With You and Without You

by Ann M. Martin

  I hate sarcasm. I really hate it.

  I wondered what would have happened if I’d said I preferred to test the seats, but I didn’t try it.

  “Sorry!” I cried. I grabbed my costume and ran behind the stage. Then I joined Marc in Act IV. And I was a disaster. I tripped over my Spirit robe—twice—and stepped on Marc’s foot. I could hear the kids snickering backstage.

  As soon as the rehearsal was over, I fled from school and burst into tears on the way home. There I was, crying right out in the open, when I heard Denise calling me.

  “Liza!” she shouted. “Wait up!” She ran across the street, juggling her school books and her piano music. “I can’t believe it,” she said breathlessly. “Our class isn’t supposed to be in the pageant, so I thought I’d gotten out of it, but guess who has to play the piano during—” She stopped when she got a good look at my face. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it … your dad?”

  I shook my head, wiping away my tears. “No,” I replied. I told her what had happened at rehearsal.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, look, so you ruined one scene. You think the play is dumb anyway.”

  “I know, but everyone laughed at me. And I stepped on Marc’s foot. On Marc’s foot. Why couldn’t I have stepped on someone else? I mean, if I had to step on somebody.”

  Denise smiled. “He’s probably already forgotten about it.”

  “He’s probably already bruised and limping. How am I ever going to get through the play?”

  “Well, now I’ll be there playing the piano. I’ll give you moral support. And Margie Mason will be backstage with you. You’re pretty good friends, and she’s in the same boat. She can give you moral support, too.”

  “Moral support!” I exclaimed. “Hey, that’s it! Oh, thanks, Denise! I love you!”

  “What?” Denise was still smiling, but she looked totally confused.

  “I have to go,” I told her. “I have to tell Dad something. I’ll call you later. ’Bye!”

  I ran the rest of the way home.

  Dad was in the living room. Obviously, he’d been wrapping Christmas presents. Tissue paper, ribbon, gold trim, paper decorations, gift tags, scissors, and bottles of glue were strewn everywhere. But Dad was stretched out on the couch with an afghan over him, breathing noisily.

  He opened his eyes when I came in. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Hi. Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Just tired. I thought I’d rest up before dinner.”

  He was tired from wrapping presents?

  I sighed.

  Then I sat down next to him on the edge of the couch.

  “How was school?” he asked.

  “School was all right. The rehearsal stank.”

  “What happened?”

  “It just stank, that’s all. But I was thinking. Remember what Mom said last night about someone being at the pageant to give me moral support?”

  Dad nodded.

  “Well, I think that’s a good idea. I think I might need moral support. But I still don’t want everyone to see the play. It’ll be too embarrassing. What I was wondering, though, was if one person could come. I mean, could you come? If you’re not too tired?”

  “Do you really want me to?”

  “Yes. If you think Mom won’t be hurt that I didn’t ask her.”

  “I think she’ll understand.”

  “Okay. Then will you come?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  The evening of the pageant was cold and still, the air heavy with the promise of snow. Mom dropped Dad and me off at school about a half an hour before showtime (Dad wasn’t allowed to drive anymore), and we hustled inside, shivering. I found Dad a seat near the front where I’d be sure to see him from the stage. Then I ran down the hall to my classroom. A Christmas Carol was the last performance of the evening, so we were going to have to wait awhile before we could go backstage. We busied ourselves with our costumes and lines.

  Margie Mason found me and examined me critically as I put the finishing touches on my costume and makeup. “You look really weird,” she said at last.

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “No, I mean good weird, like the Spirit of the Future should look.”

  “Really?”

  Margie nodded.

  I had to admit that I was wearing one of the better costumes. Outside of my billowy, hooded robe, nothing showed except my face and hands, and I had painted them green with greasepaint. My hair was slicked back so that I looked bald underneath the hood, and my fingernails were painted with fluorescent polish so they would glow faintly on the darkened stage.

  “Thank goodness I don’t have any lines,” I said. “Do you need any help with yours?”

  Margie shook her head. “I’m afraid to study them anymore. It’ll be bad luck.”

  So we sat back and began the long wait until the handbell choir was on. That would be our cue to get ready backstage.

  During the intermission, Denise stuck her head in the room. “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Okay. I have awful butterflies, but I can’t wait to get this over with. How are you doing?”

  “Not bad. I don’t think I’ve made any mistakes that anyone noticed, but I had a terrible time accompanying the sixth-grade carol choir. They were completely off—off-key, off-beat, off-everything, and they didn’t even notice.”

  “Make some mistakes while you’re playing the background music for my scene,” I suggested. “That’ll take the attention away from Marc and me.”

  Denise giggled. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, but we both knew she would never make mistakes on purpose.

  Exactly thirty-seven minutes later I was waiting backstage with most of the rest of my class. For once, everyone was silent. The play was on.

  We could hear Marc reciting one of his monologues on the other side of the curtain. It was almost the end of Act III. In just a few minutes, I’d be out there on stage.

  Margie must have been thinking the same thing since she came on later in my scene. She glanced at me nervously and I tried to smile at her, but it came out lopsided. I wanted to squeeze her hand, except that I would have turned it green.

  “Break a leg,” said Margie.

  “You too.”

  The next thing I knew, I was onstage. The set was slowly brightening from almost pitch black to very dim. As I slowly crossed the stage to Marc, a hush settled over the audience. Whispers faded away and papers stopped rustling. I reached Marc, put my hand on his shoulder—and for one horrifying second, thought I really was going to faint, just like in the daydream.

  Dad. Where was he? I glanced sideways at the audience. My knees were shaking, my hands were shaking. There were an awful lot of people in that audience.

  Marc eyed me suspiciously as he began speaking. “Spirit of the Future!” he cried, and at that moment I found Dad. He nodded to me and gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  I relaxed, turned my attention back to the play, and found that I was able to forget about the audience.

  A few minutes later my role in the scene was over. I glided behind the curtain and let out a sigh of relief that could have been heard in Idaho. I’m certain the audience heard it. But I didn’t care. The play was over!

  Later, Dad found me backstage taking off the greasepaint.

  “Dad!” I exclaimed. “How was it?”

  Dad took his hands from behind his back and handed me a red rose. “A rose for a star,” he said. “You did just fine, honey.”

  I took the rose and stared at it. Then I put my arms around Dad’s neck and began to cry.

  Dad held me for a long time. “Christmas,” he said, finally. “We still have Christmas.”

  Chapter Eight

  CHRISTMAS.

  It seemed to come too quickly and too slowly at the same time. We’d been preparing for it for so long, starting when Dad got out the decorations before Thanksgiving, and yet, probably because I never wanted that Christmas to be
over, the season seemed to speed by. It went by especially quickly after the pageant, because then I felt as if I could really relax.

  The next weekend, I decided to finish my Christmas shopping. Everyone was up early on Saturday, so we ate breakfast together, which doesn’t happen too often on the weekends. Dad was looking pretty good. He was even eating without Mom badgering him. We were making our plans for the day.

  Carrie, who had a cold, was going to stay home and wrap her presents. Brent was going to go out to Thompson’s Tree Farm to bring home the tree we’d picked out a few weeks earlier. Thompson’s was a good forty-five minutes outside of Neuport.

  “Brent,” I said, “could you drop me off at the mall on your way to Thompson’s?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Shopping?” asked Mom.

  I nodded.

  “Could you take Sissy with you?”

  I don’t like to shop with Hope, and Mom knows that. But she probably wanted to finish buying Hope’s gifts that day. How could I say no, especially with Hope sitting right there at the table? Luckily, I’d already finished my own shopping for Hopie.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Oh, goody, goody, goody!” cried Hope.

  I glanced at Mom.

  “She wants to visit Santa and ride on the train to Santa’s Village,” Mom said, somewhat apologetically.

  “And go to Candyland!” Hope added ecstatically.

  Our mall was well equipped.

  “Oh, all right,” I said. “Can we make a bargain, Sissy? I take you to Santa and the train and Candyland, and then you take me shopping. I have six presents to buy—that’s a lot—and I want to buy them all today. After we finish, we can eat lunch at Burger King. Is that a deal?”

  “Yes,” said Hope, nodding her head.

  “Are you sure? Six presents?”

  “Yes,” Hope said again. “I have to buy some things, too.”

  “How much money do you have?”

  Hope looked at Dad, uncertain.

  “I think she has five dollars,” answered Dad, reaching for his wallet.

  “Is that enough?” asked Hope.

  I didn’t have the vaguest idea what she wanted to buy.

  “Probably,” I said anyway. I wanted to get going. “If you need more, I’ll lend you some.”

  Dad winked at me, so I knew that was okay and that he’d pay me back.

  Suddenly I had an inspiration. “Dad, why don’t you come with us?” I asked. He could watch Hope while I bought the presents that were for him, and I could take her when Dad needed to rest.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said slowly.

  I could tell he wanted to go very badly. There’s nothing like the sight of Hope riding that train to Santa’s Village. Her whole face lights up, her body tensed with a pleasure that’s almost overwhelming for her.

  “Come on, Dad. We can even bring the camera. And you can rest sometimes. There’s that lounge by the children’s play area. Next to the jeans store, you know?”

  “I know. …”

  Lately, Dad was nervous about leaving the house. He hardly ever went to the office. But he wanted to be part of this bit of Christmas.

  “Please?” begged Hope.

  “Well, why not?” said Dad.

  Mom smiled tightly. She was glad Dad would be getting out, but she, too, was nervous about it.

  There really wasn’t any reason for her to be nervous, as it turned out. Dad came along and we had a great time. We had to do Santa and the train first because Hope was so excited by the time we reached the mall that she literally couldn’t wait a second longer. She pulled us past the stores, their windows shining with tinsel and holly and red and green lights, straight to Santa’s train. It was gaudy and glittery, perfect for kids, and carried its passengers through the center of the mall, which had been turned into a snowy fairyland, to Santa’s house. At the Neuport Mall, Santa apparently lived in a candy and gingerbread house.

  There was a line of kids at the train, of course, but it wasn’t very long. Hope waited as patiently as she could, but she was wiggling all over and bouncing around, asking a million questions. “Will Santa Claus remember me from last year? Do you think I’ve been good enough? Where’s Rudolph?”

  Then the train returned to the platform from its most recent run to Santa’s Village, and when its passengers got off, Hope and four other children climbed into the little cars. Dad and I walked beside the track, Dad snapping pictures of Hope as the train chugged slowly through the mall.

  Dad took a whole roll of photos of Hope at the mall, and in the months after Christmas looked at them again and again. They meant something to him, but I wasn’t sure what, and he didn’t talk about it.

  The rest of the day was fun. I did finish my shopping, and we did take Hope to Candyland and to eat at Burger King, but nothing compared to her visit to Santa.

  Two days before Christmas it snowed again. Hard. We woke up to a world of white. The ground was covered, the trees were covered, and still the snow was falling. It swirled and blew, looking just like a postcard of someone’s idea of the perfect Christmas snow.

  We were ready for Christmas. The house was decorated inside and out. Holly greens with gold lights were draped around the front door, and a huge wreath with wooden fruit and a red bow hung on the door. Carrie and Hope and I had decorated a little tree, “Santa’s tree,” in the yard. And candles were in every window.

  Our shopping was finished, the presents were wrapped and carefully hidden, the baking was done. There was tremendous excitement in the air, and all sorts of secrets (Brent still thought he was getting a car), but mostly there was a feeling of moving toward something wonderful. At first I had thought of this as our last Christmas; now it had become, as Dad wanted, our best Christmas.

  There was only one thing left to do—decorate the tree in the living room. We chose that snowy, snowbound day to do it. School was already closed, so we got an early start. Brent built a fire, I put carols on the stereo, and Carrie and Mom brought the boxes of decorations down from the attic. We see those decorations every year, but you’d never know it. We exclaim over them like long-lost friends.

  “Oh, here are Grandmother’s spun-glass birds!” cried Mom, opening a box.

  “And here’s the old wooden soldier,” said Dad, opening another.

  “Yuck,” said Carrie, holding up a shapeless brown rope. “Here’s my gross old macaroni chain from nursery school. Why do you still have it?”

  “I don’t think it’s gross,” said Hopie slowly, glancing at the shapeless brown chain she’d made the week before.

  “They’re both lovely,” said Mom, hanging them on the bottom of the tree, sort of in back.

  “Aghh!” shrieked Carrie. “Here’s that angel I made from sea shells and pipe cleaners. And toilet paper! Her hair is made of toilet paper!”

  Everyone laughed at that, even Hope, and we put it on the tree near the macaroni chains.

  Dad surveyed our work from the couch, smiling, but not strong enough to stand up and help.

  When the tree was finished, we turned off the lamps in the living room and turned on the tree lights. The tree glowed softly in the corner. It looked enchanted.

  “Ooh,” said Hopie. “Pretty. I love Christmas.”

  “Yeah,” said Carrie, “me too. I—” She stopped abruptly, her gaze traveling to Dad, and I turned to look, too. He was leaning back against the couch with his hand clutching his chest. His face was a pasty white and he was gasping for breath.

  My mother ran to him. “What is it?” she asked, trying to stay calm.

  “Get my pills,” Dad whispered.

  Mom must have known which ones he meant, because there were at least four bottles of Dad’s pills in the kitchen, but she came back with just one.

  She slipped a pill under Dad’s tongue, then sat next to him on the couch, clasping his hand and smoothing his hair from his forehead.

  The rest of us just stared. We didn’t even move until Bren
t said, “I’ll call the ambulance.”

  My mother nodded.

  “No.” Dad struggled to sit up straighter.

  But Brent called anyway, and the ambulance came a few minutes later and took Dad back to the Neuport Medical Center.

  As the ambulance drove carefully down the slippery street, Brent and Carrie and I wordlessly turned off the tree lights, then the outside lights. We snuffed out the candles in the windows and let the fire in the fireplace die down.

  “Why?” whimpered Hopie, watching us anxiously.

  “It just doesn’t feel right to let the house be so cheerful while Dad’s in the hospital,” I said.

  “Are we still going to have Christmas?” asked Hope.

  “Hope, shut up. I don’t know.”

  Hope burst into tears and fled to her room.

  But the next day, Dad came home.

  “It wasn’t serious,” Mom told us before she left to pick him up. “They watched him overnight and said he’s much better this morning. The doctors are just being extra cautious.”

  Dad was home in time for lunch. He looked, well, not exactly good, but a lot better than the day before.

  We turned all the lights back on and built another fire. It was Christmas Eve! I couldn’t help feeling excited. There were going to be an awful lot of surprises the next day.

  Denise came over that afternoon and we exchanged gifts. She gave me a little makeup kit so I could start wearing eye shadow and stuff. And I gave her some funky bracelets.

  “Oh!” she cried. “I can’t wait to show these off at school!”

  That night, our family spent the evening in the living room. We were enjoying ourselves, but there was something in us that didn’t want us to be separated. We were clinging together while we went through our Christmas Eve ritual. After dinner, which is always clam chowder on Christmas Eve, we turned on the tree lights. Then we hung our stockings and Dad read The Night Before Christmas to us, with Hope curled up in his lap, looking dreamy, Mouse in her lap, and Fifi at Dad’s feet. Then Mom read us the Christmas story from the Bible. After that, Hope put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus, and after that, it was her bedtime. The rest of us kids waited until she was asleep, then we ran around getting our gifts out of their hiding places and putting them under the tree. A little while later, Carrie and Brent and I went to our rooms, and Mom and Dad put their gifts out.