Denise, ~1995
Annie hung up the phone. Her mother was crying again. Her mother always cried at Christmas. Widowed at the age of thirty-five with two small children, she had always been miserable throughout the Christmas season, and cried whenever someone gave her a gift because she felt she couldn’t give one back, and she hated, more than anything in this life, to be obligated. Annie sighed and turned back to cleaning up after the lunch she had fixed herself and the baby. It was Christmas Eve, 1948. Annie had been married now for three years and she still felt swallowed up sometimes, in her mother’s dim view of life. They had been poor as children, especially after her father’s death, but before that there had been the fighting, her father’s drinking and the pessimism and gloom that pervaded the household. Her mother had worried constantly about their health and money, about strangers moving into the neighborhood. The world, to her mother, had been full of evil and danger.
She was determined to make a happier life for Sara. Sara was eight months old now and a happy, healthy child, thank God. Annie was determined to keep her that way. She would make Sara’s life as perfect, clean, cheerful, and as happy as possible. She was fussy, she admitted, about the baby. Jim was not always pleased about that, especially when she had refused to allow his mother to hold Sara because the woman had a cold.
She closed the cupboard doors. The cabinets were white enamel and she had added decals of fruit from the five and ten. It was the latest style and she was pleased with the effect. She was planning a special supper for Christmas Eve. She would have pot roast, fresh rolls, and a pie. They would finish decorating the house and put out presents for Sara.
The bakery was warm and dusty with flour. The woman behind the counter offered a cookie for Sara and Annie gave it to her. As she waited in line, she noticed a boy of about eight, standing by the door. He was, she noticed first, very dirty. His face was scuffed with dirt, streaked from sniffles. His nose was running. He leaned against the wall, listlessly. His clothes were poor and not heavy enough for the winter day. He was probably inside to escape the cold, she thought. He seems fascinated by the baby. He took a step closer. Annie was horrified. She felt sorry for him but she was afraid he might want to touch the baby, to hold her tiny hand as many of the neighbor kids tried to do, and she was determined to protect Sara from all that he represented.
He stepped around in front of the stroller. Without even thinking, Annie had stepped between him and the stroller. He looked up startled and their eyes met. She was that she had dealt one more blow to a young ego already tattered and worn. He turned and went out of the store. She felt terrible. She had rejected a child who had already been rejected too often. But she knew in her heart she could not have prevented herself from doing it. Her instinct to shield her baby from all the world’s sadness and her was too strong.
She bought the rolls and pie and started home. She saw the boy sitting on the stoop of the building on the street before hers. She felt sad again, but the crisp air and sight of the decorated windows of the shops raised her spirits as she walked and she forgot about the incident.
When she got back to the apartment, she put Sara in the playpen and began the dinner. When the pot roast was finally in the over, she went into the living room to begin decorating. She got out the creche set that her mother had given to her for the first year she and Jim were married. It had been her father’s mother’s set. She began to set it up. She showed Sara each piece as she unwrapped it. The little cabin-like stable, the Mary and Joseph figures and the baby, which she placed in the wooden manger. The faces were beautifully carved. She brought out the kings and their camel. And then she brought out the shepherds. One of them was a boy carrying a lamb on his shoulders. His face was young, not unlike… She put it out of her mind.
Sara reached out to hold the figure of the shepherd boy. Annie looked at it again. A boy who would have lived in the fields, caring for animals, he would have been filthy, cold, a hard life for a child. Tears began to gather behind her eyes. She put the statue into the fake straw around the creche. She put him in front of the baby in the manger. He seemed to look at the baby as the boy had looked at Sara. What would that mother have done in Palestine, that night, she wondered? Surely she loved the child with the same passion Annie had for Sara. Surely she wanted for him a life free of poverty and illness and pain. Would she try to protect him? Did she try to keep the world away from him? The tears ran down her face. She knew the answer in her heart. She couldn’t stand it any longer. She took the little statue of the shepherd and went into the kitchen. She found a coffee can and filled it with cookies she had made for tomorrow. She hoped she was not too late. She grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around Sara and hurried with her down the stairs. She found the boy still on the steps of the apartment building. He looked alarmed as she came running up to him.
“Hello,” she said breathlessly. He stared in astonishment. “My name is Annie and this is Sara.” Sara smiled at him and reached out to touch his hair. Annie continued quickly. “I wanted you to have these.” She gave him the statue wrapped in tissue and the can of cookies. “Why are you giving me this stuff?” he asked suspiciously. Annie laughed. “You remind me of someone,” she said.