“Maybe two now?” asked Georgia, watching the oven with longing.
“I don’t know,” said Bess. “We’ll see.” She heard the sounds of Donny getting restless in his room and knew she’d better act quickly or he’d be screaming. A good mother wouldn’t let all the peace and quiet get ruined.
“I know,” said Georgia. “Let’s just bake them every year. Then I’ll always get some.”
“Yes,” said Bess, leaning forward to surreptitiously smell the sweet scent of her daughter’s hair. “That’s what we’ll do, then. We’ll bake together every year.”
chapter twelve
The smell of cinnamon coaxed Dakota awake, and she opened one eye to discover that Gran’s side of the bed was empty. The room was still dark. She took a deep breath, imagining the gingerbread or scones that might be in the oven, and stretched, then tiptoed down the hall in her pajamas. The door to the sewing room was ajar, and she could see her father on the daybed, his feet hanging over the end, still deeply asleep.
“Gran, what time is it,” she asked, as she stopped in the kitchen, bending down to glance through the oven window to see rolls rising and browning.
“It’s morning,” said Gran, who was still in a housecoat and knitted slippers. “Even though it looks like twilight outside. No time to waste on Christmas Eve. We’re having the cousins over tomorrow, and we’ll need fresh baking.”
Dakota yawned, wishing she could crawl back under the afghan at the end of the bed, but the sight of her elderly great-grandmother washing dishes made her trudge to the sink to help. She reached over to hug her, practically resting her chin on the top of Gran’s fluffy white hair.
“Here’s a cuddle, then,” said Gran, giving Dakota a squeeze in return. “What’s on your mind, love?”
“Nothing,” said Dakota, pouring herself some tea from the pot she knew her Gran would have made before anything else. She dropped in a healthy spoonful of sugar and a dash of milk. Leaning against the counter, she took a long sip and then another as Gran put down her dishcloth and stared at Dakota over the rim of her glasses.
“Nothing?” she prodded.
“You and Grandma sure don’t get along,” said Dakota, trying to change the subject. “Always grumping at each other.”
“Ach,” said Gran, as if waving off a fly. “We’re just two old bats, that’s all. Set in our ways. I thought we’d rather mellowed over the years.”
“Not so much,” said Dakota.
“She’s a bit of a fussbudget,” admitted Gran. “Probably mad because she likes things to go her way, and we’re in my house now.”
“She’s always nice to me,” said Dakota.
“As she should be,” said Gran, filling up Dakota’s cup and then her own. “Is that what’s on your mind?”
“Oh, Gran, I’m stressed out,” said Dakota, who didn’t need much more prompting. She’d been bursting to talk ever since she’d arrived. “There’s too much going on. Peri has a job offer and I don’t know what to do about going to school and keeping Mom’s shop successful. Then Dad got a new girlfriend—a real one, somebody serious—and I’m trying to be cool, but it’s really bugging me. Why now? Why Christmas?”
“Why not now?”
“Because, because,” sputtered Dakota. “I don’t know. On the one hand, I want him to be happy. In my imagination. But I walked in on them, Gran, and they were kissing. It was . . . highly disturbing. I mean, not like you ever married anyone after your husband died.”
“Married? Is your father getting married?”
“No, not that I know of,” confessed Dakota. “I just meant it’s not like you dated anybody after you were widowed. You just knew you had the one love, and that was that.”
“Oh, is that so?” said Gran, sitting up straight in her chair.
“You dated somebody?”
“Ach, no, not one man,” said Gran, making a face. “And staying home alone never made me any less lonely. See now?”
Dakota got up to remove the rolls from the oven, signaling for Gran to stay put. Then, seeing that the flour was already out, she fished out a clean metal bowl to do some pastry.
“Mince pie?” she asked, knowing Gran was planning to make the very same this afternoon. But she’d been looking a bit worn down since her guests had arrived, and no need for her to stand on her feet all morning. Dakota would do the pies and then move on to sugar cookies, her father’s favorite. And then, she hoped, there would be the chance of a nap.
“How do you think Mom would feel about it?” she asked cautiously, her back to Gran as she cut in the flour and butter.
“If she was alive, she’d be mad as heck,” said Gran. “But since she’s somewhere else, she’d understand.”
“Can I tell you something strange?” asked Dakota. “Lately I’ve been feeling mad at Dad for all that stuff from long ago. Like breaking up with Mom and leaving us alone.” She stopped mixing, her hands covered with flour. “And I don’t know why.”
“It wouldn’t change anything that happened after he came back, you know,” said Gran. “Your mother’s illness was what we used to call ‘one of those things.’ But it seems to me that the older you are, the closer you get to your mother’s age, the greater your understanding of how she might have felt. Perhaps you can appreciate her perspective, and her hurts.”
Dakota moved nearer to Gran.
“So, now what?” she said.
“Who knows?” said Gran. “You don’t need to have everything figured out all at once. You’ll sort one thing and then something else will come along. And then it will get easier. And then harder. It’s a constant stream of changes and choices. The shop is just a place, Dakota. Your mother was more than her business.”
“Gran, that so doesn’t tell me what to do,” said Dakota.
“No,” agreed Gran. “But you can always lean on your family. Hurry and get dressed now. We’ve a big day ahead, and I could use some help getting to your great-grandfather. I do so every Christmas Eve.”
Dakota changed into jeans and a soft sweater, then slipped into her thick boots and heavy coat and accompanied Gran to the cemetery.
Dakota glanced around at the stones. “This isn’t exactly my idea of Christmas, Gran,” she said. “It’s a bit morbid.”
“Just an old habit, I suppose,” said Gran, leaning more heavily on Dakota than she had during the last visit as the twosome made their way through the snow. “The holidays can be difficult. All these reminders of other times. Long ago.”
After many minutes, Gran stopped at a square stone with “Walker” etched on its front and the names of family members listed below. Dakota saw her mother’s name, Georgia Walker, after her great-grandfather’s.
“Gran, Mom’s not here!” exclaimed Dakota, worried that her great-grandmother was seriously confused.
“I know that,” tsked Gran. “But your great-grandfather’s not really here, either, you know. This is just a place for bodies. Not for souls.”
“Did you tell anybody?”
“I just liked the idea of Georgia being with all the family and had it engraved so. No one says no to you when you’re almost one hundred years old,” she continued. “Remember to use that to your advantage someday.”
Dakota used a branch of pine she’d brought to sweep some snow off the grave, hoping Gran would hurry with whatever she needed to do.
“So, now what?” she asked after a few moments.
“So, now we think,” said Gran. “It’s quiet enough here that a person can finally hear her thoughts. Say a prayer, perhaps.”
“I don’t pray, Gran,” explained Dakota. “It’s just not my thing.”
“Definitely not,” agreed Gran. “Let’s just stand, then, and pay our respects.”
Dakota waited, standing silently as Gran, she imagined, said her prayers. She watched the clouds roll slowly across the sky, and she felt the cold in her toes and wished she’d put on a second pair of socks. But her mind, even as she sought to be as calm and clear-headed
as befitting a graveside think, still felt crowded. And her thoughts kept coming back to her mother.
“I’m sorry, Gran, but this is awful,” she blurted. “Christmas should be about opening presents and eating buns.”
“That’s just what I was remembering,” said Gran, a faraway glint in her eye.
“What?”
“There’s a lot to learn from memories,” said Gran. “The fun ones and the hard ones. Simple things, really. Just the idea that this was a real person, with a real life. With a temper, maybe. Or a penchant to be a bit of a grump. Not perfect. But loved.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Dakota. “But this is still weird.”
“Do you not go to your mother’s grave, then?”
“Sometimes,” said Dakota. “Like after the funeral.”
“All those years ago?” Gran was bemused but tried to hide her smile.
“Yup,” said Dakota. “It feels weird to just be talking here, you know, chitchatting.”
“As good as the kitchen, I’d say,” said Gran. “Less interruption, perhaps.”
Dakota rolled her eyes.
“Oh, there she is,” said Gran. “My cheeky little Dakota hidden inside this grown-up girl.”
“Not so grown-up,” said Dakota. “I know I am kinda all over the place lately. I just feel so much pressure. As though I’m going to ruin everything. You know, make a mistake, choose the wrong thing.”
“Can’t have that,” agreed Gran. “You might learn something that way. Though it would take quite a power to ruin absolutely everything.”
“It’s been a tough fall, okay?” Dakota sighed. “It seems as though everyone—Donny, Bess, Catherine, Anita—is just bursting to tell me all these sides of my mom. Like crazy stuff she did when she was a teenager, or that she loved to bake when she was a little girl. Details I never really knew. It’s disconcerting. I thought I knew my mom better than anybody.”
The wind picked up a bit, and the air began to feel moist, as though warning of snow—or rain.
“Memories add color to the facts,” said Gran, sliding her arm through Dakota’s for the return walk, moving somewhat more slowly than before. “All the different pieces, all the different relationships, come together to make up a life. You were insulated when you were a child, and now that you’re an adult, you are growing to understand your mother in a fresh way. It takes some getting used to, this new perspective. She made mistakes, and so will you, and no one will love you any less for it.”
“I remember my mom used to like leftover turkey sandwiches,” said Dakota. “We used to eat them while watching the lights of the Christmas tree late at night, at the farmhouse in Pennsylvania.”
“And if I recall correctly, Georgia sent me a pair of legwarmers she knitted for me in 1982,” said Gran. “And I wore them, too, in the garden to keep warm. That was almost as nice as the Christmas we celebrated in October.”
She and Donny spent weeks preparing for their visit to Gran’s house, doing up all the chores around the farm and helping Dad finish up with the harvest. But it was worth the effort, thought Georgia, sleeping on the cot in Gran’s sewing room, smelling the scent of grass from the back garden on the crisp, white sheets. Mom had been resistant to the entire enterprise, had insisted that missing three weeks of seventh grade would leave Georgia behind her classmates. But she’d done extra homework beforehand and brought worksheets from her teacher as well. She wasn’t about to miss Gran. They were able to visit only every few years, anyway. And they hardly ever got to spend the holidays with Gran, posting their gifts weeks and weeks ahead of Christmas so they would arrive before the big day.
“Wake up,” she hissed, poking Donny awake on the daybed. “Did you forget our plan?”
“I’m sleepin’,” he muttered. “Go away.”
“Donny, if you don’t wake up this instant, I’m going to spill my glass of water on you,” she threatened. “We have to go home tomorrow, and there’s no other chances.”
Stumbling upright, Donny reached out toward his older sister, who zipped him into a coat and then put on her outerwear herself.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, picking up a flashlight and a duffel bag and creeping down the hall to the kitchen door. “No talking,” she warned, putting her finger to her lips. Donny nodded.
For days now, the two of them hadn’t complained when Gran announced it was bedtime. Instead, they’d run to get their pajamas on, waiting for tucking in and stories, closing their eyes as soon as the light was turned off. Then Georgia would count, under her breath, to two hundred. Around which Gran would do her last check of the evening and turn out the hall light, and thus unknowingly give them their cue to begin. Using discarded funnies from the Sunday paper, the two of them cut out a series of snowflakes and then used fabric scraps to make Christmas trees in florals and gingham. With enthusiasm, Georgia tried to teach her brother how to knit so they could make round ball ornaments, but he failed to master casting on.
“I can’t waste any more time teaching you,” she told him. “You just cut, and I’ll knit.” And even though they were groggy in the mornings, and Gran and Dad would wonder why they were such sleepyheads, neither caught on to their late-night activities. And so Georgia and Donny continued with Operation Gran’s Best Christmas until they had only one sleep left until returning to Pennsylvania.
Outside Gran’s bedroom window, to the side of the front garden, lay an alder tree that was just the perfect size for Donny to climb. One by one, tongue firmly pressed against lip, he strained to place each homemade ornament that Georgia passed him from below.
“And now these yarn strings,” she said. “Put them on like tinsel.”
Donny took a handful and threw it at the tree, much to Georgia’s consternation.
“No, with precision,” she corrected. “Always care about what you do. Don’t just go fast.”
Finally, at the base of the tree, they placed her presents: a dishrag Georgia had knitted, a handful of cookies, and a photo album that Georgia had made of their visit, taping the snapshots to paper she’d colored and stapled together, and adding bubble captions above the heads of everyone in the photos. “I love Gran,” she’d written over a picture of herself and the cat.
Without warning, a lamp came on in Gran’s bedroom, and Donny practically fell off the branches in his haste to get down.
“Hurry. Be quiet,” said Georgia, shushing Donny as he rubbed at his knee. She half dragged him back to the kitchen door, turning to admire their brilliant tree with its yarn and paper decoration, catching sight of a squirrel already joining in on the party by stealing Gran’s cookies.
She dropped Donny’s hand and ran over to shoo the fuzzy interloper away, tugging off her shoe and throwing it at him.
“Those are Gran’s cookies,” she yelled, her hand flying to her mouth just as she heard the door opening.
Georgia turned, one foot barefoot on the cold, dewy grass, framed by the oddly decorated tree.
“Merry Christmas, Gran,” she said.
“Aye,” said Gran. “What a happy October Christmas indeed.”
The holidays were absolutely not the same as having a vacation, Dakota thought as she tried to sneak off for a quiet moment of knitting. She had a lot to think about since her long walk with Gran. But she didn’t get past the hallway before another task required full attendance.
Gran was keeping everyone on the go, from hoisting lights onto the roof to assembling wreaths from the cut branches of the too-big-but-getting-smaller Christmas tree, tying the pieces together with leftover red yarn and finishing with a crisp white ribbon from which they could hang. They made a wreath for every window, and still the tall tree Gran had selected would not fit in the door, and she reluctantly agreed that the tree would have to stay outside.
“Do it up like you did that time,” she said to Donny, and they put the Scots pine into a pot in the front garden, next to the tall alder tree already growing there. Under her uncle’s direction, Dakota used lights and f
abric scraps from the sewing room to add dashes of color. And yarn as tinsel, just as her mother had done for the tiny tree they had in their New York City apartment.
Then Donny and Tom had returned to the bog to find a more suitably sized Christmas tree, which the entire group admired as they set it in a bucket to prevent it from tipping, as carols warbled on an old record player that Gran ferreted out from the back of the closet. Dakota sang as the others hummed along, all sipping cups of mulled wine from the top of the kitchen stove and sharing secret laughs when Gran insisted on going up to the attic to point out the boxes of decorations.
“It’ll be the ones marked ‘Christmas,’ ” she said repeatedly. “Don’t miss a box.”
“She’s a bit bossy,” Donny remarked in a loud voice.
“I heard that,” said Gran. “But I want to make sure you get the good ones.” She removed the dusty box top to reveal painted paper bells and wreaths made from dyed coconut and ribbon, a few almost-crumbling newsprint snowflakes, and a cardboard angel with a lace-knitted halo.
“That’s my angel,” exclaimed Dakota, raising it up to show her grandmother Bess. “I made that when I was eight years old.”
“Quite the impressive halo,” said Bess, touching it quickly with her fingertips.
“Mom made that part,” explained Dakota. “I did the cutting-out and coloring parts.”
“Indeed you did,” said Gran. “And it goes at the top of my tree every year since your mom sent it over. Donny, let’s put her there.”
She continued to pull out crayoned Santas and fuzzy snowmen made from cotton balls, childish, awkward ornaments going as far back as those made by her now gray-haired son, Tom. At the bottom of it all, coiled upon itself, was a series of thin, interlocking rings knitted in every color of the rainbow, alternating ribbing and garter. Gran looped her finger through the top ring and slowly pulled out the string of red followed by green followed by yellow followed by white followed by violet. And on and on.