

  He nods solemnly.

  I lead him outside. We move cautiously, not wanting to be seen. Not that it matters. Daniel is deep in the trees now, out of our view.

  We go to the spot where Daniel was working yesterday. There, at least a dozen young fir trees lay on their sides, waiting to be chopped into firewood. “Hmmm,” I say, tapping my chin with my forefinger. “Which of these trees wants to come to your house for Christmas?”

  Bobby gasps. “We’re going to put up a Christmas tree?”

  “We are.”

  “My dad won’t like it.”

  “You let me worry about your father,” I say with more bravado than I feel.

  Bobby giggles again. “Okay, Secret Agent Joy . . .”

  “Shh. You can’t say my name out loud.”

  He clamps a hand over his mouth and points to a rather sad and scrawny tree, which he drags back to the lodge.

  Once there, we move quickly and quietly. Bobby runs upstairs, then returns with a poinsettia-decorated red box full of lights. He makes this trip several times, until there are four boxes and a tree stand on the stone hearth.

  It takes us almost twenty minutes to get the tree in the stand and positioned correctly. I am no help at all, which wouldn’t surprise my sister. Bobby and I giggle at our ineptitude and hush each other. Every few minutes we go to the window and make sure that Daniel is busy. It isn’t until I stand back to inspect the tree that I really feel it.