by Dana Cameron
Judith was so stunned that she lurched sideways in the chair. Renie let out a gasp and pressed a hand to her lips. Gertrude sat rigid in her wheelchair, still staring straight ahead.
“He was arrested right away,” the old lady went on. “He was tried and convicted, but was found insane. Bart was sent to an asylum. Within six months, he escaped. Nobody ever heard from him again.”
“My God!” Judith exclaimed in a shaken voice. “How did your parents stand it?”
“They didn’t,” Gertrude said, finally turning toward her daughter. “They were both dead within a few years. Disgrace, sorrow, worry—you name it. They changed the spelling of our last name—as if they could wipe out Bart’s crime. It was really because of their shame over what he did. Guilt, too. My folks suffered, right into the grave.”
Renie had slid off of the kitchen table. “Did they think your brother was insane because of the head injury by that horse?”
Gertrude shrugged. “I suppose. I always figured that.”
“He could’ve gone anywhere,” Judith murmured, more to herself than to her mother or Renie.
But Gertrude, despite her alleged deafness, caught the words. “Or nowhere. At least not very far. I thought he probably tried to run away on a train. The asylum wasn’t far from the railroad line. He may have been hit by the locomotive or killed by some hobo. I couldn’t imagine him not contacting the family somehow, just to let us know he was alive.”
A barrage of thoughts flew through Judith’s mind. She’d always known that her paternal grandparents had died fairly young and left Gertrude an orphan in her late teens. She’d been aware that her mother’s siblings hadn’t kept close ties. It was understandable that Gertrude had developed an inner toughness that sharpened her tongue and sometimes soured her disposition. And later in life, Judith’s father had passed away in his prime from a heart condition.
But life, Judith knew from her own experience, was rugged. No one got through it unscathed. She’d had her own dark secrets, especially when she’d married Dan after Joe had eloped with another woman. Judith was carrying Joe’s child. Thirty-odd years ago, things were different. Unmarried mothers bore a social stigma, especially in the generation that had spawned Gertrude. Judith needed a husband and a father. And Dan needed her, if only as a source of steady income.
But murder was far worse than bearing a baby out of wedlock. And when Gertrude was young, insanity was another taboo, no matter what the cause. Judith’s heart welled up with a newly kindled sympathy for her mother.
“I wish,” she said, “you’d told me this years ago. It would’ve been easier on you. You know I’d never have reacted with anything but understanding.”
“Me, neither, Aunt Gert,” Renie asserted. “Frankly, it makes a good story.”
Gertrude gave her niece a dark look. “Don’t try to be a smart-mouth,” she warned. “There’s nothing good about it.”
For an instant, Renie looked embarrassed. But humility had never been her strong suit. “Okay, so why are you telling us this now?”
Gertrude started to pick up her toddy mug from the small tray on her wheelchair, but apparently thought better of it and put her hands back in her lap. “Because,” she said, her voice lower and more raspy than ever, “Bart came to see me today.”
———
Judith was too alarmed to say anything. Her mother became confused occasionally—or pretended that she was—but she’d never shown signs of being delusional.
Renie simply looked curious. Gertrude kept her eyes on her lap.
“How do you mean?” Judith finally asked.
Gertrude didn’t answer. The portable CD player had gone silent after a choral rendition of “I Saw Three Ships.”
“Mother?” Judith put a hand on the old lady’s arm. “Tell us. Were you dozing? Was it like a dream?”
Gertrude kept her eyes lowered. “I want to go back to my box,” she said, with her usual contempt for the converted toolshed.
“Not yet,” Judith said. She thought about her options. Call the doctor? Have her mother lie down? Wait until she was completely sober from the rum toddy? “Let’s finish up in the kitchen. I still have to put some presents under the tree. Then I’ll get Baby Jesus out of the Nativity box so we can put him in the creche this evening.”
“That’s not Baby Jesus,” Gertrude mumbled.
Judith frowned. “What?”
“Baby Jesus got busted.” Gertrude still didn’t look at Judith. “The one you’ve got is a fake.”
Judith and Renie exchanged curious glances. The Nativity set had been made in Germany and handed down to Gertrude and then to Judith. The figures weren’t elegant like the Holy Family trio Judith had bought in Italy when she and Renie had traveled there forty years earlier. The older set had probably been cheap, but was no less loved for its dime-store price.
“You mean,” Judith said slowly to her mother, “the figure we’ve always used isn’t the original.”
Gertrude twisted her hands in an agitated manner, but her gaze remained fixed. “Yes. It’s a fake,” she repeated.
Judith looked again at Renie, who was finally showing signs of remorse.
“Damn,” Renie said under her breath. “Why didn’t I leave well enough alone?”
Judith frowned at her cousin, but said, “Let’s do the liver pate. Maybe I should make a Jell-O mold. That’s always refreshing with so much rich food.”
She went to the fridge and got out the chicken livers, the mushrooms, and the scallions. “Here, coz, get the pate started. The butter’s in the dish on the counter.”
“Okay.” An unusually docile Renie took the ingredients from Judith. “You want to cut up the mushrooms, Aunt Gert?”
“What?” The old lady seemed lost in reverie. “Mushrooms? Oh—sure. Give me a paring knife. I can cut them on my tray.”
Judith slipped another CD into the player. The Three Tenors burst forth with their own heavily accented version of “White Christmas.”
“Can’t those guys speak English?” Gertrude demanded.
“Of course,” Judith replied. “But English isn’t their first language.”
“Sounds to me like it’s about in ninth place,” Gertrude grumbled, attacking the mushrooms as if they might be trying to escape.
Relieved that her mother seemed more like herself, Judith smiled. “They sing beautifully, though.”
“I like Bing better,” Gertrude said. “His English is fine. He grew up around here.”
A few minutes later, Joe showed up in the kitchen, seeking snacks. “Is that salmon pate ready?” he asked.
“No,” Renie said. “It has to set in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. Why don’t you and Bill eat some of the Katzenjammer Kids’ deli food? You’ve got enough to feed another German army marching on Stalingrad.”
“Good thinking,” Joe said, opening the fridge. “What would Bill like?”
“All of it,” Renie replied, “plus some weird pop. Got any Perky Papaya or Tantalizing Tangerine?”
“We don’t buy that offbeat brand,” Joe said. “Diet 7-UP will have to do.”
“How about strychnine?” Gertrude suggested.
Joe paused with his hands full of paper plates piled high with cheese, bread, sliced meat, and pickles. “How would you like it?”
“Up your you-know-what,” Gertrude retorted.
Joe grinned. “Merry Christmas to you, too,” he said, and headed for the backstairs.
Renie turned to the stove where she was melting a half pound of butter for the liver pate. She gave a start when the phone rang. “Maybe that’s Anne, calling from the airport.”
Judith picked up the receiver. It wasn’t Renie’s daughter. It was Cousin Sue, calling from east of the lake.
“We may not get to your house until six,” she said. “Our bartender, Emil, was just arrested.”
Sue and her husband, Ken, had taken over Uncle Al’s restaurant years ago, complete with the responsibility of running his illeg
al poker room and bookie operation.
“What happened?” Judith asked, trying to ignore curious looks from Renie and Gertrude.
“Oh—nothing too serious,” Sue said in her customary imperturbable manner. “Emil’s been talking to another restaurant owner about a job, but Ken and I thought it was just a ploy to keep us from complaining about him dipping into the till. He is a good bartender, you know. But it turns out he was serious and this other owner—his name is Nick—Nick the Norwegian, he’s known as—wants to take over the card-room operation, so he got Emil to put a bomb in our car last night, but it didn’t go off because our battery died, and AAA found it when Ken called to get a jump start. We didn’t want to call the police, but the man from AAA insisted—he hates car bombs—so we had to have Emil arrested because he confessed right away. He feels terrible, and we feel bad, because it’s Christmas Eve. Anyway, we’re not closing until four, so we may be late. See you.” Sue hung up.
“What was that all about?” Renie asked.
Feeling dazed, Judith rubbed at her temples. “I need my Percocet,” she murmured. “That was Cousin Sue.”
“Oh,” Renie said. “What now?”
“Do you really want to know?” Judith asked.
“No,” Renie said. “I assume it’s the usual disastrous consequence of leading a life of crime. Is she making her taco salad?”
“I didn’t get a chance to find out,” Judith admitted.
“She’d better,” Gertrude muttered. “The cat likes it a lot.”
The cat had exited the kitchen somewhere between Bart’s homicidal assault and his escape from the asylum. Judith swallowed her pain pill with a glass of water.
Gertrude gave the mushrooms a final whack. “No wonder Sue always has problems. Ellen should never have moved to Nebraska. All that flat land gives people peculiar notions. Win should’ve moved here. Then Sue would’ve been raised right. At least she had the good sense to settle back here after she was grown.”
“She moved here,” Renie put in, “because Uncle Al gave them the restaurant. Sue and Ken couldn’t make a go of their corn-kernel jewelry store in Nebraska. If you can’t peddle that stuff in the Cornhusker State, where can you make a living off of it?”
“Uncle Al never should have turned that restaurant over to them,” Judith declared. “He knew everybody in the area and whose palms to grease. But Sue and Ken came as outsiders. It’s a wonder they haven’t been…” She stopped short of saying “arrested.” It didn’t seem like a tactful subject to bring up after Gertrude’s revelations about Uncle Bart. “… staying in worse places than campsites,” Judith amended.
“Ellen’s cheap,” Gertrude declared. “She was always cheap, but she got worse in Nebraska. Who goes camping in December?”
“Aunt Ellen and Uncle Win,” Renie stated. “They camp when they drive here from Nebraska because Aunt Ellen won’t pay more than five dollars a night for a motel.”
Judith agreed. “Aunt Ellen called this morning. They spent the night in Oregon and should arrive around three. I told them they could stay here at the B&B because I’m not taking guests until the twenty-seventh, but she wouldn’t hear of it. They’re staying a whole week, and Aunt Ellen refused a free room, saying that it wasn’t right to take money out of our pockets, and they were perfectly willing to put their tent up at the nearest campsite, which, I might add, is forty miles away.”
Renie shook her head. “Relatives. Who has crazier ones than we do?”
“What’s that?” Gertrude glared at her niece. “I don’t want any talk about craziness. Not today.”
“Sorry, Aunt Gert,” Renie apologized. She removed the liver pate from the burner. “Coz, let me help you put the rest of the presents under the tree. The pate has to cool before I mix it in the blender.”
Judith had stashed the presents on the second floor where the guests usually stayed. She’d made a half-dozen trips to bring them from the third-floor quarters earlier in the day, and had forgotten to ask Joe to bring them the rest of the way to the main floor.
“What did you think of Mother’s so-called visit from her brother Bart?” Judith asked after the cousins reached the top of the backstairs.
“She dreamed it,” Renie replied. “What else? If Bart really was still alive, he’d be about a hundred and ten.”
“Yes.” Judith led the way to the settee in the hallway where she’d put the gifts. “I agree. But there was one strange thing I noticed when I went out to get Mother. There was a muffler I didn’t recognize on the easy chair.”
Renie grimaced. “Green plaid?”
Judith nodded.
“That’s what the guy I saw in the driveway was wearing,” Renie said. “But he was young. Maybe he stopped to ask directions.”
“Why not come to the house?” Judith frowned.
“He might have, of course, while Joe and I were getting things from the third floor and the basement. We wouldn’t have heard him ring the bell. Mother may have talked to him and become confused.” She shook herself. “I can’t fret about that now. Here,” she said, handing presents to Renie. “Be careful of the bows.”
“Do you think your mother’s story is true?” Renie asked, steadying the pile of presents with her chin as she started down the main stairway.
Judith was right behind Renie, clasping three medium-sized gift boxes to her bosom. “You mean Bart shooting that attorney and being sent to the asylum? Well—that’d explain why Mother never spoke of him.”
Pushing the draperies aside, the cousins entered the big living room. The Christmas tree stood near the far end of the room, in front of the baby grand piano and in back of the matching sofas that flanked the fireplace. Evergreen garlands hung from the plate rails that ran along two walls. The mantel was festooned with various candles, music boxes, and the Holy Family from Italy. The full Nativity set was on the buffet, except for the Christ Child. “Fake” or not. He wouldn’t be put in the crib until later that evening.
“Gorgeous,” Renie asserted, eyes wide as she saw the pile of gifts that stretched a full four feet around the tree, “even when the lights aren’t turned on. But my gosh, what a glut! Did you sell your soul to buy all this stuff?”
Judith shook her head. “It’s not just from Joe and me. Mike brought their presents for the kids day before yesterday. He was tired of the boys tearing up their place to find the packages. Plus, some of the other relatives had their presents shipped directly to Hillside Manor.”
“We’ve got quite a load ourselves,” Renie said, “even without—sniff, sniff—grandchildren. Maybe Bill should go get our share now.”
“Wait until you make your formal entrance,” Judith advised. “You know how the kids love to hear rustling noises coming from the living room when it’s shrouded in darkness.”
Renie looked at her watch. “It’s almost three. I should check to see if Anne and Odo’s plane landed. They might have called our house and one of the other kids didn’t bother to let me know.”
“Typical,” Judith remarked as Renie went to the phone on the cherrywood table and dialed her home number.
“Tony?” Renie said. “Oh, Tom—sorry, I see so little of you two boys that I forget which is which… No, it’s not a guilt trip. It’s a simple truth… What?… Tell Nana I’ll call her back when I get home… Yes, I’m dressed warmly and Bill drove safely for that whole mile from our house to Judith and Joe’s. Let Nana know that if she calls again…”
Renie was grinding her teeth between sentences. Obviously, Aunt Deb had been on her daughter’s trail again, fretting over her health and well-being.
“No,” Renie all but shouted, “you don’t have to tell her you are worrying about her when she tells you not to… Never mind, just answer a question—have you heard from your sister and your brother-in-law?”
Renie put a hand to her head. Apparently, Tom didn’t know the answer and was asking the other family houseguests.
“Cathleen says what?” Renie finally exploded. “Okay, o
kay. Fine, when they get out of the shower, tell them… never mind, I’ll tell them myself. Your father and I will be home shortly.” She hung up and shook her head. “Our children and their spouses are idiots. Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t have grandchildren. The gene pool has been drained. The flight got in early, but nobody seemed to notice that Anne and Odo arrived at the house. Or if they did, they forgot.”
Judith refrained from saying that the three Jones offspring were spoiled. She didn’t dare: The dozens of presents under the tree for Mike, Kristin, and the two grandchildren were ample evidence that she’d done her own share of indulging the younger generations.
“I’m going to see how Mother’s doing,” Judith said, heading back to the kitchen.
“I’d better head home and greet the latest arrivals.” Renie stopped in the entry hall and went upstairs to get Bill.
Gertrude was flipping through Judith’s recipe file. “Got oranges? Got cranberries?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I found Grandma Graver’s recipe for a molded Jell-O salad. You need whipped topping, too. And cloves.”
“Okay.” Judith heard Renie and Bill coming down the backstairs. They called out goodbye and left.
Mother and daughter prepared the Jell-O salad. Judith avoided any mention of the disturbing conversation about Bart. Gertrude seemed a bit subdued, even preoccupied, but didn’t bring up the subject again. Joe finally sauntered into the kitchen, asking if he could help.
Judith shook her head. “I think we have everything under control. Both pates are finished, the Jell-O salad is setting, and the ham is in the oven. It’s too soon to put out any of the food. I’m going to take Mother to her apartment so she can change and then I’ll get dressed.”
Joe nodded. “I’ll get the serving dishes ready.”
“Good.” Judith beckoned to Gertrude. “Let’s go, Mother. You have to make yourself beautiful.”