by Lynn Austin
She was still mulling over these disturbing questions when she picked up Eve from work later that afternoon, and they headed into town to go Christmas shopping while the boys were with Tom and Alan. She tried to act cheerful and nonchalant so Eve wouldn’t notice that anything was wrong, remembering her promise to Tom. “Shall we start with the department store?” she asked Eve. “They have a wonderful toy section.” They walked up and down the toy aisles with their sons’ letters to Santa Claus in hand, and she noticed Eve checking all the price tags.
“I can’t decide what to buy,” she said with a sigh. “I’m so worried that Harry will be disappointed, but I simply can’t afford very much.”
“We both decided not to indulge their greed, remember?” Audrey said. “Let’s just choose two or three presents that we can afford and be done.” The money in the trust fund belonged to Bobby, she told herself. As did Robert’s life insurance. Like Eve, she would live only on what a single mother could afford. They decided on two shiny new steam shovels that scooped real dirt. A set of Tinkertoys for Harry and Lincoln Logs for Bobby. Then they went into Woolworth’s to buy a few other little things for the boys’ stockings. Audrey purchased some tape and wrapping paper and a package of invitations for Jesus’ birthday party.
They had just returned home when Alan’s red-and-white Buick pulled into the driveway. He got out of the car with Bobby and Harry and walked to the door with them.
Audrey went to meet him and noticed he was wearing a pin-striped suit beneath his overcoat, as if he had gone straight from work to shop with the boys. “Thanks for bringing them home,” she said. “I thought Tom was going to do it.”
“No problem. I offered. He has cows to milk.” The boys were bouncing around Audrey and Alan as if they were so full of secrets they might burst.
“They don’t seem to have run out of energy after an afternoon of work on the farm,” Audrey said with a smile. “Good thing they have a dog to take for a walk in a few minutes.”
Alan leaned close to whisper, “Tom and I have a bet going on how long it takes one of them to spill the beans. And another wager on which of them will do it first.”
Audrey couldn’t help laughing. “I’ll be sure to let you know when it happens and who does it.”
After walking Cooper and eating supper, the four of them sat around the dining room table to fill out the invitations to Jesus’ birthday party. It was planned for three o’clock on Christmas Day. “Because Christmas is Jesus’ real birthday, right, Mummy?” Bobby asked.
“That’s exactly right.” She was pleased that the boys made no mention of Santa Claus as they talked about what kind of birthday cake they should buy and what flavor ice cream.
“Now, who do you want to invite to this party?” Eve asked.
“You and Bobby’s mommy,” Harry replied.
“Yes, thank you. We’ll be very happy to attend.”
“Nana and Granddad Barrett,” Bobby said.
“And Grandma and Grandpa Van and Uncle Tom,” Harry added.
“And Mr. Hamilton,” Bobby said.
“Mr. Hamilton may be busy with his family on Christmas Day,” Audrey said quickly.
“But we still can ask him,” Eve said just as quickly.
Audrey would need to talk to Eve after the boys went to bed about making sure the boys didn’t become too attached to Alan. Eve was wrong to keep pushing him into their lives this way, as if he could take Robert’s place in Bobby’s life. Or hers.
“What about Mrs. Herder and Cooper?” Bobby asked. “Can we invite them?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t even have a Christmas tree,” Harry said.
“Well, you can give her an invitation when you see her tomorrow,” Eve replied. “We would have to pick her up in our car. She has a sprained ankle, remember?”
“I don’t want you boys to be too disappointed if she refuses,” Audrey said, “but it is very sweet of you to think of her.”
Audrey wrote out all the invitations while Eve addressed the envelopes. Bobby and Harry printed their own names on the bottom of each one and licked the envelopes and the three-cent stamps. “We’ll put them in the mailbox tomorrow,” Eve promised.
“There’s one more thing we should talk about before bedtime,” Audrey said as they moved into the living room to watch television. “We need to decide what we’re going to do for our third Wise Man gift. There are only eight days left until Christmas. Any ideas?”
“You boys did a great job on the first two gifts,” Eve said, bending to give Harry a hug. “Mrs. Herder and the Robertson family were very grateful for your gifts. And we’re so proud of you for working so hard.”
“It was fun! We like being Wise Men,” Harry replied.
“Does the gift have to go to people we don’t know?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I want to buy a present for everyone we invited to the party. We can’t have a birthday party without presents.”
Audrey gazed at her son, touched by his generosity and thoughtfulness. She bent to kiss his forehead. “I think that’s a wonderful third gift from our little Wise Men.”
“Make a list, Mummy.” Bobby held up his fingers as he counted off the names. “One for Nana and Granddad and Grandma and Grandpa Van and Uncle Tom and Mr. Hamilton . . .”
“We don’t need to buy presents for you, Mommy, because—”
Bobby socked Harry in the shoulder, cutting him off. “Shh! It’s a secret, remember?”
Audrey covered her mouth to hide a smile, remembering the wager between Alan and Tom. She would have put her money on Harry being the bean spiller.
“Okay, okay,” Harry said with a sigh.
“Do you have some chores we could do around the house, Mummy?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah, we’re going to need more money so we can pay for all these presents. We already spent the money we earned out at the farm on—”
Bobby socked him again. “Shh!”
“Sorry. I keep forgetting.”
Audrey looked at Eve and smiled. “They’re really getting the idea. Yes, of course you can earn some money helping around the house. We’ll think up a list of chores you can do, starting tomorrow. Then we’ll all go shopping next Saturday because Harry’s mum won’t have to work.”
Audrey sat down on the sofa with Eve after the boys were in bed. “Can you help me think of some chores they can do over the next few days?” she asked.
“I can think of a few.” Eve moved closer to Audrey and lowered her voice. “But how are we going to pay the boys for doing them? I’m just about broke, Audrey, and we still have to buy the cake and ice cream, too.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve decided that I’m giving you back your rent money for this month—”
“Audrey, no! I can’t let you do that!”
“I don’t care if you ‘let’ me do it or not—I’m doing it. We’re trying to teach the boys about giving, aren’t we? Well, let me give this gift to you. Just this once.”
“Okay. But if there’s any money left over after we pay for the party and the gifts, I want you to apply it toward the rent. Is it a deal?” Audrey saw how badly Eve needed her to agree.
“It’s a deal.” She stood to turn on the television, then thought of something. “Before I forget, I need to put Mrs. Herder’s invitation where I’ll remember to bring it to her when the boys walk Cooper in the morning.” Audrey went into the kitchen and propped it on the counter by the teapot. “It makes me so sad to think of Mrs. Herder sitting all alone at Christmas,” she said when she returned to the living room. “But I’m guessing she won’t come to the birthday party. She doesn’t know us very well.”
“I hope she’ll take us up on our offer to watch Cooper so she can visit her son.”
“I do, too, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Eve suddenly sat upright on the couch. “Maybe we need to give her a little nudge.”
Audrey could almost see the little ge
ars spinning in Eve’s brain and braced herself for one of her bold ideas. “I’m afraid to ask, but what sort of nudge do you have in mind?”
“We should call Mrs. Herder’s son in New York City. If we tell him about our offer to watch Cooper, maybe he can coax her to accept, and she can spend Christmas with her family.”
“I don’t know, Eve. Don’t you think we might be meddling just a bit too much?”
“The worst that could happen is that Mrs. Herder gets mad at us for interfering and never speaks to us again. But it’s Christmas, Audrey. I hate to think of her sitting home all alone. She should be with her children and grandchildren.”
“How would you ever find her son?”
“Well, we know his name is Dr. Ronald Herder and that he works at Lenox Hill Hospital. We could just try phoning him.”
“At the emergency room?”
“Why not? We can say that it has to do with his mother. We’ll ask if he knows that she fell on the ice. It’s a very legitimate reason for the call.”
“What if he panics and fears the worst? We don’t want to frighten the poor man when he receives a telephone call about his mum from a stranger.”
Eve waved away her concerns. “He works in an emergency room. He’s probably used to surprises.”
Audrey could tell that Eve wasn’t going to let the idea go. She was like Cooper with his ball—once he got it between his teeth, he wouldn’t drop it.
“Dr. Herder may not even know that his mother fell and hurt herself,” Eve continued. “You can start by telling him that, and once you have his attention, you can tell him about our offer to watch Cooper.”
“Wait . . . after I have his attention?”
“I’m giving this job to you, Audrey. I would call him myself, but I’ll be at work all day.”
Audrey opened her mouth to protest and to insist that Eve follow through with this crazy idea herself but halted. She thought of her conversation with Tom and the unsettling conclusion she’d reached that she relied too heavily on Eve. She didn’t want to be the reason that Eve was making Tom wait. Audrey exhaled, knowing that she would have to be the one to call Dr. Herder. “I still think we may be meddling a bit too much.”
“It’s Christmas. And like Harry says, ‘We’re the smart kings.’”
Audrey walked past the telephone stand in the hallway several times the next morning as she tried to summon the courage to call Mrs. Herder’s son. After the boys had taken Cooper for his walk, she had sent them outside and assigned the first of their moneymaking chores—clearing the dusting of snow that had fallen overnight from the driveway. By the time they finished rolling in it, shoveling it, and pitching snowballs at each other, it would probably be lunchtime.
Calling a stranger—a busy doctor, no less—wasn’t something that Audrey was comfortable doing. Yet Eve had been encouraging her to do difficult tasks all of her life, beginning with the very first time they met and Eve had convinced Audrey to stand up to her parents about attending boarding school. Eve had given Audrey dead beetles to hold to help her overcome her fears. She had been bolstering Audrey’s courage for the past year and a half, helping her get settled in America and taking the necessary steps to attend college. Was it time now to stand on her own two feet? To live here in her bungalow alone with Bobby?
The idea frightened her. But Audrey decided she needed to help Eve. And Tom, who had been waiting patiently all this time. Audrey remembered an incident during their military training when Eve’s claustrophobia nearly prevented her from passing the required gas-mask test. Audrey had taken Eve by the hand and led her panicked friend out of the chamber so they could both pass the test. True, they were meddling in Mrs. Herder’s life by telephoning her son. And Eve had been meddling in Audrey’s life by inviting Alan Hamilton everywhere. Maybe Audrey should meddle in Eve’s and Tom’s lives, for once. But first she would have to figure out how.
Audrey glanced out the window to see if the boys were still shoveling, then picked up the phone and a pen. Directory assistance gave her the number for the hospital switchboard. She told the receptionist whom she wanted to speak with and waited for her to transfer the call to the emergency room. The longer Audrey waited, the higher the fee for the long-distance call would be on her next telephone bill. She hoped it would be worth it. Audrey liked Mrs. Herder. She could understand her lingering grief over the loss of her son. Not a day went by that Audrey didn’t think about Robert.
At last, the emergency room nurse picked up. Audrey asked if Dr. Herder was on duty and if she could speak with him. She half hoped that he wasn’t because her courage was slowly draining away, but it turned out that he was on duty. It seemed like a small miracle.
“May I say who’s calling?” the nurse asked.
“Mrs. Robert Barrett. I’m his mother’s neighbor in Connecticut.” She waited again, hearing the clock ticking and the long-distance charges adding up.
Finally he answered. “This is Dr. Herder.”
“Hello, Doctor. My name is Audrey Barrett, and I’m one of your mother’s neighbors. I’m not sure if she’s told you or not, but she fell on the ice a few days ago and sprained her ankle and her wrist.”
“No, I didn’t know. Is she all right?”
“Yes, just a little lame. My friend and I have been looking in on her and taking Cooper for his walks every day until she’s better—”
“That’s very nice of you. Thank you.”
She heard several excited voices in the background. A telephone ringing. Distant sirens wailing. They brought back memories of racing to emergency rooms in her ambulance. Dr. Herder was surely a busy man.
She drew another breath and hurried on, not giving him a chance to get angry with her for interfering. “Now, I realize that this sounds very forward of me, and I hope you won’t think I’m being a nosy neighbor, but your mother mentioned that she is unable to be with you and your family over the Christmas holiday because of her dog, and so I wanted to tell you that my friend and I have offered to take Cooper home to our house for Christmas so your mother can visit you. My son is five years old and he just adores the dog. We all do.” Audrey halted, wincing. She sounded like a gushing, meddlesome busybody. She waited for the doctor to say something. The sirens in the background grew louder.
“And my mother agreed to this?”
“Well, not exactly. We were hoping you could convince her. Families really should be together at Christmas.”
“I . . . um . . . Thank you, Mrs. . . . ?”
“Barrett. Audrey Barrett.”
“Yes. Thank you for letting me know about Mother. And about the dog.”
“You’re very welcome. And please—” But he had already rung off.
She spent the rest of the morning worrying, wondering if she’d done the right thing. She continued to worry all afternoon as the boys cleaned out the front coat closet for her and helped her shop for groceries. They were quite proud of themselves for carrying the grocery bags inside all by themselves. Then it was time to take Cooper for his afternoon walk, and she worried all the way there, fearing that Mrs. Herder would be angry with her. The boys would be devastated if she slammed the door in their faces. But no, surely the busy doctor wouldn’t have had time to call his mother, yet.
Mrs. Herder did look quite stern when she answered her door. Cooper didn’t have his leash on. “Come in for a minute,” she said. Audrey obeyed, telling the boys to wait on the porch. “You telephoned my son,” Mrs. Herder said without preamble.
“Yes. I hope you aren’t angry with us. We just wanted to help you and Cooper.”
“I was annoyed, yes. But Ronald convinced me that you meant well.”
Audrey waited, holding her breath. “So have you decided to go?” she asked when she couldn’t wait any longer.
“I wasn’t going to at first, because the train would be too difficult to manage with my lame ankle. But my son insists on driving up here to fetch me tomorrow. It’s his day off.”
“That’s wonde
rful! I’m so pleased to hear it!” Audrey could breathe again. “And the boys will be thrilled to be able to take Cooper home. What time shall we come to get him tomorrow?” She hoped it would be in the evening so Eve could meet Dr. Herder and see the happy result of her meddling. But Mrs. Herder said he would be arriving around noon.
Bobby and Harry were so excited by the news that Cooper was coming to stay for a few days that they were scarcely able to fall asleep. The next day, Audrey walked over to Mrs. Herder’s house with the boys just before noon. She thought something seemed different about Mrs. Herder’s house as she came up the front walk to knock on the door, but it took her a moment to realize what it was. The gold star that had announced to the world that Mrs. Herder had lost her son in the war was no longer in the front window.
Audrey was trying to decide whether to comment on it or not when the door opened and Mrs. Herder greeted them, dressed in a gray wool traveling suit and matching hat. She had always seemed so solemn and reserved to Audrey, but today she had a smile on her face. “Do you have time to come in?” she asked. “I have all of Cooper’s things ready to go—his food, his favorite chew toys, his water and food dishes. And his brush. He likes to be brushed every day.” Her love for the dog was very clear. “I would like for you to stay and meet my son and his family, if you have the time.”
“Of course. I would love to meet them. Maybe the boys can play fetch with Cooper in the backyard until he arrives. They’re being very rambunctious today.” And it would give Audrey a chance to ask Mrs. Herder about the absent gold star.
“Cooper would like that. His ball is in this bag, too.”