One September Morning

by Rosalind Noonan

  Catching her first glimpse of Santa’s house, Sofia stops skipping and blinks. “Mommy,” she says, pointing to the house, “it’s a cookie house!”

  “That’s Santa’s office,” Suz explains. Sofia already got the lesson that Santa lives at the North Pole, and Sofia is also making the adjustment to Suz having an office where she goes a few days a week. “That’s where he meets good girls and boys to find out what they want for Christmas.”

  Sofia loops a finger into a buttonhole of her coat and sways gently as she confides, “Sofia is good.”

  “Sofia?” Suz hears Abby behind her. As she turns, Sofia is already running into Abby’s arms.

  “How’s my favorite girl?” Abby asks, shifting a large shopping bag so that she can lift Sofia into her arms.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Suz jokes, reaching over to hug Abby’s free shoulder. “You’re looking pretty darned good for a widow.”

  “Same,” Abby returns, shaking her head.

  It’s a running joke between them, and though Suz is very good at making light of everything, she is acutely aware of the pain underneath. Truth and pain—isn’t that supposed to be the root of all comedy?

  “I brought you a Christmas gift,” Abby tells Sofia, “and you don’t have to wait until Christmas to open it. Unless you want to, of course.”

  “Do you want to wait?” Suz asks.

  Sofia presses her hands to her cheeks. “No, Mommy. No.”

  Abby lowers her to the ground, then removes a flat, rectangular package wrapped in green paper covered with cartoon penguins leaping through wreaths. Sofia tears into the paper and uncovers a talking alphabet book that sings Sofia’s favorite song and pronounces each letter.

  Sofia’s eyes go round with delight as she presses the book against her little body.

  “What do you say?” Suz prods.

  “Thank you, Abby.” She presses the button to start the alphabet song.

  “Are you going to hate me for buying that?” Abby winces. “I couldn’t resist. It’s her favorite song and it’s educational…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll just be singing it in my sleep.”

  As Abby holds the book, Sofia points out all the letters.

  “She’s fairly advanced for three. I studied early childhood development last semester,” Abby says. “The kid knows her phonics already?”

  Suz nods, misting over with pride. “They grow so fast. But the teachers at her preschool are fantastic.”

  “And her mom’s not so bad, either.” Abby slips an arm around Suz’s shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. “You’re my hero. You really do it all. Single parent. Good friend. And now event planner.”

  “Not like I have a choice.” Suz swipes one eye dry. “Which reminds me, I’m having a will drawn up. Scott and I never had one, which was young and stupid. But I wanted to ask you if you’d consider being Sofia’s guardian if anything happens.”

  “Wow.” It’s Abby’s turn to mist over. “Of course. I’m flattered. You know I love this kid.” She rubs Sofia’s shoulder, but the child is too engrossed in an alphabet game to notice.

  “Okay, then, who’s ready to visit with Santa?” Suz asks.

  Abby picks up her shopping bag and takes Sofia’s small hand. “I can’t wait, and I know Sofia’s been good this year.”

  The child hands her new book to her mother and skips off with Abby, adding, “Sofia is very good.”

  A sanguine smile tugs at Suz. This is the first year her three-year-old daughter is aware of Santa’s Christmas tradition, and she feels a twinge of sadness that Scott isn’t here to share in the joy. He always talked about the day when he’d be staying up all night to assemble a bicycle or a giant dollhouse. Suz has been worrying about making the holiday special for Sofia, who will only have one parent this Christmas morning, but she has decided to wrap one gift from Scott. Maybe it can be a tradition in years to come—a sweet memory of the father who loved her with all his heart.

  “So tell me about the new job,” Abby says as they join the line behind a grandma pushing a double stroller. “Everyone misses you at Java Joe’s.”

  “And I miss those triple-shot lattes. There are some mornings when I could really use an infusion of energy, but once I get to work, the day just flies by.”

  “An event planner…sounds like the perfect job for a former party girl. Do you help people plan their weddings?” Abby asks.

  “Actually, my specialty is becoming business conferences and workshops. You know how small companies or professional associations take over an entire hotel for a few days and sponsor meetings and refresher courses for their memberships? Well, when it comes to the venue, the meals, the lodging and conference materials, I’m your girl.”

  “Fantastic. I’ve never seen anyone launch themselves back into the professional world with such aplomb,” says Abby.

  “Necessity is a great motivator. Although I like the work. Sure beats selling tractors back in Nebraska, and I’m glad I can afford to stay near my brother and his family in Seattle. Which reminds me. Wiley and Trina are supposed to spend Christmas in Hawaii this year. They booked the trip a year ago, something they’ve been saving for forever, and now they’re talking about cancelling just for me. The thing is, I was wondering if you were going to be around for Christmas. No pressure, but if you are, Sofia and I would love to hook up with you. Then Wiley’s crew could go off to the tropical paradise they deserve without having to worry about me.”

  “Hawaii? Are you sure you don’t want to join them?”

  “I can’t afford it.” Suz lowers her voice, conscious that the woman in front of them with the stroller seems to be listening in. “And right now, it just seems too festive for me. I don’t want to be a killjoy for them, but…it just doesn’t feel right.” As Suz speaks, her hand absently reaches down and strokes the downy blond hair at the nape of Sofia’s neck. “This was where Scott spent his last Christmas, so I want to stay here. A few years down the road I might feel differently, but Washington has been our home for two years now, and right now it offers stability for Sofia and memories of Scott for us both. But…oh, I’ve put you on the spot! I don’t mean that you have to spend Christmas with us. Were you planning to go home to your folks?”

  “Actually, I was thinking I’d stay here. I was just back east in September and…I guess I realized my home is here now, with or without John.” Abby sucks in a breath. “What I’m trying to say is, I’d love to celebrate Christmas with the Wollenberg women. You can stay with me at Fort Lewis, and we’ll go caroling on Christmas Eve, just like last year.”

  Suz pulls her daughter closer so that the new book Sofia is holding doesn’t poke the woman in front of them in line. “Remember how Sofia slept through every song, bundled in her stroller?” But Scott had insisted they wheel the baby along.

  “I recall Scott trying to give the base commander’s wife a peek at her, and Sofia woke up howling,” Abby says with a grin.

  “That’s my girl,” Suz says, and to her surprise the woman in front of them turns back and flashes them a smile.

  For the first time this season, Suz allows herself to fantasize placing her daughter’s gifts under the tree and waking up in a house on the old fir-lined lane where they used to live. They’ll go caroling and bake gingerbread cookies, drink soy eggnog and watch Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol—Scott’s favorite. Yes, Christmas with Abby will be perfect. The garden apartment she’s renting in Tacoma is close to work and the Montessori school, but it lacks the sense of community she had in Fort Lewis.

  “I promise we won’t impose,” Suz says. “We’ll get out of your hair if you’ve got some papers to write for school.”

  “I’m good to go till January. E-mailed my final paper in this morning. Exams ended last week, and now I’m just hoping to get the placement I want when clinicals start after the first of the year. I’m trying to work with soldiers and their families. I think John would like that—my way of helping the troops.”

  “He’d be
very proud of you,” Suz assures her. “Somewhere up there, you know John’s giving you a salute and grinning that cocky smile of his.” She smacks her forehead. “Do I sound way too corny?”

  “Are you ladies military wives?” asks the woman in front of them. A fringe of graying hair curls out around her fleece headband, and from the way she’s been indulging the kids in the stroller, Suz figures she’s the grandmother.

  “We were,” Suz answers as Abby looks away. “We lost our husbands in Iraq.”

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman says, pressing her eyes closed momentarily. “My husband was a marine. Retired, now. But he lost his brother in Vietnam. He still calls him his angel. Whenever he has a close call, pulls the car out of a skid or whatnot, he says, ‘My angel came through for me.’”

  “That’s a nice way to honor his brother,” Abby says, moving closer to the woman to gaze into the stroller. “And who are these little cherubs?”

  “My grandchildren. Two and three months.”

  Suz shifts to observe the children. The toddler is asleep, but the infant squirms gently, working a chubby fist into her mouth. “Adorable.”

  “They keep me busy,” the woman says, tweaking one of the infant’s blue booties. “Let me tell you, I never had much patience as a mother, but now that I’m a grandmother, I have the time to really enjoy them.” As she spoke, she wheeled the double stroller to the front of the line, where a photographer dressed in a green tunic and felt cap with a jingle bell on the tassel handed her a brochure.

  “Welcome to Santaland. Getting some photos of the kids with Santa today?”

  Tuning the sales pitch out, Suz turned back to Abby, who was showing Sofia how three letters formed the word “dog.”

  “You haven’t told me the latest on your battle with Uncle Sam,” Suz says. In the weeks after John’s death, Suz shared Abby’s shock upon learning that he might have been killed by a man in his own platoon. “Has the army agreed to conduct an unbiased investigation yet?”

  “So far, no success. I got a few phone calls from officers with important-sounding titles after I went on American Morning, but they just promised to do what they could and asked me to keep mum for a while. It’s frustrating. Flint is trying to work his contacts in the military, but shortly after the funeral he was sent down to Georgia to follow the trial of a suspected Ku Klux Klan leader.”

  “From one battlefront to another,” Suz observes. “By the way, I enjoyed your college friends. Fanteen is a very unconventional mom, and Flint is the voice of calm in the eye of a storm.”

  “Flint wasn’t always that way. Back in college he was a wild man, no sense of responsibility, always spinning off in a dozen different directions.”

  “Did you guys date?” asks Suz.

  “Sort of. But his lack of commitment drove me nuts. Then I met John, and Flint fell in with Delilah. He still hasn’t committed, but that’s just Flint. He’ll probably be with Delilah forever.”

  Seeing that they’re next in line for Santa, Suz smooths her daughter’s flaxen curls. “And you still haven’t been able to get any details from Noah?” she asks. It seems odd that John’s brother, who was assigned to the same platoon as John, hasn’t come forward to share what he knows about the shooting. At the very least, Suz would expect him to talk with the family, but Noah disappeared shortly after the funeral.

  “No one has spoken with Noah since the day after John’s funeral,” Abby says. “He’s officially AWOL now.”

  “Do you think he knows something about John’s death?” Suz covers Sofia’s ears with her hands, and her daughter swats them away. Not that her daughter really understands any of this, but Sofia is quite observant for a three-year-old. “You don’t think he’s involved in some way?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what to think. He and John had a sort of sibling rivalry going, with Noah always competing to win validation from John.” Abby presses a hand over her mouth. “Did I say that? Oh, dear. I’m already sounding like a therapist. Anyway, I’d like Noah to know that I’m not judging him for deserting. It’s just that…” She sucks in a breath, tentative. “With so many unanswered questions about John’s death, I’d really like to talk with someone who was there.”

  “Well, you’ll get your chance soon. I hear the company is returning as scheduled in two weeks.” Suz has mixed feelings about the return of Scott’s unit. Part of her is happy for all the other soldiers, but another part feels hollow, as if there will never be closure for the families whose loved ones won’t be returning from Iraq.

  “Welcome to Santaland,” the photographer in the elf outfit says, her candy-cane scepter pointing the way to the doorway to Santa’s workshop. “I see you’re all set for the deluxe photo package.”

  “No, thanks.” Suz shakes her head. “We just want to visit with Santa, right, pumpkin?” She takes Sofia’s hand and leads her forward.

  “But it’s all taken care of,” the elf insists, checking her clipboard. “You’re getting two copies of the portrait, two portraits printed on ornaments, and the locket. All paid for.”

  “There must be some mistake,” Abby says. “We haven’t paid for anything.”

  “It was all taken care of by the woman in front of you.” The photographer shows the clipboard to Suz. “She’s not with you?”

  Shaking her head, Suz scans the order. The elf is right. Down at the bottom of the invoice, just above the signature, she sees the note: Merry Christmas from your angel.

  “It’s from the grandma in front of us,” she tells Abby, feeling goose bumps at the base of her neck. “She wants to be our Christmas angel.”

  “Mommy, can she be my angel?” Sofia tugs on Suz’s wrists, wanting to be lifted up.

  Suz pulls her into her arms, savoring the sweet smell of her baby skin. “Sweetie, you have so many angels, I can’t even count them.”

  “Thank you, Mommy.” Sofia squeezes her, so hard for such a little thing.

  “Speaking of angels…” Suz smiles at Abby. “Have you heard anything from yours lately? Any rumbling houses in the night? Hot spots in the bed? Printers coming to life and sending you messages?”

  The two women exchange a grin as the elf ushers them through the peppermint-trimmed doorway of Santa’s workshop.

  “My angel has been pretty quiet lately,” Abby admits. “But that’s the thing about guardian angels: they’re very quiet until you need them.”

  Chapter 40

  Fort Lewis

  Sharice

  The first Christmas without my sons.

  Sharice presses a needle through the red cloth that forms a holly berry on the quilt and gasps. Beneath the quilt, the needle has pierced her fingertip.

  She jerks her hand back and sucks her fingertip.

  Foolish of her, forgetting her thimbles when she knew the women at the Family Readiness Group were going to be quilting. Usually the methodical, slow work soothed her nerves and opened the window to light conversation about children and plans, but today, the room is tense, the talk having turned to politics.

  Always dangerous in a quilting circle.

  “Need a Band-Aid, Sharice?” Rachel Maynard hasn’t lifted her eyes from her sewing but somehow she knows Sharice’s finger is bleeding.

  “I’m fine,” Sharice shoots back, hoping to interrupt the diatribe, but Jenn Hausner is still going on about a teacher at the school who’s been sharing stories about the effects of American occupation on the children of Iraq. Jenn has been dominating the quilting circle of late, though Sharice keeps telling herself that this quilt had better get finished soon or they’re going to miss the Christmas season completely and ruin their mission. The quilt is being auctioned at a Christmas bazaar to raise money for care packages for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The FRG is always focused on some task to make life more bearable for the armed service members, and while Sharice has always been proud to be a part of the group, lately she’s felt a cool undercurrent running through some of the meetings.

  “First,
I told him I can’t believe he’s talking about Iraq with fourth-grade students,” Jenn says. “I mean, when I went to fourth grade my teacher didn’t talk about things that could give us nightmares.”

  “That may well be,” Eva Capeci says, “but the world was a different place when I was in fourth grade.” Like Sharice, Eva is more of an old-timer. In fact, they met years ago at Fort Drum when Sharice’s boys were little, but they were both so busy caring for their own families at the time that they hadn’t really become friends until both husbands landed at Fort Lewis some twenty-five years later.

  “Oh, Eva, now you’re making me feel old.” Chessie Johnston presses her lips together to suppress a giggle. “When I was in fourth grade, they taught the American Revolution as current events.”

  Eva and Sharice laugh along with her, but the other women don’t seem to get the joke.

  Jenn’s needle moves adeptly, though her cheeks hold twin squares of scarlet, evidence of her high agitation. “Anyway, I told Mr. Minetta not to make it sound like we were the bad guys. Those Iraqi children are much better off with American GIs walking through their neighborhood; even if our soldiers look like the Incredible Hulk to the kids, they’re safer now than they’ve ever been.”

  Sharice tucks her needle into her patch of the quilt and rises. “Maybe I’ll take a Band-Aid after all and switch over to folding flyers. Without my thimbles I’m all thumbs.”

  “And you definitely don’t want to bleed on the quilt,” Chessie says. “Though we could certainly say that we made the quilt with blood, sweat, and tears.”

  Again, the three women enjoy a laugh, but the others withdraw, as if dusted by a cold frost. As Sharice goes over to the sink to wash her hands and put on the Band-Aid, she does a mental count of the frost brigade. There’s Rachel, Jenn, Suki, Janet, and Britt, to Eva, Chessie, and her. Is it the age difference between the two groups? Whatever the case, her group is clearly outnumbered.