Christmas would come to the Pullmans with the cold logic of the calendar, and the parents decided that the best consolation for the children was to make the season as normal as possible.
So only a week after the funeral, Father came home with a Christmas tree tall enough to brush the ceiling before he cut down the top sprig to make room for the star. He strung the lights, and he and Mother and the children spent the whole evening hanging up all their decorations.
By sheer force of will, the parents did not succumb to memories of how Ernie had strung the lights and hung the star for the past three years. In fact, they acted their part so well that the evening was full of laughter; even Davy, who had been so solemn since his brother died, laughed and teased Bug. And Bug, for his part, was sweet with his little sister and helped her hang ornaments on low branches, and this year did not try to rehang all the ones that she had placed.
After the children were in bed, the parents sat in front of the festive tree and held hands, and Mr. Pullman said, “We still have all these children, and they’re good ones, too.”
Mrs. Pullman nodded. “I know.”
“It’s right to make things normal for them,” said Mr. Pullman.
“Yes, it is.”
Then they wept and held each other, thinking of the boy who should have been there, and who had been taken from them so untimely.
A few days later, Davy came home from school late. Mother began to scold him, but he stood up rather defiantly and said, “Don’t you want to know where I was first?”
“Well, where were you?”
“I was at Virgil’s Furnace,” he said. “Virg says I can start there as an assistant and learn the work by helping, the way Ernie did. And I promised that I’d work every bit as hard as Ernie did, even though I’m not as smart and probably won’t learn as quick.”
“You’re a very smart boy,” said Mother.
“Not as smart as Ernie,” Davy insisted. “Nobody is.”
“Well I’m proud of you,” said Mother. “And I know Ernie will be. But you really do have to work hard, and stick to it.”
Father was also proud when he got home from work, but he had another worry. He took Davy out onto the back porch and put his arm on his son’s shoulder and said, “Davy, you know that you don’t have to try to take Ernie’s place.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“Nobody will,” said Father. “You have a place of your own, and it’s every bit as important and good as Ernie’s, and we love you every bit as much.”
“So you don’t want me to work for Virg?”
“I want you to do whatever you think you should, and I want you to do the best job you can,” said Father. “But do it because that’s what you want, and not because it’s what Ernie did.”
“All right,” said Davy.
But Father knew that he had made little headway, and it would be some time before Davy could find his way out of his brother’s shadow.
Well, there was time, wasn’t there? Davy would have many years to work his way through his life.
Or else he wouldn’t. He might die in his sleep one night, and then what did it matter whether he was in his brother’s shadow or not? What did anything matter?
Father shuddered at the thought, and felt the slight shoulder of the boy under his hand, and said to himself firmly: This one is alive, and so something does matter. I did not die with Ernie, and neither did my duty to my family.
There’s nothing in life that you can be sure of keeping—he had known that even before Ernie died. This was not the first loss or grief in the Pullmans’ lives, just the first one that the children shared in. You could spend your life missing what you had lost and fearing to lose what you had, or you could take such joy as God gave you and rejoice in the children who were still with you. Mr. Pullman already knew what choice he would make.
A few days later, it was Bug who asked the most disturbing question of all. “What are we going to do with all the money Ernie saved up for college?”
Because Father wasn’t home, and Mother was utterly unprepared for the question, she answered with a question of her own. “Why do you ask?”
“I just thought maybe we could use some of it to buy presents for each other the way Ernie would have.”
“Ernie would never have used that money to buy presents,” said Mother. “It was saved for a purpose.”
“But he won’t be going to college now,” said Bug.
That was too much for Mother. She didn’t cry, but she did press her lips together in the effort not to cry, and shook her head, and Bug knew the conversation was over and left the room with a murmur of “Sorry, Mom.”
Still, the question of Ernie’s savings was an important one. Mr. Pullman, being an accountant, had helped several families deal with the taxes and expenses involved with a death and inheritance. As he explained to his wife when she told him about Bug’s question, “Ernie died without a will, and so by law all his possessions belong to his next of kin, which would be his parents.”
“But it’s still his savings,” said Mrs. Pullman. “How would he want us to use it, that’s the question.”
“He never touched his savings for Christmas presents.”
“But he won’t be going to college now,” said Mrs. Pullman, firmly. “So what would he do with the money now that that purpose is gone?”
In the end, they decided to divide his savings into three parts. As they explained to the children at a family council around the kitchen table, “This money was meant to pay for college, and that’s what it will do—it’s the start of your college savings, all three of you.”
“What’s college?” asked Zanna.
“It’s a school for big people,” said Bug.
“And after you go to college, they have to pay you more money,” said Davy.
“Ernie never touched his college savings,” said Father, “and neither will you. You can add to it by what you earn as you get older. And it will gather interest.”
Whereupon Bug asked what “interest” was, and the meeting quickly degenerated as Father tried to explain the entire banking system to children who soon grew desperate to get away.
How much of this Zanna understood was impossible to guess, but a few days later it became clear that she had understood at least this much: They had to decide what to do about things that had belonged to Ernie.
It was only a week before Christmas, and Mother was in the kitchen baking date bread to take to the neighbors for Christmas.
Zanna came in carrying a paper with lots of coloring on it.
“Mommy,” she said. “What about my present for Ernie?”
“Well, darling, I’m afraid you’ll need to give it to someone else who might use it.”
It was only after Zanna had trotted back out of the kitchen that Mrs. Pullman realized that Zanna hadn’t bought a gift for Ernie. He had died before any Christmas shopping had taken place. So what did she mean? Did she think they could give Ernie Christmas gifts after all? What was going through that little four-year-old mind?
It became clearer that night when she found Zanna crying in her bed.
“What’s wrong, darling?” asked Mother.
“I can’t give Ernie’s present to anybody else.”
“Why not, darling?”
“Because nobody else likes my drawings.”
So it was a gift she had made for him. Of course. But then . . . when had she made it? Was it possible that she was already thinking of a Christmas gift for him before he died? That she had already drawn him a picture?
“Ernie saw all your pictures, darling, and he loved them all. It’s not your fault that he left us before he got to see this one.”
“But this one is the best one ever.”
“May I see it?”
Zanna slid out from under the blankets and opened her bottom drawer and took out a piece of paper.
Now that Mother looked at it, she could see that it really had been a labor of love. Instead of consisting of a lot of tiny drawings in the corners of the paper, there was only a single picture in the middle, bigger than anything Mother had seen Zanna draw.
“It really is special,” said Mother. “What is it?”
Zanna started to cry. “Nobody ever knows what my pictures are, except Ernie.”
And in that moment Mrs. Pullman realized that in Zanna’s world, the loss of Ernie had been just as devastating as in her own. She pulled her daughter into her arms.
“Oh, my little darling, my sweet girl, I’m so sorry. Ernie loved your drawings, and I bet Heavenly Father will let him see what you drew.”
“But Ernie won’t ever be able to tell me that he loves it.”
“No, he won’t,” said Mother. “Not until you get very old and Heavenly Father takes you home.”
Zanna raised her red and tear-soaked face to look at her mother. “I can never make a drawing for him again!” she wailed.
“Darling,” soothed her mother. “Darling, that’s not true. It’s just not true. You can make all your drawings for him. Your whole life, every drawing, can be for him. Don’t you think he’ll be watching you from heaven? Don’t you think that he can see?”
Again Zanna’s face, so full of misery, looked up into Mother’s. “Can he?”
“I don’t know,” said Mother honestly. “But Heavenly Father loves you, and loves him, and don’t you think that he would let him see your pictures?”
Zanna thought about that and shook her head. “I want to give him the picture.”
“I know, darling.”
“He really wants this picture! He asked me for it!”
“I know, but you can’t.”
“He asked me for it special. He said for me to do it for him for Christmas. And then he died before I was finished! It’s not fair. I was working on it every day. I couldn’t do it any faster.”
There was nothing more that Mother could say. She just held her daughter close and shed her own tears into Zanna’s hair until her daughter finally fell asleep and Mother lifted her into bed.