Holly's Story

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Dismayed, Holly sorted mentally through the collection of old ornaments. She and Hunter used to have contests to see which of them could make the prettiest or the most unusual items for the family Christmas tree. And Evelyn had supervised so much of the crafting—stained-glass baubles made with specially colored sand baked in the oven, felt reindeer and wreaths, glitter-covered stars and angels—every item held a memory. And naturally, there was the crèche. They had worked on that as a family over the years, sanding bisqueware, painstakingly painting the pieces and taking them to be kiln-fired, turning them into the Holy Family, shepherds, wise men, angels and a barnyard full of animals. It was Hunter and Holly’s job to set up the crèche every year on the credenza in the family room. They usually dressed the surface with angel hair, a few fake palm trees and a wooden cutout of a stable and manger Hunter had made. It had been a family tradition, and now it was being taken away.

  “Where will we go?” Holly asked.

  Her father brightened. “A ski lodge in upper New Hampshire. I checked it out on the Web and had the place send brochures. I’ll show them to you.”

  “We don’t ski.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’ll be a real change for us. Don’t you think a white Christmas would be fun?”

  “Tons,” she said without expression.

  “I’ll get the brochures. The place is really nice. You’ll see.” He stood, but she caught the sleeve of his shirt.

  “Dad, is Mom going to be okay?”

  He looked down at her, his expression switching from eager-happy mode to confused sadness. “I hope so, baby. She just needs some time.”

  Holly’s heart thudded. There was so much she wanted to say to her dad, so many questions she wanted to ask. Their world had turned savage and dark, and now all the things she had been taught to believe in seemed fanciful and shallow. As she looked up at him, at the tired lines in his face, her throat closed up. She let go of his sleeve. “It’ll be fun to see snow,” she said, because she knew he needed to hear it.

  “Maybe your dad’s right, though. Getting away might be good for your family,” Kathleen said.

  Holly had gone to Kathleen’s to tell her the news. School was out for the holidays, and without the usual Christmas preparations, Holly had nothing to do except pack a suitcase. It didn’t help that Kathleen’s house was gaily decorated.

  “I guess,” Holly said. “Sometimes I think things will never be normal again.”

  “What’s ‘normal’ anyway?”

  “They don’t even gripe at me anymore. I feel invisible.”

  “What about you and Chad? How’s that going?” Kathleen changed the subject.

  “We’ve gone to a couple of movies together.”

  “Want to double with me and Carson over the break?”

  “We won’t be back until New Year’s Day, then it’s back to school.”

  “We can still double sometime.”

  “I’m not sure I want to date Chad.”

  “Why? I thought you liked him.”

  “I do. But I feel sorry for him too.” Holly picked at the fringe on a Christmas pillow beside her on the sofa. “I’m not sure I want to get mixed up with a guy who is probably going to die before long.”

  Kathleen looked startled. “You don’t know if that’s going to happen to Chad. Some CF patients live a long time, what with all the new drugs and stuff.”

  “Like I want to wait around for the other shoe to drop. Why start caring for him in the first place? Where’s the smarts in that?”

  Kathleen said nothing, so Holly assumed she’d gotten her point. Across the room, the lights of Kathleen’s tree twinkled. Holly had never felt less like facing Christmas. Maybe she’d take a page from her mother’s life and sleep through the holidays. She cleared her throat. “The ski lodge is pretty in the pictures. Maybe I’ll make a snowman and date him.”

  Kathleen giggled. “Look at your nails. They’re a mess. You can’t go to a ski lodge with ugly nails.”

  Holly looked down at her chipped nails, some bitten down to the quick. She had started painting her nails so that she would stop biting them. She didn’t even remember when she’d started biting them again. “I’ll paint them later.”

  “No, we’ll give each other manicures.” Kathleen jumped up. “Wait here, I’ll go gather my stuff.”

  “But I don’t—” Holly was protesting to the air, because Kathleen was gone. She sighed, and was staring at the tree, feeling sad, when she heard the mechanical swish of Mary Ellen’s wheelchair. She looked up and saw Kathleen’s mother emerge from the doorway.

  “Hello,” Holly said, forcing a smile.

  “Hi, honey.” Mary Ellen stopped next to the sofa. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you say you were going away for the holidays.”

  “Dad’s idea.”

  “I feel so bad for you and your family, Holly.” Mary Ellen looked as if she had more to say, so Holly waited patiently. “I know a little myself about losing someone you love.”

  “Your husband.”

  Mary Ellen nodded. “I just wanted to crawl into a corner and die. In fact, I couldn’t understand why he’d died and I’d lived. I certainly didn’t want to face my life without him. I didn’t want to face advancing MS without him either.”

  Holly was well aware of how Mary Ellen’s MS had affected Kathleen. “Nothing’s ever going to be the same at home.”

  “That’s true. But things will get better.”

  Holly wanted to believe her.

  “In the end it was my child who saved me from myself. She was only eight, you know. Just a scared little girl. My turning point came when I was lying in my hospital bed wishing I could die and I looked out the ICU window. I saw her standing there, nose pressed against the glass, her red hair all wild. And I thought, ‘Someone had better brush that child’s hair before it snarls into a thousand knots.’ ”

  Mary Ellen chuckled at the memory. “It was the first positive thought I’d had in weeks. The first time I’d thought about someone other than myself. And I realized that my little girl needed me. She was mine and Jim’s. And I needed her. Not because of my MS, but because she was all I had left of him.”

  Holly had never appreciated what Kathleen’s mother had gone through. It was different from her losing Hunter, but it was also the same. “I’m the one who’s left, all that’s made up of my mom and dad.” She hadn’t considered that before.

  “You are. It is a large responsibility to be the one left standing. Your parents are devastated, and it may seem like you’ve fallen through the cracks, but they love and appreciate you even though it might not seem so just now.”

  Holly wasn’t sure she was ready to shoulder all their expectations. “Does it … your heart … ever stop hurting?”

  “Yes and no. You never forget, but you do see ‘happy’ again. You don’t think you will, but you do.”

  Holly nodded as a lump of emotion rose in her throat. “Sometimes it seems like that man murdered my whole family.”

  Mary Ellen reached over and squeezed Holly’s hand. “Don’t let him win.” After a few emotionally charged moments, she put her chair into reverse and turned for the doorway. “One more thought before your manicurist returns. Don’t be afraid to care about someone just because he may not be facing the brightest of futures.”

  Chad.

  “If the good Lord had told me when I was your age that I was going to be sick and that my husband was going to die in a car wreck, I still would have chosen the life that I have. I loved Jim with all my heart. And he gave me Kathleen. It’s been enough.”

  Raina thought the Christmas holidays would never end. She spent every minute she could at the hospital, haunting the corridors like a ghost, volunteering for the most menial tasks to stay busy. The great tree in the lobby had been decorated entirely with white paper doves and tiny white lights. Resident doctors could be seen wearing Santa caps, and the windows in the newborns’ nurseries were encircled with tinsel and colored
lights. Everybody seemed filled with the Christmas spirit. Except for Raina.

  Every Christmas song weighed on her heart. Building snowmen in meadows seemed stupid, and she didn’t care if Santa Claus came to town, or if Frosty turned into a puddle. Nothing mattered, because nothing was the same as when Hunter had been alive.

  Her mother dragged her shopping, bullied her into helping to decorate the town house, demanded she help with baking. Two days before Christmas, Raina began to notice that Vicki was storing up more than the usual pile of cookies in tins. She was baking bread and Christmas cakes, pies and puff pastries. Raina grumbled, “We’ll never eat all this food.”

  “I know. I’m just in the mood to cook. We’ll freeze what we don’t eat, have Christmas all year long.”

  “No thanks.”

  “We can’t just skip Christmas,” Vicki said, taking a roast out of the oven.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “I’d appreciate some enthusiasm. And some help. Decorate these cookies for me.”

  Raina stared at the doughy lumps next in line for the oven. Jars of colored sugar and candy bells, hearts and sprinkles were lined up on the table.

  “Please,” Vicki said.

  Raina tackled the job halfheartedly.

  Vicki turned on some Christmas CDs and began humming along. Raina wanted to scream. She also began to notice that her mother kept glancing at the clock, casually, but often. Raina ignored the cheeriness, shook red and green sugar crystals onto some raw dough, smashed a few candy silver balls onto the surface and considered it a very ugly wreath. She was finishing up the tray when the doorbell rang.

  “Will you get that?” Vicki asked. “I’m covered in flour.”

  She wasn’t, but Raina went to the front door anyway. She opened it and stared in shocked silence at the young woman standing on the doormat. “Emma.”

  “Merry Christmas, Raina.”

  Behind Emma, Raina saw Jon-Paul, who waved and grinned.

  Raina began to tremble all over, and emotion clogged her throat. Emma opened her arms and Raina dissolved into her sister’s embrace.

  fifteen

  HOLLY THOUGHT THAT snow was highly overrated. Yes, it looked pretty from a distance, but up close, once people had stepped in it and smushed it, car tires had rolled over it and salt had eroded it, snow wasn’t very pretty at all. The rooms at the lodge were rustic-looking, with pine walls and oversized furniture covered in wool and leather. Mike Harrison had reserved a suite for his family, so Holly had her own room, a tiny space all to herself. A large common area separated her room from her parents’. The bigger room held a sofa, squishy chairs, a kitchenette, a large television and shelves full of old books. A wall of glass looked out onto a private balcony, and beyond the snow-covered slopes and grounds of the resort, the mountains of New Hampshire rose like sleeping giants.

  The lodge’s great room, below their floor, was awash with people in colorful ski clothes, hunkered around the biggest fireplace Holly had ever seen. Adjoining the great room was a large dining room, where meals were served family-style at long wooden tables decorated with candles and fir branches laced with red ribbon. A magnificent Christmas tree draped in lights, red bows and moose-shaped ornaments filled up one corner. A toy train circled the tree’s base endlessly, tirelessly, waiting for Christmas to arrive.

  Secretly, Holly was shocked by the number of people who had left their homes and come to a lodge to celebrate Christmas. How many of them were running away from memories? They all looked so happy. When she and her parents sat in the dining room amid the strangers, or around the fireplace or with the skiers on the beginners’ slope, she wondered if anyone could see into the dark places inside the Harrison family. Or did the whiteness of the snow make everything and everyone look pure and clean?

  Her father turned into a tour director, planning every minute of the days, her mother stoic, going along with all his suggestions. They drank bottomless cups of hot chocolate, played video games and shot billiards in a huge game room, sank into hot tubs and swam in a heated pool every evening. Holly skied on rented equipment after a few lessons on the bunny trails, alongside her mother. Neither of them was very good, and Holly’s face felt frozen afterward.

  Their happy family vacation fell apart on Christmas Eve. In their suite, Mike said, “There’s a little church in town having services at seven and eleven. The sanctuary looks like a picture postcard. You’ll love it. We can go to the late service, sing some Christmas hymns, light some candles.”

  “I don’t want to go to church,” Evelyn said. She was on the sofa, flipping through a magazine.

  “Honey, it’s Christmas Eve. We always attend church.”

  “At home,” Evelyn said. “We’re not at home.”

  “I’ll go, Dad,” Holly said, sensing a storm brewing between her parents.

  “Take Holly.”

  “We’re a family. We go together.”

  “Really?” Evelyn tossed the magazine on the coffee table. “I’m on vacation. I don’t want to go.”

  Silence fell. Holly saw frustration etched into her father’s face. “Um—we could open presents after,” she interjected. They had brought their wrapped gifts in large plastic containers. “Then we could sleep in tomorrow. Until lunchtime if we want.”

  “Why should I go?” Evelyn asked, as if Holly hadn’t spoken. “What have we got to celebrate, Michael? What has God done for us this year? What have we got to say thank you for? I haven’t got anything to be grateful for. Have you?”

  “Don’t blame God for what happened.”

  “Who should I blame? Tell me. Who?”

  “God loves—”

  “Don’t.” Evelyn got up and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  Mike Harrison stared at the closed door. Minutes later, he grabbed his coat. “I need some fresh air,” he told Holly.

  And then Holly was alone in front of the wall of frigid windows. She shivered. The room had gone cold. As cold as death. Outside, snow began to fall.

  It took several hours for welcomes to be exchanged, dinner to be served and eaten, Vicki to slip away to her room and Jon-Paul to settle in front of the TV, but eventually, Raina was sitting in her bedroom, alone with Emma. The conversation at dinner had been chatty and full of updates about Emma’s life.

  Yes, she was doing well enough with the transplant to have cut back on her antirejection medications.

  Yes, she loved being married.

  Yes, she had gotten a part-time job after decorating her and Jon-Paul’s condo twice.

  Yes, her mom and dad were fine.

  Emma’s first question to Raina was “How are you doing?”

  “Not too good. But I guess you know that already.”

  “When your mom called, she sounded at her wits’ end.”

  Raina thought it strange to hear Emma refer to Vicki as her mom, when she had given birth to both of them, but her sister apparently didn’t feel any special kinship with her biological mother. Did Emma wonder about her father?

  Raina cleared her throat. “I know she’s worried about me. I try, but I just can’t get on top of this thing.”

  “You’ve suffered a horrible trauma. It’s all right to be sad.”

  Raina’s eyes welled with tears. “See what I mean? Just talking about it even a tiny bit makes me fall to pieces.” Emma handed Raina a tissue from a nearby box. “You and Jon-Paul should buy stock in this stuff. I go through it by the crate.”

  Emma laughed softly. “I didn’t know your Hunter well, but I remember how the two of you looked at each other. That’s what sticks with me. I know you loved each other.”

  Raina blew her nose. “We did. Even Mom understood that.”

  “She loves you too.”

  “We’ve had our problems.”

  “All teenage girls have problems with their mothers.”

  “Did you?”

  “I was sick, so I didn’t reject her very often. Truthfully, I was angry at my biol
ogical mother—the one who had passed along the lousy DNA. There is a genetic link with cancer, you know.”

  Raina knew that from her work at the hospital and with the Pink Angels. “Maybe it was from your father’s side,” she ventured.

  “You mean our father’s side, don’t you?”

  “You know about him?”

  “Vicki told me everything.”

  “And you’re not mad about it?”

  “Why should I be? He was only a sperm donor. Carl raised me. He’s my daddy.”

  Raina was taken aback, somehow disappointed that Emma didn’t have a stronger reaction to Vicki’s deception.

  “Listen,” Emma said, leaning closer, “not all adopted kids are burning to know who they came from. Growing up, I had three adopted friends, and only one wanted to find her birth parents. I never did. Believe me, though, it came up when my doctors started talking about a bone marrow transplant. But even then, I wasn’t eager to go through the ordeal of the search. Plus a part of me thought I was being disloyal to the mom and dad who raised me.”

  “But your life was at stake.”

  “I didn’t say it was rational.” Emma smiled again. “But it worked out all right, didn’t it? I signed up with the registry and so did you. We were meant to find each other.”

  Raina thought about it. “Didn’t you ever wonder if you had a brother or sister somewhere?”

  Emma was silent, and Raina knew she was trying to formulate an answer that wouldn’t hurt Raina’s feelings. “I never minded being an only child. I was the princess in my family. I had good friends … a few who had knock-down, drag-out fights with their siblings, and I always felt grateful that I didn’t have to share anything. Then there was the leukemia—that colored everything.” She looked sheepish. “Once I stopped being a selfish little brat, my world got a whole lot larger.”

  Raina understood. “I’ll admit that I didn’t mind having Mom all to myself when I was younger. But when I found out about you, I was, well, mad! I felt like she’d lied to me for my whole life. We were best friends. And friends don’t lie to each other.”