The Christmas Pearl (11 page)

My knees gave me a fit as I struggled to get up from the floor. Happily, I made a fortuitous rise without mishap.

I ran my hand across the red leather cover of the Bible. A flood of memories came back to me—looking at the pictures with Gordie long before we learned to read, how our grandmother read passages to us, how the story of Adam and Eve had scared us half to death, the beautiful calligraphy, how I marveled at the formation of the letters and the gold leaf when I learned to write in cursive. That same Bible had been as much a part of our day-to-day activities as my mother’s cast-iron skillet.

I looked at the corner table where it used to rest for the Christmas season. I decided that was where it should go this Christmas day as well. The table was covered with silver frames filled with pictures of family vacations and other landmark events. They could all go in a drawer for the remainder of the season. I wondered if anyone would object. If they did, I would say that this day was not about remembering playing around on a beach, catching a fish, or seeing the Eiffel Tower. Christmas was a serious occasion. The Bible belonged on display. Period. I needed a silver tray on which it would rest, so I went toward the kitchen and the door swung open.

“’Eah!” Pearl said, handing me the exact one I wanted.

“Thanks,” I said, thinking it was lucky for me the tray didn’t come flying right through the air. It could have cut my head right off!

I put the tray on the table right in the center, opening the Bible to the Gospel of Luke, where my favorite story of the birth of Jesus was found. I looked around for extra candleholders. Finding none whose removal wouldn’t make a table or a nook appear to have been robbed, I went to Pearl.

“I need—”

“I know.” She pointed to the counter, where four silver candlesticks and four bayberry tapers waited.

She lifted the large bowl of eggnog and placed it on a tray. With less energy than it takes to extinguish a candle, she blew the kitchen door open to pass through. I shook my head at her otherworldly antics for the thousandth time since her arrival, took the candles and candlesticks, and followed her to the dining room.

“I’ve got ham biscuits and pimento cheese sandwiches to hold them until dinner is ready,” she said. “Remember! They need to drink a cup of this!”

“Think it will do the trick?”

“Ms. Theodora? My God and my Gullah heritage ain’t failed me yet, so I imagine they is still up to the task!”

“Lord, I hope so!” That was a prayer for divine intervention, not a blasphemous remark. “So, tell me, Pearl. What’s for dinner?”

“Oh! My old sweet friend! What’s your favorite Christmas dinner you ever had?”

“Me?”

The walls started to rattle, there were feet stomping overhead, and all the pictures went crooked again!

“I guess I ain’t the only one asking!” she said, waving her arm at the walls as the pictures righted themselves and the house became quiet again.

“Or the only one who’s hungry! Goodness! Let me think! The most delicious dinner I can recall right now
was when I was about eight. My grandmother got it in her head that we were going to have a traditional English Christmas-day dinner. It wasn’t easy in those days to find a good piece of roast beef or a fattened goose; at least that’s what I remember them saying. Of course, there was no goose to be found, so they settled on roast beef.”

“Hmmph! You think I don’t remember?
Who
do you think cooked that meal?”

“Oh! Of
course
!
You
did!”

“That’s
right
! Minted peas with little tiny white onions, mashed potatoes, Yorkshire pudding…”

We started to laugh again. Oh, by golly, this time we laughed until tears were streaming down our faces, whooping until some impatient, unseen force seemed to give Pearl a nudge.

“Oh, fine! Fine!” she said to the ceiling.

I looked at her, knowing that message meant we only had a short time left together. The thought of it made me want to break down and cry enough tears to fill the Ashley River. The Cooper, too.

I looked at my wristwatch. “Five minutes, maybe ten. Then they’ll all be here!”

“What are you worried about? Let’s close these living-room doors.”

We slid them together with the sound of a pleasant thump. Pearl went to the kitchen once again to see
about what magical event of hers was next to come. I lit the candles around the Bible and all the candles in the dining room. I wondered what Barbara, Cleland, and all the others would say when they returned to see the house all redecorated.

I toddled down the center hall, back to the family room. Lo and behold! Moving Camille’s tree—which was now a lime-green fake tinsel model—back there had been a stroke of genius. It shimmered, caught light, throwing it back all over the room. In that milieu, a big-screen television, high-def you know, headphones, a desktop computer, oversize leather couches, recliners, stacks of DVDs, CDs—all that twenty-first-century tangle of wires and noise that usurped family time—well, in that milieu, Camille’s tree was just the perfect thing. In fact, it gave an atmosphere of wacky good humor to the whole room. Perhaps I would suggest they leave it up all year!

Before you could say Robert E. Lee, I could smell roast beef. My stomach started to growl. It had been years since I was as hungry as I had been since Pearl came back. In the next minute, I heard the front door open. They were home. Pearl and I hurried to meet them—she from the kitchen, me from the family room—and we all nearly collided by the front door.

“Hi! Is Santa ready now?” Teddie said, with renewed interest.

“Almost! Come! Let’s hang up our coats,” Barbara said.

“Give me everything,” Pearl said. “Let’s make a quick stop in the dining room!”

No one resisted, not that I expected them to object to any of Pearl’s instructions. They were still
somewhat
bewitched from last night.

I ladled the eggnog into cups. Barbara put a ham biscuit and a small pimento cheese sandwich on each plate.

“Cheers!” I said to Cleland and to Barbara. We touched the sides of our cups. “Merry Christmas!”

They all drank and drank and drank until the bowl was half emptied. No one seemed anxious to open their gifts. The eggnog was obviously working.

“What’s going to happen to them?” I whispered to Pearl as Barbara listened.

“They gwine say they are sorry and
mean
it. Then they gwine gain two pounds!”

Pearl laughed so wide we could see that she didn’t have a single filling in her teeth. I had not ever noticed that before. In fact, I distinctly remember that when I knew her as a child, she had a few missing teeth in the back of her mouth.

“Who’s your new dentist?” I said.

“My dentist? That woman is a saint!” she said, laughing again. Barbara looked at me. Still halfway unbelieving of the truth, she laughed, too.

“How was church?” I asked.

“The choir was fabulous! I prayed with great fervor for the quick and the dead,” she said, winking at Pearl. “But I think I sprained my ankle when I skidded on the snow.”

“I caught her so she didn’t fall,” Cleland said. “Thank goodness!”

That was rather noble, I thought. It also meant that they’d gone to church and come home arm in arm! Another good omen!

Pearl said, “I’ll be right back.” In the time it took to walk through the kitchen door and back out again, she reappeared with a walking cane. Naturally, it was white accented, with a mother-of-pearl handle. “This might help the reconciliation.”

Barbara looked at it and laughed. Raising it over her head, she turned to the others. “Y’all better watch out now!”

How do you like that? It seemed that along with confidence, Barbara had developed a sense of humor! I could not have been more delighted!

“I’d like to make a toast!” Cleland said.

Everyone stopped, looking in his direction.

“First, I’d like to thank Pearl for this delicious eggnog. In fact, thank you, Pearl, for
all
the delicious food we have enjoyed since your arrival. Things have been, well…incredible.”

Cleland’s summation was the understatement of the century.

“Here, here!”

“Most especially, I’d like to thank my lovely wife, Barbara, for many things, not the least of which is tolerating my…well, bad choices and poor attitude. I realized today that I have been wrong about many things. I just wanted to say in front of everyone that I am sorry. Barbara? I ask your forgiveness. Given a second chance, I would like to try to be the model husband you deserve. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of any corporal punishment! Seriously, I would like to be a better father and grandfather, too! I would.”

Honey? You might as well have announced that King Henry VIII was at the front door with a box of chocolates and a Christmas pudding! Stunned, everyone followed suit. George shook his father’s hand, saying something to the effect of
let’s start over
. Cleland gave George a warm, backslapping hug. I thought they would both start blubbering. Teddie and Andrew put their arms around Cleland’s waist and squeezed before the waterworks could commence. When they hugged George he was so moved that he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

Just as Barbara put her arms around Cleland and kissed him right on the lips in front of the entire world,
the doorbell rang. Camille answered it. In swept Grayson, who, by the way, was born into this world the color of milk chocolate himself, riding on a frosted white bicycle (yes, it looked like a pearlized finish) that was dripping with red and green ribbons and balloons, tooting the horn that was attached to the handlebars. Andrew ran to him, literally squealing with excitement.

“Daddy! Daddy! Wow! It’s exactly what I wanted!”

“Oh, Grayson!” Camille threw her arms around Grayson’s neck, looked into his eyes, and said, “Merry Christmas, sweetheart! I love you! Things are going to change. I promise! Things are going to change. I am so sorry. So sorry about everything.”

He ran his hand down Camille’s hair, held her chin, and said, “I love you, too, baby! Don’t worry. We’re smart enough to figure this all out. Doesn’t love always find a way?” Grayson turned the bicycle over to Andrew and ruffled his curls. “You probably shouldn’t ride this in the house. Merry Christmas!”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Andrew was out the door and down the street in a heartbeat. No coat, no hat. Who cared?

“I saw it at the bicycle shop in Lenox Square, sitting right up there in the window. I thought it looked like something our boy might like!”

“Wouldn’t you know it? I’ve got another one—a
brand-new blue one in the garage!” Camille said. “It is exactly the same!”

“For me?” Teddie said. “Please? Please?”

Grayson and Camille, who, at this point, had their arms around each other’s waist, looked at each other and said, “Sure! Why not? Have at it, sweetheart! Merry Christmas!”

Teddie blew past us. Within minutes, she was zooming down the sidewalk, chasing after Andrew. Her parents’ generosity and their giving her permission to be a child allowed her to become one again.

“Thanks!” George said. “That was very nice of you!”

Lynette said, “And we thought she didn’t want toys anymore! Shows you what we know!”

George and Lynette were standing by the doors to the living room, also embracing, all smiles. Things were finally shaping up. I was so tired from the stress of it all that I felt like I was a thousand years old.

I went to the kitchen to see what Pearl was thinking.

“Didn’t I tell you that they would be all right? Hmmph! O ye of little faith!”

I sat down at the counter and looked at her. She knew what I was going to ask before the words came out of my mouth.

“Pearl? Take me with you when you go. I’m so tired of living. I’m all done here. I want to be with Fred.”

She looked up to the ceiling and then back at me.

“Can’t do it. It ain’t your time.”

“Heavenly days, Pearl. Of what possible use can I be to anyone anymore? I ache from head to toe. I’m so weary. I can’t hear, I forget so many things. I know I’m a nuisance…”

Pearl sat down next to me, took my hand in hers. She closed her eyes as though she was in prayer. I closed mine, too, searching my heart, trying to feel Fred’s presence. I felt warm all over, the same way I had felt as a young girl when I met him for the first time. I was so lonely for him.

“Ms. Theodora? You gots to understand this. When we go ain’t up to us. I can do
this
much…” She stopped speaking, closing her eyes.

I nodded. “What? What?”

“I can try my best to be there when your time comes and I can put out the word that you’re on the way.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s not much.”

“’Scuse me?
How ’bout the last few days?”

“Extraordinary! Absolutely extraordinary!”

“All right, then, let’s get our priorities straight, ’eah? Let’s go open some presents!”

We gathered everyone toward the living room, except for Camille, who went outside to call for Andrew and Teddie.

Blocking the living-room doors, Barbara said, “We will wait for the children.”

Barbara was absolutely right. I heard them approaching, laughing and high-spirited, delighted with their bicycles. They tumbled through the door, cheeks red from excitement and the cold.

Teddie held the baby doll tightly under her arm.

“Gigi! Look what I found in the manger!” she said. “It’s like a miracle! You can’t get this doll
anywhere
!”

It’s not
like
a miracle,
I wanted to say,
it
is
one.

“Maybe Santa put it there!”

Teddie looked at me, wide-eyed, with no guile at all. She said, “Do you
really
think so?”

“You
know
I do!” I was thrilled to see the light in her eyes.

“Why don’t we see what else there is?” Barbara said, sliding back the doors. “You’ve all been so patient…”

When their eyes swept the room, there was a collective gasp. Then dead silence. I didn’t know
what
they thought. The time between seeing it and remarking on it felt like an eternity.