A Christmas Home: A Novel (8 page)

Todd pushed the barn door open and found his father polishing an old cowbell at his desk.

It had been a pleasant afternoon project for George. When he had been a boy, it had been his job to rise early in the morning, climb on his horse, and herd straggling cows up to the barn for milking. The cowbells made it easier to locate the wanderers. Herding the cows was very hard work for a boy. After George’s father died, the work got even harder. For five generations now, the McCray family had found something very rewarding about spilling their sweat and blood onto that bit of Kansas farm ground. Their hard work
had paid off, bringing good times for the McCray family. It was difficult for George to accept that the family farm might one day come to an end.

“What’s that?” Todd asked when his dad looked up.

George put the rusted bell down and turned the grinder motor off. “Just an old cowbell I found buried out in the feedlot. It’s from one of the milk cows, back when your great-grandfather Bo and I had the dairy together. I thought it might be fun to polish it up. Don’t see many of these around today.” Christmas moved toward George and offered a tail-wagging doggie greeting. George reached down and patted the old Lab on the head. “Christmas, how was your day?”

As Todd was apt to do, he got right to the point. “It was a bad day for us and for a bunch of cats and dogs, too. They’re going to close the shelter.” He looked down at his red Converse tennis shoes. “I don’t know what to do now. I guess we have to find another way to rescue all those dogs and cats, and I have to find a new job doing something else.”

“Son, these days are bound to arrive whether we like it or not. Women, work, and hemorrhoids are a man’s greatest challenges. Pull up that stool and we’ll talk about it.”

George and Mary Ann had spent the entire last evening, after the town hall meeting, preparing for this inevitable conversation with Todd about the closing of the shelter.

George generally was of the opinion that the best way to foster Todd’s march toward total independence was to leave him alone just like he had done with his other four adult children. If they asked for a helping hand, he gave it. If they didn’t ask for it, that was fine, too. This was George’s way of showing that he respected their ability to make their own choices and to learn from their own mistakes, just like he had. He liked the motto
If you’re not making mistakes, it means you’re not trying hard enough
. It’s the getting up again—after the toddler falls—that eventually makes young legs strong enough to walk on. George was not worried about Todd stumbling, not before and not now.

Mary Ann felt differently. Her primal need to protect her children was amplified with Todd. She worried that he was too fragile to sustain life’s dings and drops. It was hard for her to watch him tumble and not rush out, pillow in hand, to break the fall. She thought that caring and loving parenting naturally entailed gentle and distant supervision so that Todd did not have to scale dangerous obstacles that were too tall for him to overcome. She could not help wondering why George simply did not recognize that Todd was not like their other children.

“And if you keep treating him differently,” George had retorted, “Todd won’t have a chance to ever catch up and be his own man.”

Over the years they had tried to find a middle ground when they could. George thought Todd should move into
Crossing Trails and have a place of his own. Todd seemed ready to manage his own money, time, and living arrangements. Mary Ann thought he was doing perfectly fine living upstairs with them—as he always had and she hoped he always would. They had compromised and moved Todd down the hill and into Thorne’s cabin.

As with many compromises, neither parent was totally satisfied. Mary Ann found it harder to keep an eye on Todd, to help him when he needed it. She found that she worried more when she was not in touch with him and his needs, the way she always had been. In her opinion, his cabin was always a mess and his eating habits were poor. George pointed out that in that regard Todd was hardly different from any other young man living on his own for the first time. But Mary Ann was concerned about more than Todd’s housekeeping abilities; she worried that he was lonely and isolated by himself.

For his part, George wanted Todd to start experiencing life without parental monitoring. In his mind, Todd’s considerable progress the last few years had been a direct result of his accepting adult responsibilities, including having a job and a home of his own. George was not inclined to rescue Todd from his current predicament, at least not without giving him a chance to work through it first on his own. Mary Ann wanted to assure Todd that he was not alone in this world, that together his parents could make things right for him.

For now, George and Mary Ann didn’t have to agree. Each would talk to him in their own way.

Todd pulled the stool over by his father and sized up the problem. “We have to find a new place for a whole lot of dogs and cats before the end of the year. That’s not much time.”

“You’re pretty good at finding homes for pets. You’ll make it happen.”

“I don’t know, Dad. It gets harder every year. Hayley says it’s because of the economy. We only found twelve adoption families last December. I’m not sure we can do any better than that this year.”

“Is there something else you have to do besides find homes for all those critters?” George asked.

“I have to find a job for me.”

George picked up the old bell and rang it gently. “Good answer. How are you planning on doing that?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Hayley says I need to think about what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to work with dogs, and the shelter is the only place where I can do that.” Saying the words made Todd feel closed in as if he were cornered and without options. He put it into words as best he could. “So it’s like I’m stuck in the mud on the tractor. My wheels are just spinning.”

George had thought about this all day. He wasn’t a big fan of the follow-your-dream mentality. He thought it bordered on self-indulgence and was not a practical approach for Todd. “Todd, let me ask you something. When you are really hungry, do you sit around and think about what you would like to eat, or do you go look in the refrigerator and grab what’s there?”

That one was easy. “I’d go into the fridge and hope there was something I like a lot. Ice cream would be good.”

“There you go! Well, finding work is the same thing, really. You’ll never get anywhere by just thinking about what might be perfect for you. You’ve got to find what’s out there and make it happen. If there is no ice cream in the fridge, you might have to make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Does that make sense?”

“Or maybe I get in the car, drive to the store, and buy ice cream?”

George had to admit Todd had him on that one, so he tried again. “Todd, if you go into a restaurant do you order what’s on the menu or do you tell them what sounds good to you?”

“You have to order off the menu.” Todd reached down and nervously petted his dog. He knew his dad was trying to reach out to him and help him understand something that was resting just beyond his grasp. He knew his dad was doing this in the most patient and loving way he could, but what he was saying was still not sinking in.

“See, Todd, you’ve got to go out there and find out what
jobs are available. That’s like the food on the menu or the food you have in the refrigerator. Sitting around thinking about where you wish you could work is like the food in your mind. You can’t eat food in your mind. Thinking about food doesn’t fill you up. Does it?”

It clicked in a vague way. Todd translated what his dad was saying to mean that thinking alone wouldn’t get him a job. That much made sense. He walked over to his dad and hugged him. “Thanks, Dad. I think I understand now why my wheels were spinning.”

“Trust me, Todd. You’re not the first person to get their wheels spinning on this one. I’m always hearing about someone’s kid going off to college or trade school to study their dream—poetry, cliff dwellers, or something that sounds real interesting—and then they get home and act surprised when they can’t find work. They have it all backwards. We have to find out who is hiring, what work is out there in the world, and then get trained to do it.”

George handed Todd a copy of
The Prairie Star
. He folded the paper back to the classified section and then spread it out on his makeshift desk. “Come over here a minute and look at this.”

Todd looked over his father’s shoulder and George continued, “These are the jobs in town, where people need help. This is the list you’ve got to pick from. It’s like the job menu. Because the economy is weak now, there aren’t a lot of openings. But whether we like it or not, this is what’s on the job menu. Take it and look it over. See what’s out there.
It might be you have to work at something less than perfect for a while.”

Todd took the paper from his dad. “Thanks, I’ll look it over.”

“I circled a few that might be worth checking into.”

Todd turned toward the barn door and started to leave. “See you later, Dad. Thanks for your help.” Todd looked down at Christmas and asked, “You coming along or staying?”

George and Mary Ann were amused by the way Christmas wandered back and forth between Thorne’s cabin and their farmhouse. Today, Christmas seemed content on the floor beneath George’s feet. Tomorrow, he might spend the day with Todd. At times he would paw on the door of either home, and when let out, he would travel across the narrow meadow that separated the two dwellings, seemingly ready to spend time at his other place.

The old Lab’s tail swept back and forth several times, but he did not get up as Todd got ready to leave the barn, so Todd buttoned up his coat, put on his blue stocking cap, and said, “I guess he’s staying.”

It was cold enough for Todd to walk briskly down McCray’s Hill. From a distance, Thorne’s cabin had a rustic appeal, but it was a simple place: only one big room with a kitchen at the back and a bedroom and small bath to the side. Once inside, Todd hung his coat on a peg and went through his mail. He found a plate of his favorite cookies on the kitchen table with a note from his mom.

Todd set the note down on the table, gobbled down a cookie, and checked the cell phone he had left on the kitchen table with his car keys. There was a message. He pushed the little symbol for a tape and the speaker button so he could hear it play while he ate his cookies. He heard a female voice. “Todd, it’s Laura. I could use some more help setting out Christmas decorations tonight. Can you come by around seven?” Todd crammed down another cookie and called Laura back. He’d be there.

Todd hung up the phone and quickly called Mary Ann to thank her and let her know that he would be helping Laura for the second night in a row. Although disappointed, she understood. “Drive carefully, Todd, and we’ll talk later.”

After she hung up, she tried to piece together the aggravatingly cryptic summary George had given her of his conversation with Todd: “I gave him the Help Wanted section of the paper. He’s going to read it. That’s enough for now. Give him a chance to work it out.”