Chapter Six

 

At the end of Calvin’s story, without warning, a Christmas from Lillianna’s own childhood rushed back so powerfully and unexpectedly it burned behind her eyes.

 

New Castle, Delaware

December, 1954

 

Emma was seven years old, in the first grade. It was Christmas Eve and she, Greg and their mother had baked cookies and spent hours decorating the tree. They’d strung popcorn and linked the multicolored chains cut and glued from construction paper, carefully measuring one-inch widths. When they finished, Greg plugged in the lights, and the three of them leaned back on the sofa to admire their work.

At the low rumble of a motor out front, Emma jumped up and bolted to the window. She parted the venetian blinds. As soon as she spotted the tire marks indenting the snow-covered yard near the driveway, she knew what to expect.

“You and Greg hurry on to bed now.” Her mother’s voice was hushed, yet urgent. “Santa won’t stop here if you’re still up.” She smiled and nudged them down the hallway toward their bedrooms, her fingertips poking into the small of their backs.

Even from behind her closed door, Emma heard her father stumble over the top step, the slur in his words. She darted inside her closet and pulled the door shut. Her body sliced through the row of dresses and skirts. Their hems swiped across her cheek as she lowered herself onto the bare floor, her back against the wall. After reaching into the shoe box she kept hidden there, Emma jerked out her diary and scribbled, I hate him, I hate him, over and over until she’d filled an entire page. Sometimes she pushed so hard on the pencil it gouged a hole in the paper.

After she finished, somehow calmed by that release of anger, she flipped to a clean sheet and carefully printed:

Dear God,

I don’t know who else to talk to about this. But your son, Calvin Miller, he needs a lesson. When Greg and me do bad things, our father hits us hard with his belt or a willow branch. It hurts a lot, and so we learn good and don’t ever do the same bad thing again.

I know it might be hard for you to come all the way down from Heaven to pick a branch, so I’ll tie one high up in that big oak tree where me and Greg hide notes for each other. I’ll use red string so you can see it easy. Thanks a lot, God.

Emma

P.S. I say my prayers every night and go to Sunday school with my mom and...

She stopped writing, and she held her breath as her father’s voice shattered the stillness.

“Shh. Be quiet,” her mother warned. “The kids will hear you.”

“Hell with the kids,” he shouted. “Pay some attention to me once in a while.” He cackled, then started to sing, “The naughty lady of shady lane...”

Emma hated the sound of her father’s drunken laugh, and it hissed and swarmed inside her head like wasps.

“Calvin. Please. It’s Christmas Eve, and I have so many things to do.” The struggle to escape in her mother’s voice sent a tremor up Emma’s back.

When his anger came, it was quick and violent. Something crashed to the floor. Emma squeezed her eyes shut and fought the tears. Was it the Christmas tree they’d decorated?

“Now look what you’ve done, you drunken sot.” Her mother’s voice was shrill with anger.

Emma sucked her thumb ferociously, tucked herself deeper into the closet, but she heard the click of her brother’s door when it opened.

“Come on, Mom,” Greg said softly. “I’ll help you get him to bed.” Her brother had turned ten that spring and tried his best to assist his mother and stay out of his father’s way.

Their father snorted. “I don’t need your help, you little son of a bitch.”

She heard a thump—the sound of her brother as he hit the wall.

“Who do you think you are anyways, big shot?”

“I’m just trying to help you into bed, Pop. You’ll be better in the morning.”

Emma heard the tears in her brother’s trembling voice, crammed her diary back into the shoe box and slipped out of the closet. Cracking her door a thin sliver, she peered into the hallway just as he grabbed the front of Greg’s pajamas.

He picked him up and held him just inches away from his face. “Come on, little boy. Let’s see what you’re made of.” Her father’s eyes narrowed. “See if you can stand up and fight like a man.”

Greg yanked himself free and tumbled back against the wall, where he collapsed slowly to the floor. He settled with his legs straight out, his head slumped on his chest, and his arms flopped across his thighs like a puppet with cut strings. Only Emma heard him whisper, “If you’re a man... I don’t ever want to be one.”

Her mother positioned her hands on their father’s shoulders and steered him away from the living room. “Come on now, Calvin. You’ve done enough damage for one night.” Slowly, carefully, she edged one step at a time toward the back bedroom.

Emma didn’t know if her mother was angry or merely struggling with the weight crumpled next to her. The leg brace, disconnected from the heel of his special shoe, etched a scratch in the hardwood floor as it dragged along behind them. Yet another sign they’d have to live with in the years to come. The memory of a Christmas Eve they’d rather forget.

When her mother disappeared into their darkened bedroom, Emma darted into the hall. Her heart pounded inside her ears. The bedside lamp in her parents’ room switched on, and the light fell in a bright rectangular bar on the hallway floor. Emma rested her foot exactly at the rectangle’s edge, then traced the golden line with her big toe.

As if on cue, Greg boosted himself up and hurried toward the bedroom, pushing Emma aside in his haste and concern, knowing the routine, knowing their mother needed his help.

“It’s okay now, Pop.” Greg talked softly, the way they’d been taught, as he unlaced the brace, then eased off his father’s shoes and dropped them into the closet.

By the time Emma peeked inside, her father was tucked into the bed. Quiet then, he looked like a sick child, his good hand clutching at the top of the blankets, his face confused and pathetically dependent.

When his glazed, unseeing eyes met Emma’s, she wished he really was a sick, little boy, and she could weep for him. But instead, she filled up with rage as Greg backed away from the bed, stepping on his own footprints as part of a superstitious game they played for safety. Their mother flicked off the light, then tiptoed into the hallway, tugging the door closed behind her.

At the sight of Emma, her eyes filled, and she pulled her daughter into her arms, then lifted her up and carried her back into her own room. “It’s time for bed now, honey. The worst is over. He’ll be feeling sorry for what he’s done in the morning.”

Emma climbed into bed and pulled the blanket up to her neck. “What about our Christmas tree?” she wailed. “We worked so hard, and it was really pretty. I hate him. He ruins everything.” She yanked the covers over her head.

“He’s drunk. He didn’t mean to knock down the tree. Christmas is a hard time for him. He didn’t have it as easy as you and Greg do.” Her mother patted her shoulder, drew the blankets back and kissed her slippery cheek. “I’ll fix it good as new. Don’t worry. When you wake up, it will be even prettier than it was before.”

Did her mother really think life with their father was easy for her and Greg? Didn’t she know all the kids at school teased them about their father, the town drunk? The cripple?

She heard her mother moving in the living room, and then it grew quiet for a long time, but that horrible night wasn’t over.

Later, Emma awakened with the sound of water trickling against the wall of her bedroom. She opened her eyes to a huge shadow hunkering in the corner. Believing it a monster from one of her frequent nightmares, she snapped up in bed, clamped her eyes shut and screamed. When her mother raced into the room and flipped on the light, Emma unlocked her eyes and stared, speechless, at the yellow stream of urine splattering the pink plaster.

“Oh God, Calvin, you make me sick,” her mother hissed, leading him out of their daughter’s room.

Hauling the covers over her head again, she lay still as a dead person while her mother returned with a bucket and mopped the wall and floor on her hands and knees. When she stood to leave, Emma peeked out. Her mother’s wet hands left a trail of drops on the hardwood floor behind her.

Emma didn’t move again until the morning sunlight shot through her window blinds in bright slices. It landed on the polished floor like stripes of yellow ribbon as Greg burst through the door, carrying a stocking stuffed with candy, fruit and tiny, gaily-wrapped presents.

Later that Christmas morning, Emma pulled on her white-ribbed anklets, folded down at the top and put on the black patent-leather shoes her mother had polished with Vaseline. She stepped into a starched crinoline, a made-over red dress with white pearl buttons and lace around the neck. On her head, she wore her straw Easter hat, the trailing lilac ribbons replaced with red.

In the back seat of their car, Greg tugged at his bow tie and frowned as their silent, remorseful father dropped them off in front of the Methodist church.

Inside, they slid across a shining oak pew with their smiling mother to sing carols and rejoice at the birth of Jesus Christ, their lord and savior.

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Tuesday, September 26, 1995

 

When her mind snapped back into the present, Lillianna didn’t know how long she’d spent pulling that scab off her childhood. She glanced at her father, relieved to find him daydreaming. She took several deep breaths but remained close to the memory and even closer to tears. The light outside the window had fallen, the room soft and hazy in the twilight.

She hung her head asked herself how it could be that that little boy, who’d whittled presents for his sisters, could have grown into the man who terrorized his children at Christmas.

“What are you thinking about, Em?”

She’d stopped wasting her breath trying to get him to use her legal name. “I was thinking about that Christmas you tore down the tree and used my bedroom as an outhouse.”

His cheeks flushed, and he seemed to freeze.

“Do you remember?”

He tugged the blankets up over his chest and didn’t meet her gaze. “I’m ashamed to admit I do. I was hoping you didn’t.”

“I suspect your father might have hoped you didn’t remember how he sold the gifts you’d made for booze.”

There was a question forming in Lillianna’s mind, one she needed to hear the answer to. “Did you hate your father for his drinking? And how he destroyed that first Christmas without your mother?” Her nails bit into the palms of her hands as she curled her fingers into fists.

He turned away from his daughter toward the window and spread his left hand over his eyes to shield them from the brightness. “No. I felt sorry for him.”

The answer surprised her and Lillianna could think of nothing else to say that might chisel away at the new silence swelling between them.

At the sound of footsteps outside the hospital room, she glanced toward the door. Lillianna’s journal dropped to the floor as she jumped up. “Aunt Pam, you look wonderful.”

She rushed toward her niece, carrying a canvas bag the size of Portugal.

Lillianna gathered the soft body into her arms and hugged her, amazed by the silver hair, recently permed in tight curls. It had been dark the last time Lillianna visited her, and she wondered how many years had slipped by. The realization it had been almost twenty drenched her with insight and understanding of how many people had disappeared from her life because of a single choice.

Aunt Pam was short, about five feet two and thick-bodied. She wore a pair of bright pink slacks and a matching jacket with burgundy embroidery down the front. Add a pair of sensible shoes and horn-rimmed glasses that made her eyes look gigantic. “Bugs said you were coming, but I didn’t believe a word. I had to see you with my own eyes. You look good, Emma. Life out there in the wild west must agree with you.”

“My name is Lillianna now, Aunt Pam.”

She set her bag on the floor and fixed her plump hands on Lillianna’s shoulders. “I’m old. And I can’t get used to no name changes. But whatever you call yourself now, it’s about damn time you came to see your father. You haven’t been much of a daughter to him since your mother died.”

Aunt Pam’s words stung.

She tried to soften them. “But I can tell you one thing, honey, better late than never. All of us are relieved knowing you’re here with him now.” She kissed Lillianna’s cheek, then focused her attention on her brother.

“Don’t you look nice and spiffy tonight,” she crooned over him as if he were her child. “Those new pajamas Evie sent look pretty sexy, Cal.”

“Yeah. It’s true,” he grinned. “Them nurses can’t keep their hands off me. It’s plum exhausting... me fighting them off all day long. During the night, too—there’s no letting up.” Calvin lay back on his pillow, wiped his brow, then sat up again. “Did you bring the chicken and dumplings you promised?”

“I brought it. But from the looks of that belly, you don’t need any chicken and dumplings.” She patted his T-shirt just above the elastic waist of his pajamas and winked at him.

He laughed. “What’s need got to do with it?”

Aunt Pam pulled a tin pie plate covered with aluminum foil from her canvas bag and placed it on his tray.

He rubbed his hands together like a server in a tuxedo had just set a rare delicacy in front of him. When he opened the foil, steam rose into the air. “Now that’s real food.” He sniffed, his shoulders raised before he exhaled in an exaggerated sigh. “Not that garbage they give you in here.”

Pam turned to Lillianna. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the way he gobbles up that garbage.” She laughed. “So, what have you two been doing the last couple days?”

“He’s been telling me tall tales about his life.” Lillianna drew in a breath. “The house in Farmington and how it was for you kids after your mother died.”

Pam shook her head, made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Those old stories. Most of them aren’t very pretty, are they?”

“No. They’re a sad lot, all right.”

Aunt Pam’s eyes sparkled as she turned to her brother. “Did you tell her about those damn flapjacks Flora made us eat and how we spent the night in the outhouse?”

“I haven’t got that far yet.” He chewed another mouthful of his chicken and dumplings. “We’re taking it slow, so Emma can get the details right. She might go and write one of her books about us. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Who’s Flora?” Lillianna had never heard the name before.

“Our stepmother. And a wicked one she was.” Aunt Pam chuckled, then settled into the chair Lillianna now thought of as her own. “Tell her, Cal. You were a year older. You remember it better.”

Lillianna knew another story was about to unfold, so she dragged over an extra chair, opened her journal and settled back to listen as her father and aunt remembered out loud.