There were things we longed for
then. Longed for them all the year round. Things we wouldn’t buy for ourselves,
but hoped someone else might. That was back in the day when Coca Cola was
something bought at a store to drink on the spot. For twenty-five cents. A
treat. Like ice cream and candy bars.
There were so many things we didn’t
have, that we were rich in longing. In looking forward to things. And there were
a fair few number of things we didn’t know we didn’t have. And we didn’t miss
them.
There is a little girl back there
in that time. She’s standing on a front porch in the chill of an Alabama winter
night. The porch floor is painted red, the last of multi-generations of
paint layers. The pictures those imperfectly scraped old layers make are more
noticeable in the shift of shadows and light from the windows of the house.
She is waiting in a plaid coat and a red
velvet dress, the Christmas dress that her mother has made this year. Church
services are over now, but she is allowed to leave it on, because it’s
Christmas Eve.
They have moved. To a little house
on a little lot, on a road between hills, in town. Even the horizon is snubbed
here, and the girl is lonely. There are
no animals, except a few impersonal dogs and cats. No horses, no chickens, no
cows, no quail, no rabbits.
The neighbors are different here. She
can’t figure out what they do all day
or where they go. But there is nobody around and nothing much interesting
happens. Even her father goes off to work each morning.
There are no farmers in this neighborhood. No
farriers. No orchard men. No mechanics. Everybody buys everything. Even their clothes come from the stores.
There are children, but they are
afraid of her. Or of her dog, which pretty much amounts to the same thing. The girl feels mean and ugly trying to chase
him home so they won’t run away from her again. And she’s not sure exactly how
to play with these town kids, anyway.
Her church, and all the people in
it, are miles down the long highway.
She goes to school now. The first
thing they taught her was the Itsy Bitsy Spider which she thought humiliating
and a waste of time. Now, at least, she can read, which is her most prized
skill.
Her father opens the door to ask if
she wouldn’t rather come inside where it’s warm, and she says, no, she’ll wait
here. He hesitates, then steps outside to stand with her.
Darlene did not move to town with
them. The girl misses her, but she does not blame her imaginary friend. She wouldn’t have moved,
either, if she hadn’t had to. She wonders if Darlene misses her, too. Here in
town, she can’t even manage to pretend up Elvis anymore.
The worst part is that one by one,
her sisters have married, and her brother as well, and they’ve moved into their own homes. So
now, it is just herself and her mother and father. In this town. Where nothing
interesting ever happens, and where she finds it hard to even make up anything
interesting.
This night,
the sky over the little valley is like the lining of a blue/black satin hat, and
there are stars like the glisten of tears. It is sharp cold for Alabama. Cold
enough for a plaid jacket. Cold enough to make the girl’s nose run.
The scent
of the cedar Christmas tree in the house is so strong it wafts onto the porch.
That heavenly smell is a good repayment for the rash the tree left on
her hands when she decorated it. Inside the house is as layered with smells as the
porch is with paint; coffee and chocolate, coconut, sweet potato pie, warm
pecans, and chili.
The living
room is small. The tree fills up a good eighth of the space. The lights are big
bulbs of wild colors that were bought in the late 1950s but somehow manage to
keep going year after year. All the ornaments on the tree have histories that the
girl never tires of hearing.
Inside the house her mother moves
around the kitchen singing along with Bing Crosby on the radio, just a few
snatches of words here and there, and just off-key. The chili in the large pot
bubbles. The mother stirs it, then moves to the counter to finish icing
a cake. The kitchen is small, too, and as bright and happy as this woman.
The little girl hears snatches of
her mother’s singing and catches the lilt of happiness in it. She reaches up for
her father’s hand. He squeezes it, jingles the change in his pocket, and smiles
down at her.
They are coming.
All at once, all together, the
older children are coming home, bringing their own young families. The house
will be full. The girl craves the sight of them like salt.
She stands on tiptoe and lifts her
chin to look further down the road. Her father says it won’t be long now.
They’ll be here soon.
The girl knows that when they
arrive, there will be food and presents and laughter and teasing. There will be
a long chain of hugging bodies. Children will be lifted up into loving arms and
admired and tickled, and sometimes tossed around the room like acrobats while
their uncles and fathers and the children themselves laugh, and their mothers
and aunts turn their faces away in horror.
There will be bowls of chili passed
from hand to hand and crisp grilled cheese sandwiches passed along as fast as
they come off the griddle. There will be a river of iced tea and hot coffee.
There will be a confusion of
presents and a riot of opening them. The children, including the girl, will
joyfully wade through a crinkling sea of ripped, shredded wrapping paper,
lifting and throwing it, draping it over the heads of annoyed adults before it
is finally snatched up and tidied away. Then the children, her included, will play
with the empty boxes while the grown-ups tease more, and laugh more and talk
longer.
After awhile they will all grow quieter
and calmer for the last, sweet course. Everyone will crowd into the tiny
kitchen and wriggle and jam themselves around the table for more coffee and
cake and pie and cookies.
In that warm kitchen, the womb of
the world, they will tell stories. Of their ancestors. Grandparents and aunts
and uncles who died before the girl was born, and other people she can just
remember. About the childhoods of her brother and sisters, or the courting days
of her father and mother. Of the animals they knew and loved, and the people
they knew and didn’t. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad. Listening to
them, the girl will sometimes forget to breathe.
When the youngest children begin to
fall asleep, the brother and sisters and their families will pack into the cars
and drive into the sweet, sharp silence of midnight.
But right now, in the house, the
mother and father and the girl wait. Wait for the ones they love, and
Christmas, to come to them. What there is now, is longing. Longing, and looking
forward. Christmas coming.
There will be many other Christmases for
the girl. Some of them will bring complete happiness; a few will bring complete
devastation. Years later, when she is a woman, when she has lived through
Christmases in too many places to remember them all, this is what she will
remember of the childhood ones. This is what she will see, and smell, and feel
when she closes her eyes and casts herself back.
The waiting. The watching in the
night. The sweet expectation. The view of the soft sky cut through with
gemstone stars. The smell of her mother’s cooking and the sound of her singing
voice. The feel of her father’s hard hand holding hers. Look up, he’d say,
let’s us look for the Star of Bethlehem.
But the only stars the girl wants to see are twin headlights turning down the long, dark road, toward the little house. They are
coming. Surely they’ll be here soon.
Surely by now, they are almost home.
 |
| Will make peace with the wing and the wheel. |
Merry Christmas. Thanks for coming. Come again, soon.
Leann
