“I’d like to propose a toast,” Mary said. She raised a crystal glass of wine. Following Mary’s lead we poured our glasses half full of the rose liquid and held them in the air.
“To a new friendship and a wonderful Christmas.”
“Hear, hear,” I said emphatically.
“A wonderful Christmas,” Keri repeated.
The rest of the evening was spent in pleasant conversation, punctuated with laughter. When we had finished eating, we lavishly praised Mary for a wonderful meal and transported the dishes to the kitchen. Mary firmly insisted on cleaning up the dishes herself, so reluctantly we left her to the chore and returned upstairs to our wing.
“I feel like I’ve known her all my life,” Keri said.
“Like a grandmother,” I observed.
Jenna smiled and raced up the stairs ahead of us.
The ritual of cohabitation took on a natural and casual openness welcomed by all. It soon became clear to Keri and me that Mary had solicited a family to move in with her more for the sake of “family” than real physical need. She could easily have hired servants, as there obviously had been in the past, and she seemed to trouble herself immensely to make our stay amiable, to the extent of hiring out any chore that Keri or I might find overly tedious or time-consuming, except when said chore would invoke a vicarious act of a familial nature. Bringing home the Christmas tree was such an occasion. Mary, upon finding the largest, most perfectly shaped tree in the lot, offered to purchase a second pine for our quarters. She was absolutely delighted when Keri suggested that we might all enjoy sharing the same tree together. We brought the tree home and after much fussing, the fresh scent of evergreen permeated the den. Not surprisingly, the room became a favorite place for us to congregate after supper. We enjoyed Mary’s company as much as she desired ours, and Jenna accepted her readily as a surrogate grandmother.
Some people were born to work for others. Not in a mindless, servile way—rather, they simply work better in a set regimen of daily tasks and functions. Others were born of the entrepreneurial spirit and enjoy the demands of self-determination and the roll of the dice. Much to my detriment, I was born of the latter spirit. Frankly, that spirit was just as potent a draw to return to my hometown as the quaint streets and white-capped mountains I had grown up loving. As I said before, Keri and I had left Southern California for the opportunity to operate a formal-wear business. Though formal-wear rental is quite common now, at the time it was new and untested and therefore exciting. The opportunity came by way of a friend who found himself in a small town just north of Salt Lake City, called Bountiful, for a wedding. That is when he met my future partner, an enterprising tailor who had begun leasing elaborate bridal gowns, and soon discovered a greater need for suitable accoutrements for the bride’s and bridesmaids’ counterparts.
As necessity is the mother of profit, he began renting a line of men’s dinner jackets with great success. It was at this time that my friend, while dressed in one of those suits, had, unbeknownst to me, engaged the proprietor in a lengthy discussion on the state and future of his business. Having been impressed with expectations of my marketing prowess, the owner called me directly and after many long-distance phone conversations offered to sell me a portion of the new company in exchange for my expertise and a small cash outlay, which Keri and I managed to scrape together. The opportunity was all we could have hoped for, and the business showed signs of great promise.
Under my direction, we increased our market by producing picture catalogs of our suits and sending them to dressmakers and wedding halls outside of the metropolitan area. They became the retailers of our suits, which they rented to their clientele, and received no small commission in the transaction. The paperwork of this new venture was enormous and complex, but the success of my ideas consumed me and I found myself gradually drawn away from the comparatively relaxed environment of home. In modern business vernacular, there is a popular term: “opportunity costs.” The term is based on the assumption that since all resources, mainly time and money, are limited, the successful businessman weighs all ventures based on what opportunities are to be lost in the transaction. Perhaps if I had seen my daughter’s longing eyes staring back at me from the gold-plated scales, I would have rethought my priorities. I adroitly rationalized my absence from home on necessity and told myself that my family would someday welcome the sacrifice by feasting, with me, on the fruits of my labors. In retrospect, I should have tasted those fruits for bitterness a little more often.
Chapter IV
DON’T RECALL the exact night when the dreams began. The angel dreams. It should be stated that I am a believer in angels, though not the picture-book kind with wings and harps. Such angelic accoutrements seem as nonsensical to me as devils sporting horns and carrying pitchforks. To me, angel wings are merely symbolic of their role as divine messengers. Notwithstanding my rather dogmatic opinions on the matter, the fact that the angel in my dream descended from the sky with outspread wings did not bother me. In fact, the only thing I found disturbing at all about the dream was its frequent recurrence and the dream’s strange conclusion. In the dream I find myself alone in a large open field. The air is filled with soft, beautiful strains of music flowing as sweet and melodic as a mountain brook. I look up and see an angel with wings outspread descending gradually from heaven. Then, when we are not an arm’s length removed, I look into its cherubic face, its eyes turn up toward heaven, and the angel turns to stone.
Though I have vague recollections of the dream haunting my sleep more than once after we moved into the Parkin home, it seemed to have grown clearer and more distinct with each passing slumber. This night it was alive, rich in color and sound and detail, occupying my every thought with its surrealism. I awoke suddenly, expecting all traces of the nocturnal vision to vanish with my consciousness, but it didn’t. This night the music remained. A soft, silvery tune plucked sweetly as a lullaby. A lullaby of unknown origin.
Except tonight the music had an origin.
I sat up in bed, listening intently while my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I found the flashlight kept in the pine nightstand next to our bed, pulled on a terry-cloth robe, and walked quietly from the room, following the music. I felt my way down the hall past the nursery where I stopped and looked in at Jenna. She lay fast asleep, undisturbed by the tones. I followed the music to the end of the hall, pausing where the melody seemed to have originated, from behind the attic door. I grasped the handle and opened the door slowly. The flashlight illuminated the room, creating long, creeping shadows. Apprehensively, I climbed the stairs toward the music. The room was still and, except for the music, lifeless. As I panned the room with the light, my heart quickened. The cradle was uncovered. The dusty, draped sheet that had concealed it now lay crumpled at its base on the attic floor. Anxiously, I continued my examination, until I had centered the light on the source of the enchanted disturbance. It was the ornate heirloom box that Barry and I had discovered the afternoon that we had moved in our belongings. The Christmas Box. I hadn’t known at the time it was capable of music. How odd it should start playing in the middle of the night. I looked around once more to be sure that I was alone, then balanced the flashlight on one end so that its beam illuminated the rafters and lit the whole attic. I lifted the box and inspected it for a lever with which to turn off the music. The box was dusty and heavy and appeared just as we had seen it a few days previous. I inspected it more closely but could find no key and no spring, in fact no mechanism of any type. It was simply a wooden box. I unclasped the silver buckle and opened the lid slowly. The music stopped. I moved the flashlight close to examine the box. Inside lay several parchment documents. I reached in and lifted the top page. It was a letter. A hand written letter, brittle with age and slightly yellowed. I held it near the flashlight to read. The handwriting was beautiful and disciplined.
December 6, 1914
My Beloved One,
I stopped. I have never been one to revel in the intru
sion of another’s privacy, much less inclined to read someone else’s correspondence. Why then I was unable to resist reading the letter is as much a mystery to me as was the parchment itself. So strong was the compulsion that I finished the letter without so much as a second thought into the matter:
How cold the Christmas snows seem this year without you. Even the warmth of the fire does little but remind me of how I wish you were again by my side. I love you. How I love you.
I did not know why the letter beckoned me or even what significance it carried. Who was this Beloved One? Was this Mary’s writing? It had been written nearly twenty years before her husband had passed away. I set the letter back in the box and shut the lid. The music did not start up again. I left the attic and returned to my bed pondering the contents of the letter. The mystery as to why the Christmas Box had started playing music, even how it had played music, remained, for the night, unanswered.
The next morning I explained the episode to an only slightly interested wife.
“So you didn’t hear anything last night?” I asked. “No music?”
“No,” Keri answered, “but you know I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.”
“This is really strange,” I said, shaking my head.
“So you heard a music box. What’s so strange about that?”
“It was more than that,” I explained. “Music boxes don’t work that way. Music boxes play when you open them. This one stopped playing when I opened it. And the strangest part is that there didn’t appear to be any mechanism to it.”
“Maybe it was your angel making the music,” she teased.
“Maybe it was,” I said eerily. “Maybe this is one of those mystical experiences.”
“How do you even know the music was coming from the box?” she asked skeptically.
“I’m sure of it,” I said. I looked up and noticed the time. “Darn, I’m going to be late and I’m opening up today.” I threw on my overcoat and started for the door.
Keri stopped me. “Aren’t you going to kiss Jenna good-bye?” she asked incredulously. I ran back to the nursery to give Jenna a kiss.
I found her sitting in a pile of shredded paper with a pair of round-edged children’s scissors in hand.
“Dad, can you help me cut these?” she asked.
“Not now, honey, I’m late for work.”
The corners of her mouth pulled downward in disappointment.
“When I get home,” I hastily promised. She sat quietly as I kissed her on the head.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tonight.” I dashed out of the room, nearly forgetting the lunch which Keri had set by the door, and made my way through the gray, slushy streets to the formal-wear shop.
Each day, as the first streaks of dawn spread across the blue winter morning sky, Mary could be found in the front parlor, sitting comfortably in a posh, overstuffed Turkish chair, warming her feet in front of the fireplace. In her lap lay the third Bible. The one that she had kept. This morning ritual dated decades back but Mary could tell you the exact day it had begun. It was her “morning constitutional for the spirit,” she had told Keri.
During the Christmas season she would read at length the Christmas stories of the Gospels, and it was here that she welcomed the small, uninvited guest.
“Well, good morning, Jenna,” Mary said.
Jenna stood at the doorway, still clothed in the red-flannel nightshirt in which she almost always slept. She looked around the room then ran to Mary. Mary hugged her tightly.
“What are you reading? A story?” Jenna asked.
“A Christmas story,” Mary said. Jenna’s eyes lit up. She crawled onto Mary’s lap and looked for pictures of reindeer and Santa Claus.
“Where are the pictures?” she asked. “Where’s Santa Claus?”
Mary smiled. “This is a different kind of Christmas story. This is the first Christmas story. It’s about the baby Jesus.”
Jenna smiled. She knew about Jesus.
“Mary?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Will Daddy be here at Christmas?”
“Why of course, dear,” she assured. She brushed the hair back from Jenna’s face and kissed her forehead. “You miss him, don’t you?”
“He’s gone a lot.”
“Starting a new business takes a lot of work and a lot of time.”
Jenna looked up sadly. “Is work better than here?”
“No. No place is better than home.”
“Then why does Daddy want to be there instead of here?”
Mary paused thoughtfully. “I guess sometimes we forget,” she answered and pulled the little girl close.
With the approach of the holidays, business grew increasingly busy, and though we welcomed the revenue, I found myself working long days and returning home late each night. In my frequent absence, Keri had established the habit of sharing supper with Mary in the downstairs den. They had even adopted the ritual of sharing an after-dinner cup of peppermint tea near the fire. Afterward Mary would follow Keri into the kitchen and help clean up the supper dishes, while I, if home by this time, would remain in the den and finish the day’s books. Tonight the snow fell softly outside, contrasted by the sputtering and hissing of the warm fire crackling in the fireplace. Jenna had been sent up to bed, and as Keri cleared the table, I remained behind, diving into a catalog of new-fashioned cummerbunds and matching band ties. Tonight Mary also remained behind, still sitting in the antique chair from which she always took her tea. Though she usually followed Keri into the kitchen, sometimes, after she had finished her tea, she would doze quietly in her chair until we woke her and helped her to her room.
Mary set down her tea, pushed herself up, and walked over to the cherry wood bookshelf. She pulled a book from a high shelf, dusted it lightly, and handed it to me.
“Here is a charming Christmas tale. Read this to your little one.” I took the book from her outstretched arm and examined the title, Christmas Every Day by William Dean Howells.
“Thank you, Mary, I will.” I smiled at her, set the book down, and went back to my catalog. Her eyes never left me.
“No, right now. Read it to her now,” she coaxed. Her voice was fervent, wavering only from her age. I laid my text down, examined the book again, then looked back up into her calm face. Her eyes shone with the importance of her request.
“All right, Mary.”
I rose from the table and walked up into Jenna’s room, wondering when I would catch up on my orders and what magic this old book contained to command such urgency. Upstairs Jenna lay quietly in the dark.
“Still awake, honey?” I asked.
“Daddy, you forgot to tuck me in tonight.”
I switched on the light. “I did, didn’t I. How about a bedtime story?”
She jumped up in her bed with a smile that filled the tiny room. “What story are you going to tell?” she asked.
“Mary gave me this book to read to you.”
“Mary has good stories, Dad.”
“Then it should be a good one,” I said. “Does Mary tell you stories often?”
“Every day.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the old book. The spine was brittle and cracked a little as it opened. I cleared my throat and started reading aloud.
The little girl came into her papa’s study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him . . .
“That’s like you, Dad. You’re real busy too,” Jenna observed.
I grinned at her. “Yeah, I guess so.” I continued reading.
“Well, once there was a little pig—” The little girl put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard the pig stories till she was perfectly sick of them.
“Well, what kind of story shall I tell, then?”
“About Christmas. It’s getting to be the season, it’s past Thanksgiving already.”
&nbs
p; “It seems to me,” argued her papa, “that I’ve told as often about Christmas as I have about little pigs.”
“No difference! Christmas is more interesting.”
Unlike her story’s counterpart, Jenna was long asleep before I finished the tale. Her delicate lips were drawn in a gentle smile, and I pulled the covers up tightly under her chin. Peace radiated from the tiny face. I lingered a moment, knelt down near her bed and kissed her on the cheek, then walked back down to finish my work.
I returned to the den to find the lavish drapes drawn tight, and the two women sitting together in the dim, flickering light of the fireplace talking peacefully. The soothing tones of Mary’s voice resonated calmly through the room. She looked up to acknowledge my entrance.
“Richard, your wife just asked the most intriguing question. She asked which of the senses I thought was most affected by Christmas.”
I sat down at the table.
“I love everything about this season,” she continued. “But I think what I love most about Christmas are its sounds. The bells of street-corner Santa Clauses, the familiar Christmas records on the phonograph, the sweet, untuned voices of Christmas carolers. And the bustling downtown noises. The crisp crinkle of wrapping paper and department store sacks and the cheerful Christmas greetings of strangers. And then there are the Christmas stories. The wisdom of Dickens and all Christmas storytellers.” She seemed to pause for emphasis. “I love the sounds of this season. Even the sounds of this old house take on a different character at Christmas. These Victorian ladies seem to have a spirit all their own.”
I heartily agreed but said nothing.
She reflected on the old home. “They don’t build homes like this anymore. You’ve noticed the double set of doors in the front entryway?”
We both nodded in confirmation.
“In the old days—before the advent of the telephone . . .” She winked. “I’m an old lady,” she confided, “I remember those days.”