by Kate Jacobs
“What if mom hears the engine?” asked Donny, who was then conscripted to tiptoe into their parents’ bedroom and put a pair of ear-muffs on Bess. Tom was well known in the family for being able to sleep through any sound, then awaken at precisely four a.m. every day.
The two bundled up quickly in boots and hats, slipping out the kitchen door, the keys gripped tightly in Georgia’s hand. They opened the truck door, Georgia sliding across the seat and Donny positioning himself behind the wheel. It took several turns of the ignition to get the old truck to start.
“Yeah!” shouted Donny, as the truck roared to life, before getting a dig to his ribs from his older sister.
“Shut up,” she said. “You’ll wake everybody up. Now push down the clutch, put it in gear, and give it some gas. Just a little!” The truck lurched forward. Donny hit the accelerator again, and the truck moved forward in fits and starts.
“Promise me you’ll never be a truck driver,” Georgia said.
“Nah,” said Donny. “I’ll be a veterinarian. I’ll look after the sheep at Gran’s.”
“They have cars there, too, you know,” said Georgia, using her arms to brace herself from hitting her forehead. “You’re going to have to get better than this.”
And so the entire week before Christmas, Georgia and Donny escaped out of the farmhouse, with its rules and order, and drove around the farm from midnight until four a.m.
“It’s totally beautiful in the dark,” Donny said, gazing at the fields, their house in the near distance and a light or two farther away, probably marking a front step on their neighbors’ homes. He swigged some hot chocolate from a thermos, he and Georgia becoming more bold about sneaking the makings of a midnight picnic from the kitchen. Their mom, noticing the missing pantry items, put it up to the holiday week.
“It’s desolate,” said Georgia. “Suffocating.”
“It’s just a farm,” said Donny. “Just land. Crops. Besides, you love Gran’s.”
“That’s different,” she said.
“How?” He wiped a drop of cocoa with his sleeve.
Georgia was silent for so long that Donny thought she’d nodded off. “I don’t know,” she conceded. “It just is.”
“You’re nice now, but you’re not always. You give Mom a hard time,” said Donny, stuffing three cookies into his mouth all at once. “The two of you are a lot alike.”
“We’re not,” insisted Georgia. “I’m nothing like her. And you won’t say that again if you want to drive.”
“I could do it without you now,” he said, offering her a cookie.
“Maybe,” said Georgia. “But you won’t.”
No one enjoys being told their limits, not Georgia by Bess and not Donny by his sister. So, on Christmas Eve, after the entire family had returned from a service at the Presbyterian church, enjoyed a plate of tarts and shortbread, and said their good nights, he decided to go on his driving adventure earlier than usual, leaving his big sister back at the house. Not yet asleep, Georgia heard the rumble of the vehicle and ran outside with just enough time to see him motor his way down the long driveway and over to the empty road beyond. Georgia had never let him drive off the farm.
“It’s too icy tonight,” she half yelled, glancing quickly back at her house lest her parents hear and then taking off running down the driveway, her coat still undone and her hands and cheeks pinking up rapidly. Dammit, she thought, Donny’s going to drive himself right off the road. Mom and Dad are going to freak out! And Donny will probably be dead. And then I won’t have my little brother anymore.
Ahead of her, she could see the flash of headlights, on and off, off and on. The little bugger was showing off, she thought. Or spinning on black ice. She ran faster, imagining a middle-of-the-night trucker zooming by, rushing to get a load of Cabbage Patch Kids to the toy store before Christmas, smashing her brother to smithereens.
She ran the full mile and a half, squeezing her hands tightly, until her sides cramped and she began coughing on the chilly air. Still, she seemed to be gaining on the truck, with her stupid brother inside. How? she wondered, drawing closer, hearing the sound of the engine being turned. And turned. And turned.
The car was stalled. Donny had flooded the truck’s engine, and the vehicle was stuck in the middle of road, perpendicular to the lanes. He was cutting off the entire road.
“I’m so going to kick your ass,” she huffed, as she drew the door open, her lungs painfully frozen with cold and her teeth chattering. To his credit, Donny wasn’t crying, but he looked damn scared.
“It won’t go,” he moaned. “I’m freezing.”
“Move over, dim bulb,” she said. “And quit pressing the gas. Sheesh! What have I been teaching you?”
“I can’t remember,” said Donny. “I’m too cold.”
Georgia looked over at her brother, who, in his haste, had left the house without a proper coat, hat, or gloves.
“Are you even wearing socks?” she asked.
“No,” he whined. “I was in a hurry.”
“Maybe now you’ll know better than to go it alone,” she said, peeling off her jacket.
“I’m not going to wear a girls’ coat.”
“Put it on or I’ll tie you to the front of the truck and dump you in Hansen’s field,” she growled. “Now, I’ve got to wait for the engine to clear. You’d be stupid to wait in a car on the middle of the road, so you might as well run up to the house. And be quiet!”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to wait to start the car, return it home, and crawl back into bed, dummy.” She stuck out her tongue. “Go home, Donny.” Later, the truck back in its usual spot outside the farmhouse, Georgia locked all the doors and checked on her little brother, snoring slightly in his bed, his ears still red from the cold. Exhausted—and relieved—she crawled under her blankets without taking off any of her clothes.
“Hey, Georgia,” said Donny, pinching her toe to wake her up on Christmas morning, her mother wondering loudly downstairs why she was sleeping so late. “If ever you need a ride, just give me a call. I’ll always come pick you up.”
chapter eleven
“Look at all those potential sweaters,” exclaimed Dakota, as the car hugged the road, curving through fields of white sheep huddled together, growing woolly coats to protect them from a cool and wet December.
“We’re coming up to town,” said Donny, slowing to make a turn as the highway curved into the main street.
Dakota drank in the sights of Thornhill, the tea room and the church and the dress shop, reveling in the comfortable familiarity of the town where her Gran lived. The air was a bit foggy and overcast, and although technically still daylight hours, the overall effect felt like evening. Holly wreaths decorated doors here and there, twinkling lights glowed on several windows, a string of festive bulbs crisscrossed the high street, and all around the side of the road lay a good coating of snow. Southern Scotland was kitted out for the holidays.
There were two places in the world where Dakota felt most content: Walker and Daughter, and Gran’s cozy little bungalow in this rather tiny Scottish town. “My second home,” she said to Donny.
“Mine, too,” he replied, turning up the driveway toward Gran’s home, the heavy wooden front door open and Gran already standing on the step, waving with her right hand and holding a pair of needles and what looked to be a checkered scarf in the other. Dakota rushed out the door to hug her great-grandmother, who wore her Gran uniform of black oxfords, red cardigan, and a head of freshly permed white curls.
“You look just like yourself,” exclaimed Dakota, as her uncle began unloading suitcases from the car. “Though I think you’ve shrunk, Gran. You’re quite shrimpy.”
“I shan’t listen,” said Gran, who, although she was in her late nineties, liked to play coy with the facts of aging. “I’m as tall as I ever was. Taller, even.”
Dakota whispered in Gran’s ear as Gran listened and nodded. James pulled up with Bess and Tom, an
d after a moment of warm greetings, Gran launched into issuing instructions about who was to go where.
“We’ve a full house, no doubt about it,” she announced, leading them into the lounge. The house hadn’t changed in years, with its coal-burning stove and navy love seats, the rose wallpaper, and the tiny, sunny kitchen with its compact white appliances and the nook that looked into the back garden and gave a peek of the farm fields farther still. “You’re with me, Dakota,” she said. “I’ve put Tom and Bess into the good guest bedroom, and James and Donny will have to fight it out in the sewing room. There’s a daybed that neither of you will quite fit on and one of those blow-up airbeds. Nancy Reid picked it up for me at Jenner’s in Edinburgh.”
Bess frowned. “Nancy said to say hello to you, Tom,” said Gran, a twinkle in her eye. “And to you as well, Bess.”
“Old girlfriend,” whispered Donny to James and Dakota. “Gran always likes to stir the pot.”
“Wouldn’t she have been his girlfriend, like, forty-five years ago?” asked Dakota.
“At least,” said Donny. “Plus, she’s married and lives a few farms over. Gran’s just needling Mom.”
“I never knew,” murmured Dakota, widening her eyes at her uncle.
“Gran’s an angel, Dakota,” whispered Donny. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t play the devil sometimes.”
“I can hear you talking, Donald,” said Gran.
“I think we’re about to have quite a Christmas,” James said to his daughter, dropping his voice very low. “And I want to talk to you about Sandra. I spent all afternoon discussing the sale of farmland for housing developments and what I really wanted was to spend my drive with you.”
“We’ll get some time, Dad, I promise,” said Dakota, lugging her suitcase down the short hallway to Gran’s bedroom, with its flowered bedspread, white pillowcases with colorful embroidered edges, and green afghan tossed over an old armchair that had probably been moved to the bedroom during a redecorating spree in 1957. She unpacked speedily, knowing Gran would never stand for her living out of a suitcase, hanging a dress in the wardrobe next to Gran’s row of five collared white blouses, black slacks, and light-blue suit with ruffled edge. She put her sweats in the drawer in the space Gran had made, next to her cardigans stacked neatly in piles of red, green, or blue, and she put her extra pajamas next to Gran’s pale-pink full-length long-sleeved nightdress. The drawer smelled of gardenias from a sachet tucked in the corner. All in all, it was cozy, just as a great-grandmother’s home should be, thought Dakota.
“I just pulled out the shortbread.” Gran poked her head in the doorway just as Dakota was tucking her suitcase—empty except for a few gifts—underneath the high double bed. “Good job, young lady. Come on now for a bite.”
The group, faces and hands washed per Gran’s edict, crowded around her kitchen, extra chairs brought in from the dining room. Biscuits and cheddar and bowls of canned fruit dotted the same scratched old wooden table where Dakota had sat with her mother and Catherine and had her first Scottish tea, and where she and James had enjoyed many a chat during their trips to see Gran over the years. It was also, she thought, as she looked around the crowded room, where her uncle Donny had eaten breakfast with his older sister when they flew over after harvest season every few years, and most likely where her white-haired grandfather had eaten his supper after a long day of learning sums and helping with the sheep and the fields.
“I suppose I should have just brought everything to the dining table,” said Gran. “We don’t fit properly.”
“No, Gran,” said Dakota. “This is good. It’s perfect.”
“Good,” said Gran. “It’s early supper and then to bed.” She pointed a finger at James and Donny. “No staying up late talking, either. You two will have to chop down the tree in the morning. Dakota and I will select it.”
The entire committee trooped after Gran, who’d popped out of the car as soon as it was stopped and began leading the way to the old bog called Flanders Moss.
“Should we really be cutting down a live tree, Gran?” worried Dakota. “Don’t you have an artificial one in the attic?”
“Pish,” said Gran, pursing her lips. “The town needs to clear the bog, and the trees are going begging. Besides, I thought we’d decorate both trees this year, do a boys’ tree and the girls’ tree. Get a little posh by having two trees. I’ve never done that in all my years.”
“Dakota and I decorate the tree every year when we’re in Pennsylvania,” said Bess, a few steps behind but not out of earshot. “Don’t we, Dakota? It’s very special.”
“Yeah, Grandma,” said Dakota, feeling strangely caught between the two women though no one was doing anything specific. It was just that everyone seemed to want her attention or to tell her a story. Gran had told her that just because the boys had to go to bed didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little chat with Dakota, snuggling in bed with her and sharing stories about holidays during the war. When everything was rationed and she was nearly out of sugar, making the tiniest shortbread to put in her boys’ stockings, empty and waiting at the foot of the bed.
“I took an old sweater of my husband’s, undid all the stitches, rewound the yarn, and made slippers and mittens for my boys,” she told Dakota. “And then my neighbor came over and helped me fix up an old bicycle Tom and his brother could share. She was mechanical, and I had the green thumb, and between the two of us we kept our farms going while the men were overseas.”
The bicycle overjoyed Tom, she said, who declared he was going to cycle to Germany to bring his father home for Hogmanay.
“That’s Scottish New Year,” Gran had said. “It was a big deal back in the day, when we used to drink to the chime of the bells and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’” Dakota had hunkered down in the covers and drifted off to sleep listening to her Gran’s slightly reedy voice sing, “Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind . . .”
Now, this morning, she was as in charge as ever.
“There’s the good one, Tom,” yelled Gran. “Chop that smart-looking Scots pine, the tall one there.”
“That’ll never fit in your front door, Gran,” insisted Dakota. “It’s twelve feet tall.”
“Aye, it’ll fit,” she said. “We’ll find a way. Because that’s the one I want now. We’ll do it up grand. Chop, chop, boys.”
“Glenda,” said Bess. “I’d like to go to the store this afternoon so I can make some tarts.”
“I have mince,” said Gran. “That should do nicely, I think.”
“No, I always make butter tarts,” said Bess. “It’s my tradition.”
“Those were Mom’s favorite,” exclaimed Dakota, looking away from the men playing lumberjack. “Uncle Donny used to bring up an entire tray in the truck when he’d pick us up.”
“Yes, I know,” said Bess matter-of-factly. “I always sent those especially for Georgia.”
Summer was nice, too, to be out of school, but good weather just meant a lot of chores to do. Since she’d officially become a big girl by entering kindergarten, her list of chores got bigger as well. So winter was much better because the farm was all quieted down, and because Donny was on his very best good-boy behavior in case he got caught doing something naughty. Which was all the time, she often pointed out to her mother. Santa ought to be notified.
“Are you going to bring over the chair?” asked Mommy, and Georgia was more than glad to oblige, puffing out her cheeks as she used all her arm muscles to move the furniture a few inches, then rested, then dragged it a bit more. This was their special time, girls only, when Donny was down for his nap—she suggested to Mommy that she ought to lock the door to keep him in there—and the two Walker girls raced to the kitchen to choose recipes from a big book on the counter. And then they could make it up together. Mommy was very particular, everything had to be done in just the right order, and all the cups and spoons had to go back to their very right spot, but Georgia didn’t mind. She liked to see the big smile on
her mother’s face when she did something just right.
“One day you’ll have a little girl all your own, and she can make butter tarts with us every Christmas,” said Bess, as she helped her daughter stir in flour, not even minding as Georgia spilled some on the counter. It was nice to have a chance to relax and just linger a bit with her daughter. Most hours she was running around to do all she could to keep the house tidy and meals well-rounded, and still help Tom with the outside chores. Her own home life had been different, her mother disorganized and forgetful, meals not always getting to the table in a typical fashion and the kids fending for themselves. Bess hadn’t wanted to repeat that kind of life. But the concept of marrying a farmer had never entered her imagination when she was single. She had always envisioned a life in town, maybe even in an apartment in the big city, riding the trolley car to run her errands. Instead, she fell in love with a handsome Scotsman with big hands, who’d known only life working the land and intended to do the same in rural Pennsylvania. He kissed well. That’s what had done it. The way he kissed. That’s what led to the marriage, and to Georgia and Donny who’d followed.
“How many tarts can I eat?” asked Georgia, her ringlet curls gathered up in two pigtails. She was stripped down to her undershirt underneath her apron, to save on the washing, and the white blouse and cardigan her grandmother had sent from Scotland rested on an arm of the sofa. Georgia loved the knitted trinkets her grandmother was always posting over from the UK, the soft-faced dolls and the multicolored mittens on a string.
Bess had never learned how to knit, didn’t want to sit down with her mother-in-law and get a lesson. She preferred her own company, her own house, where she was the one in charge. Where she kept things so she could manage.
“One tart now, and one later,” said Bess, gazing at the beautiful child that was all hers. She’d given birth to an angel. Two angels. And she wanted to say, “Eat as many as you want,” but she wanted, even more than that, to be a good mother. She wanted to do the right thing, set an example. “Tomorrow is Christmas, and we’ll have goodies then also.”
