~Christmas Nuts~
By
Susie Whiting
Copyright
~ December 2014
~Christmas Nuts~
The
snow was falling and the wind the weatherman had forecasted had made its way
down from the north. The sign above the
bank said twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, but the shoppers bundled in coats,
boots and scarves said it was much colder.
She couldn’t feel it though. She
walked down the street in a sleeveless Armani dress, cropped to the knees. The only ice she felt was the diamonds that
hung around her neck and wrist.
Her coat was up
there on floor six; the ICU unit. The nurse had hung it in the closet not
taking care to sponge off the blood. Oh
well. A ten-thousand dollar full length
mink coat wasn’t a worry; nothing was anymore.
Nothing had been for a very long time.
Her Victorian Tudor house had been a place to sleep, sometimes eat, or
work in its office. If she were honest with
herself, she would say it wasn’t home. A
home in her eyes represented a place of love and peace and joy. She had never had any of those things. She had been tossed around in the
system. She had been told she was loved
but when the minute came for her foster parents to be relieved of her, their
love had never been enough to beg for her to stay. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. She had what she needed; a good brain and a
lot of drive. The minute she was
seventeen, she hit the streets. The
library was her home. She studied
incessantly and on occasion would find a hollow between the books where she
could stay the night. She got a part
time job in a coffee shop earning enough to provide for her needs. She didn’t need much.
She had ambition,
smarts and wits and she used them all to get her GED and get into college with
a full scholarship which included housing.
Housing wasn’t much. She shared a
small room with a girl; one of those that you had to like because she was so
sweet and kept all of her stuff tidy; never infringing on your private
space.
A
large truck sped by splashing snow and mud onto the sidewalk; onto the
pedestrians. Others cursed and stomped
their feet and brushed at their clothes.
She felt nothing at all and just kept walking.
Christmas
lights adorned the stores. Rockefeller Center was bright with its large
decorated tree. The ice skaters twirled
and spun, and giggled and fell, to get up and do it again. The laughter she heard in the air almost hurt
her ears. Laughter was something she
wasn’t well aware of; nothing she had become accustomed to. She walked away.
Her
steps took her to a graveyard in Arthurs Kill.
She had never been there before.
After all, she would not want her $1,000 boots sinking into the marshy
path; but now her boots were also on the sixth floor of the hospital so what
did it matter. If she passed through a
centuries old roadside graveyard which consisted of horribly eroded grave
markers along a garbage strewn path, her feet would begin to sink into the mud
at the Arthur Kill Boat Graveyard. She
didn’t know what was drawing her toward the old wheelhouse she saw in the
distance…nor did she care. It had been
so long since she had cared about anything in this God forsaken thing called
life. She had learned at a young age, if
she didn’t want to get hurt, she just couldn’t set herself up for it.
He
had said he loved her. He was going off
to California and wanted her to go with him.
They would build a life together.
He would help her through school.
She could help him. It wouldn’t
be easy but they could make it. He loved
her he said. He would always love
her. But she couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t put her heart in harm’s
way. Better to be alone than to be broken. Better not to love than to be crushed by
it. It would be better to dream of love,
than to have love turn into a nightmare.
So she watched Dan walk out of her life. Had she been honest with herself, she would
have run after him. She would have let
her heart rule and not her brain. She
had always let her brain rule. Emotions
had no part in her life. That is why,
behind her back at the hospital, she was known as “The Stone.” They didn’t know she knew what was said
behind her back, nor did she care.
If
she let the wall she had built around herself crumble, she would hurt for the
young girl in pediatrics with a disease not covered by her medical
insurance. She would feel for the mother
who sat beside the girl’s bedside and cried into the night; hopeless and
helpless.
She
couldn’t feel the waves as they splashed over her feet as she was drawn toward
a wheel house that was settled at a slant in the mud. She heard a voice coming from inside. It wasn’t laughter because it didn’t hurt her
ears. She stepped so very lightly up
onto the first step and then the second and then the third until she could see
over the side. No. It wasn’t laughter she had heard. It was a young boy lying beside a younger
girl. He pulled a plastic tarp over her
to try and break the breeze. She still
shivered.
“Can
you drink a little warm tea,” he asked as he raised a Dunkin Donuts cup to her
lips. Someone left it on her table. It is still warm though.” He raised the small
girl’s head up and pressed the cup to her lips.
Her lips were parched and cracked and her face was flushed with fever.
“You
can’t leave me, Mattie.” The boy cried softly.
“We’re all we’ve got.”
The
lady stepped over the side of the shack.
She knew they didn’t see her. She
leaned down to place her hand on the girl’s brow, but her hand could not make
contact; of course not. Her real hand
was connected to her body that laid on a gurney on the 6th floor of
ICU.
Her
Lexus had skid on black ice at the same time a big rig jack-knifed. All she remembered when she knew the crash
was coming was “Oh Well. This life has
been hell anyway.” Her death wasn’t as
quick as she thought it would be. Her
shell of a body was lying in a hospital with tubes and respirators keeping her
brain alive. Keeping her from passing on
to a place she hoped was far better than the one she had been living in.
Now,
she needed that body. She needed to be
able to feel. She needed to be able to
talk. She needed to be able to send help
to this little boy and girl. For as
miserable as she was as a person, she was still a fine doctor.
Suddenly,
it seemed as though she was caught on the wind; blowing. In an instant, she was at the window of the
sixth floor and in even less time she was through it. She looked down at the body on the bed;
laying silently, laying still. The hum
of equipment made her chest rise and fall.
The beeping of equipment signified her heart was still beating. She was in a coma the ER Physician had
said. Not certain she would ever regain
consciousness. But she had to regain
consciousness.
Her
body hurt as she tried to force her spirit back into it. Her spirit hurt too. She had been free of pain outside this shell
of a coat called a body. But she had to
hurt. She had to heal. She had to help the children in the
wheelhouse. She was a doctor. There was the oath she had taken.
Her
body moaned as she forced her spirit back into it. The heart started beating rapidly. The blood pressure raised and then lowered
erratically. The body moaned again
causing nurses and doctors to rush by her side.
The doctor opened her eyelid and the light about blinded her. She felt so confined in such a small space
but she moved around and settled in. She
had settled back into life.
She
willed where her energy would go. She
didn’t care if her legs worked for now.
She didn’t care that she couldn’t lift her arms. She didn’t care if her eyes couldn’t focus as
well as they should. She could work on
that later. Right now, her energy needed
to go to her mouth.
“Policemen,”
She whispered to the nurse. “Get
policemen.”
The
nurse recognized the urgency of her voice and did as she asked, but warned them
to not stay too long. Not to weaken her
further.
Every
word she spoke was hard. How she had
taken the ability to speak for granted.
But then she thought, she had taken everything for granted. Her own bitterness had prevented her from
appreciating the ability to walk along the beach and feeling the sand beneath
her toes. To listen to a symphony and
let the music she heard swell within her breast. To watch the sun fall into the west and leave
its brilliant colors in its wake. To
appreciate the scent drifting from Carmine’s promising the patrons rich
spaghetti and meatballs and hot garlic bread.
With her Lexus, and her apartment in Manhattan and a rich bank account,
she had still been very poor. God bless those who are so poor, all they
have is money. She didn’t know where
that thought had come from, but she knew it applied to her.
With
all the strength she had, she was able to tell the policeman about the two
children and they had promised they would go find them.
CHIRSTMAS
EVE~
She had paid for
the largest tree to be delivered and set up in the foyer. She had paid for the house to be decorated
with pines and poinsettias and candles.
She had a giant Santa’s sleigh delivered and set up in the family room
and in it were gifts; gifts for a young
boy and girl. She had wanted to do the
decorating and shopping herself.
‘Herself’ she laughed. Before,
‘herself’ had wanted nothing to do with Christmas. Her wheelchair was restrictive and she wasn’t
able to get out has she wanted, so she called upon her finances to make happen
what she wanted.
The investigator she had hired
found the children’s parents had both died from heroin overdoses. The boy and girl had run away when they found
their parents dead. There were extended
family members somewhere in Mexico, but the children had never known them. They had been born in the United States and
as being so were citizens. Carlos and
Maggie were their names and Carlos and Maggie were being released from the
hospital this afternoon.
She hooked her Ipod to its base
station and Christmas music filled the room; happy Christmas music.
She watched as the van from the
hospital pulled up in front. She could
have called for the maid to open the door, but she wanted to welcome them
herself. She wheeled herself over and
opened the door wide as two scared, apprehensive children walked toward the
door.
Hello Carlos. Hello Mattie.
My name is Kathryn. Please come
in and let’s have a talk together.
Bertie, the maid, brought in a
plate of sugar cookies and mugs of hot chocolate and sit them on the coffee
table. The children looked at them with
wide eyes but yet apprehensively.
“It’s okay,” she told them. “You can have some.”
She smiled as Carlos handed a
cookie and then hot chocolate to his sister.
He was still taking care of her.
She told them her name was Kathryn
and she explained to them how although she was rich, she had still been very
poor because she had lived with a broken heart.
“We know about broken hearts,”
Carlos said through a bite of cookie.
“Our hearts got broken too. Mamma
and Daddy broke our hearts.”
“I know,” Kathryn responded. “I had someone find out why you were living
in the shack. I hope you don’t
mind. It wasn’t because I was being
snoopy. It was because I cared about
you.”
“That’s okay,” Carlos replied
again. “It’s good to have someone care
about you. Momma and Daddy cared but
they cared about drugs more. But they
loved us anyway.”
“Of course they loved you. I’m certain they loved you very much. Their addiction to drugs was an illness they
couldn’t heal. It wasn’t because they
didn’t want to. It wasn’t because they
didn’t love you.”
“But anyway, Carlos and Mattie, I
have had an illness too. Like I said,
I’ve had a broken heart that I haven’t been able to fix. Because my heart was broken, I didn’t look at
life the way I should have. I need
someone to help me laugh again. I have
this very big house that is pretty empty.
It could use a boy and girl to help fill up the rooms. They would be safe and warm and able to go to
school. They would never be hungry
again. I would do everything I can to make
them happy. If you would like to be that
boy and girl, I would love to have you live here with me.
“Do you have a puppy?” Mattie
asked for the first time. “My daddy said
that if someone loved a puppy then we could trust them.”
I’ve never had a puppy before,”
Kathryn said. “I always felt I was too
busy to take care of one. But to be
honest with you, I always felt one would break my heart if anything happened to
it. But you know what? I am tired of being afraid of being
hurt. I am tired of a broken heart.”
Kathryn rang a
silver bell that was sitting nearby and Bertie came through the door. “Bertie, would you bring in Cleo and Hank
please.” A few minutes later Bertie
entered with two small dogs on a leash.
Hank was a Golden Retriever pup who quickly ran to Carlos and licked his
face forcing giggles from the little boy.
Cleo was a Pomeranian who laid beside Mattie and stared up at her with
big black eyes. Smiles radiated from the
children’s faces as they petted their new Christmas friends.
“So do you think
you want to give it a try and live here with me?” Kathryn asked.
“What if we’re
not able to make you happy?” Mattie asked sadly.
“I don’t expect
you to make me happy, Sweetheart,” Kathryn said. “It’s my job to make myself happy. And I
really think for me to do that, I need to stop being so selfish. I need to stop being wrapped up in
myself. By being all wrapped up in
myself, I’ve made a very small package.
I want to be wrapped up in you and Carlos and Hank and Cleo.”
“We will be kind
of a strange family, don’t you think?” Carlos said thoughtfully. “ A doctor,
two Mexican kids, a Golden Retriever and a Pomeranian.”
“Look at that
bowl of nuts on the table,” Ellen said.
“There are walnuts, and cashews, and almonds, and peanuts and
pistachios.” They are all different, but they are the same.
“So we will be a
family of nuts, huh?” Carlos replied forcing laughter from Kathryn.
“Yes,” she
laughed. “I hope we will always be a
family of nuts.”
Christmas
Day~
Miracles do happen. But it does take opening oneself up to be
able to accept the miracles that surround us.
I looked at the clutter in the
house. Wrapping paper was spread across
the family room carpet while two tired dogs lay on a rug before the
fireplace. Carlos was playing an Xbox
game and I was manicuring Mattie’s nails with the bright orange polish she had
received from Santa. Bertie had a turkey
in the oven for Christmas dinner. I had
never had a cooked Christmas dinner in my house before. I had always gone out to five star
restaurants and tried to convince myself that the less work the better.
It was strange how I felt
inside. I was lighter. By lighter I mean I didn’t feel as heavy
inside and by lighter I mean I didn’t feel the darkness that had hid inside me
all my life. It was as though my mind
had opened wide and all negativity had flown out and my heart had opened up
telling the universe to send on in the miracles. And then the doorbell rang.
He stood on the front porch with a
silly Santa hat on. His eyes were still
the brightest blue; his hair touched slightly with gray at the temples. His smile was not changed at all. It spread easily and honestly across his
face. I had heard through the grapevine he had never married, but I glanced at
his left hand anyway. He wore no
ring. Dan was back.
“I heard about your accident,” he
said. “I thought since you might be tied
up in the house for a while you might need a little something to keep you
company. He reached in a box and pulled
out a tabby cat. The dogs barked, the
children screamed and the cat hissed and jumped from Dan’s arms as it tried to
climb the curtains. And I laughed. Dan’s smile widened as he watched me laugh
until I lost my breath; until my sides ached.
At the time he didn’t understand that another nut had been added to our
family tree in the form of a tabby cat and as I stared back at the silly man in
the Santa hat, I hope this man I loved would be the next to fall into the nut
bowl.
