“Get you a drink?” he asked Velda.
She nodded and made her way to the dining room, tossing an “I’m hungry” at the kitchen on her way. The table was set for ten. Velda took her position at the head of the table and awaited food and drink to arrive.
“Merry Christmas, Velda,” Xenia said, pausing to push her mother’s Santa hat into place. “Did you see the Nativity scene on the porch?”
“See it? I felt like I was in it. Did you have to put it so near the front door? People will talk, you know. They’ll say the Catalains have found God.”
Xenia chuckled. “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
“We’ll eat as soon as Jasmine and her family arrive,” Ursula said, appearing through the swinging kitchen door holding a bowl of bacon vinegar spinach salad. The tangy, salty scent of it curled into the corners of the room. “They said they’d be here by seven.”
“Do we have to wait?” Velda asked.
The doorbell answered her. The room tensed for a moment. Jasmine had arrived.
“Hi, Grandma!” Tara had only sporadically adopted the family tradition of referring to her relatives by their given names. “I made green bean casserole. We’re staying late today!”
Jasmine’s smile was tentative. Dean had his hand at the small of her back and urged her forward. He had agreed to join them for Christmas, even though he was still living in his apartment. “Thank you for inviting us,” he said.
“It’ll only take ten minutes to crisp the French fried onions in the oven,” Tara said. She was beaming, her cheeks rosy with joy. “We even brought presents!”
Ursula heard all of this with an echo. She realized she’d have her whole family under her roof for Christmas. She’d known it, but until Jasmine had appeared, she hadn’t trusted it. Her limbs felt loose like honey. She accepted the green bean casserole and turned so no one could see her naked expression. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she called over her shoulder. “Dinner in ten.”
Helena glided down the stairs. She took one look at the entryway and her smile grew even wider. After hugging the new arrivals, she hurried to the dining room to flip the Christmas CD. Frank Sinatra singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” followed her into the entryway, where everyone but Dean, who had run to the car to retrieve the gifts, was standing.
“Come on, gang!” she said, her good cheer back in force. “Let’s wash up and head to the table.”
Katrine had wandered in. She was enthralled with the idea of being with her sister at Christmas. The thought was a kernel, budding green energy, taking root just below her stomach. It was one of many colors she’d allowed inside her since she’d returned home, and she didn’t want to smother it. For some reason, she thought of the Christmas of 1976. She had received a Lifelike Baby, and Jasmine had gotten a Sears Holiday II typewriter. It was funny because Katrine had grown up to be the writer and Jasmine the mom. Katrine wondered whether it was those gifts, or their lives, that had gotten switched.
“Come and eat!” Velda hollered.
They filed from the large, garland-strung foyer into the dining room, performing an awkward shuffle until they’d all found their seats.
“Leslie will be arriving as soon as she gets off work,” Xenia said. “She said to apologize in advance.”
“Dean would like to say grace,” Jasmine said.
Dean appeared surprised by this declaration, but he moved ahead. Tara kept one eye open so she could watch what everybody else did. Velda didn’t stop scooping creamed peas over her mashed potatoes, but the rest of the guests crossed their hands and dipped their heads until Dean was done.
“Amen,” he said.
“Thank you for coming,” Ursula said in a shy voice at the end of the blessing, her eyes on Jasmine. “I’m glad you’ll be staying late.”
“It was Tara’s idea,” Jasmine said. “We have our own family tradition, usually.”
“I’m sorry to intrude on your tradition,” Ursula said.
Velda snorted. “Those words are meant to be a door, not a shield, Ursula. You can be gracious, can’t you? Now pass the rolls.”
Tara felt her mother sitting forward in response to the spark of tension from Velda, ready to bolt. A chunk of pinched turkey caught in her throat. Their “tradition” had been to come to Ursula’s, have an uncomfortable Christmas dinner, and then return home to her mother moping as they sat around their own small tree. She’d held out hope that Jasmine would continue to heal, the bricks on her heart cooling and crumbling, just as they had since her and Katrine had fought over the lasagna. It was going that direction, but Tara was hyperaware that this all could be taken from her at any minute if her mom grew as skittish as she used to be. She tried to change the feel of the room.
“Aunt Katrine, Mom said that one Christmas you two stayed up late to see Santa Claus,” Tara began, the words tumbling out in a worried heap. “She said you rigged up a Polaroid camera so in case you fell asleep, he’d trip the wire and it would snap a picture of him. Said you both fell asleep before eleven, and the next morning, the Polaroid had taken a picture, but you couldn’t find the snapshot anywhere.”
Both girls had fallen asleep by 10:30, sooty at the edges from crawling into the cool fireplace to set up the tripwire. If they’d been awake when the snapshot was taken, they would have witnessed a frozen moment of Ursula setting out presents and covering her girls with a handsewn quilt before retiring to bed.
“I think that was your idea,” Katrine said to her sister, knowing it wasn’t. She held her breath. She hadn’t teased her sister in over a decade.
Jasmine tensed, then snorted. “Anything trouble was always your idea.”
Katrine’s relief was palpable. She moved the ball forward. “What about the time one of us wanted to sleep on the roof during a full moon?”
Jasmine’s eyes grew wide, despite herself. She flashed a worried glance at Dean. “I forgot about that. Can you believe how stupid that was?”
“I don’t know,” Katrine said. “I thought it was pretty cool.”
The frogs had roused her that summer night, singing an urgent song outside her window. She’d slipped out of bed, intending to cuddle with her sister like she did whenever she awoke out of sorts. When Jasmine couldn’t be found in her bed, Katrine searched the third floor before spotting the sheet tucked into the rooftop window to hold it ajar. She’d opened the window and crawled out, seventy feet off the ground. The moon had been bright enough to read by that night, which meant it was easy to see how long a fall it’d be to the ground.
Katrine had held her breath and curled her toes onto the edges of the dormer and inched out, not daring to look down. On the other side of the sloped roof, she’d swung a leg and arm over, trusting there’d be something to grab onto. There was. She found herself on the widow’s walk, Jasmine wide awake and staring at the stars, which seemed as close as her own heart. Katrine curled next to her, and they had passed the night there, not saying a word to each other.
The corners of Jasmine’s mouth curled at the memory. “That was fifth grade. Remember elementary school? You were so popular. Heather still talks about it.”
Katrine dropped her fork with such force that it took a chip out of her plate. She barked a laugh. “Heather hated me. And except for a couple of friends who hung around me because I could get them into the theater for free, I was as popular as crabs in elementary and high school.”
“Really, Katrine,” Jasmine said. Her voice was dismissive.
“Really, Jasmine.” Katrine didn’t know where Jasmine’s anger was coming from, but she suddenly felt more than happy to match it.
“You know, I think I’ll have some of that wine,” Jasmine said.
This drew Dean’s attention, though only for a moment. He handed his wife the bottle of merlot in front of him before digging into his mashed potatoes.
Helena clapped her hands. “I remember you both being as pretty as pictures in school. I’m sure you were both popular.”
“Katrine,” Xenia snapped, “that is an exaggeration.”
Jasmine took a deep pull from her wine. “Is it?”
Ursula cleared her throat, and the house couldn’t help but lean forward. The pressure caused a carved wooden bird to fall off a nearby shelf, and everyone at the table jumped. Would Ursula finally stand up for herself? Would she tell her daughters how after a full day working twelve and sometimes thirteen hours, seven days a week, she checked on them in bed, not missing visiting them a single night of their lives that they spent under her roof, brushing aside their hair and kissing their warm cheeks? Would she explain that she had gutted and remodeled this house to give them safe shelter to grow up in? Would she admit that she’d never had a long-term relationship, never even introduced her girls to one of her paramours, because she wanted them always confident that they were the most precious people in her world?
“Your aunts were in the house for you, and I was always nearby,” Ursula said.
The houselights flickered. No. She would not stand up for herself. She would not become Velda.
“But no father was around, also because of you,” Jasmine said in triumph, refilling her glass. This confrontation, starting between Jasmine and Katrine, and hopping like a nimble spark to Ursula, had been a long time brewing. The air in the room began to sing like water in a tea kettle.
Ursula blinked, and continued to eat.
“Plenty of good men around, though,” Helena said, her voice strained, frantic to change the flow of conversation. “Ursula, do you remember that Connor fellow you dated back in the 70s, the one who always brought you flower seeds? I liked him. Whatever happened to him?”
Ursula was ever-so-slowly curling the tablecloth into her clenched hand, the gesture unconscious, the dishes moving toward her. She brought a morsel of ham to her mouth.
“I know!” Xenia said, glad for a change of subject. “He ended up opening a nursery in Iowa. A friend of a friend saw him when she went home to visit family.”
Katrine, who’d been gearing up to jump in the ring, was startled out of the fight. “You dated, Mom? I thought you just slept around.”
Dean clenched his jaw and glanced at his wife and daughter. Artemis sat straighter in his chair. The air crackled. The lights flickered again, went fully off for a second, then returned.
“Must be a power surge,” Dean said, looking around. “I’ll check out your fuses if it happens again.
“I’m sorry if my lifestyle bothered you,” Ursula said. Her voice was a winter waterfall.
The air smelled of ozone, and then crackled, the tension released. Ursula had refused to claim the fight. Jasmine and Katrine were not yet done with it, however. They both stood, ready to say something to the entire table.
What words they would have chosen, only the house knew, for at that moment, the doorbell rang.
***
The carolers crowded on the front porch of the Queen Anne. Meredith Baum was scowling inside her winter bonnet. She didn’t want to be here, but she went where God-via-her-pastor directed her to go.
“They have a nativity scene,” Michelle Jakowski whispered into her mitten.
The woman with the beautiful black, gold, and copper dreadlocks and the gold-flecked tiger eyes, one staring off from the other, nodded. The metal in her hair clinked. She was also surprised by the nativity scene. She’d joined Immanuel Lutheran Church after leaving Ursula’s cottage last summer, and she now read the nativity scene as a sign that it had been the right choice. Nothing else had come of that meeting, and she’d almost regretted going, if she’d been the type given to regret. As it was, she saw it as an entertaining use of half an hour and $250.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. For the Catalain witch to look into a crystal ball and tell her that she must go on safari to Africa, or for Ursula to read her palm and tell her that a tall handsome stranger was to come into her life? It was foolishness that had sent her to Ursula in the first place, complaining of a life too perfect to continue.
That day, she’d accepted the tiny ruby-colored glass bottle Ursula had handed her and held it until her body had warmed it, as Ursula had instructed. Within a half hour of walking and warming, she’d found herself on the edge of downtown, across from the Immanuel Lutheran church. Her eye traveled its peak as she tipped the warm liquid into her mouth. It poured down her throat, tasting of crushed aspirin and ear wax.
A powerful coughing attack shook her, and she’d entered the church in hopes of finding water. There was a bubbler in the vestibule and a choir practicing in the interior. The music filled her so full that it spilled out her eyes in warm, laughing tears. Her parents were atheists. Her life had been full of books and love and logic, but never music that she could breathe in through her heart. She’d tossed the scarlet bottle in a plastic-lined garbage can by the pamphlet rack and joined the church on the spot.
“Somebody is taking good care of the donkeys,” she replied to Michelle. “Look at how their fur glistens.”
Michelle nodded and stood straighter. All the women demonstrated impeccable posture tonight, tummies in and breasts out as if their winter coats didn’t desex each of them. Ren Cunningham was the cause. He had shown up for Christmas Eve caroling with his two teenage daughters and a guitar that he apparently could only play three chords on. He was the hottest prospect in town, a widower with beautiful eyes and a kind heart, and here he was, offering to spend an evening singing with women.
Meredith knocked on the front door of the Queen Anne. The carolers huddled inside a held breath: Everyone knows Ursula is sleeping with Meredith’s husband, and they’re about to come face to face!
Velda opened the massive oak door. She appeared imperious, but then her face softened. Immediately the carolers felt appreciated. They wanted to sing their best for her. They were beautiful, and valued, and they needed to prove to Velda that they knew that.
Helena showed up next. “Carolers!” she called over her shoulder. She turned back to the church group, her excitement plain. “Let me get you all some hot cider.”
She bustled into the house, leaving room for Tara to squeeze out, followed by Katrine and Jasmine. Jasmine blanched when she saw Meredith, an elder in her church, but it was too late to hide.
“Home for Christmas?” Meredith asked, her brows arched.
Jasmine nodded and stared at her hands.
Katrine noticed this. She also recognized the woman’s eyes and facial structure. “You’re Heather’s mother?” she asked, holding out her hand. She wasn’t surprised when she and Meredith’s hands touched and the images came to her: brown-yellow, constipation, fear.
“What are you going to sing?” Tara asked, breathless.
Overhead, stars salted the sky, brighter even than the twinkle lights reflecting off the diamond-eye snow crystals. Ren strummed his guitar. Katrine felt her eyes drawn to him, and she grew breathless. Besides the drive back from the movie theater, he’d been on the periphery of her interactions in town: leaving a restaurant as she was entering, crossing paths in the baking supplies aisle, at the bowling alley with his daughters when she came there to interview the owner. His crooked nose and a broad smile ignited pleasant bubbles in her stomach. She couldn’t hold his glance and so looked away, but she was drawn back. Time. That’s all she could read on him. Waterfalls of moments cascading into bubbling streams of flowing, beautiful possibility. It was disconcerting.
“‘Silent Night?’” Meredith asked. She didn’t wait for an answer.
The carolers hit their notes with such precision, and the air was so clear and cold, it was a magnificent science to hear them. Helena stepped out with trays full of steaming mugs of cider, and Artemis brought coats, scarves, and mittens for Dean, Jasmine, Tara, and Katrine. While the
carolers sang in voices so pure that it almost hurt to hear them, a soft snow began to fall one perfect flake at a time, turning the multicolored twinkle lights edging the porch into diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds.
Dean held Jasmine, who held Tara. Helena rested her head on Xenia’s shoulder. Artemis smiled and sipped hot chocolate with a splash of peppermint schnapps. Katrine closed her eyes so she wouldn’t feel vertigo as the music Ren made blended with the music that he was.
The house noted all of this with the deep appreciation that can only be felt under the clear, starry sky of a Christmas Eve.
Chapter 31
Ursula
The stress of the evening sent Ursula to her workshop. She could still hear the singing, but it seemed less invasive. The moon lit her path as she walked and reflected the falling crystals, lighting up each like a fairy lamp. She was too far in her own heart to notice.
“Mmmhmm.”
The polite throat-clearing startled her, but she wouldn’t show it. She tipped her head at the man standing in front of the door to her cottage. He wore a hunter’s cap, which covered most of his face. It wasn’t until she was standing in front of him that she observed that he wasn’t a man at all, but a boy whose bones were growing faster than his skin. He stepped to the side, and she unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. She neither invited him in nor shut the door behind her.
She heard him step in and waited for him to speak as she bustled around her herbs, checking quantities in the apothecary drawers, rearranging beakers, sweeping Artemisia clippings into a pile, brushing off loose seeds that clung to the black velvet of her dress. He didn’t. Several minutes passed. She was impressed with his patience. She finally turned. “Yes?”
The Catalain Book of Secrets Page 14
