Mrs. Bailey was slightly disappointed, but not very. She had always been a main-chance gambler.
X-Day
1
Charles had come home for Christmas. His mother had answered the phone when he called from Texas with the good news. Something wonderful, she had thought, almost always happens around Christmastime.
But the pleasure of having Charles at home again, so soon, had been alloyed. He didn’t seem the same. He was thinner. He was preoccupied. Twice, in the first four days after his homecoming, he’d put on his uniform, borrowed the family car and driven to Hink Field, the military base, “on business.” Restricted business, confidential business, business that upset him, Beth thought.
On Friday, the Friday before the Monday which would be Christmas, Beth was in the kitchen, working and thinking. It was late afternoon, getting dark, threatening to snow again. A gray light softened the already white world outside. Across the shoveled snowbanks along the drive, across the children-tracked yards, through the kitchen windows, the yellow lights of the Bailey house made a picture post card. The summer shrubs were covered, like igloos: it looked cozy beneath their snow roofs and Huffy sides; the gazebo had a fringe of icicles that shone golden in the light.
Beth was “going over things” in her mind. Yuletide lists.
The turkey would be delivered in the morning.
The presents were all wrapped and hidden in the bedroom closet. Nora, she was sure, had inspected them thoroughly; it was possible that even Ted had taken a peek: sometimes he was still more like a child than a man. The holly and mistletoe had arrived from Beth’s aunt in North Carolina, as usual. As usual, they were going to the Williamses’ for a pre-Christmas dinner.
The gifts for the Williams children were already wrapped, too, heaped in a clothesbasket in the front hall.
Mr. Nesbit had sent the tree over from the grocery store that afternoon. If they got back in time from the Williamses’ and from seeing Santa Claus in the park, they could trim the tree on Saturday. If they were too tired, Sunday would do. Maybe Lenore would come over and help: Charles would like that.
Old snow slid down the roof, cascaded into the yard.
She opened the kitchen door, hardly knowing why, and looked at the roped-up tree.
Seven feet and symmetrical. She could see it in the front room, decorated—see, back through the years, all the Christmas trees of her children and all her own Christmas trees, spangled, shining, redolent, the big magic of childhood: gifts and excitement, seasonal aroma, Santa Claus and love.
Henry drove in, racing the car before switching it off, beating his feet on the frozen doormat, blowing as he entered the kitchen, helping her shut the door. “Beauty,” he said of the tree. “How you coming?”
“All right.” She picked up a big spoon, stirred the cranberries on the stove. “Do you think we could leave my sister’s in time to see Santa and do a little shopping?”
He kissed her on the back of her neck, grinned. “Why not? Matter of fact, I have a couple of things to get, myself, still.” His look of innocence was absurd.
My present, she thought. He hasn’t bought mine yet. And she reminded herself for the hundredth time to phone Mr. Salten at the men’s shop and tell him she’d decided to take the dressing gown for her husband and would he please deliver it, rush.
“Maybe,” he said, breaking and buttering a hot cinnamon roll, “we could skip Santa this year. Kids are pretty grown-up—”
“Nora would be scandalized!”
“I suppose so.” He ate a mouthful. “Mighty good!”
“Don’t spoil your appetite!”
“Fat chance,” he chuckled. “Hungry as a bear! Truth is, I’d miss Santa, myself. Saw him the first year they put him up and every year since.”
In Simmons Park, annually, the stores erected a giant mechanical Santa Claus whose arms moved to hand gifts to children, who talked over a loud-speaker in his midriff and who even sang carols in a sonorous voice. He was the yuletide deity and big wonder of Green Prairie; a child who missed him was unfortunate indeed.
Beth looked at the roast. Her mind moved even raster than her dinner-getting hands. “I’ve got to find something yet for the minister’s wife. Every year I promise myself I’ll give her a Christmas present, and every year I put it oil’ or forged” She handed him a spoon. “Hold this—over the sink!” She took the lid from a pot, looked, popped it back. “And don’t let me forget to take the ice cream along tomorrow. It’s in the deep freeze. Ruth couldn’t afford it this year.”
“Where’s everybody?”
“They’ll be in soon. Nora’s over with the Crandon youngsters. I don’t know where Ted is. And Charles is shopping.” Henry eyed another roll and restrained himself. “If Chuck’s downtown, he’ll be late. Never saw such crowds.”
“I’m worried about him,” she said.
Henry looked at her thoughtfully. “Me, too. It’s”—He nodded toward the window, the snow, the gleaming house where the Baileys lived, where Lenore had always lived.
“I think he got his leave to try to see what he could do about it,” Beth said. ‘‘I’m perfectly sure he’s aware what’s afoot….”
“You should be,” Henry answered with mild disapproval. “You wrote him, phoned him—”
She defended herself. “I thought he had a right to know.”
“That’s the trouble with love. People think it involves rights.”
“Doesn’t it?” He laughed and put a sturdy arm over her shoulder, rocking her slightly.
“Only when it’s returned, Beth. Lenore’s kind of drifted away from our boy.”
“I don’t believe it. It’s all Netta’s doing! My! I wish I could talk some sense in her head!”
“Still?” He chuckled. “After twenty-odd years of trying?”
“Netta’s Netta. Too ambitious. Not so bad other ways.” Beth sighed a little and tried the boiling potatoes with a fork.
“Ready?” he asked eagerly.
“Heavens no! Half hour till supper, and you know it. They have to be mashed and quick-baked, still. He’s worried about something that has to do with the Air Force, too.”
Henry followed the transition without difficulty. “Chuck’s in Intelligence now, Mother.
Guess he knows quite a few worrisome things. He has responsibility—with all these air exercises going on.
“Shake the plaster off the attic someday, those jet planes will. Charles takes things slowly the way you do, Henry.” She paused, thought, amended. “The way you do— sometimes. He’s going to be a real long while getting used to the fact that Lenore Bailey is marrying Kit Sloan, not Charles Conner.”
“Is she? You sure?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Won’t be the merriest Christmas we ever had,” he said quietly. He peered out the window at the prettily lighted snowscape, sniffed the steaming home smell of the kitchen, shook his grizzled head. “Take me awhile to get used to the idea of not having Lenore for a daughter-in-law. Always saw those kids together”—he gave a stifled chuckle—“since that day we found ‘ern together! Cute little thing, she was. Didn’t blame Chuck a bit.”
“Henry!”
He slapped her bottom gently. “Don’t be hypocritical, Mother!”
Nora came in. That is, the front door burst open and stayed open long enough to send a few bushels of arctic air down the hall into the kitchen. Then the door slammed. Galoshes thudded as they were kicked into the hall closet. Then that door slammed. There was a long indrawn sniffle followed by a sneeze. Followed, in turn, by a sotto voce “Dammit!”