Beautiful Star of Bethlehem

by Lori Copeland

  So I started over.

  “You need to socialize more, Mom. The nurses say that you stay in your room too much.” He checks his shiny gold watch.

  “Friends help pass the time,” Melissa encourages.

  “I try, but often the conversations around me don’t make any sense.” I lean in. “Some of these people aren’t all there—if you know what I mean.”

  Melissa solemnly nods. “I understand.”

  She’s a nice girl. “But all is well,” I assure. I sit back and relax. This is a most pleasant visit. For the first time in a long time, I feel that I have something to contribute to the conversation.

  I look up. “Where is Jack?”

  The man and woman exchange tolerant looks. “Now Mom, I’ve explained. Dad is going to be away for a while. He wants you to know that he loves you and for you to relax and enjoy life.”

  Enjoy this life? Jack can’t be serious. That would be the same as lying back and enjoying a good case of malaria. What is he thinking? “Where did he go that he has to stay so long?”

  The man glances at the woman.

  “Oh. I’ll bet he went to Australia,” I muse. “We have a large account there, and he said we need to visit the customer.”

  The woman releases a sigh. “That must be it. He didn’t actually say where he was going.”

  “No,” I retract. “He wouldn’t go to Australia without me. We are planning to make that trip a very long vacation, and he wouldn’t go without me.”

  Jack Jr. suddenly stands up and walks to the window. “Hey, Steven said that he and Julee plan to visit this afternoon.”

  “Steven? Why that’s wonderful. I haven’t seen Steven in ages. Is he well? And baby Ella. My goodness, she must be twelve weeks old now, and I have yet to see the little dumpling. Tell Steven to bring her by anytime. I can have company—all the guests that I want.” Pausing, my mind goes blank, and I try to think of what I need to say. The bear. Where did I put the toy? “Your father thinks the bear is way too big for her, but I told him that she’ll grow into the toy.”

  “Steven’s fine,” Jack says.

  “Have you seen it?”

  “The bear?”

  “Yes.”

  “I… I’ve seen a bear. Hey Mom, want to go outside before we leave?”

  “No, we’ll visit right here.”

  Time flies so swiftly that a rush of letdown fills me when the man reaches for his coat. “Hate to rush, Mom, but I have to stop by the office and put in a few hours before dinner.” His gaze avoids the woman named Melissa.

  “So soon?” I get up to walk the couple to the door. Earlier he told the woman that he wasn’t coming home for dinner tonight. Why would Jack Jr. fib to me? I smile at the lady. “I like your bracelets. They’re so pretty. Did you buy them here in Vermont?”

  “No…” She glances at the man. “Actually, they are a gift from my mother-in-law.”

  “Well, she certainly has lovely taste.”

  “I’ve always thought so.” She bends to embrace me. “Take care of yourself. We’ll be back soon.”

  “Visit anytime,” I urged. “I’m never busy.”

  “We will. Soon.”

  They always say that. They won’t come.

  “Have a good holiday,” the man says.

  “You, too!”

  Chapter Six

  Later, I am weary from trying to make new friends. The nurse said I could eat supper at a different table with people I didn’t know. Gertrude, Eleanor, and Frances were a bit miffed, but after I explained that Jack Jr. said I had to make other friends, they said that I could sit where I wanted. I choose a lovely couple well up in years, and the choice seems to please them. We eat pumpkin pie, and the woman dribbles whipped cream on her chin. I am tempted to whisk it away with my napkin, but I keep my hands to myself. You never know how anyone is going to take simple manner correction around here. This particular woman is known to be cranky and doesn’t know up from down. But then neither do I.

  I spend the rest of the evening alone, sitting in my armchair, counting car lights.

  It isn’t the best Thanksgiving ever. I fondly remember the hearty celebrations I experienced as a child. I come from a large family with three sisters and five brothers, and I can’t think of a time that we didn’t spend the holidays together, usually at my grandmother’s house when I was small, and then later at the oldest sibling’s house when my mother and father turned the holiday duties over to Susie, who did little more than set a pretty table.

  Jack and I would stay up most of Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, baking hams and turkeys and peeling enough potatoes for forty-two people. By the time we fell into bed in the wee hours of the morning, the most delectable aroma scented the house. Thanksgiving Day was the topper. Somehow my sisters and I had fallen into the Black Friday madness, so instead of bed we had an official family bunking party on Thanksgiving night. After several pots of strong Maxwell House, we would dress warmly and hope to be among the first twenty people in line for the Friday bargains. Everyone knew the seventy-five-inch wide-screen smart television advertised for $199.00 would be gone in a flash, that in truth there was only one in the store at that price, but we didn’t care. I could always use another ten-dollar Crock-Pot.

  The men went along with the craziness, standing close to the checkout lanes when we rushed by and transferred stacks of “must have” bargains. Who couldn’t use another wok?

  Jack and I decided long ago that whatever we saved during those mad rushes wasn’t worth the effort, but it wasn’t slashed prices that drew us; it was the bonding.

  Sighing, I switch off the light and crawl into bed. A soft glow from the grounds’ security lights filters through the curtains.

  Closing my eyes, I say my daily prayer. “God, thank You for today’s blessings, for food and shelter. Wherever Jack is, please keep him safe and bring him home to me, soon.”

  I know that I am well cared for and not forgotten. Still, longing fills my every waking hour, the kind of ache that only my former life can diminish. Deep down where the pain is the worst, I know that I can’t go back.

  Removing my glasses, I lay them on the bedside table and hunker down for another long night.

  Snow drifts from a leaden sky. I sit in the craft room beading a necklace. I’ve told Gwendolyn a hundred times that I don’t like crafty activities, but honestly, the days are long, and if making a necklace passes time, I’d agree to hog washing for distraction. The halls teem with activity today. Pumpkins disappear, and workers line the corridors, hanging strings of garland and festive lights.

  “We can help decorate the tree, if we want.” The woman sitting beside me slides another white bead onto a thin wire.

  “Really?” The news brings no great sense of satisfaction, only the knowledge that the facility is finally catching up to my time. The holiday was only a few weeks away before the accident, and I was in the hospital maybe… Well, that I didn’t know, but regardless, it didn’t seem possible Christmas could come twice in one month.

  I shake my head. I’ve stopped trying to figure out the jigsaw puzzle called life. “I love the holidays.”

  “You have to get there early. The snow geese grab the elephants,” the woman sitting at the end says.

  I eye the woman and mentally sigh. I’ve sat with this one before. She mumbles.

  Snow geese.

  Elephants.

  Scooping up my beads, I slide to the end of the table where Gwendolyn works. “That lady down there says we get to help decorate the Christmas tree.”

  Engrossed in her work, Gwen—as Gwendolyn now insists we call her, silently nods.

  “That should be fun.” At least the activity would be something she enjoys.

  We work in silence as snow drifts gently down on the complex roof. Finally I mention, “I think Jack will be home for Christmas.” Smiling, I recall the times when we selected our tree. We’d bundle up tightly, laughing like kids as we drove to the Christmas tree farm. We selected ou
r tree a year before purchasing it and often came to the farm in the summer to judge its growth. Some grew to a magnificent height, while other years we’d gotten the runt. We never complained. I had never seen an ugly pine lit with twinkling lights and colorful tinsel.

  Jack prefers multicolored bulbs with popcorn strings, none of those “theme” trees. We’d drink hot chocolate and hang ornaments that meant something to us. The kids’ amateur school efforts: Merry Christmas, Mommy and Daddy; Jack Jr.’s first tooth encased in plastic; Steven’s black horn-rimmed frames from his first pair of glasses. I paid to have our wedding certificate made into a lovely ornament that hung beside the beautiful star of Bethlehem that crowned the treetop in glorious fashion. Our Christmas tree was a tribute to the Santanas’ lives and to the Savior the star represented.

  The tree was as clear in my mind this morning as though I was standing in front of it.

  “Psst.”

  I glance in the direction of the sound and frown when I see Frances half crouching in the doorway, her bent frame wavering. She jerks her head for me to come meet her.

  Pushing my beads aside, I send Gwen a curious glance and push back my plastic chair. When I reach the doorway, Frances jerks me into the hall. I never imagined that the spindly little spinster has that much strength.

  “Hey.” I break the grip of her hand on my blouse.

  “I need your help.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re tall. Come with me.”

  I didn’t think of myself as tall. Or someone to be jerked about like a hangman’s noose. “Let go of my blouse.”

  She half drags me to the area where the private mailboxes are kept. The BE BACK SOON sign is propped on the counter. I size up the situation and turn to look at her. “What?”

  “Get my mail.”

  I turn back to the closed counter. “I can’t. The lady’s gone.”

  “You’re light and much younger than me. Climb over the counter and get my mail. There’s an envelope in my slot.”

  I have never, in my limited memory, ever climbed over anything containing a sign that read CLOSED.

  “You do it. You’re the circus performer.”

  “My family was. I worked the ropes and net.”

  “I am not going to climb over the counter, Frances. There are rules that we must obey. You do it.”

  “Can’t. I can’t lift my leg high enough to heft myself over.”

  “No!” Gwendolyn and Eleanor are always in hot water over one of Frances’s indiscretions. Frances is the resident rebel, and I am not a troublemaker.

  “No,” I repeat more calmly, adding a note of finality. Frances can’t make me.

  “Then give me a shove up.” She lifts a spindly leg and latches on to her ankle.

  “You will not climb up there,” I whisper harshly. My gaze skims the busy hallway. “You’ll hurt yourself.” She’s wobbling around like a crazed chicken on one foot.

  “My pension check is in that slot. I need it.” Frances falls against the mail counter and freezes, still holding her ankle.

  “You don’t need your check bad enough to break a bone. You’re not going anywhere.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m not going to scale the counter like a chimpanzee. She doesn’t need that check. I overheard someone complain that it was only Monday. The shuttle bus didn’t operate on Mondays.

  “I’m going over.” Frances drops her ankle and faces me defiantly. “If you won’t get it, I will.”

  Now what? Allow her to climb up there and break something, or get her silly mail myself? I should report her to a nurse, but tattletales are dead meat around here. It’s clear that she isn’t taking no for an answer.

  “Come on—I’ll take the blame if we get caught.”

  “We?” I ask.

  “I’ll take the blame. Just do it!”

  “All right.” I risk a second glance down the hallway and assure myself that nobody is watching. “I’ll get it.”

  Toeing off my shoes, I wet my lips and prepare to make a quick postal stop. I slap Frances’s hand away when she offers a hand up. “Stop it! I can do this.”

  With a mighty leap, I heft myself over the counter and then easily drop to the opposite side. Frances’s voice trails me.

  “While you’re in there you might as well get Gwen’s mail, too. Her check is due today.”

  “Don’t even ask,” I hiss between closed teeth. My gaze travels the long row of slots and pauses on a magazine sticking out of Frank Mettle’s opening. Squinting, I focus on the racy cover with a voluptuous woman wearing an underwire garment that doesn’t fit. Why, the old geezer!

  “Hurry up!” Frances’s voice forces my eyes to move on. I spot her slot and grab the lone envelope. When I straighten and turn around, I come face-to-face with a nurse. Perilea R. Reynolds, RN. Frances is nowhere in sight.

  “Arlene?”

  Smiling, I say brightly, “Yes?”

  “What are you doing behind the mail counter? You know that’s against the rules.”

  “Yes I know.”

  “Well?”

  “I… need my mail,” I lie.

  “Arlene.” The nurse slowly wags her head. “I wish I could let this pass with a warning—you’ve been the ideal patient—but we can’t have our residents climbing over counters. You could hurt yourself, and we are responsible for our patients’ well-being.”

  “Yes, Miss Reynolds. I’m sorry. I was getting Frances’s mail.” I don’t know what else to say but the truth.

  She shakes her head as though I am making up stories. “Please come with me.”

  “Yes ma’am.” I fall into step behind her, and we march down corridor one. When I round the corner, a wrinkled hand snakes out and snatches the check from my clutch. I whirl and shoot Frances a disgusted look before she darts away.

  A pleasant young woman, younger than springtime, sits behind a desk with a gold nameplate: CANDACE L. MARSHALL, ADMINISTRATOR. She glances up when I follow the nurse into the office.

  “Have a seat, Arlene.”

  I timidly sit down and cross my hands. Humiliation drips from my pores. I focus on the girl’s flawless makeup, and the inane thought crosses my mind to inquire which foundation she uses.

  “Well Arlene.” Long scarlet nails tap a manila folder. “I understand that you’ve been climbing counters this morning.”

  I slowly nod my head. “Frances told me to get her mail.”

  “Frances?”

  “My tablemate.”

  “Go on.”

  “She needs her social security check.”

  “We have an attendant that works the mail counter.”

  “She wasn’t there.”

  “So you volunteered to get the check for her?”

  “No.” I don’t recall the incident happening that way. “Frances threatened to climb the counter herself, and I thought that she might hurt herself. So I climbed it.”

  Sighing, Candace closes the folder. “I’m going to let you off with a warning, Arlene. Do not climb anything in the facility. If you need help, you will ask an employee for assistance.”

  Like an employee would scale the counter for Frances’s mail? Nobody but the attendant carries the mail key. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Very well. Have a nice day.”

  I leave my chair and reach for the door handle when instinct tells me to ask, “Does this mean I can still help decorate the tree tonight?”

  “Yes, of course you can help decorate. Have a good time.”

  “Thank you. One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “What foundation do you use?”

  Surprise crosses the woman’s features. “It’s bareMinerals. Why?”

  “It’s pretty—you look pretty.”

  “Thank you, Arlene. You look very nice yourself.”

  Quietly closing the door, I vow it will be a cold day in you-know-where before I offer to get anybody’s mail again. Plus, I plan to wring Frances’s scrawny neck the next time I see her.<
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  Chapter Seven

  During dinner, Frances is quiet as a mouse and refuses to meet my accusing gaze, but even the prickly tension can’t overshadow the air of expectancy. The tree decorations sit around the massive holiday fir awaiting tinsel, helping hands, and blinking lights.

  Gwendolyn sneezes a couple of times before dessert, and I hand her a tissue. “Thanks. I hope I’m not coming down with a cold.”

  “When I was little,” Frances ventures, chewing with her mouth open. “I always got sick just before Christmas. I don’t know if anticipation caused it or I was merely puny, but whatever, I came down with something on Christmas Eve. The year I got my first pair of sidewalk roller skates I had the measles. It was the three-day kind, but it ruined my holiday. I took the skates to bed with me and fantasized the hour that I could insert that key in the skates, tighten them on my shoe sole, and sail away.” Her voice turns dreamy. “The following Christmas I broke my arm and spent half the winter in a plaster cast.”

  Every lady sitting at the table tsks in sympathy. How sad. What a shame. Terrible thing to happen on Christmas.

  I join the conversation, reserving my resentment of Frances for later. “I only recall one Christmas. After dinner, our family prepared to listen to The Life of Riley, the Red Skelton Show, and the Jack Benny Program on the radio.” My smile widens. “Mother popped corn, and since it was Saturday night, that meant it was hair-washing time, so after I shampooed, she rolled my long locks in pin curls. Dad sat in his big overstuffed chair and cracked walnuts, picking the meat out of the shell. Later Mother would make a batch of fudge—and I must say I have never been able to replicate her recipe. Her fudge was the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  Gwendolyn appears to do a mental tally. “Honey, you’re not old enough to recall Jack Benny and The Life of Riley.”

  “I’m not?”

  Eleanor offers, “Perhaps you’re remembering stories your parents told. Don’t feel bad. That happens.”

  “My daughter gave me a set of The Best of Jack Benny’s Christmas Shows, last year,” Frances volunteers. “Want to come to my room and listen to them some night? Choose any night you want. I have nothing going on—except tonight. I have to work on the Christmas tree.”