Christmas in My Heart

by Joe Wheeler

  “So you think we might possibly aspire to the position?” laughed Mrs. Starkweather.

  Upon this I told them of the trouble in our household and asked them to come down and help us enjoy Dr. McAlway and the goose.

  When I left, after much more pleasant talk, they both came with me to the door seemingly greatly improved in spirits.

  “You’ve given us something to live for, Mr. Grayson,” said Mrs. Starkweather.

  So I walked homeward in the highest spirits, and an hour or more later whom should we see in the top of our upper field but Mr. Starkweather and his wife floundering in the snow. They reached the lane literally covered from top to toe with snow and both of them ruddy with the cold.

  “We walked over,” said Mrs. Starkweather breathlessly, “and I haven’t had so much fun in years.”

  Mr. Starkweather helped her over the fence. The Scotch preacher stood on the steps to receive them, and we all went in together.

  I can’t pretend to describe Harriet’s dinner: the gorgeous brown goose, and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and the pumpkin pie at the end—the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one’s mouth and brought visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of miracle. And her coffee—but I must not and dare not elaborate.

  And what great talk we had afterward!

  I’ve known the Scotch preacher for a long time, but I never saw him in quite such a mood of hilarity. He and Mr. Starkweather told stories of their boyhood—and we laughed, and laughed—Mrs. Starkweather the most of all. Seeing her so often in her carriage, or in the dignity of her home, I didn’t think she had so much jollity in her. Finally she discovered Harriet’s cabinet organ, and nothing would do but she must sing for us.

  “None of the newfangled ones, Clara,” cried her husband: some of the old ones we used to know.”

  So she sat herself down at the organ and threw her head back and began to sing:

  “Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

  Which I gaze on so fondly today—”

  Mr. Starkweather jumped up and ran over to the organ and joined in with his deep voice. Harriet and I followed. The Scotch preacher’s wife nodded in time with the music, and presently I saw the tears in her eyes. As for Dr. McAlway, he sat on the edge of his chair with his hands on his knees and wagged his shaggy head, and before we got through he, too, joined in with his big sonorous voice:

  “Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou art—”

  Oh, I can’t tell you here—it grows late and there’s work tomorrow—all the things we did and said. They stayed until it was dark, and when Mrs. Starkweather was ready to go, she took both of Harriet’s hands in hers and said with great earnestness:

  “I haven’t had such a good time at Christmas since I was a little girl. I shall never forget it.”

  And the dear old Scotch preacher, when Harriet and I had wrapped him up, went out, saying:

  “This has been a day of pleasant bread.”

  It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and common human nature—childlike simplicity, if you will—there is in people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things they think serious are not serious at all.

  Stranger,

  Come Home

  PEARL S. BUCK

  No one has ever bridged the vast yawning chasm between East and West more effectively than Nobel prize winner Pearl Buck. Having grown up as a child of two cultures, Buck was able to do what no previous American had ever done: speak from personal experience as well as from knowledge, from the heart as well as from the mind.

  So when America fought in the Far East during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, Buck was able to apply her insights and sensitivity to the broken lives and broken dreams that these wars left in their wakes.

  Very late in her long and illustrious career, Mrs. Buck wrote “Stranger, Come Home,” one of the most moving and haunting stories to come out of the Vietnam War.

  “Merry Christmas, darling!”

  David Alston heard his wife’s voice from the edge of sleep and he opened his eyes. Nancy’s pretty face, framed in dark curly hair, was bent over him; she was leaning on one elbow, half sitting up in the big double bed.

  He yawned mightily and said, “Not you, Peanut! Kids, yes. One groans and takes it. But a man’s wife? That’s cruelty, especially on Christmas morning!”

  Peanut was what he had called her in the days when they went to high school together, here in this little town in the Green Mountains of Vermont, he carrying her books and she skipping along somewhere near his elbow. He was tall and she was slight, dark to his blondness, gay to his gravity. He tried now to remember to call her Nancy in public and in front of the children, but she was Peanut when they were alone. He drew her down to kiss her. She yielded with a nice readiness, drawing back only when she became breathless.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  “Why not?” he asked wryly. “We didn’t get to bed until one in the morning. I thought I’d never get those pedal carts put together—one was bad enough, but three! I knew the boys had to have them this Christmas, but I didn’t think Susan would want one, too.”

  “She wants whatever the boys have … David!”

  “Yes? What now?”

  “Do you think they’ll see?”

  “See what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He sat up and put aside the covers. “Now, Peanut, you know we said we weren’t going to worry. We said that from the very beginning—or as soon as we decided what to do about Susan. We said we’d take the chance.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom and she lay thinking, trying not to feel apprehensive. For this was a Christmas Day not like any other, and the house held a secret unlike any other—a child whose real identity must be hidden forever. Everyone was to believe that Susan was a little half-American waif from Vietnam, her mother a Vietnamese girl, her father a GI. No one was to know, not even if she did have the honey blonde hair, the amber eyes that all the Alstons had. Still, with her Asian face, it might be possible that no one would guess. Perhaps David’s younger brother, Richard, didn’t even know there had been a child. And yet … the child was named Susan; the name was a family name, David’s mother’s and grandmother’s.

  Nancy closed her eyes. So much had happened in the past year! Was it possible that only a year ago Sister Angelica’s letter had come from the convent in Saigon, telling of the birth of the baby girl named Susan?

  “Thu Van would never tell us the name of the father,” Sister Angelica wrote. “Only when she was dead did we find his picture, wrapped in white silk. The address was on the back.”

  Had Thu Van killed herself? Sister Angelica, in her second letter, had said it was possible.

  Nancy herself, upon reading the letter, had said so to David. “I think she did.”

  “Why?” he had demanded.

  “Because—if she loved him and knew he was never coming back—”

  Nancy was interrupted in her thoughts. The door burst open and her two small sons rushed into the room, still in their pajamas. They stopped at the sight of the half-empty bed. “Where’s Daddy?”

  “In the bathroom,” she said.

  They ran to the bathroom door.

  “Daddy, it’s not fair!” Jimmy shouted.

  “You’re not supposed to get up first on Christmas!” Ricky added.

  David stuck his head out from behind the shower curtain. “Your mother woke me up—you’ll have to speak to her!”

  “Mommy—you’re naughty!” The boys’ faces were alive with mischief.

  “I know I am,” she confessed. “What shall we do with me?”

  They paused to consider this, their eyes big. Two adorab
le little boys, she thought, straight blond hair, amber eyes, Alstons both. Ricky, the younger, had been named for Richard, who was safely home from Vietnam when Ricky was born.

  Nancy remembered how silent Richard had been in those days, how difficult, how torn by feelings he never divulged. She and David had been glad when, after months of indecision, he had suddenly decided to marry Miranda. Now, of course—Nancy broke off her thoughts and turned to the door.

  “Come, Susan,” she said.

  The little girl, a year younger than Jimmy, a year older than Ricky, stood hesitating at the open door, her great eyes, exquisitely shaped, the corners lifted, wide and watchful. She came forward slowly, doubtfully. She was a grave child, her perfect little face seldom changing. Nancy put her arm about the slender figure in the pink pajamas.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said. “Merry Christmas to you and to Jimmy and to Ricky! Merry means happy. We’ll all be happy today.”

  She kissed the little girl’s cheek and went on. “Everybody get dressed—yes, yes, I know—” she held up a hand. The two boys, now jumping on the bed and starting a pillow fight, were beginning to protest. Nancy went on. “I know we don’t usually get dressed first, but we’re all awake, Daddy’s nearly ready, and today we must be early because Uncle Richard and Aunt Miranda are coming. We can’t be in pajamas when they arrive, can we?”

  “Off the bed, boys,” David ordered. “You heard your mother!”

  The voice of authority, and they ran to obey. Only Susan stood motionless within the circle of Nancy’s arm. How much did the child understand? She spoke French, but shyly, her voice very soft.

  “Et tu, aussi, ma chérie,” Nancy said tenderly.

  “Don’t use French,” David said quickly. “She shouldn’t hear anything except English. She’s ours now.”

  “Come with me, Susan,” Nancy said. “I’ll help you dress.” She paused at the door, the child clinging to her hand.

  “Will you light the tree, David? We shan’t be long. I won’t let the boys go downstairs first, because I want Susan to see the tree at the same time. I wonder if she’s ever seen a Christmas tree?”

  “Who knows?” David said.

  “There’s so much we don’t know,” Nancy said.

  Downstairs, David lighted the tree, and, while he was waiting for the others, began thinking of all he did know.

  Sister Angelica had written voluminous letters, but there was more behind and beyond those letters. David was 10 years older than Richard and, when their parents died in an airplane crash, he had tried to take his father’s place.

  Because of Richard, David had postponed his own marriage. Somehow he had managed to keep this house going working at the bank and earning enough to eke out the small inheritance their parents had left them. When at last he had married Nancy it was to this home he had brought her. It was inconceivable that they live elsewhere than in this rambling white frame house with the green shutters, standing on a wide, shaded street, the elm trees today laden with Christmas snow. To such a house, American for 200 years, a little half-Asian child had come home. How strange the times!

  David remembered how long and difficult the years before his marriage had been. College and then postgraduate work for his younger brother had taken all he could spare, but Nancy had waited for him in understanding patience. It was obvious that Richard was brilliant, and he wanted to be an international lawyer. After the long years of school and summer training jobs, Richard had been called for military service and sent to Vietnam. Now he had a post in the government in Washington, a beginning for a career that already promised success.

  Richard and Miranda had waited, too, for he had come back not wanting to be married at once. Miranda’s family had money, her father was a senator, and Richard, always proud, had maintained that he would not marry until he could give her a home and a place in a community where she could be happy. Finally, almost a year and a half ago, the marriage had taken place and it was to all appearances happy.

  Then last Christmas the greeting card had come from Thu Van, written in French, addressed only by surname—“Monsieur Alston.” David had taken it for granted that it was for himself until he read the card: “At this time of the blessed Noël, Richard, my beloved, I write to tell you I am still alive and always loving you. May the good God bless you, is the wish of my longing heart! I forget never. Your Thu Van.”

  David knew at once what it meant. Richard had loved a girl in Vietnam. This explained everything, his melancholy when he came home, his silence, his wish to postpone his marriage, everything that made him so different from the vigorous and articulate young man he had always been.

  David showed the card to Nancy and on Christmas Day they were still discussing what to do. David had been inclined to send no answer. “Certainly I shall not give this card to Richard,” he had said in firm decision this day a year ago. “Richard is just settled in a splendid job,” he had told Nancy. “Think what this would do to him if it were known—if he knew what we know!”

  Nancy, winding up a toy monkey for Ricky, had looked thoughtful. “I feel sorry for that girl,” she said. “I do feel you should write to her and explain that you read the letter, thinking it was for you. You could tell her that your brother is happily married and that you do not think it kind or useful to disturb his life, especially since he is no longer with us but lives in another city. Be honest with her—say you aren’t giving her card to him. Otherwise her heart will break when there’s no answer from Richard.”

  In the end, David had followed Nancy’s advice and had written Thu Van. An answer came, not from her but from Sister Angelica. It, too, was in French.

  “Monsieur,” Sister Angelica wrote. “Your esteemed letter has come too late. Thu Van died here in the convent on the afternoon of the day of Noël. She had been very sad after the departure of your brother, and since we love her as a former student we had begged her to come and spend the holiday with us. She brought to us her small daughter, Susan, born four years ago. This is your brother’s child.

  “When I saw the sadness of Thu Van, I inquired of its cause and she told me that your brother and she had a warm affair of the heart, but that he did not marry her. He does not know of the birth of this child. She preferred not to cause him grief by telling him. He left when she was three months pregnant.

  “It is her noble nature not to wish to cause pain. Her position became difficult, however, since her family is a well-known one. She was no ordinary prostitute, but a young woman of dignity as well as great beauty who met your brother, then a young officer, in the home of a French friend. It seems they fell in love immediately and at once the situation became passionate.

  “To continue, she spent Noël with us here at the convent, keeping the child beside her all day. After the little one was put to bed, it is said by some that she took one of those swift and subtle poisons that people of the East know so well how to use. Since she was Catholic, I doubt her capable of such sin. But perhaps! At any rate, the child’s crying in the morning woke us early, and since it continued we went into the room and found the young mother lying on her pallet, dead.

  “It remains now the question of what to do with the child. Is it possible the father would wish to claim her? Since he has a wife, it may be that they would accept this child, and bring her up as their own. She inherits her mother’s beauty and something also from her father. Her hair is light in color, her eyes are also light. She is of superior intelligence, as are most of these mixed children, we find. Instruct me, if you please, Monsieur, and I am your obedient servant.”

  David had handed the letter to Nancy and she read it in silence. They had no chance to talk until that night when the children were in bed, and then they were too tired to talk, too exhausted within by the emotions that all day they had not been able to share in the presence of others. But in the night, Nancy had awakened him.

  “David!”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  He h
ad reached for the light, but she had stopped him.

  “David!”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “We must take Susan,” Nancy said firmly. “We must take her for our own.”

  How well he remembered her clear soft voice coming out of the night, there beside him!

  “She belongs to our family,” Nancy had said.

  “I suppose there are thousands of such children,” he had said uncertainly. “They can’t all be brought here. Perhaps she’d better stay there in the convent. We could send money.”

  “I’d never be able to sleep again, thinking of her,” Nancy said.

  Difficulties rose to David’s mind. “She may look like Richard,” he demurred. “One thing is clear in my mind, Nancy. I won’t have Richard’s life and career destroyed simply because of a half-Vietnamese child—even though she’s his.”

  Nancy had removed herself from his arms abruptly when he finished. “I think of her as half American,” she said clearly, “and therefore half ours. And her mother is dead. She killed herself because she loved your brother hopelessly. And he did love her in some fashion because he let her love him. There’s an obligation. And the letter says that in Asia the child belongs to the father. The father is your brother.”

  The upshot of her determination was that they had begun the long process of adopting Susan, not as Richard’s child but as a waif, the child of an anonymous American soldier in Vietnam who might have been any soldier but whose mother, a Vietnamese lady, now dead, had left her in a convent.

  The agency social worker had been doubtful and reluctant. “We must first see if we can find a Catholic family for this child of a Catholic,” she had said.

  They had gone through the long ordeal of waiting until in the end it was proved there was no Catholic family who wanted the child, at least within the area of the agency, and reluctantly Susan was given to them. It had taken a year shorter by one week, and so one week ago Susan had arrived at the airport in New York, and they had gone to meet her, he and Nancy. Susan had descended from the plane, the stewardess holding her hand, looking lost and tearful. Nancy had opened her arms then and the little girl had gone straight into that haven.