A Shiloh Christmas (18 page)

We get our first real snowfall on Sunday. Becky wakes up that morning, looks out the window, and yells, “Is it Christmas?” Snow sure can make things look Christmas-pretty. For the first time I get Shiloh to walk across the bridge with me, and I wonder what it was that made the difference.

I can tell, what with Judd Travers staying with us, that Shiloh don't fear him as much as he used to. Maybe not much at all. Or maybe it was because the snow made the landscape look a lot different from what he remembered, covering up the things that brought back feelings he didn't ever want to have again. I look at the burned-out places that've now got a sparkly white blanket over them. The trees that stood scorched, their bark half-burned, all have an inch of snow covering their wounded branches.

We get us a normal snowfall here in West Virginia, we can deal with that okay. The trucks are out all night sprinkling salt, and plows get the highways ready. But if we have a really heavy snow—three feet, sometimes—not even Moses and the Israelites could get through some of the mountain passes. This one, though, we do just fine.
Dad tells Judd he's welcome to bring his sleeping bag inside, but he just laughs, says he's so used to the tent now that he maybe can't never sleep under a roof again.

Snow puts Doc Murphy in the Christmas mood, though. He says if I'll put up his Christmas tree, my bill will be paid off, and I'm glad to do it. He's got the artificial kind, the branches flocked with white, and I take it out of its box in his attic and set it up there in his living room.

Then I get the boxes of ornaments from a closet, and after Doc sees his last patient of the day, he closes his office door and sits down in his favorite chair.

“How 'bout if I put the hooks on and hand them up to you,” he says.

“That'll work,” I tell him, glad for the company.

“Now . . . this one was my wife's favorite,” he says, holding up a little silver teapot with a sprig of holly painted on one side, and smiles. “We had a cat back then and had to put it up high enough that Molly couldn't swat at it with her paw.”

I find the right branch for the teapot, and he's already handing me a little glass violin with a story to go along with it. I look at the boxes of ornaments lined up there on the couch and figure if there's a story to go along with each one, I'm like to be here till New Year's.

At one point, though, he gives me a red glass ball with a miniature snowman inside and tells me that one of his patients gave it to him years ago, then called him a month later. “Said he had something he wanted to talk over with me about a decision he had to make, and I told him I'd be glad to see him the next day. Next day comes, he never kept the appointment. Found out he moved away the following week. Always wondered what that decision was, and how it turned out,” Doc says.

“I guess folks tell you a lot of secrets,” I say, as I hook that glass ball to a branch near the window.

“Oh, I don't know I'd call them secrets, exactly. But when you're discussing your body, the conversation's going to be on the private side,” says Doc.

I reach for another ornament and study it a minute before I hang it. “What if . . . you was to find out things going on in somebody's family that . . . don't break the law, exactly, but don't seem right neither.”

“This would be . . . uh . . . let's say, a hypothetical family, I guess?” Doc asks.

Not sure what hypothetical means. And then Doc must figure I don't know too, because he adds, “An imaginary family?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just ‘what if.'”

He shrugs. “Depends. Anybody getting hurt?”

I think about Ruthie having to sit with her feet in ice water, if that really happened. “Let's say no. Not physically, anyway.”

“Hmmm. Well, if this family just does things a little differently and everybody's happy . . .”

“What if they're not happy?” I say. “The kids, anyway.”

“Well, if they came to me . . . as their doctor . . . and they were being sexually abused or physically abused or psychologically tortured or something, I'd have to report it. That's the law.”

I pick up the next ornament, a candy cane, and hang it on a branch.

“Nothing like that,” I say. And then I get this awful feeling Doc thinks I'm talking about my own family. That Dad and Ma are mistreating us.

“Just that this family's new in the community, see, and . . . maybe the father's so strict—got punishments for the least little thing—and you're the only one who knows how much they cry.” I reach for the next ornament before it's ready.

Doc takes his time finding a hook for it. Then he says, “Well, if I was just a friend of the family, I think I might try to find out who their doctor was and let him know. And then, if I was the doctor, I'd do my best to treat the
whole family—find a good counselor who could help them out, if I wasn't able to do the job myself. And, of course, I'd be grateful to the person who let me know about it, because doctors can't always tell just by looking at a sore throat or an earache what other kinds of aches go on in a family.”

“That's . . . good to know,” I say. And I take the little ceramic angel and put her up near the top of the tree.

Last week of school before Christmas vacation. I come home on Wednesday, Shiloh at the bus stop to meet me, and when I get to the house, I find Dara Lynn and Becky and Ruthie sitting on the rug playing cards. One nice thing about Dara Lynn, she includes Becky a lot in her play, even when she brings Ruthie home with her. Somethin' strange about it, though—their fingers are doing the card dropping, but their eyes are on Ma and me. Becky's kneeling beside them holding Tangerine, face all serious. These girls are up to something, that's for sure. Wonder if they'd been trying to dress up my dog again before I got here.

“What you guys playing?” I ask as I put down my backpack and hang up my jacket.

Dara Lynn looks down at the cards like she don't even know. “Hearts,” she says.

“No! It's Crazy Eights!” says Ruthie, and she gives Dara Lynn a look.

Ma's got her little portable sewing machine on the table, working on some red and green place mats, snowflake pattern.

“Ruthie here for dinner?” I ask as I check the refrigerator for something to eat.

“No, her mom took Rachel shopping, so she came home with Dara Lynn. Usually Judith calls me first, but I guess she forgot. Everybody's so busy getting ready for Christmas,” Ma says.

I hold out a bowl of something yellow. “This vanilla pudding? Can I have it?”

“No, it's chicken gravy, Marty,” Ma says, laughing. “You'll find some sliced ham in the bin below.”

I get out crackers and the ham and take them to the other side of the table, then spread out my math homework. Every little thing I do, I got three pair of eyes on me.

“You guys want a snack?” I ask the girls. Three heads shake no. So I eat what's before me and work out the first two problems. When I look up again, Dara Lynn's slowly putting the cards back in the box and Ruthie's on her knees, head on the couch, holding her stomach.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“Ruthie's got a tummy ache,” says Becky, letting the cat go and crawling over to pat Ruthie on the back.

Ma stops the sewing machine and looks up. “Aren't you feeling well, Ruthie?” she asks.

“Just a stomach ache,” says Dara Lynn quickly.

I get up to pour me a glass of milk, and I see the telephone dangling by its cord.

“Hey!” I say. “Who left the phone off the hook?”

Ma looks around. “For heaven's sake! Dara Lynn, did you leave it like that?”

Dara Lynn and Becky both snap to attention, but Ruthie stays buried in the couch.

“Maybe I bumped it accidentally,” says Dara Lynn.

Ma stares at it. “No wonder I haven't heard from Judith.” And then to Dara Lynn, “You've got to be more careful.” But she studies the girls some more, then gets up and goes over to sit on the couch beside Ruthie.

“Sweetheart,” Ma says, stroking her head. “Does your mom know you're here?”

Dara Lynn and Ruthie don't make a sound, but Becky shakes her head.

Ma looks directly at Dara Lynn. “Dara Lynn, did you leave that phone off the hook on purpose?”

Becky's nodding her head yes.

And suddenly Ruthie raises up and buries her head
in Ma's lap, and Dara Lynn says, “Mom, could Ruthie live here for a while?”

“What?”
says Ma.

Ruthie's shoulders are shaking, and Ma forgets all about those place mats she was sewing.

The phone rings, and now all three girls are crying.

“Ruthie, did you come home with Dara Lynn without telling your mom?” asks Ma. Ruthie cries harder. I got me a whole drama going on right here in the living room and don't even have to buy a ticket.

“I'd better get that,” says Ma, and slides Ruthie's head off her lap. I lift up the phone and hand it to Ma.

“Yes, Judith,” she says, after listening a bit, “she's here. . . . Yes. . . . I know, your line was busy too.”

Dara Lynn's eyes open wide, and Ma turns away.

“Oh, you know how forgetful the girls are when they get to talking. . . . Isn't that the truth! . . . Well, the driver must have misunderstood, though Dara Lynn could talk a chicken out of an egg. . . .”

Dara Lynn's mouth pops open.

“No, Ray's not here either, but couldn't you let Ruthie stay for dinner, and Ray will take her home later? . . . Oh . . . Oh, for goodness' sake . . . Of course, he's right here. . . .” And suddenly Ma's handing me the phone.

How did I get into this? I've only been home twenty minutes.

“Hello?” I say.

Mrs. Dawes's voice is either frantic or exasperated, I can't tell. “Marty, I don't know what's going on today, but neither of my daughters made it home. Was Rachel on the bus with you?”

My heart starts beating a little faster. “Yes, ma'am, she was,” I say.

“Did she get off at our stop?”

I'm trying to remember. Only two people get off at the road where Rachel lives, and it's a five-minute walk to get to the Dawes's house from there. One or two houses and a field to pass by. Still, if Rachel got off there, she'd have been home way long before this.

“I think so,” I say, but not real sure. “I think Jennie Harris gets off there too.”

“I know. I've tried her number, but no one answers.”

I'm trying to think of where she was sitting on the bus—where I was sitting. I was behind two of the guys on the basketball team, listening to them talk about a game.

“Well . . . ,” says Mrs. Dawes. “I'll try another one of her friends. Jacob's making sick rounds this afternoon. I don't know when he'll be home. I'd come for Ruthie
myself, but I want to stay near the phone in case Rachel calls. I appreciate you keeping Ruthie there till Jacob can pick her up.”

Everybody's staring at me when I hang up the phone.

“She says Rachel didn't come home either,” I tell Ma.

Ruthie is crying real hard now, a kind of choking crying, and Ma looks around the room. “Does
anybody
know what's going on?” she asks.

But Dara Lynn's still staring at Ma. “You told a lie!” she says.

Ma looks sheepish. “I . . . I guess I did. I didn't want to blame Ruthie!”

“But you blamed
me
!” Dara Lynn's downright triumphant. Caught her own ma in a lie.

“I'm sorry, Dara Lynn. I was flustered,” says Ma. Then, “Does
any
one know where Rachel went?”

“Rachel ran away,” says Becky.

J
UDD TRAVERS KNOCKS AT THE
door just then.

I open it for him. “Don't ask me to explain nothing,” I say, as he looks around the room at the tear-streaked faces.

“I . . . uh . . . found one of your hens down by the road there,” he says to Ma. “I put her back, but I think I see where they're getting out. If you've got some extra fencing, I'll see if I can fix it.”