The Christmas Note (13 page)

I shake my head, trying to put it into words. “The same.” It’s all I can say about Ramona. “I feel awful—”

“Of course you do,” she says, cutting me off.

I look at her. “No.” My throat feels like it’s closing but I force the words through it. “I feel horrible because Ramona died and I feel free.”

Her eyes are watery as she smiles, patting my hand. We sit in silence, and I know Mrs. Schweiger is trying to say something nice about Ramona but she’s coming up blank. There is nothing to say about her. “You will have a place in your heart for your mother.” I look at her. “You will. One day, someday, you will remember things and will store them away. You will love her in your own way.” She squeezes my hand. “You always had so much love, Melissy.”

Words clot together and form a ball in my throat. “You don’t know me.”

“I knew you as a child and I’m looking at you now.” I feel a tear leak from my eye and snake down my cheek. Mrs. Schweiger dabs it with a tissue and pulls my head onto her shoulder. “I loved you like one of my own, Melissy.” That makes me cry more, and I hold a tissue under my nose. “You were always such a special child.” I haven’t heard anything like this since I was a child inside her apartment, and I press the tissue into one eye and then the other. Mrs. Schweiger sits with me in the quiet and lets me cry, rubbing my arm and patting my leg. “It is okay to feel free.” I look up at her and she works at a smile. “You are not horrible. You’re human.”

I cover my eyes with the tissue. “This is the first time I’ve cried since she died.”

She hands me two more tissues and pats my leg. “There will be more to come.” She leans back and looks at me. “How did you know I was here?”

“I don’t know,” I say, wiping my face. “Josh works at Wilson’s with me, and I don’t think I ever paid attention when he was talking, but it all came together and made sense early this morning. I saw you and Karla yesterday as you got out of the elevator at the hospital, and this great sadness or something pushed down on me. I don’t know what it was other than a great coincidence that I was leaving as you were getting there.”

She smiles and lifts my picture from the top of the stack. “Or was it a finger snap from heaven letting you know to be aware and open your eyes?” I smile at her and she waves her hand in the air. “We pass everything off as coincidence. ‘Eh, I needed more money to pay the rent and lo and behold I got paid more than I thought this week.’ Or, ‘I haven’t worked in ten months. What a coincidence to run into an old friend who needs help!’ Or, ‘I think I’ll stop by Josh’s house and ask if his old grandma is Mrs. Schweiger from the apartment days in Florida but what’s this? It
is
her and she’s actually sitting here talking to me.’ Is it all coincidence or is it God’s way of letting us know that we are heard and seen?”

I throw both hands in the air. “I give up!” She laughs and touches her head to my shoulder. I lean down and lift Ramona’s note out of my backpack. “I suppose you’ll say that my finding this in Ramona’s apartment wasn’t a coincidence, either?”

She puts on a pair of glasses that were sitting on the end table and reads the note, her eyes widening as she smiles. “This isn’t a coincidence,” she says, her voice getting louder. “This is destiny!”

*   *   *

It’s midafternoon by the time I make it home. Mrs. Schweiger wanted me to stay and talk with Karla, Mike, and Mr. Schweiger when they got home from the hospital, but I could tell she was tired and needed to rest. I discovered that Karla and her husband moved to Grandon two years ago, when Mike got transferred and Mr. and Mrs. Schweiger visited them for a week last summer. I wonder if I passed them in the car or saw them strolling through downtown? I’m smiling as I pull into my driveway and see Miriam’s car at Gretchen’s. It feels like I’m leaping as I run the length of sidewalk between our homes. I rap on the door to the rhythm of “Shave and a Haircut” and surprise myself. I’ve never done that before. Gretchen opens the door and I nearly burst inside. “You’ll never believe what happened.” I expect to see Miriam and I do, but she’s sitting next to a man I don’t know.

“This is my dad, Phillip,” Gretchen says.

He stands and makes his way to me with his hand extended, but I take everyone off guard and hug him.

Gretchen laughs at the sight. “Are you drunk?”

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Phillip. “I didn’t mean to burst in but I just had to!”

“This is Melissa from next door. And she’s never like this.”

“I thought you were coming later,” I say to Phillip.

“He was,” Gretchen says. “But he came to help Mom with the kids so I can go to Texas.” She looks at me with a wary eye. “Why are you acting weird?”

I tell them everything as we eat pizza for dinner, and I remember Mrs. Schweiger said she would call about getting together with Karla tomorrow. I walk to my backpack and discover my phone is still on vibrate from my visit with her. There is a voice mail, and I hold the phone to my ear to listen. I feel the blood draining from my head and my legs turn to Jell-O as I walk back to the kitchen table. “Listen,” I say, pressing the speakerphone button on my cell and holding it out at arm’s length.

“Hey, Melissa, this is Jodi. I know it’s Sunday and a weird day to call, but I really wanted to share this information with you. If you get this in the next hour, call me. If not, I’ll be out of pocket the rest of the day. If I don’t talk to you … well, I know you work at Wilson’s in the morning, but if there’s any time to come in in the morning, I think you should. We have some information on one of your siblings that Robert just discovered. A hospital called him back. I don’t want to take up all your voice mail. Just drop in tomorrow morning if you’re dying to know, or you can wait till you come in in the afternoon.”

She left the message three hours ago while I was with Mrs. Schweiger, so I can’t call her back.

Miriam is beaming, Phillip looks confused, and Emma says, “What’s all that mean?”

“It means,” Gretchen says, “that Melissa is about to meet one of her siblings.”

*   *   *

I slept, but barely. It seems I woke up on the hour staring at the clock, anticipating and dreading the morning. Gretchen offered to go in with me when I talked to Robert and Jodi, but I didn’t want to take her away from her dad, and I knew she needed to pack for her trip to Texas. I talked with my supervisor at Wilson’s after I received the message from Jodi yesterday and told him I’d be in just as soon as I left the law office. My hands feel slippery on the wheel as I drive to the law office, and my chest feels like it’s buzzing. I open the door and Jodi looks up from her desk, smiling. “You got my message,” she says, coming into the entryway. I don’t have time to respond. “Come on. Robert’s here.”

I follow her to Robert’s office and feel nauseated or headachy, I’m not sure which. “I can’t believe you already found one of them,” I say.

“I told you that sometimes all it takes is one phone call.” She uses the file in her hand to wave me into Robert’s office and I walk past her. “The second sibling is proving problematic, but we’re keeping at it.”

Robert is at his computer and takes off his glasses when Jodi sets the file on his desk. He rubs his hands together and smiles. “So a sibling has been discovered! Are you ready to know?”

A sibling has been discovered.
Never in my life did I think anyone would say those words to me. He bounces the file in the palm of his hand, a tiger pacing in its cage waiting for the door to open, waiting to be let go. I nod and he opens the cage.

Fourteen

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

—
C
.
S
.
L
EWIS

GRETCHEN

I’m doing laundry when the phone rings. Dad took Emma and Ethan to school and then said he was going to drop by the grocery store to stock up while I was out of town. I don’t even know what kind of junk he’s going to bring in for the kids. I can tell by the connection on the other end that it’s someone calling from Germany.

“Mrs. Daniels?” He doesn’t need to tell me who he is; I recognize that Texas drawl as Dr. Larimer. Although he works at the Army Hospital and is a career army doctor, I always found his accent to be so out of place in Germany. “Kyle needs another surgery,” he says with a tone like “My buddy here needs more chips!” I try to figure in my mind how many surgeries Kyle’s had already. Was it three or four?

“Do you remember the X-rays of Kyle’s shoulder and face? The ones that looked like pieces of metal and rock were floating in midair?” I remember them as if I were staring at them now. “That area in the shoulder is called the brachial plexus.” I imagine him using the tip of his pen and circling it above the X-ray as we talk. “It’s basically a huge system of nerves that run from the spine to the arm. The shrapnel is floating. Over time, the shrapnel that is in Kyle’s face will surface and make its way out.” I want to ask how; wondering if it would swell to the surface like a pimple and eventually be squeezed out, but he continues to talk. “The shrapnel in his shoulder is getting dangerously close to this system of nerves, and our concern is that it will continue its way to the brachial artery, which could cause irreparable damage, even death. However, the surgery will slow his physical therapy because that arm will need to heal, but without it he could potentially lose feeling or use of his arms if those nerves and arteries are compromised.”

“So will they do that surgery when Kyle gets to San Antonio?”

“We won’t move him until we remove the shrapnel. We’ll take him in today.”

It registers what he’s saying and it feels like he has knocked the wind out of my lungs. “He’s not coming to the States?”

“Not at this time. In a few days. We’ll keep you up-to-speed.”

It’s shocking how your mind and emotions can skyrocket and then plummet in seconds. When I heard the connection on the phone and knew it was someone in Germany calling, my thoughts were soaring as I imagined Kyle coming home and the two of us sitting together on the couch, watching the kids open their presents before I moved to the kitchen to cook my portion of Christmas dinner. Then all of us: the kids, Mom, Dad, Melissa, and Kyle and me would settle in at Gloria and Marshall’s for Christmas dinner. Apparently, Dr. Larimer didn’t receive my memo.

He hangs up before I can ask anything else and I sit on the couch. Hot liquid sits on top of my eyes and my chest tightens. My heart was set on seeing Kyle tomorrow. I thought all his surgeries were behind him and all he had to do was focus on rehabilitation. I want him home! I’m so tired of not having him here with us. I pound the phone into the couch, yelling at no one and nothing or someone and everything. I am so angry and frustrated and tired. I dial Kyle’s dad’s cell number. He and Kyle’s mom have been with him the entire time in Germany. They’ll have more to say than the doctor, but the phone goes to voice mail. Do I fly to Germany again or wait for Kyle to get to Texas? How long will that be? I throw my head back on the couch and stew in the disappointment, tears, and unanswered questions.

When the doorbell rings I ignore it. Someone starts to knock and I remain still. I don’t want to see anybody. The doorknob jiggles and I jump up, wondering if I locked the door. I see Melissa’s head through the peephole and I feel like a louse pretending I’m not here. I open the door and see that she’s holding a piece of paper and I know she must have the information about her sibling. She looks tired and pale, and I can only assume that she didn’t sleep much last night. “Come on in.”

“Are you okay?” she asks, crossing to the couch.

I shrug. “Kyle’s not being moved to Texas tomorrow. He needs another surgery.”

“For what?”

I slump down on the other end of the couch, not wanting to talk about it. “His arm. There’s lots of shrapnel that’s moving too close to the nerves and arteries.”

“When
will
he fly to Texas?”

I shake my head, sighing. “A few days.” We’re both quiet and I know I’ve put a damper on her good news. If she has good news, that is. I’m hoping I can act thrilled for her when she tells me. “Well! Do you know the name of your sibling?”

She nods, the piece of paper quivering in her hand. She hands it to me and I strain to hear her. “I hoped it was you.”

I stare at the names on the adoption document. Birth mother: Ramona McCreary. Adoptive father and mother: Phillip and Miriam Branch. I am shaking and can’t breathe enough to find my voice. Ever since I was a teenager my parents told me I could find the woman who gave me up for adoption, but I never wanted to; I genuinely never
wanted
to. As far as I was concerned I had my parents. “I…” I look at Melissa and she’s as shaken as I am. Her pale, perplexed face makes me laugh out loud and I fall back into the couch cushions. “You look like I feel!”

She watches me laugh, and her baffled look makes me laugh harder. “This is how you respond?” She picks up one of the throw pillows and whacks me with it several times. “And I thought I was the one who got the socially backward gene. Obviously, it was you!”

I howl louder with a sense of relief and excitement and look at Melissa, my eyes filling. It’s one thing to get a package in the mail that you didn’t expect or to hear the voice of an old high school friend on the phone who happens to be in town and wants to catch up over coffee. Those are nice, make-your-day surprises. Getting a sister you never knew existed is a bolt from the blue bombshell. It’s a voice from the wings telling you to take your mark because the next act is going to be a doozy. Somewhere along the way I went from barely tolerating Melissa to missing her when she wasn’t around. Maybe that’s how it is for sisters. I throw my arms around her; it’s the first time I’ve hugged her, and I laugh again because I’m hugging my sister.