Occasion of Revenge

14

When Emily left home for good, we got out of the habit of giving barrelloads of Christmas presents, agreeing to hold the line at one or two, max. We’d made pacts with our siblings, too: a gift apiece and cash for the kids. I was always a little sad about that. It’s hard to get sentimental over cash, after all, unless it has James Madison’s picture on it.

We’d held the line this year, too. Sort of. Wrapped up under the tree was a hand-knit sweater for Paul, something in a small box from Aurora Gallery for me, and a half dozen gifts for Emily and Dante. But Santa had really turned the sack upside down for Chloe. It was all my fault. When I enter a store I must have GRANDMA written large on my forehead because the sales staff attach themselves to me like refrigerator magnets. How could I resist that green-and-white-striped dress with holly berries appliquéd on it? Or that fuzzy, cross-eyed bear? Or that wind-up turtle that bumps crazily into the furniture?

But what choked me up so badly that I had to hide them in a closet, behind the overcoats, pushed way out of sight, were three gaily wrapped boxes intended for my father. I had been steeling myself for our first Christmas without Mother, but being in limbo about Daddy was just too much.

Yet I had to hold it together, if not for myself, then for my family. On Christmas Eve, with still no Daddy, I prepared our traditional supper of oyster stew, French bread, and salad. We left for the Naval Academy chapel early enough to get prime seats in the first row of the balcony. The Christmas Eve candlelight service was a tradition, too; maybe it’d help keep me centered.

We went as a family-at least, what family I had left. Connie and Dennis were still honeymooning, of course. Scott and Georgina had returned from Arizona, but they had to spend Christmas Eve in Baltimore where Georgina was accompanying the All Hallows choir in the Vivaldi Gloria, not to mention assisting Santa in his squeeze down the narrow chimney of their home in Roland Park. I suspected they’d be up till all hours, assembling the dollhouse they’d bought for Julie.

We sat in a row-Paul between Ruth and me, with Emily at the end of the pew next to Dante, who was cradling Chloe. Once in royal David’s city. I shivered as the sweet, pure soprano voice, bright and clear as the night sky, filled the chapel from the baptistery to the great dome nearly one hundred feet overhead. Christmas had truly begun.

Chloe zonked out in the middle of “Lo, How a Rose.” In the dim light I smiled at my slumbering granddaughter. She was a rose, a perfect little rose. As we sang the old, old song, I gazed down at the tall evergreens that flanked the altar. Each was decked with white pin lights and white-and-gold Chrismons-handmade jewel-encrusted ornaments signifying Christian symbols such as IHS, Alpha, and Omega. Poinsettias in profusion, both red and white, decorated the altar and the ledges of the baroque cases that housed the organ pipes. Joy to the world, the Lord has come! The deep rumbling of the great pipes resonated with my bones, notes so low that I felt, rather than heard them.

As the service progressed, I stared at the Tiffany window over the altar: Christ walking on the water. Please, don’t take my father! You have my mother. Isn’t that enough?

It worried me that I had almost forgotten the sound of my mother’s voice. With my eyes closed I tuned out the scripture reading and concentrated on trying to bring back her soft, slightly nasal, Cleveland-bred accent. Open your heart and your mind, Mom seemed to be saying, and God will tell you what to do.

Something was seriously wrong. Daddy would never have left us alone during the holidays, not willingly, this Christmas of all Christmases, our first without Mother. If he hadn’t contacted us, it was because he couldn’t. That meant he was either dead or incapacitated.

I ran over it again and again, trying to put myself in Daddy’s shoes. Much the worse for drink, he finds Darlene dead in her bath. He panics and drives to the airport, where he gets aboard… what?… and travels… where? Once there, he drowns himself in alcohol and despair. My father could be living on the street, one more faceless, hopeless, homeless veteran.

Find him, Hannah.

I had survived breast cancer. A car crash. A sinking boat. I had to believe there was a reason for that, some purpose for which I was spared. I wasn’t able to save my mother. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save my father.

As the service of Lessons and carols unfolded, I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me. Memories made bittersweet by the tragedies of the past year flitted in and out of my consciousness like butterflies.

Suddenly I was aware that everyone around me was standing and I leapt to my feet to join in the singing. We three Kinks of Borry and Tar, Trying to smoke a rubber cigar. It was loaded and ex-plo-o-ded… I was back in Virginia Beach, huddling with Ruth in a drafty hallway, peeking through a crack in the door, determined to catch Santa as he came down the chimney. I glanced at Ruth. She had her eyes closed, too. Perhaps the same irreverent lyrics were running through her head.

Lully lullay, Thou little tiny Child. My mother’s favorite carol. It transported me to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence where I stood hand in hand with Mother, awed, before Fra Filippo Lippi’s “Madonna and Child with Two Angels.” A tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. When I looked up again, Christ’s stained-glass face smiled for me. It wasn’t a miracle-the illumination came from a spotlight trained on the window from outside the chapel-but the smile was for me.

Oh, come all ye faithful. The overhead lights were extinguished, plunging the sanctuary into darkness. Ushers advanced and lit tall candles, then carried them down the center aisle. As the flame passed from worshiper to worshiper, the light from nearly two thousand candles made the chapel glow with a honey yellow light. I could feel the warmth of the flames, smell the burning tallow. Silent night, holy night. Paul’s arm slid around my shoulder and pulled me close as he touched his candle to mine, and the flame passed on. “I love you,” he whispered into my hair. And I cried for my mother, for my father, for Christmases past, but most of all, I cried for myself.

Christmas Day, 1999. Daddy had been missing for a week.

Just about the time Chloe was ripping through the contents of her Christmas stocking, we received a holiday phone call from Connie and Dennis, who were sunning themselves on the deck of their sailboat off The Baths at Virgin Gorda. “The sea’s rough today,” Dennis told me in a tinny voice that faded in and out with the satellite connection. “We’re bobbing about like a cork.”

Not half as rough as what’s going on here, I thought. But I didn’t say a word. Connie would be royally pissed when she found out we’d kept the bad news from her, but after agonizing about it, we had decided not to tell them about Daddy. There wasn’t a thing they could do about it from the British Virgin Islands, and it would only spoil their honeymoon.

Besides, Dennis probably believes I’m an accident waiting to happen. He’s pulled strings for me before, and once or twice he’s had to bail me out, quite literally. Connie and I would still be clinging to a mast in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay singing old Girl Scout songs if Dennis hadn’t steamed to our rescue with the U.S. Coast Guard in tow. I’d leave Dennis out of it this time. When Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Rutherford returned to Maryland, all this mess would be behind us. Or so I hoped.

It was Georgina’s turn to host Christmas dinner. Under the circumstances, I’d encouraged her to take a leaf from my book. Last year I’d wimped out big time by making reservations at the Maryland Inn. But my sister Georginia was a domestic goddess. With her depression properly medicated, she was able to resume a punishing schedule of Christmas season services and still turn out a feast for five thousand.

Eleven, rather. Although there should have been twelve.

Georgina’s dining room table had been stretched to the walls and covered with a Vera tablecloth in a holiday motif that hid the fact that her extra leaves were made out of plywood. The table had been set with her best silver, china, and crystal. I could tell Julie had laid the silverware. She preferred the fork on the right, near the right hand that would use it, and treated any suggestion to the contrary with disdain.

Sean and Dylan had made place cards by folding three-by-five index cards into tents and printing our names on them in block letters with crayon. Mine said “Aunt Hannah” and had a Christmas wreath sticker affixed in the right-hand corner, its red bow covering the h. Carrying the ice cube bin, I walked around the table dropping ice cubes in glasses. “Aunt Ruth” was written in purple and decorated with a Christmas tree. “Mommy” was pink, with an angel. At the head of the table, I stopped, choking back a sob. “Granddaddy” had a rocking horse.

When Georgina came to check on my progress a few minutes later, I asked, “Why did you set a place for Daddy?”

Georgina smiled sadly. “I keep hoping he’ll walk in the front door.” We stood side by side, staring silently at his name tag. Georgina was working with a psychiatrist who was helping undo, step by step, the damage inflicted on her and on our father by a previous therapist. She had a ways to go before the rift between them could be completely healed, but I took this gesture as a positive sign.

Georgina shuddered, then began rummaging in the buffet for some hot pads which she arranged in two cloverleaves in the center of the table. “Thanks for helping, Hannah.”

“You’re welcome.” In truth, I hadn’t done much. I’d brought the jellied cranberry sauce, still ribbed from the can, and the sauerkraut. Over the years she had lived in the city, Georgina had become a true Baltimorean, and a true Baltimorean wouldn’t dream of serving turkey without sauerkraut on the side.

Soon the table groaned with bowls of mashed potatoes, green beans, baby peas, sauerkraut, stuffing, and gravy. Parker House rolls steamed under a napkin in a basket. We stood dutifully behind our chairs, knowing the rules, waiting for everyone to assemble. Paul arrived with the chilled wine, brandishing a corkscrew. Ruth bustled in from the kitchen with a casserole dish of caramelized sweet potatoes sandwiched between two pot holders. She set the dish on a hot pad in front of me.

I leaned over and took a good whiff. “Yummy!” I said. “Thank goodness they’ve repealed the law that says sweet potatoes have to be cooked with pineapple chunks, coconut, and miniature marshmallows.”

Emily gave me a look just as Dante said, “But I like them that way, Mrs. Ives.”

I rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, feeling my face grow red.

Scott held the kitchen door for Georgina, who glided in with the bird, twenty magnificent pounds of it, golden brown and glistening on a platter. She paraded the turkey around the table, then set it in front of Scott.

Scott stood at the head of the table and looked around uncomfortably. We waited, Julie tipping her chair back and forth on its hind legs.

Paul cleared his throat. “Shall I?”

Scott shrugged.

Emily slipped Chloe a roll to distract her from banging on the tray of her high chair with a spoon.

“I don’t mind,” said Ruth, but we all knew it had to be either Scott or Paul.

“Where’s Granddaddy?” piped up Sean.

“He’s on a trip, honey,” Georgina said.

Dylan pouted. “Dumb trip.”

Emily laid her hand on top of Dante’s. “It should be the oldest.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“Me, then,” Paul said. He grabbed my hand, squeezed, then extended his other hand to Ruth on his right. Ruth gathered up Sean’s hand and Sean took his mother’s. Soon the circle was complete and Paul bowed his head. “Bless this food to our bodies and us to Thy service.”

“And bless Daddy, wherever he may be,” I added, my chest tight.

Paul smiled at me crookedly, as if apologizing for the simplicity of his efforts. After all, it was Daddy’s job to say the grace. He wrote special ones for every occasion. Last year, he’d blessed the food and his joy at forty-nine years of marriage to our mother.

I swallowed hard. No, not twelve places at the table. There should have been thirteen.