Colors of Christmas

by Newport, Olivia

  Truman sidled around the table, unperturbed. “If you would just let me talk to you, we could sort this out.”

  “You are not supposed to be this close to me.”

  He shrugged. It was a dare.

  “Carly.” Astrid’s tone sharpened, taking a different tact. “Help me with my scooter and we’ll go.”

  Carly’s tongue circled her lips.

  Truman helped himself to a recently vacated table. It was no coincidence that it was the one closest to Carly. Astrid didn’t know how many feet away he was supposed to stay under the restraining order, but unquestionably this was too close. With great deliberation, he put Carly’s phone on the table and picked up a menu.

  A man sporting a white shirt and black necktie broke through the ring of gawkers.

  “I understand we have a situation here,” he said.

  The tag on his shirt said his name was Gary, the manager.

  “You can’t wave a knife around in here,” he said to Carly. “Whatever your private issue is, take it outside.”

  “He’s violating a restraining order.”

  Gary sighed. “Those things aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”

  Carly’s eyes hadn’t left Truman.

  Gary scanned the remaining customers. “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for this disruption of your meal. Of course there will be no charge if you decide to leave. Please do whatever you think best for your own safety.”

  “She’s not going to hurt anyone.” Truman spoke from the table where he pushed dishes of half-eaten food aside. “I know her. She’s not capable of hurting someone.”

  Astrid looked from Truman to Carly. Even with both hands gripping the knife, Carly trembled.

  “Maybe you ought to leave,” Gary said to Truman.

  “I haven’t ordered yet,” Truman said.

  “Sir, you must leave. I can’t have this going on at our busiest time of the day.” Gary took a step toward Carly. “Let’s just put the knife away.”

  Carly shook her head.

  “Then perhaps you should gather your things and go. One of you has to leave. In fact, I must insist that both of you leave. This isn’t the time or place for whatever is going on between the two of you.”

  “He has to leave.” Carly spoke through gritted teeth. “And give me my phone back.”

  “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  Gary approached Carly. Astrid was relieved he had stepped in to help, but it was hard to predict how Carly or Truman would react.

  “Nobody will get hurt,” Carly said, “if he just leaves.”

  Had this man ever hurt Carly? The question tumbled around Astrid’s mind as she searched for any other explanation for both the young woman’s fright and her decision to carry a kitchen knife and a baseball bat wherever she went. So far Carly showed no inclination to accommodate Gary’s request to put the knife down, and Truman had simply moved the used dishes to another table and perused a laminated menu.

  “Sir,” Gary said, “I’m exercising my right not to serve you today. It’s best for everyone if you leave.”

  Truman turned a page in the menu.

  Gary glanced toward several of the waitstaff who had congregated in one corner and shook his head. No one was to take Truman’s order, but his firm directives toward Truman and Carly had accomplished nothing more than Astrid’s pleas.

  Bracing herself so the table would take most of her weight, Astrid hopped toward her scooter.

  “Astrid, don’t,” Carly said. “You’ll hurt yourself all over again.”

  If she did it would be worth it. Astrid continued to where Carly had parked the scooter out of the way. When she reached it and got situated, she rummaged for her cell phone in the bag.

  It wasn’t there.

  She expelled breath. She had left the thing on the kitchen counter plugged in to charge. Surely by now someone had called the police. Surely. Astrid opened her wallet and took out bills representing five times the cost of their food and rolled back to the table to tuck them alongside a plate.

  Half the lunchtime rush had come to their senses and stopped gawking, instead abandoning meals and leaving the restaurant. Others, she presumed, felt trapped by the fact that the “lady with the knife” was between them and the exit. Outside, two dozen faces pressed against the front window of the restaurant, and no doubt a larger crowd was amassing on the sidewalk.

  “Carly,” Astrid said, “please put the knife away. I’m ready to go, and you are my ride home.”

  “I can’t leave right now,” Carly said. “This is my chance.”

  Chance for what?

  “Tyler will be waiting for you to come home this afternoon, just like you do every day.”

  “Cute kid,” Truman quipped. “You should meet him. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”

  “Shut up,” Carly said. “Leave my son out of this.”

  Truman turned another menu page.

  “Carly,” Astrid said, her breath a prayer for this despairing young woman.

  For the first time, Carly’s eyes wandered from Truman and met Astrid’s gaze.

  “I know you want to keep Tyler safe,” Astrid said. “Let’s keep everyone safe today.”

  “Hand me the knife,” Gary said, covering Carly’s hands with his. Her resistance faltered. “Sit down. I’ll bring you a cup of coffee and you can collect yourself.”

  “I am not sitting down anywhere near him,” Carly said.

  “Wherever you’d like,” Gary said.

  “I don’t need coffee.”

  “Something else, then.” Gary eased the knife free of Carly’s hands.

  Both front doors opened wide, and two uniformed police officers entered.

  “Over here,” Gary shouted.

  “Did you call for assistance?” an officer said.

  Gary nodded. “I imagine you had several calls.”

  “That we did. Something about a woman with a knife.”

  Gary looked at his hands. “I have the knife now. The danger is past. But I believe you will find someone in violation of a restraining order.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes!” Carly grabbed her purse, swiftly extracted the legal document, and pointed. “He’s right there, clearly not far enough away.”

  The officer took the document, glanced at it, and said, “Are you Truman Gibbons?”

  “It’s him,” Carly said.

  “Please step back for your own safety,” the officer said. “We’ll just need to verify his identity. Routine procedure.”

  “So?” the second officer said. “Are you Truman Gibbons.” Truman closed his menu. “I am. But I assure you this is all a misunderstanding.”

  The first officer creased the order of protection along the lines it had formed while in Carly’s purse. “Looks like we have grounds for an arrest.”

  The second officer moved to Truman’s table. “Sir, have you ever been arrested before?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, you’re being arrested now.” He unfastened a set of handcuffs. “Please stand up. I’ll read you your rights and explain what happens next.”

  “What happens next,” Carly shouted, “is that I don’t ever have to see you again. And give me back my phone.”

  “He took your phone against your will?” an officer said.

  “Yes.” She pointed at it.

  “Okay. We’ll note there’s an additional charge.”

  While one officer escorted Truman out of the building, the other asked questions of Carly, Astrid, Gary, and the surrounding straggling customers. Finally, he closed the small notebook.

  “Have a good day,” he said. “We’ll be in touch if we need you.”

  Astrid rolled over to Carly and let the young woman fall into her arms.

  CHAPTER 23

  Astrid had a Q and a U in her Scrabble rack. Betty’s Brood had nabbed her with a game after lunch and she welcomed the distraction. Her boxes were unpacked; her laundry was fin
ished and folded on the end of her bed, courtesy of the morning blue-smocked staff; she’d read all the papers after breakfast; and she’d never been one for daytime television. Well, maybe a little General Hospital now and then, just enough to stay caught up. Sooner or later she had to get past the settling-in phase of her new life and create some hooks for her days beyond mealtimes and physical therapy appointments.

  It seemed she was positioned to do very well with a Q on a double-score square. She pursed her lips in thought, looking back and forth between her rack and the available options to connect to with the perfect word. Years had passed since she played Scrabble with any serious competition. Her grandchildren were only now becoming skilled enough to win without her intentionally passing over plays that would have given her triple-score victory. But Betty’s Brood seemed sharp enough that she should pay attention. Quart. Quell. Queen. Quarry. Query. Quiz. Quetzal. If only she had a Z. Quetzal would have been especially noteworthy both because it included Q and Z, thus sure to produce a good score, and also because if she were challenged and Betty brought out the dictionary, Astrid would gladly describe a quetzal’s brightly colored plumage. Alas, she had no Z. Her gloating would have to wait for a future game. But she could put down QUAR attached to descending T and clear most of the tiles out of her rack.

  “We’re going to have to watch out for this one,” Mae said. “I can tell already she could be dangerous with the right letters.”

  Astrid laughed. “Years ago, when I first came to America, I played with friends to help me learn English and improve my vocabulary.”

  “What was your favorite word in those days?” Betty asked.

  “Syrup,” Astrid said. “I found that people weren’t prepared for the SY combination at the beginning of a word.”

  “See?” Mae said. “Dangerous.”

  Little did they know Astrid was holding quetzal in her back pocket for future use.

  A blue-smocked employee approached the table. Astrid was fairly certain this one was Jennifer, the caregiver who helped her during the tornado drill. There were so many names to learn. It was like being the new student in a school where everyone else had been together since kindergarten.

  “There you are,” Jennifer said, looking at Astrid.

  “Oh?” Astrid glanced up as she chose new tiles to replace what she’d used.

  “Your physical therapist is looking for you,” Jennifer said. “I promised that if I saw you I’d let you know.”

  Astrid turned her wrist and checked her watch. “My appointment isn’t for two hours.”

  Jennifer nodded. “One of her patients is gone already to be with family for Christmas, and another isn’t feeling well enough for therapy. She thought you might not mind coming earlier. That way she’ll be able to leave sooner. She still has shopping to do, apparently.”

  “Well, that seems like a reasonable request,” Astrid said, returning her tiles facedown to the pool of options. “I shall have to prove my prowess another day.”

  “We are quaking in our boots,” Mae said.

  Astrid accepted help from Jennifer to get on her scooter and pushed off down the hall toward the therapy and exercise room.

  She and Carly hadn’t yet spoken about what happened in the restaurant the day before. Once she regained her composure enough to drive, Carly had been silent on the way back to Sycamore Hills. Astrid still didn’t know how Carly knew Truman Gibbons or what had occurred to prompt her to seek a restraining order against him. The police officers were content to overlook witnesses mentioning the knife Carly had produced—at least for now. Astrid hated to think what might happen if Carly had to defend herself in court against a charge. She hadn’t actually used the knife, a fact that encouraged Astrid.

  Once they returned to Sycamore Hills, Carly still looked pale to Astrid, but she was concerned that she had missed a patient by now, and her supervisor wasn’t going to be happy.

  “Just tell her what happened,” Astrid had said.

  But Carly shook her head, and they parted in the hallway.

  Astrid had gone to her apartment, where she sat in a chair that caught a shaft of afternoon sun and fingered the gold cross hanging on a thin chain around her neck. She only knew what she’d seen, not any of the circumstances surrounding the event. Never in all her years had she known anyone who took out a restraining order—though she suspected that several people she’d known ought to have done so.

  On her way down to an early dinner—ravenous after having not a single bite of her roast beef and Swiss on sourdough—Astrid had peeked into the therapy and exercise room. Carly hadn’t been there, and Astrid didn’t know where else in the building she might be. Sometimes the therapists worked with residents in the privacy of their own apartments.

  But this was too big to gloss over. She couldn’t go in for a session of picking up marbles with her toes and stretching her arch over a rolling pin as if yesterday’s outing had never happened. At the same time, she couldn’t pry. If Carly didn’t want to talk about it, Astrid would have to let it go and fervently pray for Carly, but she had to try to offer solace.

  She wheeled into the therapy room. “Hello, Carly.”

  They were alone for the moment. Therapists seemed to come and go in a manner lacking structure to an onlooker. At the moment, it might be in their favor that they weren’t sharing the room with listening ears.

  “Thanks for coming early.” Carly spread a clean sheet on a therapy table.

  “Starting with heat?” Astrid said.

  “You know the drill.” Carly helped Astrid transfer to the table.

  It took several attempts, but Astrid was persistent and finally caught Carly’s gaze and held it. She moved one hand to cover Carly’s while she wrapped her ankle and waited.

  Carly stood still for a few moments before gasping for air. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  “Sorry? You? What on earth for?”

  “I knew something like that could happen. I should never have put you at risk.”

  “My dear Carly, I’m sorry you have carried this weight all alone.”

  “You’ve been through so many terrible things.” Tears glistened in Carly’s eyes. “Truly horrific things. I can’t compare my problems to what happened in Germany—and losing two husbands.”

  Astrid squeezed Carly’s fingers. “No two people suffer in identical ways, and we must not discount any suffering. The greatest gift we can give each other is to see suffering and name it as real. Always in suffering we meet fear. Always in suffering we must raise our eyes from darkness to light that awaits. There we will find others who have known suffering. Even God knew the suffering of His own Son.”

  Carly nodded and wiped one eye with the back of a hand.

  “Many people who hear my story,” Astrid said, “wonder how I can still have faith in God.”

  “Honestly, it boggles my mind.”

  “The Nazis, the events that separated our family after the war, Heinz’s senseless death, Peter’s illness that we never knew could take him so quickly. My faith means everything. Everything. I’ve lived a rich life—and it’s not over yet. And neither is yours. There is always hope for new life.”

  Carly shook her head slightly. “I think I’ve probably used up all my chances.”

  “Nonsense. God never runs out of chances.”

  Carly puffed her cheeks and blew out her breath. “At least there’s only one more week in this year. I want it to be over.”

  Astrid nodded. “Some years are like that. But we never fully leave them behind. Instead they carry us forward.”

  Carly shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe.”

  “We’re two days from Christmas Eve,” Astrid said. “What will you do?”

  “It’s just the three of us since my aunt and uncle moved to Phoenix.” Carly laughed. “Believe me, winter in the Midwest isn’t on the list for people who live in Phoenix.”

  Astrid smiled. “No, I suppose not. It was the same when I lived in Florida and the snowbi
rds came down.”

  “We’ll probably just stay in. Or I might take Tyler on a drive to see Christmas lights in the neighborhood.”

  “We used to do that,” Astrid said. “Looking at lights won’t take the entire evening. Why don’t you come to a Christmas Eve service with me?”

  “Church?”

  “Yes, church. Sam’s church, as a matter of fact.”

  “Sam the cook?”

  “Yes, Sam the cook. It’s an early service—five o’clock. There will be plenty of time to see the lights as well.”

  Astrid had only decided in that moment that she would like to go to Sam’s church. Alex was stuck in France. Ingrid was tending poor Ellie. Her own excuses for not accepting Sam’s invitation faded.

  “Sam has a solo,” Astrid said. “I know he would like to see our faces there.”

  “I barely know Sam. He seems nice, but …”

  Carly rubbed her thumbs across her fingernails. A nervous habit, Astrid observed.

  “I don’t know him very well, either,” Astrid said. “But I could use some wheels to get to church.”

  Carly laughed. “I’m a taxi?”

  Astrid shook her head. “Uber. My grandchildren tell me that’s the cool way to get a ride these days.”

  Carly’s smile widened. “Well, I suppose it is.”

  “Christmas!” Astrid said. “Christ in the cradle. Christ, the hope of the world. There is nothing like the hope of Christmas.”

  Carly nodded slightly, Astrid was pleased to see. She’d hooked her. Now she just had to reel her in.

  “Bring Tyler and your mother,” Astrid said.

  “I’m not sure my mother will want to.”

  “I would love to meet her.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It can’t hurt to ask her,” Astrid said, putting out a hand. “How will I get there if not for you? Give me your cell phone.”

  “My cell phone?”

  “Yes. I want to give you my number.”

  Carly’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t you know?” Astrid said. “No one writes down a phone number anymore. You just put it straight into someone’s contact list.”

  “You are full of surprises!”