Finding Father Christmas (15 page)

“Nothing to worry about. It was an accident, Mark. Now, do take off your boots before coming inside.”

Mark did as she asked and padded down the hallway in his wet wool socks, leaving footprints as he went.

“Welcome home, Mother.” Edward stepped up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing like making an event of your homecoming,
wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes indeed.”

“I can take it from here,” Edward said to me as he picked up his mother’s suitcases and escorted the luggage and Margaret
to the room at the end of the hall.

Julia slipped her cold, mittened hand in mine. “Do you want to come outside and help me make a snowman?”

“I can help you for a few minutes, but your mother said it’s almost time to eat.”

“Are the nibbles ready?”

“I think so.”

“Then I’m coming in now!” She kicked off her boots, pulled off her mittens, and wiggle-walked out of her coat.

I closed the side door to the garden, hung up Julia’s coat on the hallway peg, and followed her to the dining room. Everything
was ready for a grand celebration in the candlelit room. Anticipation glowed in the candles’ reflection on the stemware and
the shiny china plates.

“Mummy said I could sit by you so I can help you with your cracker.”

I smiled my appreciation at Julia even though I wasn’t sure why I would need help to eat a cracker. Sliding my shoulder bag
inconspicuously under the chair she assigned to me, I drew
in the scent of the bayberry candles and thought about what might happen next. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but
I knew I couldn’t bolt just yet.

The rest of the clan found its way into the dining room, and everyone stood around sampling the appetizers and making small
talk. I stood to the side and listened. The mix of all the voices with their British accents bouncing off the low ceiling
felt different from the party the night before. Here the stories being told were softly personal and laced with a lightheadedness
borne of familiarity. I began to grasp that moments such as these carried the same meaning for families like the Whit-combes
that morning waffle breakfasts had carried for me and my mother.

Katharine sidled up to me and in a low voice said, “You’re doing a good job.”

“A good job of what?”

“You’re doing a good job of letting the moment come to you. Stay steady. It will come.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I could guess. One of my co-workers at the accounting firm would call it “going with the
flow.”

I decided to go with the flow and say something to Katharine that would release what felt like a weight tied around my leg.
“Katharine, I want to apologize for the way I reacted to you earlier.”

She looked confused.

“In the entryway, when I was trying to leave.”

“Che-che-che.” With that and a slow blink of her eyes, all was pardoned.

Just then, Ellie swept into the room holding an oval platter with a perfectly browned turkey, complete with two white chef’s
hats covering the ends of the drumsticks. Circling the turkey was a wreath of fresh parsley, and spilling from its steaming
cavern was dressing that bubbled with bumpy bits of apples, cashews, and raisins.

“Well done!” Andrew spouted, clapping his hands.

“I hope it’s not too well done,” Ellie giggled. “Everyone, take your place, please.”

Julia climbed into her chair beside me. “Mummy, may we do our crackers now?”

I looked around the table but didn’t notice any crackers. There hadn’t been any with the appetizers, either.

Ellie placed the turkey platter in front of Edward’s seat at the head of the table and gave him a nod.

All of this fascinated me. I found these family traditions more lovely and calming than I would have expected. There was a
system. A set of unspoken rules. Everyone knew his or her role. This home was a place of order and steady rhythm. Never again
would I lambaste traditionalists and their conservative ways. Done right, convention and form were irresistibly comforting.

Margaret sat at the head of the table on the other end. Ellie sat in the middle, across from me and closest to the door. The
children, Andrew, Katharine, and I filled in the remaining seats. The circle felt complete.

“All right. Shall we say grace then?” Edward asked.

I watched the others fold their hands and bow their heads. Even Julia knew what to do. I was the last to lower my head but
did so willingly. Edward’s respectful and warmly spoken prayer
captivated me. He had no difficulty addressing God with a reverent familiarity. He spoke his prayer of thanks much like a
grateful son would speak to his father.

In this room, around this table, with these people, I found it easy to believe that God was listening to Edward’s prayer.
I also believed that some sort of significant first step had taken place between God the Father and me. I was accepted. I
had been invited to come in. And I had entered under an eternal banner of grace and peace.

What remained to be seen was how the Whitcombes would respond once they knew who I was.

M
ay we do our crackers now? Julia asked as soon as her father finished the prayer.

“Yes. You first, Julia.”

She reached for a paper party favor like the one each of us had by our china plates. The “cracker” was twisted at both ends,
making it look like a large piece of wrapped candy. Julie held out one end to me. I never had seen a Christmas cracker before
and had no idea what to do with it.

“You hold onto that end, silly,” Julia said. “Then I pull like this.”

With a loud snap and the scent of a snuffed match, the contents of Julia’s cracker spilled onto the table. She picked up a
folded piece of bright green paper, opened it, and placed the jagged paper crown on her head.

“Do you want me to read your riddle for you, Juju?” Mark leaned across the table eagerly.

“I can read it,” she said.

“No you can’t.”

“Mark,” his father said firmly.

We waited as Julia picked up a little piece of paper that had popped out of the cracker. It looked like a slip of paper from
a fortune cookie, only wider.

She studied the message with great concentration. From where I sat, I could tell she had the paper upside down.

Jutting out her chin, she announced, “It’s not very funny.”

Everyone laughed.

Julia picked up the final prize from her snapping party favor. It was a small compass about the size of a thumbnail. She turned
it this way and that and looked bewildered as to what it was or what she should do with it. Not willing to admit her befuddle-ment,
she said brightly, “I was hoping it would be a tiny pony.”

Everyone chuckled.

“Maybe I’ll trade you.” Mark took both ends of his cracker and gave it a good tug. Out of his cracker sprang a tiny top that
landed on its point in the curve of his spoon and gave a “ta-da” spin before toppling over.

“Did you see that?”

“I’ll trade, Mark.” Julia quickly held out her compass. “But you should know I think this clock is broken because it keeps
going wibbly-wobbly.”

Mark placed his paper crown on his head and diplomatically said, “Let’s see what everyone else gets first, Ju-ju. Do you want
me to read your riddle now?”

She handed it over, and Mark read to us. “What’s black and white and read all over?”

“A newspaper.” I hadn’t heard that one for years.

“How did you know that?” Mark asked.

“I guess we have the same jokes in the US that you have here.”

“Do your cracker now,” Julia urged.

All the adults joined in, and a fabulous chorus of snaps around the table was followed by the rising scent of a snuffed
match. To my surprise, everyone, including Margaret, placed the paper crowns on their heads. I played along and laughed as
Andrew tried to read the small letters of his riddle without his reading glasses. He finally took Julia’s route and announced,
“It wasn’t very funny.”

We all compared our plastic toys. Mine was a ring that had a large pink “diamond.” Julia was thrilled when I asked if I could
trade her for her “watch.” I told her I wanted a new watch for Christmas anyhow.

Our merry group was looking as silly as we could in our paper crowns when Ellie reminded Edward that the turkey was “going
cold.” He stood and began the grand carving of the Christmas turkey.

I looked down the table at Margaret. She appeared to be pleased with her son and his family. Everything felt idyllic. All
that was missing was our own Tiny Tim and a rousing “God bless us, everyone!”

Katharine caught my eye and gave me one of her tranquil smiles. I held onto her calming expression all during the cozy meal.

We dined on turkey with dressing (or stuffing as the others called it), peas, and another surprising group favorite—steamed
brussels sprouts. I found them to be as unexciting as the last time I had eaten them. But everyone else seemed to like them,
including Julia.

The rest of the meal was delicious and the company delightful. I didn’t join the cheerful conversation. It was so magnificent
that I just wanted to sit back and be an observer. Aside from tiptoeing down the stairs with Julia just that morning, I had
not
fully entered into a moment of make-believe in years. Here, at this table, on this day, with these people, I found it easy
to let myself slip into believing this was where I belonged.

I was buttering my last bite of dinner roll when Ellie said, “I hope you can forgive our company manners. We’ve been so chatty
that we’ve barely included you in the conversation, Miranda. I do apologize. Please tell us about yourself. What part of the
States are you from?”

“I live in San Francisco.”

“My grandmother has been to San Francisco, haven’t you, Grandmother?” Mark said.

“Regrettably, Mark, I have not been to San Francisco. I have been to California, but I visited Los Angeles, not San Francisco.”

“Have you always lived in California?” Ellie asked.

“Most of my life.”

“You weren’t born in California, then?” No.

“Where were you born?” Mark seemed to like picking up his mother’s lead and taking an adult part in the conversation.

“I was born in Michigan. But I wasn’t there very long before we went to California.” It felt odd inching into the topic of
who I was and where I came from. Part of me wanted to blurt out the facts and be done with it. But this was the gentle route,
Katharine’s theory of “letting the moment come” to me. If this was going to be the truth-revealing conversation, then Margaret
and her family deserved the gentle route.

Mark gave his plastic top a twirl again on his spoon. “Why did you go to California?”

“My mother had a job there.”

“What did your mother do?”

“She was… she was an actress.”

“My grandfather was an actress,” Julia said.

“Actor,” Mark corrected her.

“Actor,” Julia repeated.

“What about your father?” Mark asked.

I swallowed, not expecting the question to come so blatantly. But then Mark expanded his question, explaining the reason for
his curiosity. “Was your father an actor, as well?”

The answer, of course, was “yes,” but I looked down at my hands and said, “I only lived with my mother.”

“Why?” Julia asked.

I turned to Katharine, desperate to read in her expression that this was it. That the moment had come to me.

Without pause Katharine said, “Children, would you like to be excused from the table now? I would very much like to see what
Father Christmas brought for you.”

“Yes.” Andrew rubbed his hands together.

“Andrew, I was asking the children if they would like to be excused.”

“Right. I knew that. What do you say, Mark and Julia? Shall we go into the drawing room, and you can show us the presents
Father Christmas brought you?”

“He brought me a tea set.” Julia’s eyes took on a sugarplum sparkle.

“How lovely.” Katharine’s expression made it clear that she was pleased with Julia’s enthusiasm over the gift.

“Mummy,” Mark said before pushing his chair back under the table, “what about the Christmas pudding?”

“I’ll serve it in the drawing room a little later, all right, darling?”

Everything in me tightened as I anticipated the direction our conversation would go now that Katharine and Andrew were removing
the small ears from the room. I felt uncomfortably hesitant to be the first to speak. It seemed there was no way to make this
moment easy.

Margaret picked up the conversation thread. “My husband grew up without a father, as well. Professor Whitcombe was a casualty
of World War I. My mother-in-law did an admirable job raising the two boys. But James often spoke of how difficult it was,
not having a father around.”

It touched me to know that my father had experienced his own measure of loss and heartache.

“I would imagine you experienced a few of the same challenges growing up without a father.”

I nodded, trying hard to hold my thoughts and emotions in check. I didn’t want to blow this.
If now is the time for me to say something, then please, God, let me say the right thing.

“You said your mother was an actor.” Edward leaned back and folded his hands.

“Actress,” I corrected him, the way Mark had corrected Julia. I realized I had made the correction aloud instead of in my
head, so I quickly explained, “She liked to be called an actress. Not an actor.”

Edward appeared amused. “I now understand your comment at the party last evening when I told you my father was an actor. That
line of work lends itself to a unique sort of position for the offspring, does it not?”

His sympathetic response to our shared life experience simultaneously consoled me and made the truth more difficult to speak.
I hoped Edward would remember this brief moment of camaraderie once the facts were revealed.

“Did your mother perform on stage or in film?” Margaret asked.

“Stage.”

I could feel my heart pounding.

“And is she still performing?”

“No, my mother passed away when I was eleven.”