Liz could not stop reading the bells.
Ryan, age 6, wants action toys,
a baseball mitt, and Matchbox cars.
Lori, age 4, wants a baby doll
with hair she can comb.
Katie, age 8, wants a family.
Liz stepped back from that one.
Katie, age 8, wants a family.
It was chilling. It made her hair prickle and her palms damp.
“Look at that!” said her father, stabbing his finger against the same bell. “Katie, age eight, wants a family? That is evil. I don’t care what good intentions Tom Knight has. I don’t care how saintly those church people think they are. It is evil to pretend to some little kid that she’s going to find a family under her Christmas tree. I can see asking for a doll if they can prove this little girl won’t have presents otherwise. But this—it’s an outrage! Hey, they want this kid to have a family, why don’t they supply the family? Why expect some innocent person going out for dinner to cry, ‘Oh, yes, just what I want to do; be a family to an eight-year-old.’ ”
“Somebody might,” said Liz, praying for a table.
Mom was an old hand at not looking related to Dad when he was crabby in public. She drifted away, as unattached to the scene Dad was making as she was to everything else.
“You believe in miracles, then,” said Liz’s father.
“They aren’t trying for miracles, Dad. They’re just trying to give a Barbie to a little girl.”
“Okay, the Barbie she can have. But this—” Liz’s father had been stabbing his index finger at the bell that asked for a family. Now he closed his fingers around it and yanked. The gold cord did not come free. Needles spilled to the floor. He untangled the little thread and had the bell in his hand.
He ripped the bell in half.
Then he ripped the halves in half and threw them in the wastebasket behind the reservation desk.