Homefires (16 page)

By the end of that first year, sentiments toward the present pastor did an abrupt upswing. The Christmas program, directed by the pastor’s wife, crowned those first months with a rare mixture of solemn pageantry and not so solemn asides. Ten-year-old Luke Turner, during his first solo,
It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
, burst into stage-fright tears and bawled the entire song, never missing a word. Bessie Tillman, between scurrying scene changes, tripped and fell into the manger scene, upending Mary, Baby Jesus and the three Wise-Men all in one sweep and sending Jake Lester’s pet pig Baby-face squealing down the aisle, her lamb’s wool costume headpiece a’flapping, setting off Tom Turner’s donkey Hoss, who kicked up a ruckus before relieving his nervous bladder right there before the world and splattering Krissie’s beautiful white angel costume I’d stayed up nights creating. Toby, one of the little shepherds, tried his best to catch Baby-face, but the pig moved faster than sound, displacing legs, feet and anything in his escape path. Then, suddenly, I saw the porky lamb barreling toward me and without thinking, tackled her with what grace I could muster – absolutely none – and with the help of the Three Kings of Orient, who’d been halfway down the center aisle when the first prop crashed, we wrapped Baby-Face in Baby-Jesus’ blanket and delivered her to her red-faced, sweating master.

That the cast and congregation wordlessly set everything aright and proceeded to consummate a befitting dramatization of the Holy Night said something I could not give voice to and shall forever remain a wonder to me.

My clan met at our house that Yule season. We all pushed back thoughts that our time of living within walking distance of
each other was drawing to a close. Soon, with Kirk’s graduation and ordination, my family would relocate, a fact I’d begun to accept. And to my astonishment, even Chuck and his wife Teresa and their two-year old daughter Patrice AKA Poogie, showed up the day before Christmas Eve, bunking in our kids’ room while we threw down early gift sleeping bags for the smaller kids and let out the folding sofa for Heather, who disdained the little ones’ exuberance at “camping out” near the small open fireplace.

Chuck launched in to some Andy Griffith monologues for the kids. Within minutes, they were laughing and acting the fool with him. I was astonished at this upbeat comedic side to my brother. Before long, all three of my kids encircled him on the floor where he held court, plastered as close to him as possible.

On Christmas Eve, MawMaw, Papa, Uncle Gabe and Jean arrived for the day. My Johnny Mathis Christmas album played
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
on the stereo, Kirk’s gift to me the year before. They bore presents that joined the others under the tree and, at least for a few hours, Daddy and my grandparents stumbled upon an unspoken truce. Whether it was the Yuletide spirit or sentimentality, I didn’t rationalize their fragile affability. Late that afternoon, Callie, on a holiday visit with her folks, dropped by to say hello.

“You look wonderful, Callie.” I pulled her into my bedroom, the only place offering any measure of privacy, where we hugged and hugged, laughing and on the verge of tears.

“I can’t believe you’re
here,
” I gushed, gaping at her in amazement. She’d had her dark hair cropped in a tousled Audrey Hepburn-chicness. “You’re prettier than ever. And just look at how
thin
you are.” I gazed woefully down at my abdomen, rounded from three childbirths, and then at her concave stomach and stuck my tongue out at her.

Callie preened dramatically. “Well, honey chile, Ah jus’ can’t
help
it.”

Giggling like silly adolescents, we plopped down on the bed for a quick catch up chat. “How’s Rog?” I asked, so excited to be talking to her I could hardly sit still.

“Rog and I are divorced,” Callie said, examining her Holiday-Red nails, shrugging, then looking me straight in the eye. “For three years now.”

“Thr – ” I blinked at the suddenness of the idea but mostly what hit me was that she’d not felt moved to share with me an item so massive. Something inside me diminished in that second, a thing so keenly emotional it was physical. It changed the way things stood between Callie and me.

The thing that stung was that I had not stepped back. Callie had.

Would the pattern remain so for life?

We joined the family where Callie dazzled for a few more brief moments before leaving.

“Why, Trish,” hands on hips, Callie surveyed her from head to toe, “You look great. How on Earth did you lose all that weight?”

Trish dead-panned, “Simple, Cal. It’s called starvation.” They hugged hugely, laughing and complimenting one another. I was glad for the intermezzo separating me from Callie, distancing me from the pitiful truth of our
deep
friendship. I watched my sister with a new appreciation of family. At nineteen, Trish had blossomed into a real beauty with her silken tumble of chestnut hair and eyes the color of stormy blue skies. She’d also developed a sweet self-deprecating wit at which I marveled, considering it was my
least
attribute. I could write amusing anecdotes till the swallows return to Capistrano but wit did not, nor does it now, glide smoothly over my tongue.

After Callie left, we migrated to the kitchen for sandwiches of leftover baked ham and enormous slices of Papa’s Icebox Fruitcake he’d brought along to share. MawMaw settled her bulk in the chair facing Chuck across my dinette table, to which I’d added both leaves for more space.

Daddy loomed uncertainly in the doorway while everybody else bustled about making themselves at home. He and Chuck hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to each other during the day so the tension from him was thick enough to slice. Uneasiness rippled through me and I rushed past him to get another chair. “Here, Daddy, take a load off.” I was relieved when he stiffly complied.

Kirk, absolutely rapt with Yule cheer, kissed me soundly – one that promised
more later
– and tucked our Polaroid camera under his arm. “We’re smack outta film, Neecy. The kids and
I are gonna try and find a drug store open and buy some. You okay without me for a while?”

“Sure,” I grinned and watched them exit and pile into the car

“Why doncha go with us, Uncle Chuck?” Toby yelled, fairly bouncing because Santa poised
ready-to-go
on the evening horizon.

“See ya when you get back, buddyroe,” Chuck winked at him.

I thrilled at the love Kirk showed the children, always a hands-on Dad, taking them with him on his numerous treks if at all possible, glorying in the liveliness that tired me so from day to day.

“Neecy,” Anne appeared at my elbow as I sliced more ham, “where’re your apple pies?”

“Oh my – ” I shook my head. “I forgot them. They’re on top of the refrigerator, wrapped in foil.” In a blink, she had them on the counter and sliced into equal portions.

Trish got busy pouring coffee and seeing everybody had cream and sugar. I was passing out the pie when I saw MawMaw’s lips quiver and her chin wobble. My hand shook when I sat hers before her, knowing she would not touch it because of the empty space vacated by Dad at the table.

“Daddy?” I called out, an edge of hysteria in my voice. “Your pie’s ready.”

Anne slipped from the kitchen and I could hear her low voice, then Daddy’s from the other room. Trish tried to make conversation to cover what I knew transpired. “MawMaw,” she said with forced cheer, “I’m attending Spartanburg Methodist College this year.”

MawMaw looked up at her with watery eyes so full of pain it took my breath. “You are?” she managed to croak.

“Um hm,” Trish courageously continued. “That’s where Kirk’s going. It’s close enough for me to come home on weekends sometimes.”

“And she’s a cheerleader, too,” I threw in, proud beyond words of Trish’s accomplishments.

“That’s good,” MawMaw barely articulated past lips trembling so violently they threatened to obliterate her lined
face. My stomach knotted tighter and I saw, from the corner of my eye, Gabe rise and leave the kitchen, followed by Jean.

Trish prattled on while I went into my bedroom to check on Anne’s progress with Daddy. Anne sat on the bed facing Daddy, who was as deeply planted in my little platform rocker as an ancient oak and whose nostrils flared in regal effrontery.

“Leave me alone, Anne,” he stated in his most authoritative
back off
and defiantly plopped my latest
Good Housekeeping
magazine onto the highly waxed pine floor.

“I can’t
believe
you’re doing this, Joe Whitman,” Anne practically hissed at him, which only added fuel to the fire burning in Daddy’s blue-gray, glaring orbs.

I didn’t know until she brushed against my elbow that MawMaw had entered the room and even as I frantically seized her elbow to pivot and aim her back to the kitchen, she began to speak the words that changed the cold war to all-out war.

“I’m gonna leave, Joe,” she said with great difficulty, barely making herself heard and Dad, already incensed by Anne’s
audacity
as he called it, glared at his former mother-in-law with not one whit of compassion. I couldn’t see how anybody could see MawMaw cry and not feel
something
. Only thing I saw in Daddy’s eyes was contempt.

“Don’t leave, MawMaw.” I heard the desperation in my voice and felt Daddy’s hackles rise even more. “Please,” I pleaded, knowing all along Daddy considered it the ultimate insult.

“Stay, Maude,” Anne rose and approached MawMaw, who already moved her head from side to side.

“I can’t,” MawMaw choked, her chin caving, “I can’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

“But MawMaw – this is
my
house.” I tried to take her clenched, cold little fingers in mine – and though she let me, she wasn’t truly
there,
barely heard my fervent declaration, “You
know
you’re welcome in my home.”

“I know you want me, Neecy,” she gave my fingers one lame squeeze, never looking at me. Lord, I wasn’t even
there
as far as she was concerned. The old familiar helplessness snaked through me as the drama spun on, leaving me standing beside the road.

“It’s Joe,” Anne turned to glare at Daddy. “Why can’t you behave yourself, Joe?”

Daddy sprang to his feet and toed off with his wife. “Why can’t you just
shut up?”

MawMaw, perhaps a tad more armed with Anne in her corner, pulled her hand from mine and addressed Daddy, “You don’t want to be around me and Dan, do you, Joe? You just as well admit it, Joe.” Her little chin, lifted ever so slightly, only looked more pathetic to me in its grief-dance.

Daddy’s fierce gaze ricocheted from Anne to MawMaw and my breath caught in my throat.
No no no, don’t, Daddy!
I felt the tidal wave coming, words shattering and irrevocably crashing upon those I loved.

Daddy’s eyes narrowed in defiance. “Yeah, you got that right, Maude.” The coldness in his voice slapped me up the side of my head. “I
don’t
want to be around you.”

“Joe!” Anne’s reprimand was sharp, succinct. “That’s just plain
mean.
”

“She
asked
,” Daddy reminded her.

“Daddy!” “Joe – ” Anne and I protested in unison.

“Leave ‘im alone,” Chuck bellowed from the doorway. “Maude started the whole thing long time ago. Couldn’t keep her danged mouth shut.”

MawMaw’s shock, at hearing her grandson calling her by her
name
– the ultimate insult – shattered the atmosphere. She turned and staggered from the room, her rotund little figure desolate and slow moving in its determination to escape.

“MawMaw!” I trailed her but had to step aside as Papa, his sweet clown’s face sober and pale as death, helped her into her worn brown winter coat. I gathered her quivering form into my arms, hearing Anne and Daddy at it again and wept with her, knowing this would put a pall on all her memories of being in my home at Christmas. I turned to hug Gabe and Jean and little Sherry just awakening from her nap.

“Keep your chin up,” Gabe whispered in my ear as we embraced.

I stared into my uncle’s kind face and saw my own pain mirrored there. I slowly nodded and dashed to gather presents I’d painstakingly wrapped for each of them and pressed them into their hands.

“Bye, MawMaw,” I called as they drove off. I went back inside and saw the gifts they’d placed for us under the tree and
seeing one for Daddy from MawMaw, burst into fresh tears wondering
why
there could be no peace.

Chuck sauntered into the living room, watching me with detachment. It lashed out at me, his indifference.

“How could you treat her that way?” It flew out of my mouth and I suddenly didn’t care.

Chuck looked at me. “How could
you
take sides with her?”

“Sides?” I narrowed my gaze at him. “
Sides?
What is it with you?” He was a stranger to me, this brother of mine. “Calling her
Maude
. You crushed her, Chuck.”