It was the afternoon before Christmas, and Meemaw was still feeling lousy. She wouldn’t hear about Mama calling a doctor, though. When Mama asked, Meemaw just waved her off from where she still lay in her bed.
“All a doctor’s going to say is that I’m old and nothing can be done.” Meemaw coughed. “He’ll tell you I’m dying of old age and then take your five dollars for his troubles.”
“Mother, don’t be so ornery,” Mama said.
“I’m old. That’s all I’ve got left to do.”
“Well, you rest. I have faith this will pass,” Mama said, closing Meemaw’s door.
Beanie and I stood in the doorway of our bedroom. We heard every word between Mama and Meemaw. I could about feel Beanie’s heart breaking. She leaned against the frame of the door to brace herself, still weak from the night she got hurt. I looked at her face, still colored yellow and blue and purple and pink from the beating she’d taken.
Tears streamed from her eyes. “I don’t want Meemaw to die.”
“She didn’t mean it,” I whispered. “She’s not dying. Just sick is all.”
Beanie steadied herself against the wall and made it to the steps. I followed her, sure she would tumble down the stairs. Grabbing her arm, I helped her. Between me and the banister, she made it downstairs for the first time since the attack.
Mama stood in the living room, arms crossed and looking out the big front window.
“Mama,” Beanie said.
Mama turned and, seeing Beanie’s face, rushed toward us, grabbing hold of both of us.
“She’s going to be just fine,” she said. “I’ll ask Daddy to call for a doctor.”
“Meemaw don’t want one,” Beanie cried.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll get her one, anyhow.” Mama used one hand to push Beanie’s wild hair off her face. “She isn’t going to die. Not just yet, at least.”
“She is,” Beanie said, thick spit stretching into strings between her lips. “And she’s gonna go take care of Baby Rosie.”
Mama pulled Beanie to the davenport and had her sit down. She held her just like she was a little baby and hushed her.
“Darlin’, shush. We want Meemaw to get some rest. She needs it,” Mama soothed. “She’ll be just fine.”
I sat beside them, praying that Jesus would come back to snatch us up into the sky like Pastor always said He would. I couldn’t imagine a world without Meemaw. And I knew it would tear Beanie up to lose her.
She would be like a tree without roots.
For as long as I could remember, Mama and Meemaw had made big business out of getting our house ready for Christmas. They’d spend days baking cookies and sweet bread. The two of them stayed up late into the night, wrapping presents and filling stockings. We never got a whole lot of presents, but what we did get was more than most the kids in town did.
For days before Christmas, Mama and Meemaw would shoo me and Beanie out of the kitchen so we wouldn’t sneak treats.
Christmas was the most magical part of life in the Spence house, even if we never did have snow fall in Red River.
The Christmas of 1934 was different. I could see it in the way Mama moved slower and hear it in her sighs. What with Meemaw in bed and less money in our pockets, it was bound to be a little less magic and more just making it through the day.
I told myself not to be upset about that.
Mama stood, shoulder-sagged, at the kitchen counter, holding the sugar canister.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to make cookies this year,” she said. Then looking at me, “I’m sorry, darlin’.”
“That’s all right, Mama,” I said.
“I’m just about clean out of sugar. Mr. Smalley didn’t have any, either.” She put the sugar canister on the top shelf of the cupboard. “It’ll just be a simple Christmas.”
“Can I make paper stars?” I asked, using my happiest voice and making myself smile at her. “We could hang them in the living room.”
“I think your daddy’s got a crate of old newspapers in the cellar. I’m sure you could use those.” Mama touched my cheek, and she looked at me with soft eyes. “I would love to have some stars. Do you think you can get your sister to help? She needs a little distracting.”
Beanie and I sat on the living-room floor, sharing Mama’s good shears and cutting out stars from the old newspapers. Our fingers smudged the black print.
“Better not get that on your dress,” I said to Beanie.
She just kept cutting, her tongue sticking out one side of her mouth.
I flipped through the paper, waiting for my sister to hand me the shears, looking for funny pages. Most of the sheets of newsprint were covered with advertisements for medicines and housewares. I turned to the front page of the paper to see the date. It was from over ten years before. The year I was born.
“Why would Daddy have papers from that long ago?” I asked.
Beanie didn’t answer. She clipped the scissors around the pages, cutting strange shapes that didn’t look a thing like stars.
I looked through the whole stack and realized all the papers were from the same date. Then I looked at the headline. It was the day the paper ran the story of Daddy shooting Jimmy DuPre. The picture of the rat face sneered from the cover of each newspaper. His eyes glared right through me, as if he knew something about me.
It sucked my breath out. I flipped the whole stack of papers over so I couldn’t see his face anymore. Gulping in air, I closed my eyes, trying to erase the rat-faced killer from my mind.
Jimmy DuPre. He was dead, I reminded myself. He couldn’t hurt anybody anymore. Daddy had won. The thoughts calmed me.
I opened my eyes and looked back at the newspaper and remembered the day when Ray and I had looked at the paper in the half-sunk-in cabin, a part of it had been missing. I remembered that I’d felt the place where it had been torn out.
Sitting on the floor at home, I touched the whole front page that covered my lap, tracing where it had been ripped out of the other copy. I skimmed over the words with my eyes.
“Baby Found on Church Steps,” it read.
I had to read it over a few times to understand.
Touching the words, it seemed I could feel them through my fingertips, bumping up from the surface of the page. I read the story of a newborn baby found abandoned on the church steps. The same church I’d lived next door to all my life. Somebody had found her, and she was all right.
“Mama,” I called, getting to my feet.
“Yes?” she answered from the kitchen.
“Did they ever find the baby’s mother?”
“What’s that, darlin’?” She pulled a pan from a cupboard by her knees. “What baby?”
“Here in this paper.” I held it up for her to see. “Did they find out who left the baby?”
She took the paper and didn’t even look at it. Swallowing hard, she met my eyes.
“I don’t recall,” she said. “They must have.”
“Who was the baby?”
She shook her head.
“It’s sad, don’t you think?” I grabbed for the paper. “A baby all alone like that.”
“Yes. Very sad. But that was a long time ago.” She put her best smile on. “How are the stars coming?”
“All right.” I leaned close to her and whispered. “Beanie’s aren’t looking so much like stars.”
“Well, that’s just fine, don’t you think?”
“You want to see the ones I made?” I led her to the living room to look at my stack. “I’ve got a whole bunch of them.”
“Very nice.” She touched my cheek. “You done a good job.”
We strung the stars with sewing thread and hung them across the room. Even the ones that looked more like a blob that Beanie had made. They looked about as good as they could have, and Mama said they were lovely.
Daddy admired the newspaper stars and blobs when he got home later that day. He said they were about the prettiest Christmas decorations he had seen in all his life.
Beanie’s smile beamed like nothing bad had ever happened to her. That made me glad.
Daddy walked under the garland we’d made, touching each shape with his fingertips, making them flutter.
Smiling, I watched them dance. My smile dropped, though, when I realized that all of Beanie’s odd shapes had been cut around the story of the abandoned baby.