As I held my “missing Joe” crucifix between my thumb and forefinger, I prayed the prayer I had repeated so often when Joe was a POW. “Keep him safe, Lord. Bring him home to me. Take care of him. Keep him warm. Let him know how much I love him. Bring him home safe and sound.” As I drifted off, I imagined I smelled Joe’s hair cream emanating from the doily on the couch’s armrest.
Only minutes later, I woke with a start, but then lay dead still. Someone was jiggling the front doorknob. Then I heard the floor creak in the hallway. Oh, dear Lord, protect my children. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would explode. I was afraid to breathe. A burly man walked slowly, silently, toward the center of the room where the tree lights twinkled. I didn’t move. The figure turned toward me.
“Oh, my goodness! Joe!” I gasped as I jumped up.
“I promised you I would always be home for Christmas.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead, then my eyelids, then my lips. “Don’t cry, Honey,” he said, wiping away my tears. “I only have a few hours. Let’s make the most of it.” He zipped himself out of his thick shearling flight suit and boots, which added twenty pounds to his frame, and sat down beside me.
“Did you make your hard cider this year?” he asked, rubbing his cold, red hands together.
“Of course.” I kissed every square inch of his visible skin. “Joe, you’re freezing,” I said, my arms tightening around his shivering body.
“You’re right. I am freezing. I’ll tell you about it after I get my hands around a warm mug of cider.”
Once he was settled and warm, Joe told me how he got home. “I borrowed a car from a pilot who couldn’t leave the base. A Fiat. Tiniest car you’ve ever seen. Italian. Not built for snow. It had a broken heater, but I decided to go for it. I wore my flight suit to stay warm.”
“But Joe, if you broke down on an empty road, you could have frozen to death.”
“I was okay until I got to Pittsburgh. Then the driver’s side wind-shield wiper broke. I had to drive with my hand out the window to clear off the snow.”
Armed with nothing but a thermos of coffee, he drove for twenty straight hours, through a raging snowstorm. He was never able to go faster than 45 mph, often a lot slower. Then the car simply stopped in one of the tunnels. It was only a matter of reconnecting the alternator wire, but if there had been other cars on the road, he would have caused a pileup.
As thrilled as I was to be nestled in Joe’s arms, the thought of what he had done to get home terrified me. “Joe, you shouldn’t have done it. You could have gotten killed.”
“When I got home from the war,” Joe whispered, “I made you a promise that I’d never again leave you alone on Christmas. My record’s been perfect so far. I didn’t want to break it. And the look in your eyes makes it all worthwhile.”
GIVING SHELTER
MELISSA CHAMBERS
It was that time of year…I was busy preparing for Christmas, getting the tree up and trimmed, decorating the house, shopping and attempting to hold the attention of thirty fifth-graders for six hours a day. It was also a time of discovery; just a few weeks before my boyfriend had moved in, and we were still learning what that was like. We had so much in common, Charlie and I—a love of animals, books and political discussion. Life was wonderful, and I suspected that he was starting to think about marriage. But…were we really a perfect match? I’d made a mistake once before, so how could I be sure I wouldn’t make another one?
This holiday season, rather than donating to a local animal rescue, as I had for the last few years, I had decided to become involved in animal rescue myself. “Great idea,” Charlie had said when I told him about my plan to drive a few hours down to the Central Valley with Susan, a new friend who volunteered for a local rescue, and “pull” a couple of dogs from an overcrowded shelter she’d learned about. The plan was that we’d bring the dogs north to our town and we would have them spayed or neutered and foster them until new homes were found for each of them. It was a long drive, through areas known for thick “Tule fog” this time of year. “Getting the dogs is wonderful,” he’d said, and then added, “but wait until the fog burns off before you get on the road.”
As the day grew closer, I was more excited about our rescue mission than I was about the approaching holiday. For the last week, every evening, when I should have been wrapping presents, I had instead been looking at the dogs on the shelter’s website. A few days earlier I had decided to pull an adult Chihuahua and notified the shelter of my intent, but then had received word yesterday that she had not survived a bout of kennel cough.
Lying awake in bed that last night, reviewing everything I needed to pack in the morning for the trip, I kept seeing the big, scared eyes of the little blond Chihuahua. I’d already become attached to her just by seeing her picture. I felt it was my fault that she had died. What if I had taken off work and gone down there a few days earlier? Would I have been able to save her? I’d never had an animal’s death on my conscience before. As I tossed and turned, unable to quiet my thoughts enough to sleep, I realized what I would be doing tomorrow was playing God. The dogs I chose to bring back with me would be given a chance to survive. I knew that, but somehow had not connected the dots and realized that I would pretty much be sealing the fate of those I left behind. After that unwelcome epiphany, I didn’t think I would sleep at all, but I must have succumbed at some point because I was awakened from a deep sleep by the alarm at 8:30. We planned to hit the road about 1 p.m., which left plenty of time to pack everything and for the fog to burn off.
Traffic had been heavy with holiday travelers, but luckily there was no fog. Susan called the shelter to let them know we would not be getting there until after they had closed for the day.
Our first stop once we reached the shelter was the isolation ward for sick and injured dogs. A tiny ginger-hued Chihuahua puppy with caramel eyes peered out at me from the first cage I saw. One of his front paws flopped uselessly from the joint, but that didn’t stop him from plastering himself against the bars of the cage and sticking his long pink tongue out to lick my hand. A shelter worker in the room looked at his intake card and told us, “We don’t have a vet here, so he’ll be put down in the morning.” “Oh no, he won’t,” I responded, lifting him from the cage and wrapping my coat around his wriggling body.
A few cages further down we saw a dog that looked like a Jack Russell Terrier, but with very short legs, that seemed to have swallowed a watermelon. Because she was pregnant, she was also scheduled for euthanasia the next day, we were told. Her tail beat the air like a metronome as she threw herself at the bars over and over in an effort to get to us. Vanessa, as her kennel card identified her, was in a crate and ready to go in moments. Surely Charlie would understand why I couldn’t leave her, wouldn’t he? I asked myself.
The main kennels were so loud that conversation was impossible. This part of the shelter had openings to small outside areas attached to each kennel, and the icy December wind rushed in. I huddled deeper in my coat and gaped at the packed kennels whose floors were wet from when they had last been washed. With no way to get off the wet floor, the dogs were huddling together in piles, trying to get warm.
I blinked tears from my eyes as I thought of Charlie and the three dogs we already owned, at home, warm and safe. This time of the evening would find them snuggled together on the living room couch, the cheerful glow from the lights of the Christmas tree in front of the window competing with the blue light of the television across the room. Our dogs each had a Christmas stocking hung from the bookcase, between Charlie’s and mine. On Christmas morning they would be filled with chew toys, carrots and tiny tennis balls. At night they slept upstairs in the bed with us. Each had his or her special spot, and woe to the dog that tried to muscle in on another’s territory. The dogs were all mine, but when Charlie moved in, they were ecstatic to have someone else to lavish attention on them. All had been adopted from rescues. I hoped they had forgotten that part of their lives, now that they we
re used to being warm and dry and fed and loved. How many of the shivering dogs surrounding me now, I wondered, would get the chance to be part of a family again? There wasn’t one of them that didn’t deserve to have its own stocking filled with treats to devour on Christmas morning.
At least I could make a difference in the lives of a couple of them today. Last night over dinner I had promised Charlie I would pull just one or two dogs from the shelter. Small Chihuahuas like we had at home, because the Central Valley shelters were overflowing with them. I promised him they wouldn’t be any trouble. The amount of money I spent getting them spayed or neutered would be the amount I asked for their adoption fee, so they would not be a financial burden. “You will hardly know they’re here before they’ll be gone and in their new loving homes!” I’d insisted this afternoon as I shrugged into my coat. “Just be safe and let me know when you’re heading back,” Charlie replied as I gave him a quick hug and headed for the door. Now I realized that I could not keep my word. I had lied to him. At the time I had thought I could save just two dogs. I had already chosen two, and one was going to deliver puppies any day! Charlie trusted me. I knew how important honesty was in a relationship. Should I call and ask him if he would mind if I brought home more than two? Could I even leave the shelter with just these two dogs? How would he react when he found out I had broken my promise? Adding two dogs to our home, even temporarily, would be a bit stressful. More than two, more stress. What kind of reaction could I expect? Would he be angry? Feel he could no longer trust me to keep my word? Would he move out, leaving me to spend Christmas alone?
These thoughts chased around in my head as I surveyed the small faces surrounding me, begging me with their eyes, reaching for me with their tiny paws, each asking to be saved.
I texted Charlie when we left the shelter and headed back up north but didn’t mention anything about the dogs I was bringing home. It was almost 1 a.m. before we made it back to Sacramento. After dropping Susan and her new foster dogs off, I headed home, part of me eager to be back, another part wanting to delay having to face Charlie and tell him what I’d done.
The lights of our Christmas tree were still on, clearly visible through the front window as I pulled into the driveway. I wished I could leave the dogs in the car while I went in and prepared Charlie, but the night was much too cold. As I began carrying in crate after crate I told him in bits and pieces about what I had seen in the shelter: the cold wet kennels, the pleading faces of the dogs, the impossibility of saving only two. His eyes wide, Charlie listened without saying anything and eyed the growing number of crates I placed next to our Christmas tree. When the last crate was inside I stood before him, and said, “That’s why I brought home eight dogs, rather than just two, as I promised.” By that time the long day had caught up with me, and I was swaying on my feet. Charlie took me in his arms and wrapped me in a warm embrace. He looked down into my eyes and said, “Melissa, don’t apologize. I would have brought home more.” I hugged him back as hard as I could. No man could have said anything sweeter. I had made the right choice at last.
A CHRISTMAS LETTER TO MY WIFE OF FIFTY YEARS
JACK SKILLICORN
My Dearest Sandy:
It’s that time of year again. You’ve just headed out to the store to stock up on holiday treats, and here I sit to begin the process of writing our annual holiday letter to friends and relatives. This year I am having a difficult time concentrating, though. It could be the glass of our favorite wine that I’ve just poured, or it could be that every few minutes I look up from the page and focus on our newly decorated Christmas tree, hung with the ornaments we’ve collected, homemade strings of popcorn and the golden star we use every year at the top of the tree. Yes, I know most wives don’t think their husbands notice these kinds of small details but, Sandy, I do.
This holiday letter should be easy to write: after all, the formula is a well-worn one—a few paragraphs and some photos from trips we took, family updates on the kids and grandkids, throw in a few pet stories and voilà, I’m done. Or sometimes letter writers like to reminisce about holidays past. That should be an easy one to pull off; I have memories from fifty Christmases past to draw from…but no, this afternoon all I can focus on is you. Us. Our life together, as symbolized by a warmly lit and glittering tree. To heck with the Christmas letter—I’ll send two next year instead. This letter, Sandy, is for you.
That gold star perched at the top of the tree? It takes me back fifty years to you, our young daughter, Jeanette, and I celebrating Christmas together for the very first time as a newly made family in Massachusetts, snow on the ground and frost on the windows. With you in my arms and smiles on our faces, we watched a five-year-old delight in her presents. It was my first moment as her father, and I remember it so clearly.
And the peacock ornaments there on the branch near the window—I know exactly where they came from and when. 1965, Thailand. You came from California to visit me when I was stationed at the Ubon Air Force Base. You arrived in Bangkok after giving me very specific instructions not to waste a day of my leave coming down from Ubon just to meet your plane. Instructions I, of course, ignored! Watching you walk off the plane and seeing the look on your happy face when you saw that I had ignored your instructions was worth it. Holding you there in the airport wasn’t half bad, either. The blue, red and yellow cloth peacock ornaments are from a local marketplace in Ubon. I remember you wrapping each one to put in your suitcase when your visit ended all too soon. More than fifty years later, the colors are still vibrant, and so is my memory of you in that moment.
The small brass photo ornament in the middle of the tree, that is from 1968 in California. Our daughter Margaret was only three months old that Christmas. Is there ever a better present under the tree than a newborn baby in a red-velvet jumper and a white blouse with a lace collar and a Santa cap?
That clear glass ornament up there, near the top of the tree, filled with sand and seashells? Of course it is from 1979 in Maui. Moonlight walks on the beach, just the two of us walking hand in hand through the surf. What a trip—it is no wonder that we try to go back as often as we can.
I could go on and on, through each of the ornaments that we pull out of the box every year, dust off and then hang together as Christmas music plays in the background and the smell of baking cookies wafts in from the kitchen.
And now here we are, in our fiftieth year together. Such amazing memories, yes, but even more amazing will be the happy times and continuing romance in the coming years. Who knew, so many years ago, that it would turn out this well? I did, Sandy. I knew. I knew it when we bought that gold star, when we first held our children together, when we walked on beach after beach. Day in and day out, I knew. Christmas only comes once a year, but our long romance is never ending.
Your husband,
Jack
THE CRUMPLED CARD
JULAINA KLEIST-CORWIN
The cold December Saturday amplified the chill in my body. I raised the thermostat in my San Francisco Bay home, and the heater roared warmth. But it didn’t help. I paced in circles around my luggage and in straight lines down the hall. The shiver of anxiety wouldn’t stop. I expected a phone call from Mitchell at any moment.
We had attended a health conference in Paris, and it had been a romantic trip, blended with business. When we returned to the airport’s extended-stay parking lot, we kissed. Then he opened the door to my Nissan. I entered and rolled down the window. He kissed me again before he walked to his car nearby. We waved goodbye through our car windows and drove our separate ways.
No sooner had I arrived home that afternoon then I dropped my bags and raced to the phone to check for messages, expecting to have already heard from him. Nothing. No message. Nothing then, and nothing in the days since. Had he already forgotten our two weeks together in the dreamiest city in the world? My bags still sat there on the rug where I’d left them. Still packed and unattended. In the time I’d been home I still hadn’t had the heart to o
pen them and face the reminders of Paris and, him.
This had to stop. I called my mother to come over and help me unpack. The doorbell rang, we hugged at the door and I offered her a cup of coffee.
“No, thanks. It’s too hot in here.” She took off her white Christmas-decorated sweater and pushed up the sleeves of her turtleneck. In winter, she always wore monochromatic navy-blue clothes, except for a few white holiday tops. I turned down the thermostat. No need for heat when my mom always brightened the cloud of gloom. We both knew I was capable of unpacking one bulging suitcase and a small carry-on by myself, but she didn’t question me. She could recognize a distraught daughter and would stay calm until I explained. I opened my luggage and dug among my now-wrinkled clothes to find the souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I had brought back for her. I skirted the topic of Mitchell by asking what she had done during the time I was gone.
She summarized two weeks in two minutes and then nudged my elbow. “So, tell me, what did you do together? Did you sightsee with Mitchell, or did you have to go on guided tours with the conference group?”
Of course, she actually wanted to know if Mitchell and I had made commitments. Her mantra the last few months repeated in my head, “Divorced for three years, it’s time you settle down with a good man.” She was right. I was ready. Best of all, I had found Mitchell. The day we met less than a year ago, I fell in love with him. I thought that by now he cared for me in the same way.
“We went with the group to the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre and Notre Dame.” I didn’t tell her we’d ditched the group at the cathedral in the late afternoon and had the best time finding a picturesque restaurant for dinner. I also left out the part about the boat trip on the Seine to see the lights on the Eiffel Tower.
A Kiss Under the Mistletoe Page 10