Chasing Lilacs

by Carla Stewart

  Before I left, Brother Henry said a short prayer and told me his door was always open.

  Later that week, during our seventh-hour newspaper class, Mrs. Gray asked if I’d thought of a topic for a Christmas essay for the Cougar Chronicle. “I’ve decided to call it ‘Christmas in Heaven.’ It will be from the viewpoint of my mother and what it’s like to be with Jesus and the angels.”

  “Very creative.” She stood close enough that I could smell her Ivory fresh soap. My fingers itched to reach over and touch the fuzzy lavender sweater she wore, to tuck the sprig of hair that tumbled from her topknot back into place. Instead I held my breath as she addressed the others. “Okay, group, think this is a good idea?”

  Everyone nodded, although Nelda thought we should still include the legend of Father Christmas for the grade-schoolers who got copies of the paper. We agreed to do both, and Mrs. Gray moved to the front of the room to check off each article she’d printed on the blackboard. I couldn’t help staring at her left hand as she wrote. No wedding ring. Where was Mr. Gray?

  The Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog had a dreamy sweater almost like Mrs. Gray’s. Soft, with a monogrammed initial in cursive on the left shoulder. Page three. I loved its mint green color and showed it to Aunt Vadine one afternoon.

  “Mama always had me make a list for Christmas. Three things. Here’s something I would like.” I showed her the sweater.

  She sniffed and called it faddish. I went ahead and left it on my list as number two. For number one, I put a typewriter. Ever since I saw the notice on the school bulletin board selling their old machines for ten dollars, I’d wanted one. Number three: a gold compact like Tuwana bought in Amarillo. I propped the list beside the coffeepot so Daddy would see it. Maybe he wouldn’t think the sweater too faddish.

  A few days before Christmas vacation, Mr. Borden, the science teacher, let us play charades. While Roseanne Swanson acted out a movie, I daydreamed, looking out the window, and saw Aunt Vadine march up the sidewalk through the front door of the school. My heart skipped a beat. She’s come to see about the used typewriter. Roseanne finished her turn, and I watched out the window while the boys groaned about playing a sissy game. By the end of the class, Aunt Vadine hadn’t come out, but in my heart I knew I’d be getting the number one thing on my list.

  The next day I went to Slim’s. I’d plotted with him to help me get a backgammon game for Daddy, and the order from the “Monkey Ward” catalog would be sent to his house. Waiting for the mail, we pulled out Slim’s game and played for a while.

  “What’re you doing for Christmas?” I asked.

  “It’s my turn to have my daughter over this year, even though she does the cooking.”

  “Once you told me you had two girls. Do you still?”

  “Yes.” Slim moved a double three and blocked one of the corners. “And no.”

  “I’m confused. Do you or not?”

  “I do, but one of my girls has never forgiven me for something long ago, doesn’t acknowledge I even exist.” Slim’s voice sounded like sand had blown in and lodged in his vocal cords.

  “Something you did?”

  “Yes. Unintentionally, but it resulted in the greatest loss of my life.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “It’s like a sore festering. The longer you let it go, the more infected it gets.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I haven’t spoken of it in a while, and the festering is inside of me. If you want, I’ll tell you what happened.”

  I nodded, but wasn’t at all sure I wanted to know. It sounded like that holy of holies place Brother Henry preached about where not many people have gone and come out alive.

  “Dottie and I had two girls, twelve and fourteen, when it happened.” Slim leaned back in his rocker and rubbed his chin. “We’d gone to Amarillo to do some shopping, left the girls with their grandmother. We got a late start home, and on the drive back, I musta dozed off. Woke up in Saint Anthony’s hospital with half a dozen busted bones and the news Dottie had died in the accident.”

  His cheeks looked sunken, like hollowed-out moon craters.

  “It took three months in the hospital to patch me up. By then Dottie’s mother had taken the girls. She blamed me, wouldn’t let me see them, even went to a judge and got custody. I got a job driving trucks in the oil field. Ambled over half the state of Texas, sent my girls every spare penny and called whenever I was in town, but none of them would see me.”

  “That’s terrible.” I felt sorry for him. “But one daughter, she forgave you?”

  “Just in the last few years. Her husband, a sergeant in the army, got blown up in Korea when he stepped on a mine. Somehow, losing him, she decided not to let her own bitterness fester any longer. Perkiest thing you ever saw now. God’s been good to give me back one of my girls.”

  “But the other one, surely by now…”

  “One hopes and prays. I must admit, it’s drawn me to the Almighty, beseeching him every day.”

  “It’s Christmas. Call her. You probably have grandchildren, kids you could be teaching how to play backgammon….”

  “Anybody say backgammon?” Cly hollered at the front door.

  “Hey, stranger.” Slim pushed himself away from the game. He clapped Cly on the shoulder and steered him to the place opposite me. “This girl’s too hot for my blood. See if you can teach her a lesson or two.”

  “First game, double or nothing.” I lifted my chin.

  Slim slipped on his beat-up hat and a jacket with the elbows worn through. “I’ll go check on the mail.”

  “You ready for Christmas?” Cly asked me.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be. How about you?”

  He shrugged. “Norm’s got a wild hair we should drive down to Dallas and see Big Tex.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Some fifty-foot cowboy statue at the fairgrounds. Supposedly he talks and wears a seventy-five gallon hat. Sounds crazy to me, but Uncle Norm’s bent on going to see it.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “Yeah, Aunt Eva’s got some kin down there. Gonna be a real family Christmas.” He sounded pleased.

  I threw a dud roll. Cly got two doubles in a row. We played back and forth, me getting stomped.

  “You’ve lost your touch, cat.”

  “I was just thinking about Slim. Did you know he has two daughters?”

  “He’s mentioned it a time or two. He told me I oughta write my old man a letter. He says no matter what he did, he’s still my dad.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I’m still rolling it around in my head. You don’t know what it was like living with a hothead drunk. He’d just as soon kick me as look at me.”

  Because I couldn’t think of anything to say, I stood and went to see if Slim had started back with the mail. An empty slate sky filled the view in the window. A tumbleweed skittered across Slim’s garden. At least Cly’s dad didn’t kill himself.

  “The only decent thing he ever did was bring me to Norm and Eva’s house. Now I get a chance to play basketball, hang around with dolls like you, even ride in Doob’s old rattletrap. Norm treats me half decent nowadays. Tells me all the time how he wanted to play college basketball till the war came along and thinks I’m a chip off the old block.”

  I knew what he said about Norm was right. When I went to see Cly play basketball, you could hear his uncle holler, “That’s my boy!” every time Cly scored. Who would’ve thought? “Dolls like me? At least you didn’t call me an ankle biter.”

  “Naw, ankle biters don’t kiss like you did.”

  I picked up a throw pillow from Slim’s couch and creamed him.

  [ THIRTY-ONE ]

  SCHOOL DIDN’T LET OUT until December 23, the same day Tuwana left for Lubbock to visit her grandparents on the Johnson side. They lived in a brick house and owned their own insurance company, in which, if Benny Ray had a lick of sense, according to Mrs. Johnson, he would bec
ome a partner. Then Mrs. Johnson could join the Junior League and they would live happily ever after.

  Cly also took off the next day with Norm and Eva to go visit the Dallas relatives and Big Tex.

  Everyone had plans for something exciting. Even Goldie. George’s brother from Pampa was coming, so she gave me my present early. A new copy of Gone with the Wind, which I had to leave at her house to keep Aunt Vadine from incinerating it. How I longed to curl up in those pages and read Mama’s favorite book again, thinking somehow I could touch her in a tangible way and bring her home for Christmas. Instead I thanked Goldie for the book and went home.

  Tempted to get Mama’s letters from the hatbox, I decided against it. A queasy gut feeling told me reading her private letters might ruin Christmas. Not that I was looking all that forward to it.

  Christmas without Mama felt like the manger with no baby Jesus. Or Santa’s reindeer without Rudolph and his nose-so-bright. Mama loved Christmas. She made gingerbread cookies and hinted for weeks that I’d never guess what I was getting that year. We had paper chains on the tree, mugs of cocoa, tinfoil stars hung from the ceiling with fishing line.

  This year I had Aunt Vadine.

  No paper chains or gingerbread men, although I did decorate the little pine tree Daddy bought from the Boy Scout lot at the VFW. Lots of tinsel and the box of ornaments Daddy pulled down from the attic. He had to work on Christmas Day, so I stretched out on the couch and read a library book while Aunt Vadine stationed herself in Daddy’s rocker with a new crochet project, counting off stitches. “Four single, two double… oh fiddle, I forgot to double back.”

  Aunt Vadine put a ham in the oven for “our nice little family Christmas.” She smiled and raised her eyebrows toward the tinseled tree. None of the packages looked big enough for a typewriter, so I figured it was like the time I got my Radio Flyer bicycle, when Daddy went out on the porch and came in saying, “Oh, look what Santy Claus left outside.” Of course, the possibility of my not getting a typewriter did occur to me, so I went back to reading rather than think about that.

  Daddy came home ho-ho-ho-ing, and after he cleaned up, we had our Christmas dinner. Ham, scorched potatoes, pea salad. Aunt Vadine never claimed to be Betty Crocker, but she did make the best pea salad, dotted with pimiento and just the right mix of Miracle Whip and lemon juice. Then for dessert we each had a wide slice of pumpkin pie from Piggly Wiggly with a squirt of canned whipped cream on the top.

  “Ready for the big event, Sis?” Daddy rolled his eyes toward the front room.

  “You’re going to be so surprised,” I told Daddy, and surprised myself by feeling a tingle of excitement.

  “I’m going to freshen up.” Aunt Vadine gave Daddy a wink, which I took to mean she’d be going to get my “big” present, the one kept secretly hidden since it would be too obvious otherwise.

  Daddy and I settled in the front room, admiring the tree.

  Aunt Vadine came out wearing a silky purple dress with a swirling skirt and three-quarter sleeves, one I’d never seen before. She took teeny little steps in a circle like a ballerina. Apparently she’d popped a fresh piece of Juicy Fruit gum in her mouth too, as the sickly sweet smell overtook the pine scent of the lighted Christmas tree. She gave another twirl, and then I saw them. Around her neck she wore Mama’s pearls.

  The room spun around me, and an aack escaped from my mouth.

  “You okay, Sis?” Daddy asked.

  “Hope you like the dress, dear,” Aunt Vadine cooed to Daddy and then turned to me. “He gave me the money to buy my own present.”

  “It’s not the dress…. It’s… uh, you’re wearing Mama’s pearls.” Pea-flavored bile rose in my throat.

  “Perfect with the dress, don’t you think?”

  “Rita’s pearls?” Daddy had a blank look on his face.

  “Sammie’s much too young for them. Besides, they weren’t Rita’s to give. Our mama should have passed them on to me, bein’s I’m older. I knew Sammie wouldn’t mind.”

  I waited for Daddy to say something. To protest. He didn’t. What could I say? She’s a thief? A liar? After all it was Christmas, a time of good will.

  I wanted to puke.

  We proceeded right into the opening of packages. My first one was a compact, not the gold one I’d asked for, but a nice plastic one with CoverGirl Ivory Blush powder.

  Aunt Vadine gushed over the hankies I bought her. “Don’t these purple forget-me-nots match my new dress just perfectly?”

  “They’re pansies.” I forced a smile.

  Daddy shook the package I gave him and made a big deal of guessing. “A box of rocks? New fishing tackle?” He did seem tickled with the backgammon set, which folded into a box like a miniature suitcase and held the dice, their holders, and the brown and tan playing pieces.

  “You think you can teach an old dog like me this game?” He winked and handed me another box with my name on it.

  I shook it and thought it felt about the right weight for the sweater I wanted and guessed that before opening it. Aunt Vadine smiled and said she picked it out special for me. My fingers trembled as I opened it and undid the layers of tissue paper. My heart sank as I lifted out a navy and white sailor dress with a collar as big as a flag.

  “Oh, I’m… uh, speechless.” A vision skipped through my head of Shirley Temple in ringlets singing about the good ship Lollipop.

  “I knew you’d love it. Just the thing for a girl your age.” Aunt Vadine gave a smug wiggle from her spot on the couch. “And now, for the grand finale…” She stood up.

  Ah, this is it. The moment we’ve been waiting for. Now she’ll get my typewriter.

  She didn’t though. She pulled the last box from under the tree, a square one with gold foil paper, the expensive kind Mama and I always admired but passed up. She took it to Daddy and knelt at his feet. “My gift to you, for all you mean to me.”

  Daddy’s neck turned crimson. Then his whole face got a splotchy purple look to it as he lifted out a sapphire blue scarf—at least a yard long and made of a slippery fabric. It looked like water running through his fingers when he held it up.

  “What the devil?”

  “Silk.” Aunt Vadine scooted closer to Daddy. “Nothing like a natural fiber to ward off the cold. I wanted you to have something useful but extravagant, so you’d know how much I care.” She half rose on her knees, took the scarf from Daddy, and began bundling it around his neck. With her face smack-dab up to his, she leaned in and kissed him, her fingers lingering on his sideburns.

  The pearls had been bad enough. Now I watched Aunt Vadine drool over Daddy, smacking her gum and carrying on like Tuwana predicted. Biding her time. When the right moment arises. I tossed the boxes aside and glared at her.

  “How can you do this? Coming here, trying to steal my daddy like you did my mama’s pearls. Don’t you care what I want, what Daddy wants?” The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I felt even more hateful ones forming in my throat, choking me. A clammy vapor clung to my skin, suffocating me.

  Away. I have to get away.

  I rushed out the door, not even grabbing my purse or my coat.

  As I flew down the steps of the front porch, I heard Aunt Vadine say, “My goodness, I wonder what brought that on.”

  The cold stung my eyes, but inside I fumed. I ran and ran, paying no attention where to, just escaping, and getting as far away as I could.

  My lungs burned, and after a while I slowed down, still walking fast, up the middle of camp. Christmas bulbs, strung like glowing popcorn chains along rooflines, lit my way. No moon or stars. Lighted trees, twinkling from Graham Camp front rooms, mocked me. Ho-ho-ho, they said. Peace on earth.

  The cold seeped into the furnace roaring inside me, and I pulled my arms inside my thin sweater to warm them against my rib cage. I marched along, my feet now freezing. And wet. Looking down, I saw I was slogging through fresh snow. Above me flakes the size of silver dollars drifted from heaven. I stuck out my tongue to c
atch them, but my face, my entire body, in fact, had grown numb.

  Tomorrow someone will find me. Sammie, the ice statue.

  Are you crazy? Is Aunt Vadine worth all this? Trust him. That’s what Brother Henry would say. Please, dear God in heaven, can’t you see I’m trying here? Running away may not be the brightest thing I’ve ever done, but maybe you can help me undo this mess.

  A light flickered ahead.

  Moses was led through the wilderness by a pillar of fire by night. Is that you, God? Showing me the way?

  The light twinkled, a tiny speck just ahead. I ran toward it. I thought I saw Moses himself.

  “Who’s there?” the voice called out, sounding familiar, but far away.

  Faster. Go faster. My legs wouldn’t go. I kept trying to reach the light.

  Go to the light. Right foot. Left foot.

  The light barely glowed. Dimmer and dimmer. I worked my arms back into my sleeves and reached for the Moses figure, but nothing touched my fingers. I reached again, stretching my arms, and toppled into blackness.

  [ THIRTY-TWO ]

  HELP! HELP!

  Was that me yelling? I tried to concentrate in the blackness.

  Something or someone lifted me up, strong like Moses, who’d carried the stone tablets down Mount Sinai, and a voice, maybe Moses himself, told me I could make it. Floating. I’m floating up. Then warmth pressed in on me, heavy like a blanket. Lights swirled overhead.

  My teeth chattered like pebbles rolling around in my mouth, and my eyes focused. It wasn’t Moses at all, but Slim Wallace.

  “Sammie, what on earth?” His face looked like he’d seen a ghost.

  Mrs. Gray, her hair circling like a golden halo above her head, hovered beside the colorless Slim, and I closed my eyes to stop the hallucination.

  When I opened them again, the braided circles of the rug in Slim’s front room, his high-backed rocker, and the backgammon board set up in the middle of a game came into focus. Slim and Mrs. Gray remained close by, and I tried to clear my mind. Nothing made sense.