Chapter 6
GRANDMA’S ankles were correct in their prediction. The weather turned cold the day after Ben left. Three days later, it was still rainy and unpleasant outside, and Grandma and I were starting to get cabin fever. I was actually glad when she volunteered us to help set up the inter-church Christmas village in Town Square Park. The Senior Baptist Ladies were in high spirits, because for the first time in several years they had been awarded responsibility for decorating the Santa House—the crème de la crème of the Christmas Village display. Plans included a dozen freshly cut Christmas trees, decoration of the gazebo, and the election of Mrs. Santa Claus.
When we arrived at the church on the crisp December afternoon, the ladies were already sorting through boxes of supplies and discussing decorating ideas. They paused for a moment to pass Josh around, and then three of them hustled him off to the nursery, ignoring my protests that I could carry him in the belly sling while I worked. Grandma patted my shoulder and told me not to worry, that the ladies had been taking care of babies longer than I had been alive. Still, I felt a little strange with Josh gone.
Surveying the room, I noticed with some relief that I was not the only under-sixty person who had been drafted into temporary membership in the Senior Ladies. There were a couple of women around my age, a few younger than I, two teenage boys, and one captive husband, who was doing all the heavy lifting. Everyone seemed excited and cheerful, even the husband, who was being henpecked nearly to death by his wife, his mother, and his mother-in-law.
When the Senior Ladies started singing Christmas carols together, I knew without a doubt that Christmas fever had come to Hindsville. By the time we began setting up Christmas trees in the square, Grandma was afflicted with it and was angling to play Mrs. Santa Claus in the pageant.
“But I wouldn’t want anyone to think Oliver Mason and I are a couple. You know they have chosen that old coot as Santa Claus?” she was saying. “People could get the wrong idea.”
I hid behind a Douglas fir, trying not to giggle. This was, after all, the serious matter of Grandma’s reputation. “I’m sure they won’t. But if you’re worried about it, don’t play Mrs. Santa Claus.”
Wringing her hands, she let out a long, soulful sigh. “Oh, but I wouldn’t want the children to be disappointed.” As if no one else in town could possibly play Mrs. Claus.
“That’s something to think about.” I bit my lip to keep from laughing and pretended to be busy fluffing out the tree. “I guess you’ll just have to do it.”
Raising her chin steadfastly, she gave one swift nod. “I suppose I shall.”
And so she left me there and wandered off to begin campaigning in earnest. I continued working on the Santa House with Wanda Cox, a sixtyish neighbor of Grandma’s who was tall and slender and wore a beauty-shop hairdo that reminded me of the 1960s. With us were her daughter, Sandy, who was the fourth-grade teacher in town, and three other elderly ladies whom I didn’t know. With all of us working, the task went quickly, which was good, because evening was coming and it was getting cold. To keep warm, we talked as we worked, about kids mostly, because that was the one thing we all had in common.
“I worried about everything when Bailey was born, but with Justin, I just let things go. It’s a lot more fun,” Sandy was saying. She was pretty, a few years younger than I, with short blond hair, and a friendly personality that made you feel like you’d known her forever. I figured that made her good at teaching.
One of the ladies hanging garlands laughed. “It’s easier with the second one, isn’t it? By the time you’ve had four, you’re satisfied just to keep them all fed, diapered, and bathed. Mine were eighteen months to twenty-two months apart. It seemed like I never would get through washing diapers. Every day, another load of diapers. We had that old wringer washer, and I’d stand there and churn that thing, and churn that thing, then wring the diapers, and hang the diapers, and in the meanwhile, the children would be tearing up the house, or running in the mud hole, and here I’d go again.”
Wanda giggled along with her. “My mother used to put the babies in those long dresses, and when she had work to do in the kitchen, she’d pick up the table leg and set it down on the end of the baby’s dress. That way she’d know right where we were. Of course, she married at seventeen and had seven, so she had to do something.”
“Seven,” I breathed. “Wow.” I was thinking of how I felt half out of my mind raising one, and was trying to picture how it would be to have seven, still be in your twenties, and be living in the dark ages before wrinkle-free clothes and disposable diapers. It made my life seem like cheesecake.
The conversation went on like that for quite some time. We covered cooking, husbands, childbirth, weddings, college coursework then and now, and a touch of politics. And all the while we covered the Santa House with garlands and lights. With so many hands, it hardly seemed like work. Everyone was laughing and talking, discussing, humming Christmas songs. In spite of the cold turning fingers and toes numb, it was the best day I could remember.
We ate a potluck supper in the fellowship hall of the church, which had once been the chapel. Built of native brownstone with ancient stained-glass windows in hand-hewn frames, old candelabra chandeliers, and beaded board paneling, it was a perfect setting for a Christmas dinner. Townspeople added to our number, and the supper soon looked like a major happening in Hindsville.
It was a picture-postcard event—long tables decorated with red tablecloths and garlands, and filled with food in dishes of a hundred different shapes and colors. The room was alive with a wonderful sense of community, people laughing and talking, discussing the events in one another’s daily lives. I was struck by how well they knew each other and how fortunate they were to have that sense of belonging. Watching the old people pass Josh around, I wished Ben were there to share the evening. He would have enjoyed the food and the conversation, and he definitely would have enjoyed watching Grandma campaign for the position of Mrs. Santa Claus.
She was working the room like a professional, shaking hands, kissing babies, calling in favors, even doing a little blackmail. She hardly paused long enough to eat supper. She finished up the evening by sitting with old Oliver, so everyone could see how they looked together. Watching the two of them made me laugh. Oliver looked like a smitten fifteen-year-old boy, and Grandma looked as if she were trying to swallow a dose of castor oil. When he laid a hand on her arm, she gave him a look that could have fried an egg. He didn’t seem to care. He just smiled and chewed on the end of his unlit cigar.
By the time the evening was over, Grandma had the election in the bag. No one was surprised when she won the position of Mrs. Santa Claus by an overwhelming margin. Grandma pretended to be honored and astonished, and laying her hand on her chest in a gesture of false humility, she walked forward to accept her costume. Then she promptly sat beside me, leaving old Oliver to fall asleep in the corner.
Grandma spread the Mrs. Claus costume on the table and began to discuss how embellishments could be made. When we got home later that evening, she started her work.
Over the next two days, I received sewing lessons and was endlessly tortured over the appearance of the costume, and whether Grandma should sit next to Oliver in the Santa House or on a chair beside it so she could hand out candy canes, or perhaps old-fashioned peppermint sticks would be better, and perhaps the line of children should file by her before they went in to see Santa Claus, because . . .
Meanwhile, I was growing more immune to Grandma’s rambling and complaining speeches. Even though Ben’s three-day trip turned into a week plus three days, the time seemed to pass quickly. He was due home the day after the pageant, with a nice paycheck—enough to catch up on most of the bills, at least for another month. I still hadn’t talked to him about my occasional fantasies of a life change, but the desire for something different in our lives was becoming real in my mind.
The day of the Christmas pageant dawned sunny and pleasant for December. Grandma fretted over last-minute preparations all day, until finally it was time to get ready for the pageant. I dressed Joshua in a red snowsuit, took pictures of him in the arms of the most perfect ever Mrs. Santa Claus, and away we went. We arrived at the secret Santa rendezvous location behind the post office with no time to spare, and Grandma was hoisted onto the firetruck by three volunteer firemen. She rode next to Santa Claus and even managed to hold hands with the old coot. Oliver’s red cheeks were a perfect addition to his costume, and there was no rouge involved.
At the Santa House, Grandma sat outside the door, handing candy canes to hopeful kids and admonishing them to be good. I recognized Dell Jordan in the line and was relieved when Grandma didn’t refuse her a candy cane, mention anything about welfare, or tell her that her Christmas wishes probably wouldn’t be fulfilled. She didn’t treat the girl with any special kindness, but she wasn’t cruel either, which I knew from experience she could be. Apparently, the Christmas spirit had improved her disposition.
When the Santa line was finished and the trees were lit, everyone stood around the gazebo enjoying the lights and trays of cookies and gallons of hot spiced apple cider provided by groups of church ladies. Grandma sat near the gazebo with Joshua in her lap, amid a crowd of admirers, and I sat on a bench near the edge of the park with Sandy and her husband, Troy. Their daughter, Bailey, was playing on the ground in front of us, so bulky in her snowsuit that she could barely walk. We were laughing and talking about kids and whatnot.
“Now, our little one is a rascal.” Sandy giggled. “Bailey was so sweet and so easy, but this new one is a whole other thing. We left him home with his gramp tonight.” She glanced over her shoulder at a group of boys who were sitting on the sidewalk behind us with their plates. “Y’all quit throwing your food,” Sandy admonished them. “If you don’t want it, put it in the trash.”
The rowdy crew quieted and hunched over their plates, giggling and talking in whispers.
Sandy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Boys! I deal with that sort of thing all day long in fourth grade.”
I glanced up just in time to see Dell Jordan walk by looking at the Christmas trees, her dark eyes alive with wonder, reflecting the twinkling lights. She dropped her gaze to the boys on the sidewalk and started to walk away.
“Smelly Delly,” one of them chanted, pitching a half-eaten cookie in her direction. The rest of them joined in instantly. “Smelly Delly, Smelly Delly, Smelly Delly, Smelly Delly . . .”
Sandy glanced at Dell as she hurried away; then she shook a stern finger at the boys. “Y’all leave Dell alone. That’s mean.”
Mean? I thought. Mean? It went beyond mean. It was unspeakably cruel. Setting my plate aside, I stood up, but Dell was already gone, rushing behind the gazebo like a deer bolting into the woods. I turned on the boys, suddenly angry. “You boys should be ashamed of yourselves. She didn’t do anything to you.”
The oldest one, who was probably about Dell’s age, rolled his eyes as if I were stupid. “Well, she does smell. It ain’t a lie. She’s got gross old clothes.”
I wanted to wring his neck in spite of his age. “She’s just a little girl.” Then I realized who I was talking to, and I sat down again. Dell was just a little girl, and they were little boys, and children could be cruel.
Sandy’s husband turned around and addressed the boys. “You boys throw your plates in the trash and go play. And don’t say those things again or I’ll tell your mamas.” They sluggishly obeyed, and when they were gone, he said, “Some of these kids around here just have so much more than others.”
“I guess so.” I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t. I’d lived in upper-middle-class suburbs all my life. A house and two cars for everyone. Two parents usually. Games and toys, nice yards, and nice clothes for school. Poverty and ignorance were characters we saw on TV, or sometimes passed on the highway while traveling to some vacation hideaway. They were not our neighbors. They did not have faces with soft brown eyes and downturned mouths that never smiled. . . .
Troy stood suddenly. The abruptness of his movement broke my train of thought. Looking up, I saw Grandma coming our way, her face stern, her pale blue eyes flashing with anger, her Mrs. Santa hat gone, and her wig askew. Shuffling across the grass in a hurry, she had two boys by the shirt collars. Two other boys followed meekly in her wake. She parked the boys on the sidewalk behind us, her hands retaining a shuddering grip on their collars, as if she intended to hang them right there.
“At the very least, you boys should clean up the food you have wasted.” Her voice was loud and authoritative, her face dangerously red. She glared at the youngsters, who, in turn, stared at their shoes. “And when you are in church tomorrow, ask the Lord to show you a better way to act. There are some children who do not have enough to eat, and you are throwing good food into the street.” She pitched the two of them forward with impressive strength, then grabbed the other two and forcibly added them to the pile. The four landed in a sprawl in the dry grass beside the curb.
Troy and Sandy stared at her, openmouthed.
“Grandma!” I exclaimed, looking around to see if anyone was watching. I could just imagine what the boys’ parents would think if they saw her pitching their children into the dirt.
She blinked at me, seeming surprised by the sound of my voice, then teetered backward unsteadily. Troy rushed to her side, grabbing her upper arms to steady her. With short, careful steps, he helped her to the bench.
“Sit down, Mrs. Vongortler,” he soothed, his face lined with concern. “It’s all right.”
“It isn’t,” she insisted, but the red had drained from her face, and the fervor faded from her voice. “Those boys should be ashamed and so should their parents.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked as they spilled onto her cheeks. The gnarled line of her mouth quivered with withheld emotion.
My heart dropped into my stomach, and I sat beside her, feeling completely helpless.
Sandy leaned close and whispered in my ear, “Do you want me to go get Dr. Schmidt?”
I shook my head, not knowing what to say. I had no idea if her behavior was typical or not. I only knew I’d never seen anything like it in the past. My helplessness reminded me of how ill prepared I was to be her caretaker.
“Grandma.” I leaned close, feeling better when she looked at me with tearful recognition. “Are you all right? Do you need Dr. Schmidt?”
“No.” Her voice was small, as if it were coming from somewhere far away.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
“No.”
“Would you like cider or some water?”
“Cider.” She wiped her eyes and ran her hands self-consciously over her wig, straightening it, then looking up to see if anyone else had noticed us. “I would like to sit with the others before they wonder about me.”
“All right.” I helped her up and dabbed the moisture from her cheeks with a napkin, relieved to see her acting like herself again. I was also relieved that no one else had noticed the incident. Grandma looked embarrassed enough with just the three of us watching. I was embarrassed for her and wished Sandy and Troy weren’t there. I could tell they were wondering, just as I was, what had set Grandma off and why she’d taken the boys in hand. I wondered if she was angry over what they’d done to Dell Jordan, or because they’d wasted the food. Probably the food. She’d already made her feelings about the little Jordan girl quite clear.
As we joined the others for the last of the evening’s Christmas carols, I looked around for Dell, but she was nowhere to be found. I wanted to make sure she was all right and to let her know the boys had been reprimanded, but she was gone, so I tried to put it out of my mind. Grandma’s outburst kept replaying in my thoughts. I couldn’t even begin to guess at her motives. I never would have imagined she was capable of manhandling someone else’s children.
The truth was, we really didn’t know each other at all.
By the time we headed home, Grandma seemed to be in high spirits again. She had apparently forgotten all about the incident with the boys and was now focused on preparations for our family Christmas, which was, for me, about as unpleasant a subject as the awful event in the park.
“We should hurry home,” she said. “We have so many things to do before Christmas. Now, I don’t want one of those store-bought trees this year. We’ll go on Christmas Eve and cut a cedar from the north field, and . . .”
The rest of the way home, she talked about the family coming for Christmas, and who would stay in what room, what sheets and quilts we would use, how we would fit everyone at the table, and where she had stored the Christmas decorations in case I wanted to pull them out when we got home.
Guilt rushed over me, making me unable to discuss the plans with her. Christmas was only a week away, and I had not called my father to ask when he would arrive, or if he was coming at all. It was childish of me, I knew, but I was waiting for him to call me. Fortunately, Aunt Jeane was making arrangements with Karen and her husband, so that was out of my hands. As far as I knew, they were to arrive on December 23rd and leave four days later. It would be the longest visit to Hindsville of Karen’s adult life, and I wondered what sort of emotional blackmail Aunt Jeane had used to convince her to come. Aunt Jeane wouldn’t say.
I wondered if Karen was as nervous about the visit as I was. I supposed not. Karen was always confident of her position, seldom rattled by anything.
I called my father that night after Grandma had gone to the little house and Joshua was put to bed. In my mind, I rehearsed what I would say if he answered. Hello, I’d say matter-of-factly. I’d make some inquiry about his health or his work. Tell him how much it mattered to Grandma that he come for Christmas. Make sure he knew it didn’t really matter to me.
Of course, the truth was that it did matter. I thought about Joshua, and the fact that he was nearly four months old and no one in my family, except Grandma, had even seen him.
I was relieved when Dad’s answering machine picked up. I quickly left a message. “Hello, it’s Kate. Grandma has been wondering when you’re coming for Christmas. She says she hasn’t seen you since she was in the hospital in June. She’s really looking forward to this Christmas. Please let us know as soon as you can.” I hung up the phone hurriedly, afraid he would answer. Then I sat at the kitchen table, catching my breath, feeling as if I had been running from something in a nightmare.
The sound of the television in the living room caught my attention, and I walked through the dogtrot, wondering if Grandma had decided to come back into the house. I hoped she hadn’t heard me on the phone. I didn’t want her to know I was having to beg my father to come.
When I entered the living room, it was empty. Shaking my head, I turned off the TV and stood looking around the room for a minute, having the irrational feeling that there were ghosts in the house. The mantel clock chimed, and I jumped, surprised by the noise.
I thought I hid the winding key where Grandma wouldn’t find it. . . .
Something white caught my eye near the clock, something fluttering just slightly in the draft from the register. Grandma’s book. Glancing around the room again, I walked to the mantel and picked it up, looking at the words in the dim light from the floor lamp. The story about the roses was gone, replaced by something new.
Fragile Things, the story was titled. In the back of my mind, I thought of Joshua.
I remember a time when I was too young to know the worry of money or work. I knew only the little things in the world around me—the grasshoppers and the flowers, the sound of dragonflies, the silk of milkweed pods, the taste of honeysuckle. I knew nothing of larger things.
I was too young to understand the need that forced us to load the old box wagon with all that we owned—mother’s quilts and linens and dishes, the birchwood cradle she used to rock my baby brother, the blue-rimmed china that came from the old country with my grandmother, the mantel clock that had been handed down to my father. We were like that clock, proud and solid—something that shouldn’t have been moved, but was. My soul was like the china, fragile and white.
I touched the china with reverence as we folded it among old linens in the trunk. Mother stood above me, her hands poised in the air as I touched the fine golden flowers painted like windsong along the blue edge. She hovered there silently, nervously, watching me, warning me, waiting to catch the fragile things should they fall.
When the wagon was packed, I sat near the china trunk, my legs swinging off the rough tailgate, bare and brown, no stockings or shoes. I did not watch our small farmhouse disappear behind us. Instead, I watched my shadow slide over the ground with the silence of a serpent, the grace of velvet. I did not wonder where we were going or why. I knew our journey would end someplace wonderful.
I saw it ahead later in the day—a settlement of fine whitewashed buildings and a tall stone church with beautiful colored glass windows. I imagined it a castle as we stopped in front, and I imagined myself a princess in the tower. From the churchyard, I heard the shouts and laughter of children, and I watched them with interest as they played. Never had I seen so many young people, and I wanted to jump from the wagon and run to join in their games.
I was angry when my mother kept me beside her in the wagon as father climbed down. I watched him stop for a moment before he went forward to the men gathered nearby. I saw his hat clenched tightly in his hands, his strong shoulders rounded like an ox yoke, his dark head bowed as if in prayer. I saw my mother hold her hands just an inch above her lap, as if she were waiting. I did not know why these things made me feel heavy and small. My mind had no words to frame it.
I turned, instead, to watch the children play with tiny arks and carved animals, miniature people and dolls. I imagined myself among them in a starched print dress, blue like our china, with tiny golden flowers. I thought of the fun we would soon have together, and I knew our journey had, indeed, ended someplace wonderful.
The wagon swayed suddenly, and I heard my father clamber to his seat. Shouts and laughter followed him into the street. I started to laugh also, but the voices made me silent.
“We don’t want beggars here!” they called. “Move on, white trash, no charity here!”
A rock flew close to me and struck the wagon like brimstone. My mother cried out, clutching me and the baby as stones drove the mule to bolt. I huddled there, my heart fluttering like a tiny bird as the wagon bounced and swayed. Behind me, I saw the china trunk slide to the back of the wagon, then slowly topple over the edge. I cried out as it fell to the street, splintering against the ground and spewing bits of china like water drops. My father did not draw up the mule, but instead allowed him to run until the town was far behind us.
Burying my face against my mother’s breast, I cried in anger and fear and sadness. She wrapped me in her arms and promised that things would be all right. But I knew things would be different. I knew I would be different. I understood the truth that had hidden beyond the smallness of my world—that I was not good and perfect, that others would live in wonderful places while I would not, that others were greater and I was less.
I knew my father was right in not going back for the china. It was no longer perfect, no longer whole. It was now fragmented and sharp and, as with all things fragile, could not be made whole again.
In that moment, I understood so much about Grandma Rose that I had not before. I understood why she was so worried about someone spoiling the things that belonged to her, why she obsessed so over her house and her savings. I understood why she couldn’t stand the sight of Dell Jordan. Dell reminded her of a past she was trying to forget, a girl she used to be. The incident with the boys in town had brought it all back to her, and she lashed out at the people who had long ago broken her own spirit.
After reading her words, I understood how much the safety of that big white house and the security of her land and her belongings meant, and how deeply she feared losing them. I understood why she had never been willing to let even a piece of it go.
Somewhere inside, she was the little girl in the back of a wagon, trying to hold on to something that was heavy, and fragile, and slipping away.