Stitch In Snow

by Anne McCaffrey

  Tim has always been a demonstrative and affectionate boy but, at five, his sensitivity had told him that mother needed more than kisses and hugs: she needed to be diverted and consoled. So he had told me bedtime yarns to supply that need.

  Now my empathic, sympathetic, sensitive son wants to build bridges and space ships. I’m surprised who shouldn’t be: Tim is never predictable.

  Nor, because of Tim, was my life. There was so little money left after Raymond died that I went back to teaching to support us. I was not temperamentally suited to that profession even after getting a Masters in Education. So, I compromised with a job in the university library where I could work hours to suit Tim’s school schedule. One of the researchers gave me the right advice: get an advanced degree in library sciences and write my own ticket with any of the major industries who desperately needed properly catalogued and managed libraries. I went one better: I got my doctorate in library sciences, borrowing enough money from both Ray’s and my own parents to finance the studies. It was a grind, but when I finished, I really did write my own ticket — with an aerospace firm in Cambridge.

  Then, after years of working every spare minute, I was restless with the lonely evening hours on my hands. That’s when I rediscovered the tapes of Tim’s terrible tales to mother mom. They had lost none of their charm and, to fill in spare time, I typed them up. I showed them, more as a joke, to a friend. She asked permission to show them to her husband who was an editor in a textbook firm. The second publisher we submitted them to signed me to a contract and it was full steam ahead.

  At that point in time, Timmy was in junior high school in a very rough neighborhood. With no effort on his part at all, he was getting straight A’s, bored stiff and, with the exception of one very studious narrow-minded boy, friendless. Tim’d been in too many fights and when he got his skull fractured in a science lab (I never did find out the details), I realized that either we’d have to move from this town or Tim would have to go to a private boarding school. My editor mentioned the tax exemption for authors in Ireland and when I’d learned a bit more about the quality of Irish schools and life, I decided the gamble would be worth it. I’d enough savings and with continued effort at the typewriter on my part, plus a tax exemption, we could swing it.

  We did. Tim was extremely happy in the Irish school system, made a quartet of good friends who were constantly in each others’ pockets, did well on his Irish exams and his American college boards and SATs.

  This was my second lecture tour: more extensive and better planned than the previous one. I should have a nice addition to my capital: enough to spend some time writing an adult book I’d in mind, and for Tim to stop worrying about how we were going to meet his college fees.

  Mr. Porter said that he would collect me at the motel, to be sure he could deliver the speaker on time when they thought her snowbound. I was ready for him when he entered the lobby. Score one for me, I thought from his pleased expression. There’s always a bit of awkwardness, when the shepherd/watchdog/p.r. man encounters Visiting Celebrity. For starters, the p.r. man has to gauge the V.C.’s egocentricity or absentmindedness. The gal who did p.r. at Milwaukee said she dreaded the absentminded darlings: the egos were much easier to handle: all you had to do was get them to talk about themselves and they’d go on for hours.

  Mr. Porter started on the subject of the blizzard and that took us through the initial sparring. It amused me to wonder what Mr. Porter . . . Jim, I should say for he invited me to use his first name by the time we got to the elevated road spaghetti about Portland . . . what Jim would have said if he’d known how I actually had spent my time in Denver. Then he acquainted me with the size of my probable audiences and what aspects of writing, and library work I was expected to discuss. He’d like me to give an interview to the University radio, and one for the local newspaper. I agreed since I felt that I’d been a bit overpriced by the lecture bureau and was determined to give value for money.

  The lecture went well: the hall had good acoustics, being an amphitheatre type lecture room so I didn’t have to shout to be heard. The second roundtable was trying. A young girl wanted to know if any of my tales were drug-induced, which I denied categorically. She then questioned me about my private opinions of current drug restrictions and what was the climate in Ireland as regards drug-addiction.

  ‘The climate in Ireland is always damp, and people take aspirins just as they do here.’

  Her indignant reply ‘That isn’t what I mean’ was drowned in the laughter and I saw Mr. Porter tapping her shoulder and speaking to her.

  Last year I’d been heckled and had made the mistake of answering honestly and fully, thinking that the best policy. It had embroiled me in a rather disgusting word-brawl with the young man. Afterwards, in the bar where I’d been taken to recover by a considerate faculty member, it was pointed out to me how to handle such exigencies. If possible, you make a funny; you never explain your position unless it is germane to your lecture topic; you keep your cool and if the situation looks like getting out of hand, then you agree to discuss the matter with the heckler privately after the lecture — and conveniently forget to arrive.

  I enjoyed the librarians’ meeting the following morning: they were a keen bunch, and seemed familiar with my thesis on collection cataloguing and data retrieval. I noticed some faces familiar from the other lectures and wondered if the students had misunderstood the topic. Or, maybe they were indeed library science students. I got sidetracked onto children’s books in Ireland toward the end of the meeting but I honestly feel that the British Isles have marvelous childrens’ books, inexpensive, well-produced and with understated content. You don’t have to bludgeon facts into childrens’ minds: they’re a lot more perceptive than most adults will credit them; and ‘perceive’ is the operative word and process.

  I was given an elegant lunch, with sufficient pre-meal drinks to make the atmosphere congenial. Then I had my interview for the campus radio and with Jim Porter for the University newspaper.

  Audiences are very stimulating to me but by the time Jim drove me back to the motel, I was absolutely whacked. He wanted to continue chatting but I told him that I’d run out of energy. I think he was genuinely sorry. He was profuse with invitations to return again, and promised to send me transcripts of the articles and a tape of the radio broadcast.

  I didn’t think about Dan-the-Mystery-Man until the next morning when I was packing and opened my knitting bag.

  Berkeley was next on the itinerary and I was already regretting that I’d agreed to stay with Raymond’s sister, Beth. I couldn’t retract gracefully because I’d always liked Beth and Foster Hamilton, and their boys. But I suspected I was in for a good deal of reminiscing about Ray, moans about his early, tragic death now a good fourteen years in my past. I didn’t mind talking about Ray: I liked to remember him but Beth had a tendency to dwell on the macabre instead of the merry and that is tiring. I needed my energy for the lecturing.

  As luck would have it, I arrived in the midst of a family crisis: the older boy, Sam, had been living with a classmate, a girl, and she was pregnant. Should she or should she not get an abortion? I was drafted as an arbitrator which could have been a prickly situation except that I quickly discovered no one really wanted my opinion because I couldn’t understand the entire situation, now could I? To which I readily agreed. The crux of the matter was that the girl, Linda, was afraid that she might be aborting a second Messiah, a genius and ‘you could never be sure, could you?’ And it really couldn’t matter if she’d been smoking hash because they hadn’t proved it harmed the unborn, now had they?

  Foss was out of his depth: Beth was trying to be ‘modern’ and ‘understanding.’ I tried to suggest to her that they would solve it themselves among their peers but she couldn’t make up her own mind whether she wanted to be a grandmother at thirty-nine or not; or if Linda was wrong about using hash and the child would be a moron. I decided that if Tim ever got into a similar situation — and it was possi
ble — I would insist that the girl carry the child to term. I’d look after it, though it would wreck my writing schedule. I was missing the involvement with someone who depended on me. I liked to be needed. I liked to plan around the requirements of someone other than myself. A man would have suited me better but a child would be welcome. Having solved that knotty problem in my own mind, I tried to avoid discussions about Sam and Linda. What I would do was not necessarily what they would elect.

  I was committed to a series of lectures at local community colleges for grade school teachers and library science majors. I could repeat that lecture in my sleep, and almost answer all the questions likely to be generated. In the informal sessions that would crop up after the official lecture, I wondered why I was living on what my writing could bring in when PhD’s in my field were pulling in thousands of dollars. I would pull myself up short: I had had that ‘glory’ before and never more relieved to have the excuse of Tim to pull stakes and replant in Ireland, peaceful, green, haphazard, friendly Ireland.

  Easter vacation intervened to let me catch my breath before the second round of junior college talks. I did some sightseeing in San Francisco with Foss, who was delighted to have an excuse to get out of the house. Foss is an associate History professor and a keen war-historian. I’d brought him several Irish textbooks so that he could see how ‘our’ wars were treated in other history books. We discussed the historical significance of the troubles in Belfast and decided that it would take a massive re-education program to improve the situation which had been in existence for four hundred years.

  No sooner were we back in their house than the current war raged about us. Linda was in floods of tears, Beth trying to console her and Sam was glaring at both of them, thoroughly rebellious.

  ‘She’s made the appointment —’ said Beth defiantly, helplessly.

  ‘Appointment?’ Foss was having trouble dragging himself out of the Belfast troubles and its historical significances.

  ‘For the abortion!’ Beth’s eyes were as wet as Linda’s.

  ‘Oh, that!’

  I shuddered at Foss’ ill-timed diffidence.

  ‘That? Can’t you get out of your stuffy history books and into the present needs of your family? These poor children are suffering —’

  Foss looked as if he thought he’d done enough suffering and was going to explode. So I did.

  ‘If they’re suffering, they brought it on themselves. Furthermore they don’t really want to abort the child: it’s theirs! If they honestly hadn’t wanted it, Linda would have gone quietly to the clinic and had it done and over with in twenty-four hours instead of greeting and grembling around here for a week. Have the child! Grow up with it!’

  ‘But . . . but . . . they’re in college . . .’ Beth began.

  ‘What’s that to the point? I was still in college when I had Tim . . .’ I saw Beth opening her mouth for another specious argument and jumped on her, aware out of the corner of my eye that Linda had stopped weeping and Sam looked considerably happier. ‘And don’t you dare say things are different. They aren’t. And if they have to dump the baby on you while they go to classes, so what? What else are you doing with your time? Think how much fun it’ll be to spoil a grandchild. You won’t be near as nervous with this one as you were with Sam, or Perry. And he can baby-sit for his nephew. And if it’s a girl . . . if you told me once you wanted a girl you told me nineteen times only you couldn’t afford a third baby on Foss’ salary; if it’s a girl, you’d be very pleased. Well, there’s nothing wrong with Foss’ salary now, although I don’t suggest that you two support their baby . . . but it’s obvious to me, though I don’t know the situation as you keep telling me, that no one in this room wants Linda to abort the child. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have two lectures tomorrow in the boondocks and I have to make an early start!’

  I made an exit in complete silence but when I had reached my room, the renewal of the conversation in the living room had a completely different tone. I was exhausted with that outburst, and trembling. Furthermore, I wondered what on earth had possessed me to interfere.

  I took out my knitting, to calm my nerves, but it only reminded me of Dan. Well, at least I hadn’t got pregnant. Then I started to giggle. It was improbable, but not entirely impossible and wouldn’t I look funny producing at my late age? Would I have the courage to go through with it? It would be Tim’s turn to be sympathetic and understanding . . . having an illegitimate half-brother or sister. I tried to imagine his face and would he come up with Bawdy Bedside Ballads for Baby Bastards. My editor would go berk. I laughed till the tears came to my eyes and I couldn’t see to knit. I was caught completely unawares by the knock on the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  A radiant Linda and a jubilant Sam stood in my door. ‘We want to thank you, Aunt Dana,’ Linda said in a tremulous voice. ‘We do want the baby. And furthermore,’ she glanced shyly at Sam, who seemed to have grown a few inches in the last hour, ‘we’re even going to get married. For real!’

  How I kept a straight face for that supreme modern sacrifice I don’t know. I had to swallow before I could get any reply past my grin-fixed teeth. I must have come out with an acceptable response for Linda kissed me, Sam shook my hand in a very manly fashion. I must say it was an improvement on the limp grasp he’d given me when I’d arrived.

  I had no more recovered my composure from their visitation when Beth arrived, weeping with joy.

  ‘I didn’t dare say what you said, Dana. I wanted to, goodness knows, because I simply couldn’t stand the idea of Linda . . . aborting . . .’ The very notion was repulsive to Beth. ‘. . . my first grandchild.’

  ‘Even Spock was strong on the fact that kids need limits, Beth.’ I said. ‘I was only suggesting one . . .’

  ‘But they listened to you . . .’

  I forebore to mention that I’d said about the same thing . . . more politely . . . when I first arrived.

  ‘Oh, Dana, what would I have done if you hadn’t come . . .’

  As I didn’t know, I said that she would eventually have put her foot down, too. I was sure of it.

  ‘You will stay for the wedding, won’t you?’ When I started to evade that, she said in a rush, ‘if you can fit it in with your schedule . . .’

  That made it seem ungracious for me to refuse and then she said they’d fit it in with my lecture schedule. I had four more days in the Bay area, didn’t I?

  I did. And I went to the wedding though to this day I can’t remember anything more than Beth, Linda and Linda’s mother in floods of tears, mostly happy, I think. I know that the only reason I made the plane to Los Angeles on time was because Foss and Perry deposited me at the proper gate. It wasn’t champagne; it was fatigue because I will never again do two lectures a day at community colleges set fifty and two hundred miles apart in sunny California.

  When I was unpacking in LA, I found the swimsuit. And thought, again, of Dan. And of the swimming pool reputed to be in the hotel. I made an appointment for my hair, managed ten laps in the pool and then bathed under a sunlamp until it was time to get my hair done. I nearly fell asleep under the hair dryer but contrived to stay awake long enough to get back to my room, into my bed where I conked out and stayed that way until nearly the next morning. My hair-do was no longer perfect but I was a lot better.

  Over breakfast the next morning, I brought my ‘brains’ up to date, and thankfully reviewed a schedule which listed only three more cities after LA. Four more lectures and I could wing my way back to New York, see Tim at college and return, rejoicing, to the unhurried pace of my dear green Ireland.

  I wrote Tim a longish letter before inspiration and energy deserted me. The p.r. man in charge of me in LA rang, and checked the afternoon engagement. As he didn’t mention lunch, I ordered a heavenly fruit salad in the hotel.

  It’s fun being a visiting celebrity up to a point and I reached that point in Los Angeles. By the time I enplaned for Dallas I would have devoutly joined a snow-seeding expediti
on for another three days of enforced inactivity . . . and no people. The Dallasians (?) showered me with such lavish Texas hospitality . . . at least the beef was barbecued and for real . . . that I crept into Tulsa utterly, completely and thoroughly drained.

  I do not remember speaking to the 78 librarians of Whosit County: I do not recall being interviewed on campus TV, though I later received the photos and I looked wide awake. I don’t remember much of anything in Tulsa except that I must have done it well in my comatose state to judge by the letter of thanks I later received.

  I surfaced to the insistent buzzing of the phone, a strident summons that must have been going on for some time to rouse me.

  ‘Mom? Mom, what have you been getting into out West?’

  ‘Tim? Tim?’

  ‘Yeah, Tim, your ever loving son. Christ, what have you been doing?’

  ‘Sleeping.’

  ‘I don’t mean now. I thought you knew better.’

  ‘Knew what better?’

  Tim sounded indignant, angry, upset and very much like his father, trying to be reasonable in a frustrating situation.

  ‘How to keep out of trouble.’

  ‘What trouble am I in? And where are you calling?’ I had that sudden horrible chill of apprehension. And I couldn’t remember where I was.

  ‘I’m calling from Lehigh.’

  ‘No, honey. I know where you are. What city are you calling me in?’