Here in this cabin she was stuck, with nothing to do and no way to really celebrate.
The sound of raised voices just outside the cabin made her drop her book and sit up straighter. “Maybe they’re opening the road,” she said, and raced to the door.
But instead of a road crew, she found Ernesto and Reuben with a snow-covered evergreen between them. The two boys followed along behind the men, jumping and giggling and shouting with glee. Pearl brought up the rear of the procession, barking and wagging her tail. “We found a good one,” Reuben called to her.
“It looks huge,” she said. “Will it even fit in the cabin?”
“We might have to trim a little off the top.”
“What are you going to do with it now?”
“We’re going to decorate it.”
Finally, here was something she could help with. She had years of experience, decorating for parties and fundraisers. “I’m going to help with the tree,” she told Jimmy as she slipped into her coat.
“Sounds good.”
A blast of cold wind shook her when she stepped out of the cabin door. She pulled the mink more tightly around her and leaned into the gale. She never paid much attention to the weather in Houston. Summers were oppressively hot, spring rains occasionally flooded side streets and made traffic worse, and every few years a hurricane threatened and everyone stocked up on bottled water and batteries. But weather was merely a background to her days, not something that dictated her activities or interfered with her plans. Here in this desolate place the snow and cold and wind seemed so much more threatening—more personal and real and uncontrollable.
Carlo answered her knock. “Did you see our tree?” he asked, and held the door wide.
“I saw your father and Mr. Wright carrying it,” she said. The two men were wrestling the massive evergreen into a corner of the cabin, Ernesto on his knees, Reuben steadying the top of the tree. Roberto stood on the end of the bed, grinning from ear to ear.
“Carlo, shut the door. You’re letting in the cold.” Elena peered from behind the tree. “Oh, Mrs. Stanowski. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Please, call me Barb. I thought I might help with the tree.” She felt suddenly awkward, intruding on this family scene. “But you seem to have everything under control.”
“Come in, come in.” Elena waved her forward and Carlo shut the door behind her. The smell of fresh-cut cedar filled the room. Melting snow dripped from the branches of the tree. Elena grabbed a towel and began wiping up the moisture. “Excuse the mess.”
“We put rocks in the bucket to keep the tree from tipping over.” Roberto jumped off the bed to stand beside Barb, admiring the tree. It sat a little crookedly in a yellow mop bucket.
“I think it will be okay now.” Reuben stepped back and surveyed the tree critically. “You might want to trim it back a little.”
“It’s perfect,” Roberto announced. “Can we decorate it now?”
“First, we have to make the decorations.” Elena moved to the table. “Mr. Wright, Mrs. Stanowski, would you like to stay and help?”
“Please, it’s Barb. Mrs. Stanowski was my mother-in-law.” Jimmy’s mother had been a very patrician woman who had intimidated Barb until the day she’d died. She’d left Barb the mink because, as she’d explained in the note attached to the coat, she had never approved of the cloth coats her daughter-in-law had preferred. Barb gave the mink an extra pat as she took it off and laid it across the end of one of the beds. She could guarantee Jimmy’s mother would never have pitched in to help decorate a tree cut from the woods, in a fishing cabin temporarily occupied by a Mexican-American family. She joined the others at the table. Elena had assembled scissors, a pile of old magazines, a bowl and flour-and-water paste, a box of matches, and an assortment of empty cans.
“Barb, if you will cut strips of paper from the magazines, the boys can make chains.”
“I know how! I can do it.” Carlo reached for the scissors.
Elena swatted his hand away. “You wait and show Roberto how to glue the strips into chains.”
“What are you going to do with those cans?” Reuben asked.
“The soda cans I can cut into stars and hearts and other shapes,” she said. “If you cut the ends off the tin cans, you can punch holes in them with a nail to make patterns.”
“I can do that.” He picked up a soup can and studied it. “Do we have a can opener?”
“Right here.” She handed over the opener. Ernesto took a second can and the men went to work.
Barb cut strips of paper and distributed them to the boys, watching as Elena deftly carved the soda can into a fancy star. The red, white and silver of the can was perfect for an ornament, but Barb would never have thought of turning it into a decoration. “Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.
“When I was a little girl in Mexico there was a man in my village who turned soda cans into all kinds of things—toy airplanes and cars, those spinning pinwheel things. He sold them to tourists.”
Ernesto took the box of matchsticks and began to glue the tiny sticks into little stars and diamonds and pentagrams. The simple, geometric shapes made of overlapping matchsticks looked surprisingly delicate and beautiful. “Those are wonderful,” she said.
Ernesto smiled, but said nothing. Perhaps his English wasn’t very good, or maybe he was just very shy.
As they completed the decorations, they hung them on the tree with dental floss. The boys giggled as they draped yards of colorful paper chains in the branches, allowing their mother to add a few to the top of the tree. But most of the ornaments ended up at kid height. Barb admired the odd assortment of matchstick shapes and soda-can cutouts and smiled. She had decorated some fabulous trees in her time, but never with things she’d made. This tree wouldn’t have won any prizes compared to some of the beauties she’d put together, but she couldn’t deny its charms.
“We should ask Mae to join us,” Reuben said.
“Do you think she would?” Barb asked. “I got the impression she’d just as soon we weren’t here.”
“She has to be lonely, stuck here all winter by herself,” Reuben said.
“Some people like their own company.” Elena carefully bent a piece of the aluminum soda can into the halo of an angel.
“She likes the boys.” Barb smiled at Carlo; the tip of his tongue stuck out as he concentrated on gluing the paper strips into perfect circles. “She says they remind her of her sons.”
“Then we should definitely ask her to join us.” Reuben looked at Barb.
“Why are you all looking at me?” she asked.
“She likes you,” Elena said. “She didn’t invite me in or lend me her quilts.”
“All right. I’ll ask her.”
“Tell her to bring some popcorn,” Elena said.
“For the tree or to eat?” Carlo asked.
“Both.”
Mae took so long to answer the door Barb wondered if she’d been asleep. “Hold your horses!” came a muffled shout that rose above Pearl’s barking as Barb knocked a second time. The door jerked open and Mae blinked at her from behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “What is it?”
“The Ramirez family cut a tree for their cabin and we wondered if you’d like to help us decorate it.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Clearly, Mae enjoyed being contrary. But Barb could be stubborn, too. “Because it’s Christmas and decorating a tree is fun,” she said. “Of course, then you’d have to actually come out of this house and talk to the rest of us.”
“You’re not my company I have to entertain.”
“Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe we’ll entertain you.”
Mae removed the glasses and polished them on the hem of her faded blue turtleneck sweater. “I’ll do it for the boys—not for any of the rest of you.”
“Fair enough. Do you have any popcorn?”
“I suppose you want butter and salt, too.” Despite her stern express
ion, Barb thought she detected a hint of laughter in the older woman’s eyes.
“Only on half of it. The other half is for the tree. We’ll need needles and thread for stringing, too. I know you sew, so you should have those.”
“Come on in, then. This is going to take a while.”
Barb followed Mae into a red, white, and blue kitchen—red linoleum floor, white Formica counters, and blue wooden cabinets. Mae pulled a quart canning jar half full of popcorn from the cabinet and shoved it at Barb. “You get the popcorn started and I’ll get the thread. There’s a pan in the cabinet by the stove.”
Barb found the pan—a large aluminum sauce pan with a lid with a cracked black plastic handle. Fat lot of good this does me, she thought as she studied the jar of kernels. She knew it was possible to make popcorn in a pan on the stove; she just didn’t know how to go about doing so.
“I’m afraid the only popcorn I’ve ever made was in little packets in the microwave,” she said when Mae returned.
“Must be a pain going through life so helpless.” Mae took the pan from her and shooed her toward the table. “And take off that coat. You’re making me hot.”
Amused, Barb removed the coat. She’d rather deal with Mae’s open scorn than anyone else’s silent pity.
“I’ll bet you’ve never strung popcorn for a tree before either,” Mae said as she shook the pan of kernels over the glowing stove burner.
“Nope. But you can show me,” Barb said.
“It works better when the popcorn’s stale. The kernels don’t break as easily. But this will have to do. Fetch me that biggest bowl out of that cabinet.” She nodded toward a cupboard to Barb’s left.
The bowl was a massive yellow plastic container big enough to bathe a baby in. Barb passed it over. “Now get the butter out of the refrigerator.”
“You like ordering me around, don’t you?” Barb asked as she retrieved the butter dish.
“Does it show that much?” She cut off half the stick of butter and slid it into a small saucepan. “Tell me you’re not one of these women who won’t eat butter because you’re worried it’ll clog your arteries or make you gain a pound or two.”
“Calories don’t count when you’re stranded over Christmas,” Barb said.
Mae laughed. “That’s my girl.” She stirred the butter as it melted, then tipped the pan over the bowl of popcorn and stirred everything with her hand. “A little salt and we’re done. Then I’ll make some to string.”
The hot, buttered popcorn was better than caviar or cashews, Barb decided as she munched a handful of fresh kernels. When she’d married Jimmy, she’d served those two appetizers at her first party; they were the most expensive, exotic offerings she could think of in her then-limited experience. She’d never eaten caviar in her life at that point, and cashews were something that might show up in her stocking at Christmas in a flush year.
Popcorn she could have any time she wanted, but it had never tasted better, no doubt due to the real butter and generous application of salt. She scooped up another handful. She’d hit the gym when she got home—if she ever got home.
When a second, only slightly smaller bowl was full, the women washed their hands, donned their coats, and trekked to cabin number two, Mae’s pockets stuffed with a packet of needles and two spools of white thread.
Chapter Six
The boys greeted Mae and Barb—or rather, they hailed the bowls of popcorn—with shouts of delight. Elena cleared a space at the table and distributed paper towels from a roll by the sink, and everyone helped themselves.
“We should have popcorn more often,” Carlo said when the bowl was almost empty.
“My boys used to eat a lot of popcorn,” Mae said. “It was a cheap snack to help fill two bottomless pits.”
“That’s my stomach,” Roberto said. He picked a last kernel from the bowl. “A bottomless pit.” He eyed the second bowl of popcorn. “Are we going to eat that one, too?”
“This one is for the tree.” Mae moved the bowl closer to her and took out the needles and thread. “I’ll show you how to string it. It looks really pretty on the tree, but you have to be careful. The kernels break easily.”
“Maybe the boys should stick to paper chains,” Elena said. “They’ll eat more popcorn than they string.”
“Where’s that husband of yours?” Mae asked Barb.
“He’s working on a project. Helping Santa.”
“It’s been a long time since Santa visited here.” Mae deftly slipped a kernel of popped corn onto her needle and slid it down to the knot at the end of the thread.
“You don’t think he’ll have any trouble finding us, do you?” Roberto’s forehead wrinkled in a worried frown.
“He’ll know kids are here,” Mae said. “And this is the only place along this side of the lake where anyone’s living this time of year. He’ll be able to see the smoke from my wood stove a long time before he gets here.”
“How do you think Santa comes down all those chimneys without getting burned?” Roberto asked.
“He wears a fireproof suit,” Mae answered, without skipping a beat.
Carlo’s eyes widened. “I never thought of that.”
Barb bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. So much for thinking the old woman was a sourpuss.
“Does Pearl talk at Christmas?” Roberto asked.
“Does she talk?” Mae looked at the dog, who lay stretched in front of the door, asleep.
“I heard a story that said animals could talk at Christmas,” Roberto said. “On Christmas Eve.”
“I’ve never heard Pearl talk, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t,” Mae said. “They say Christmas is a time for miracles.”
“I’d settle for the miracle of the highway opening again,” Barb said.
“I thought miracles were things like healing the sick or big stuff like that,” Carlo said.
Elena smoothed his hair back from his face. “There are a lot of different kinds of miracles, I think.”
“I have a story about a Christmas miracle.” Mae set aside the popcorn she’d been stringing. “It happened a long time ago, to two little boys about your ages.”
“What happened?” Roberto asked.
Mae leaned back in her chair, her hands in her lap. “Once upon a time, there were two little boys, brothers. They lived by the shore of a big lake with their mother. They had a father, too, but he was far away. They missed him very much, but their mother had told them not to expect to see him again for a very long time.”
“Was he a soldier in the war?” Carlo asked. “Our friend, Danny, his dad went to Iraq and Danny didn’t see him for a whole year.”
“That would be one reason for a father to go far away, wouldn’t it?” Mae said. “In this story, it was getting close to Christmas. The lake was frozen and there was a lot of snow on the ground. The boys spent a lot of time wondering if Santa would be able to find them so far away from any town.”
She smiled at the boys, but Barb had a feeling she was seeing another pair of children, from many years before.
“The boys decided to write a letter to Santa. So they put their heads together and wrote a letter. They thought that, instead of asking for a whole long list of things, they should ask for the one thing they wanted most. They thought maybe if they asked for only one thing, they would have a better chance of getting it.”
“Smart boys,” Barb said.
“They thought they were smart, anyway,” Mae agreed. “They took a stamp from their mother’s desk when she wasn’t looking and they mailed the letter, addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole. And then they waited for Christmas to come.”
“What did they ask for?” Roberto asked.
“That was a secret,” Mae said. “Only Santa knew what the boys wished for. They waited and waited, and while they waited they were extra good. They helped their mother with all the chores, and they didn’t fight with each other. They wanted Santa to see that they deserved the gift they wanted.”
<
br /> “Was it a new bicycle?” Roberto asked. “That’s what I want Santa to bring me.”
“It wasn’t a bicycle.” Mae picked up the popcorn string and moved her fingers along it, the way a woman might worry the beads of a rosary. “Christmas Eve came and the boys were so excited they couldn’t sit still. They sat by the highway and waved to every car that passed, and made up stories about the people in the cars—where they were going, and where they’d come from. When their mother asked why they were sitting by the highway, they told her they were waiting for their Christmas wish.
“It was almost dark and getting colder. It started to snow, and the boys’ mother told them they had to come inside. They begged her to let them stay out longer; they wanted to see their Christmas wish the moment it arrived. Their mother told them they were being silly, that boys who waited up for Santa Claus were passed by.
“So the boys reluctantly came in and ate dinner and got ready for bed. They were very quiet, and even sad, worried they’d been wrong, and that Santa wasn’t going to give them their wish. But just before it was time for them to go to bed, they heard the sound of a big truck on the highway—a noise like the truck’s air brakes make when it stops. They listened, and after a minute, the truck rumbled on. But a little bit after that, they heard someone calling their names.
“They raced to the door before their mother could stop them, and they ran out into the snow in just their slippers. And then, walking toward them through the darkness, they saw a man. He had on jeans and a thin jacket, and a knit wool cap—nothing like the clothes he’d worn when they’d seen him last. Then, he’d been dressed in a fancy suit. But the clothes didn’t matter. They recognized him right away, and ran to him.
“Meanwhile, their mother had put on her coat and come out into the yard. She recognized the man, too, and she couldn’t believe what she saw.”
“Who was the man?” Carlo looked puzzled.
“He was the boys’ father,” Mae said. “And he was their Christmas wish. They’d told Santa that what they really wanted was for their father to come back to them, and so he had.”
Secret Santa Page 29