Three

by McMan, Ann;

  The twelve-foot linden tree had been a gift from K2, who knew how much his mother missed walking the broad avenues of lighted linden trees during the Weihnachten celebrations in her homeland. Normally, Weihnachten was a joyous holiday for the Schröders. But this year, there was no celebration—no Adventskranz to light, no Tannenbaum, no sweet, spicy Plätzchen or Stollen baking in the kitchen, and no noisy grandchildren sledding out front on the snow-covered street.

  Christa was in mourning. K2 had spent three weeks with his mother after his beloved papa was laid to rest in the Immanuel German Lutheran Cemetery on Grindon Avenue—meaning that this year, he would be unable to travel back to Maryland for the holidays.

  Diz did her best to try and coerce Christa into at least hanging her Adventskranz, but she refused. The blank windows of her house were unhappy reminders of her great loss. Diz thought the dark, empty house was a like a suburb of her sadness.

  Still, Christa was Christa, and when Diz walked over in the late afternoon for a cocktail, she was greeted by a kitchen table loaded with Schnitzel, braised red cabbage, mushroom and mustard Spaetzle, and fried potato Kroketten.

  Christa seemed genuinely pleased with the paper-wrapped package of Ostrowski bratwurst, and Diz had to practically arm-wrestle her to prevent her from grilling those up, too.

  “I shouldn’t even try to cook anything for later tonight,” she said. “I ought to just ask you for a plate of take-out.”

  “Ya, well you could do that,” Christa said. She piled another tripod of the crispy Kroketten on Diz’s plate. “Who is this coming tonight?”

  Diz bit into another one of the golden Kroketten. The hot, mashed potato filling was flavored with green onion and nutmeg.

  “Clarissa,” Diz replied between bites.

  “Oh.” Christa waved a hand. “That schmissig redhead with the Italienisch car?”

  Diz nodded.

  “Ya, you watch out for that one, missy.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Christa wagged a finger at her. “She is not like you. Not Lesbierin.”

  Diz shrugged. “So?”

  “So?” Christa rolled her blue eyes. “Sheesh. You kids are all alike these days. All wise guys. All know-it-alls. So what if something shreds your insides—you don’t care. You just go for it and damn the consequences.”

  “Is that really what you think?”

  “Ya. You are just like Karl—he never listened to us, either. And he ended up getting his pickle stuck in a wad.”

  Diz narrowed her eyes. “His what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Are you talking about Maisy?” Maisy was Karl’s wife.

  “Ya. That cow.”

  “I thought you liked Maisy?” Diz was confused.

  Christa threw up a hand. “She is all right, now. But Karl was a pig head, and he jumped at the first Mädchen who shook her fanny at him. You are just the same as him.”

  “No, I’m not,” Diz protested. “I jump at every Mädchen who shakes her tail at me.”

  Christa glowered at her and shook her white head. “You just be careful.”

  “I’m trying. But Clarissa is different.”

  “Ya . . . you all say that. Then you wake up one morning with four kids and no job. So you have to move to someplace awful like Carolina.”

  Diz wasn’t sure how to reply to that.

  The wind was picking up. Outside Christa’s kitchen window, Diz could see that the streetlight on the corner had come on. She glanced at the wall clock near the doorway that led to the dining room. It was only three-thirty. Jesus.

  “K2 would be here if he could,” she said, softly.

  “I know.” Christa pushed her own plate away. She had eaten very little. “I don’t blame him. Look at my house . . . it’s not a place for kids this year.”

  “We could change that,” Diz suggested, hopefully. “I could help you put up the tree and lights.”

  Karl and Christa always put their tree up on Christmas Eve, in accordance with German tradition. Diz remembered how Karl Sr. would drive every year to a tree farm near Sykesville to cut his own Frasier Fir. For a moment, Diz thought Christa might go along with the idea. She turned her head and stared at the snow drifting against her windowpanes. When she looked back at Diz, her blue eyes were full of sadness.

  “No. It’s better this way.”

  “Why is it better?” Diz persisted. “Karl would want you to be happy—and you love Weihnachten. It’s a time to be joyful, and to celebrate all the good things in life.”

  Christa pushed back her chair and started collecting their plates.

  “Not for me. Not this year.”

  Diz started to protest, but Christa held up a palm to stop her. “One day soon enough, you, too, will know such loss. Right now for me, Advent only means the passing of another week without Karl. There are not enough tree lights in this city to erase that darkness.”

  Diz found it hard to respond to that.

  “Okay,” she said, sadly.

  “Now,” Christa said. “Let’s fix your skinny heiress some food, then have a Schnapps before you go.”

  Diz sighed and got up. She wasn’t sure how well-braised red cabbage would go with her Provençale soup, but she knew it would be futile to argue. She picked up a platter of pork Schnitzel and hoped that the rest of Christa’s prediction would be a long time coming true.

  The soup was simmering on the stove, and it smelled wonderful.

  The wine was decanted. And Diz had set a small table for them in the living room, so they could see the Christmas tree. The big, live tree was a beauty. Her paper ravens were all there, of course, but this year she’d added white lights to the blue LEDs, a tribute to her nearly completed doctorate in American Literature. Her prelims were over, and her dissertation adviser was reading the final draft of her magnum opus on Edgar Allan Poe before turning it over to the committee for review. Then she would sit for her dissertation defense, and that would be that.

  She finished stacking the kindling and logs and stood back to survey the room.

  The blue and white lights on the tree looked almost neon.

  It looks like a Greek restaurant exploded in here, she thought.

  Still, she liked the cool tones of the colors. They went perfectly with the storm that was still raging outside. She’d heard on the news earlier that several neighborhoods in the city had lost power. God. What a nightmare on Christmas Eve.

  She tried to imagine all those mothers and fathers, arguing in whispers while their kids slept upstairs and they tried to assemble bicycles and dollhouses by flashlight.

  Who was she kidding? Kids didn’t get stuff like that now. Kids got iPads and video games. Kids got flat panel TVs and cell phones that could program a space shuttle. Kids got whatever-in-the-hell things they screamed for the loudest—and whatever would be guaranteed to keep them quiet and isolated from the rest of corporeal humankind.

  Progress. The de-socialization of America carried out via social media. It was an ironic paradox for future Ph.D. candidates to unravel.

  Her phone rang. Diz glanced at her watch. Eight-fifteen. Her heart sank. She knew before she picked it up whose voice would be on the other end of the line.

  “Diz?”

  Yep. It was Clarissa.

  “Yeah.”

  “I have some bad news.” At least she sounded genuinely distressed—even out of breath.

  “What is it?” Diz was trying not to come unhinged.

  “I’ve been trying to get my car out for the last half hour, and it’s not happening. The snow has drifted across the exit to the parking garage.”

  “Where are you?” Diz asked.

  “I’m at my father’s condo.” Diz could hear talking in the background. “I even tried to talk him into lending me his Tahoe, but he refused.” She paused. “Truthfully, I don’t think we could even get that out. There must be two feet of sno
w piled up out there. Nobody is going anyplace.”

  Diz nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  “Diz?” Clarissa lowered her voice. “Diz . . . honey? I’m really sorry. I tried. I want to be there with you—believe me.”

  “I believe you.” What else could she say? It had been nothing but a colossal delusion for her to believe that Clarissa would actually make it over there. This was a blizzard, for Christ’s sake.

  “Your father is right. You need to stay in and stay safe—it really is too dangerous to travel right now.”

  She could hear Clarissa sigh. “What will you do?”

  Diz looked around her living room, and at the table set for two.

  “I’ll probably just watch something depressing on TV and go to bed.” When Clarissa didn’t reply, she added, “I’m kidding. I’ll be fine. Marty invited me over earlier, so I may hitch up the dog sled and head over there.”

  “You can walk to Marty’s?” Clarissa sounded dubious.

  “Sure. It’s only about three blocks from here.”

  “Okay.” Another pause. “Did you already cook?”

  “Yeah. But it’s fine—just soup. I can save it. Besides, Mrs. Schröder fed me enough earlier to last until spring.”

  “The widow next door?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Is her family in town?”

  “No. Not this year. Her son couldn’t make it back up here since he took so much time off after his father’s funeral.”

  “Well, I’m glad she has you, then.”

  “Yeah . . . I’m a real barrel of laughs.”

  “Diz . . .”

  “It’s okay, Clar. Really. No worries, all right?”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes,” Diz lied.

  More silence.

  “Call me in the morning?” Clarissa sounded like a little girl.

  “Of course,” Diz said with false bravado.

  “All right. Goodnight, then.”

  Diz closed her eyes. “Goodnight.”

  She started to lower the handset when she heard Clarissa’s voice again.

  “Diz? I wanted to say that I . . . well.” She paused. “Merry Christmas, Diz.”

  Diz nodded and swallowed hard. “You, too.”

  Clarissa disconnected. Diz stood there, still feeling the vibration of her last words against her ear.

  Yeah. She looked at the phone. Merry fucking Christmas to me. She wanted to throw the damn thing across the room. But she didn’t. She set it down gently, walked to the small dining table, and retrieved the decanter of wine and a glass. She carried them both across the room and plopped down into a leather chair near her neon-lighted tree. After she’d poured herself a big glass of the dark red liquid, she held it up in front of her face to examine it against the backlight of the Christmas tree.

  It looked like blood. Nice.

  She took a big swig.

  This sucked candy canes.

  She stared up at her tree. A hundred black ravens stared back at her. She could almost hear their silent chorus of Nevermore!

  She felt like a schmuck for getting her hopes up. They were in the middle of Baltimore’s biggest snowstorm in a decade, and still she managed to cling to the thin delusion that Clarissa would find a way to join her for Christmas Eve.

  She should’ve taken Christa Schröder’s words to heart: not this year.

  Not any other year, either, apparently.

  She thought again about Christa. It was wrong for her to sit over there alone in the dark with only her sadness to keep her company. Not on Christmas Eve.

  An idea occurred to her.

  She put her wine glass down and got up to go into the kitchen to turn off the stove. Then she walked to her hall closet to get her coat and boots.

  She might not be able to remedy her own pathetic situation, but she sure as shit could do something about Christa’s.

  Marty looked stunned when he opened his big front door and saw her standing there in a swirl of snow.

  “What the hell are you doing out there?” he asked. He swung the door open wider and grabbed her by the arm. “Get in here before we let all the heat out.”

  “Who is it?” someone hollered from inside. The level of exasperation in the voice was hard to mistake.

  Sister Sheila . . . of course.

  And now she was yelling again. “Alvin! Stop pulling the dog’s tail!”

  Diz could hear a TV blasting some place in the back of the house.

  How was it possible that their kids were still up? It had to be after nine o’clock. It had taken Diz more than half an hour to make her way to Marty’s house. She finally gave up on trying to find the sidewalks and just trudged along down the centers of the streets. Why not? It wasn’t like there was any traffic to speak of.

  “Are your kids still awake?” she asked Marty, after she stepped inside, and he pushed the door closed behind her.

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re kidding me, right? They don’t ever sleep.”

  “Jeez, Marty.”

  “What are you doing out in this mess? Where’s the Duchess?”

  “At her father’s. She couldn’t get out.”

  “Yeah? I’m not surprised. It’s nasty out there.”

  “Who is it, Marty?” Sheila asked again.

  “Diz,” he called back.

  “Diz?” Sheila answered with surprise. “Well tell her to get in here and grab a kid.”

  Diz felt the floor vibrating and a big, black and white Siberian Husky bolted into the foyer and skidded to a stop at her feet. It had something in its mouth.

  When Marty realized what the dog was carrying, he tried to grab it away from her. “Sadie! Drop! Drop it!” Sadie was doing a masterful job dodging Marty’s lunging hands. “Jesus, Sadie . . . give me that damn diaper.”

  Sadie glanced up at Diz with her clear blue eyes, before she sensed a threat and whipped her head to the side. Simon and Teddy were thundering toward her on their fat little legs. In an instant, she was off like a shot—her trophy still intact.

  The two marauding boys roared through the foyer and continued after her without stopping.

  “Don’t run in the house!” Marty yelled after them.

  In the living room, Alvin was screaming, “Sadie took my didie!”

  Marty sighed and ran a hand over his face.

  “Sorry. It’s been a rough night.”

  “No problem. Look, man, I’m here because I need a favor.”

  “A favor?” He looked suspicious. “What is it?”

  “I need to borrow your van.”

  “My van? Tonight?”

  Diz nodded.

  “Are you nuts?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t ask, Marty, if it wasn’t really important.”

  “What are you going to do? Go and try to get her?”

  “Her? Her who? Clarissa?”

  He nodded.

  “No. This doesn’t have anything to do with Clarissa.”

  He looked dubious.

  Diz held up a hand. “I swear. It’s not about her at all. It’s something else—something I need to do for somebody who’s all alone.”

  “I don’t get it. Why does it have to happen tonight? In case you didn’t notice,” he jerked a thumb toward the front door, “there’s a blizzard out there.”

  Diz sighed. “I realize that. But didn’t you say earlier that you had your tire chains on?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Then I should be fine. I don’t have far to go.”

  He hesitated.

  “Come on, man. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.”

  He sighed. “Sheila will have my ass if she finds out.”

  “Sheila already has your ass, Marty.”

  “True.” He opened the hall closet and got out his coat. “I’ll be right back,” he called out.

  “Where are you going?” Sheila asked.

  “I’m walking Diz out. I’ll be right back.” />
  “Oh, god, Alvin . . . not on the couch, again!” Sheila sounded like she was about to come unhinged. “Marty!”

  Marty turned to Diz. “Let’s go before she has a chance to come out here make you take Alvin along with you.”

  Diz pulled open the big front door. “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

  They made their way to Marty’s driveway. Fortunately, his prized “Inferno Red” Dodge Caravan was backed into its space. He grabbed a snow shovel and broom that were leaning up against the porch, and tossed the broom to Diz. While Marty shoveled snow, Diz used the broom to sweep off the windshield. Once they had broken up the worst of the drift across his driveway, he pulled something out of his pocket and walked around to the driver’s side door.

  “Get in—I need to show you a few things.”

  “Marty . . . I know how to drive.”

  “Not this thing, you don’t. It’s special.”

  “Special?”

  He nodded. “Trust me.”

  Marty fiddled with the door lock, then climbed inside and unlocked the passenger door for Diz.

  “Okay,” Diz said with impatience. “What is it that you have to show me?”

  Marty reached inside a two-toned bowling shoe that sat on the center console between the front seats. He held up a short-barreled flathead screwdriver. “How to start it, for one thing.”

  “A screwdriver?” Diz asked.

  He nodded.

  “Did you lose your keys?” she asked.

  “Never had keys to lose,” he said. He shoved the screwdriver into the ignition and angled it so it would connect with the starter. “You have to hold it at exactly this angle, or it won’t work.”

  “Are you kidding me with this? Where did you get this thing? Midnight Auto Supply?”

  He looked at her. “No. For your information, I got it from some guy in Michigan.”

  “Some guy? Did he also sell you a Rolex?”

  Marty sat back against the high-backed leather seat. “Do you want to use my ride, or not?”

  Diz sighed. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Okay.” Marty turned the screwdriver, and the engine roared to life. The cabin was immediately filled with loud, soulful music.”