Holiday Refrain

Thought I'd reblog this story from last year's December post.

It's a cool winter late afternoon; a lazy holiday flavor hangs heavily in the air. My husband, Steve, half-dozes before a TV bowl game; our son, Teddy, beside him in the den, carefully constructs a miniature Superdome with his Christmas erector set. The girls play noiselessly in their room upstairs.

The sky dims in shades of orange and rose through the kitchen window steamed by supper's boiling pots and sputtering skillet. I step to the window and run my hand across it; the mist runs like tears down the clouded pane. Interlacing branches of bare-limbed trees show, blurred and distorted, through the cleared swath, creating an angular mosaic against the fading, pastel sky. The image is shockingly exquisite, as if the gentle tones of Odilon Redon had been emboldened by Rouault's stark strokes. I try to capture it with my eyes, to memorize each line and shade of light, realizing that, if I ever find time to transpose the scene to canvas, its memory will have faded nearly as much as the image itself.

This afternoon, a long-distance telephone call broke in on the waning holidays. Sandy Martin, a long-time friend and modestly successful artist living in New York City, called to wish me a Happy New Year.

"Say, Cora," she asked, "when are you going to move to New York? This long­-distance friendship is for the birds! I never see you anymore. Calling long-distance is expensive for a struggling young artist." She laughed.

"I don't know," I answered. "I can hardly keep up with small-town life. Can't imagine how I'd handle living in New York."

Sandy changed the subject. "How's your holiday been?"

"Just great. Busy, but everyone's been in the holiday spirit most of the time."

"Are you doing any painting while you’re on vacation?"

"No. Haven't had the chance. My in-laws came for a few days around Christmas, and I did a lot of cleaning and cooking for that. Then we had a party last night. There was more cooking and cleaning ahead of time and cleaning up afterwards. In fact, I just put away the last load of party dishes and I'm getting ready to cook supper for the family. More dishes!"

We chatted for nearly half an hour. After we hung up, I put a tape in the stereo and went into the kitchen to begin dinner, musing with the music, listening to the rhythms and moods of the piano etched, in some mysterious way, into that plastic.

And I wonder, What has happened to the ten-day holiday? I realize that, in just one more day, I'll have to go back to work. The two canvases I planned to paint are still not begun and an unread book lies on the stand beside our bed.

I turn from the window to the stove, set the sizzling pork chops on simmer, pour rice into boiling water and put the vegetables on medium heat. It should all be ready to eat in ten or fifteen minutes. I call my six-year old daughter to come downstairs and set the table for dinner. She neither comes nor answers. Before I call a second time, the music stops, and I know she can hear me.

"Debra!" I call out for the third time, raising my voice. "Come down here and set the table for dinner!"

She stomps down the stairs into the dining area adjacent to the kitchen.

"I don't want to set the table," she says sullenly.

"Well, you're going to do it anyway," I respond.

"I was playing. You interrupted me."

"That's too bad."

"Why do I always have to set the table?"

"Because it's your job."

"Why doesn't Tammy ever set the table? She never does anything."

"She's only three years old. When she's your age, she'll set the table and you'll have other jobs to do. But for now, you're the one who sets the table."

“What about Teddy? He never does anything, either.”

“He’s busy with his father,” I say, evading her accusing look.

"Well, I'm not going to," she says with a determined tone.

"You are going to do it whether you want to or not," I reply, my voice rising and eyes narrowing. She turns her face away.

I place the plates on the counter. She picks them up, struts over to the table and slams them down at each place with such force that less sturdy plastic might have cracked. Her lithe body flings this way and that; her blond curls toss about with each jerk of the head. Her small hands and slender arms seem too delicate for such emphatic gestures.

"I hate this!" she says, her voice catching.

"You'll do it and you'll do it gladly," I say, articulating each word slowly and deliberately.

She begins to sob softly, putting the rest of the dishes slowly on the table. I put glasses on the counter and she sets them gently above each plate. She gets silverware from the drawer and puts each piece in its proper place. As she sets forks on carefully folded napkins, I hear a thinly voiced refrain.

"Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la..."

I smile and join in. "...'Tis the season to be jolly. Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la."

She smiles back at me and I turn to the stove to dish up the food as she finishes setting the table.

[This was published in the College of Charleston Miscellany in 1981]

EVENT

As an official of this large and important city (a hub of both commerce and culture, situated on a major inland waterway), my duties include the planning and coordination of an annual parade that has become a community event of some magnitude. This city is, for the most part, a modern city - not one of those decaying shells of turn-of-the-century urban life with scarcely habitable tenements and row houses, narrow, crumbling streets, dust- and soot-encrusted shops covered at night with grill-work. No, this is a contemporary city; people don't live here. They live outside the city and come here only to work or to shop or to amuse themselves. The jig-sawed cityscape rises against the sky like cliffs and pillars of reinforced concrete, plate glass, and steel: solid as granite, brilliant as crystal, sharp-edged as a sword. A highway nexus joins knots of high-rise apartment buildings and shopping centers that form islands in the sea of single houses spreading out from the city's core.

As I was saying, I have spent considerable time during the past few months occupied with planning and preparations for today's parade: setting the date, contacting fraternal organizations and colleges to arrange for floats and musicians, contracting for vehicles, communicating with departments of Public Safety and Sanitation for permits and personnel. I have come into the city early today to do the last-minute phoning required for everything to run smoothly. The parade route has been closed to cars by the traffic control division of Public Safety. Uniformed policemen are stationed throughout the area to keep people off the streets and the cross-walks overhead. The general functioning of the city, particularly that part of it around City Hall, has been disrupted for several hours, but few are inconvenienced on a Sunday afternoon.

After parking my car in a new underground parking garage, I go to my office by way of an overpass blocked by a policeman. He obviously recognizes me without identification and nods to let me pass. People have begun to gather early for the parade; children and their parents line the streets along the parade route, sitting on camp chairs and blankets; vendors sell candy and roasted chestnuts from sidewalk carts. Beyond the cement side-walls of the cross walk rise yellowed and browning maples, bare-branched elms, green and gold sycamores. And beyond them range multilithic skyscrapers like a giant histogram against the gray glow of the sky, like a solid, three-dimensional, population-growth bar-graph.

I walk alone along the empty overpass toward my office in the new City Hall building, I notice a cloud of leaves flying through the air in front of me as if borne up by a vigorous wind. Large, yellow and brown leaves float and swirl--turning, gliding, somersaulting erratically, some even landing on the cross-walk in front of me near the tops of some maples. I peer over the edge of the wall toward the trees and view an intriguing spectacle.

Children are tossing leaves into the updraft of a vent above the underground parking lot. Several families, speaking different languages, skin of various earth hues, have gathered around the vent. Children run and squeal and pick up piles of leaves that, when thrown, fly from their hands like scattering pigeons. The leaves catch in the up-rush of air and rise as if by magic: floating higher and higher into the sky, tossing this way and that, tracing graceful arabesques, and then, the magic spent, drifting indecisively back to the ground. The children, watched by mothers, abetted by fathers, gather leaves and throw them into the air over and over again, laughing, jumping with each toss, heads thrown back to see the leaves climb skyward. I stand and gaze awhile, and then, not wishing to squander more time (since I have several calls to make), I walk briskly toward City Hall.

I take the elevator to the fourteenth floor; once in my office, I glance out the window. Down and far off to the right, yellow specks rise like a swarm of bees above the cross-walk. From the window, I can also see the gathering spectators, diminutive at this distance, that line the parade route. I establish radio contact with my assistant in East Side Park at the start of the parade route where floats and bands have gathered. The organization and order of the parade are proceeding smoothly. As the time draws near for the parade to begin, I put on my coat carefully and leave the office; I am to be one of the officials on the dais observing the event. I glance in the long mirror near the elevator and feel reassured that any TV camera trained on the official box will find me befittingly attired and groomed. When I arrive at the viewing stand, I greet everyone pleasantly.

I give the signal by radio for the parade to begin. At first, only the faint pulse of drums and tubas can be heard dimly in the distance; soon the sharper, more brazen din of other winds pierces the air. Crowd noises diminish; small children are hoisted onto their fathers' shoulders; people turn expectantly toward the sounds.

The parade arrives, all trumpets and glitter. Pigeons waddling on the streets scavenging cast-off fragments of food fly before baton-twirling majorettes in short skirts. Behind these come brassy, strutting musicians; lurching, stilted, high-stepping figures; fragile floats topped by bobbing, oversized fantasy images and waving figurines. All flow by in slick succession - smoothly, almost flawlessly - enthralling the children. I stand ceremoniously, hoping that no engine stalls, no child runs into the street to be struck by an oncoming vehicle, no aging clown collapses of a stroke to mar the procession. The multitudes have waited hours for this parade; the spectacle is over in minutes, winding, serpentine, down other streets, past other spectators. Once the parade has passed, the crowd throngs the streets.

I walk back toward my office to make sure the parade's dispersal goes smoothly (and to wait until traffic thins before driving home). No leaves now fly across the overpass as I walk along it. I take the elevator to the fourteenth floor of City Hall, traverse the deserted hallway and enter my office. I gaze for a moment out the window at the emptying streets and dimming sky and then turn to my desk and to the telephone to discharge the rest of my immediate duties, a sense of relief and exhaustion, perhaps even melancholy, overtaking me.

It's dark outside when I leave the building. The park around City Hall is quite silent. Leaves swish and crackle with each footstep. I notice as I pass the vent that it's still surrounded by mounds of leaves. Looking quickly around and, seeing no one nearby, I stoop and gather up a crisp and fluttering armful. I toss the leaves into the air and throw my head back to watch them rise in the soft orange glow of the park lights, see them fly up and up and up, catching gusts of air, tumbling, and twirling, and careening, and then gliding widely as they zigzag gently back to earth.

[Published in Kansas Quarterly (1992) v24, No 2&3, p167]

WHO WILL CARE FOR THE CHILDREN?

 

The call came at 10:30 that night. She had just gotten back to her room from a long, late dinner with two former fellow graduate students whom she hadn't seen for almost a decade. She had turned off her cell phone during the conference sessions and had forgotten to turn it back on during dinner. When the hotel phone rang, she answered in two rings.  It was her husband, David.

"Lynn, I've been trying to get hold of you. Jamie's in the hospital."

She answered in the controlled tone she used automatically during a crisis. "What's the matter?"

"I'm not sure. Appendicitis. The pediatrician saw him and told me to take him straight to the emergency room. I'm here right now. In the hospital. They're going to operate." David's voice sounded tense and disconnected.

"When are they going to operate?"

"As soon as they can.  As soon as the surgeon gets here.  It may have burst. The appendix."

She gasped to herself, but said quietly, "I'll come home as soon as I can. I may not be able to get out tonight, but there should be a flight early in the morning."

"Your mother's with him right now."

"Who's the surgeon?"

"I don't know."

"I'll call you and Marjorie as soon as I make plane reservations."

"All right. I'll pick you up at the airport.

As soon as she hung up the phone, she called the airline, made a reservation on the earliest plane she could take out of Dallas the next morning and canceled her Thursday flight. She had to transfer in Atlanta, and wouldn't arrive home until 1:20 the next afternoon. It was the best she could do. It was after 11:00 at night when she called Marjorie, a neighbor and the closest friend she had, to give her the flight schedule.

The phone rang five times before Marjorie finally answered. "Oh Lynn! Where are you?" she asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

"Still in Texas. Did David tell you about Jamie?"

"Yeah, he called from the hospital. I saw the poor kid before he went to the doctor. He was doubled over in pain. Screaming and crying like mad. David called me and asked me to come over and take a look at him. Guess he figured a mother would know what to do."

"Wasn't my mother there?"

"Yeah, your mom was there. She looked kind of upset. I believe she'd just given him an enema. Thought he was constipated. I told David he ought to get the kid to a doctor. Quick."

"Well, I'm coming back. I won't get in until tomorrow afternoon, though. David will call you in the morning. My plane gets in at 1:20 in the afternoon. Flight 1322, Delta."

"O.K."

"Where's Melinda?"

"Right here. She's sleeping on the couch."

"Good. Can she stay there overnight?"

"Sure, Lynn. Of course."

"You've got a key to our house. Send her over in the morning to get clean clothes for school. She can take lunch money out of the vase on my dresser. She knows where it is."

"She'll be all right, Lynn."

"Thanks, Marjorie."

"Don't worry about it. Have a safe trip back."

Still in the grip of her compulsive calmness, she called the front desk of the hotel and left a message for a colleague saying she couldn't have lunch with him the next day. Having taken care of the necessary practical details, she sat in the chair next to the bed, put her head in her hands, and wept.

Jamie had been complaining of a stomach ache for nearly a week before she left. She and David thought it was a bid for attention. He'd been out running and playing with other children in the neighborhood just the evening before she took the plane to Dallas. He always had some complaint before she went to meetings or conferences. Usually his stomach; he'd always had a sensitive stomach. Even when he was a baby, she and David often took him on long drives in the car to quiet him when he (and they) suffered from his attacks of colic.

'Why did Mother have to give him an enema?' Lynn asked herself. Her mother was one for keeping children's bowels moving, especially if they had a stomach ache. Every childhood illness could be blamed on constipation. The enema was exactly the wrong thing to do.  'My poor baby,' she chanted to herself. He wasn't exactly a baby, anymore. He was six years old, in first grade and learning to read. How far behind would this put him in his school work?

Mother, of course, would blame her. Mother had never understood why she went back to work in the first place. When Jamie was two and Melinda had started kindergarten, Lynn took a job as a research associate at the University. She tried to justify her decision to her mother.

"We can really use the money."

"Well, Honey, you've managed so far. You could scrimp a little. Tighten your belt. That's what I'd do. Why do you have to go back to work?"

"It's not just work, Mother. It's a career.  I've had years of training. I don't want it to go to waste! I can't stay out much longer or I'll forget everything I was trained for. I'll never be able to go back."

"But who will care for the children?"

That, of course, was always the question. Lynn had made the necessary arrangements. Nursery.  Baby sitters.  A part time housekeeper for a while.  She managed to juggle everything so the children were always supervised, always in somebody's "care."

Now that they were both in school full time, it was a bit easier. They took the bus to school in the morning and another bus dropped them off after school at the day care center. Either she or David picked them up in the evening on the way home from work.

Why did David have to wait for Marjorie to suggest taking Jamie to the doctor?  Why couldn't he just look at the child and know he was sick? At least, palpate his abdomen. But then, David had never bothered to learn which side of the body the appendix or gall bladder or spleen was on. He was an engineer; machines were his specialty. The body was a deliberately sustained mystery to him. He, too, would blame her, though he wouldn't say it in so many words. Why wasn't she there when he needed her? Why should he have to call a neighbor?

And she, too, would blame herself. Why wasn't she there when her child needed her? Could she have forestalled this crisis by paying more careful attention to his pain? Why had she left the children in the charge of two people who knew nothing about medicine or even biology? But then, who else should she leave them with?  What if he died from her neglect?  From her preoccupation with preparing her talk and packing for the conference?

She changed into her nightgown, called the front desk and asked for a 4:00 a.m. wake-up call and for a cab at 4:30, and then got into bed. She set the travel alarm she always brought with her, just in case.

As she lay in bed, she enumerated her losses. Of the $700.00 plane fare, she had paid $300.00 out of pocket. That was irretrievable. She had presented her talk that morning, the first day of the conference. So at least that wasn't a loss. But she had been looking forward to three more days of worry-free learning. That was gone.  She would not have the opportunity to talk with Ryder and compare techniques and results with him. He had confirmed some of her anomalous data using a different method, and now people were beginning to take her work seriously. All the top people in the field were here. She would miss hearing their papers, miss talking with them, miss developing a collegial rapport with them. She'd miss learning new techniques and new approaches to her research area. There wouldn't be another gathering like this one for a long time. She'd have to do it all the hard way—in the library, on her own.

On the morning plane ride to Atlanta, high above the clouds, she felt utterly cut off, isolated from everything—home and family, profession and colleagues. She could not know how her boy was doing, even whether or not he was still alive. Somewhere in her subconscious, she believed he was, but she also knew that he was in danger.

By the second leg of her flight back, her sense of suspension in a web of dichotomies had settled into her being. Home and profession. Husband and children. Reason and an almost mystical appeal to the power of will. Determination and resignation. It seemed as though ambiguity lay at the very center of her soul; in it was her only security and peace. She felt a numbness that no tears penetrated.

David met her at the airport.

"How's Jamie?" were the first words out of her mouth.

"They operated last night. Apparently his appendix was ruptured. They're worried about peritonitis."

"I was afraid of that."

"What is it, exactly?"

"It's inflammation in  the abdomen. It's caused by bacteria that get into the peritoneal cavity and spread and multiply around the intestines. If it doesn't kill you, you may get internal adhesions, scars where internal organs stick together and can cause trouble for life."

"Good heavens!"

They got into the car and drove silently to the hospital. She followed her husband into Jamie's room. Her mother, in the far corner of the room, looked up from her book when they walked in. Jamie lay flat on the bed in a white hospital gown, his left arm strapped to a board, an intravenous tube bound to the arm with tape. A plastic bottle filled with clear fluid was suspended high above his head and drained slowly into the tube. He turned his head toward them and gave his mother a weak smile as she entered the room. His face was feverish and his eyes listless and half-lidded. She went over to him and kissed his forehead, then laid her cheek against his. His face seemed to be burning.

"Hi, Mom," he said gallantly.

"How did you get yourself into this predicament?" she asked.

"It wasn't my fault," he answered, as if taking her question seriously.

"I know, Dear." She turned to her husband. "What did the doctor say?"

"He was in earlier this morning. Didn't say much. He said he'd be back in the afternoon. I guess we just have to hang in there and wait."

"They're giving him antibiotics in his veins," said her mother. "He can't eat anything but clear liquids."

He looked so small and frail, lying there. What would several days of clear liquids do to that already slight body? He had never been as solid as his sister. Now he would be even thinner. 'Thin people are supposed to live longer.' she thought, as if telling herself a cruel joke.

Her mother turned to David. "Since Lynn's here, I can take the car and drop you off at work, then go to the house and pick up Melinda. We can come back about 5:30 this afternoon."

"O.K., Mom," David said.

"Thanks, Mother."

Lynn was left with the listless boy. They were both helpless, at the mercy of forces neither had much control of. The battle of organisms and antibiotics. The battle of Death against the Will-to-Life. She could not will his life for him; she could only be there and try to help him will it for himself.

When the nurse came in to change his dressing, Lynn left the room and walked down the hall to a small sitting room for parents. A petite, dark-haired woman, apparently younger than Lynn, sat smoking a cigarette. She looked up. Lynn smiled and nodded toward her; the woman nodded back. Lynn sat in a nearby chair.

The woman put out her cigarette and asked, "Do you have a child here?"

"Yes, a little boy."

"Me too. Seven years old."

"Mine is six."

"Really? What's he here for?"

"Appendicitis. They took out his appendix last night."

"I wish mine had something that simple."

"Oh?"

"Robert has leukemia." She lit another cigarette. "He was in remission for six months. It's back again. They're giving him chemotherapy and transfusions."

"How long has he been in the hospital?"

"Over a week now. They're trying to get his blood count right. Something like that."

"Yeah, they try to kill off the cancerous cells and replace them with normal cells."

"How do you know about that?"

"I do research in the area."

"Really!"  She paused. "What's your child here for?"

"Appendicitis."

"Oh, yes. You told me. Where's his room?"

"Down at the other end of the hall. The last room."

"That's next to my Robert's room. I guess I heard them bring your boy in last night."

"Have you been staying in the hospital?"

"Yeah. I've stayed overnight in his room all week. Don't get much sleep, though."

"I guess I'll be staying here tonight, myself." Lynn couldn't resist asking the question. "Do you work?"

"What?"

"Do you have a job? Are you taking time off from work to stay with your boy?"

"Oh, no, I can't work. I've got a little girl three years old at home besides Robert to take care of."

"Oh."

"Do you work?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it hard? Working and taking care of a family?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm glad I don't have to," the woman said slowly, taking a long drag on her cigarette. "My husband earns enough to keep us going. His insurance should cover most of the hospital bills. But we'll still have plenty to pay, I'm sure. We'll worry about that when the time comes."

Lynn didn't know what to say. She wanted to get back to Jamie. As she stood up to go, she said, "I hope your boy gets better and can leave the hospital soon." She knew that, even if the child did improve and left the hospital, there was a real possibility that he'd be back, and that he might eventually die of that insidious, malignant disease. She hoped her horrible knowledge didn't show on her face.

"Same here." The woman had a smile on her lips, but her eyes were sad.

When Lynn got back to the room, Jamie was crying.

'What's the matter, Baby?"

"It hurts, Momma. It hurts."

"I know, Darling."

That evening, Jamie's fever was still high. The doctor came in briefly and said the child seemed better but wasn't out of the woods yet. David and Melinda came during visiting hours, then left. Her mother stopped by briefly and went from the hospital back to Camden that evening. "Dad needs me, Honey. I'll come back in a day or two."

After they all had left, Lynn made up the small cot beside her son's bed. She lay down on her back and listened to his fitful breathing and the occasional short cries of pain emitted in his sleep. Silent tears ran down the side of her face. Through the wall that separated them, she could hear the woman in the next room sobbing loudly.

'She's in even greater despair than I am,' Lynn thought. 'Staying home with her child hasn't protected him from serious illness or the specter of Death. Why this eternal female despair? Men get angry and lash out at those things that threaten or frustrate them. Or they run away. We women are bound to all that causes us pain. We remain to weep for the wounded and helpless. Is it necessary, somehow, for the begetting and sustaining of life that women weep?'

She remembered another time in another hospital, three days after Melinda was born. Lynn wanted to nurse her baby, but the milk had not come in. That lovely, placid child had, with each succeeding day, become increasingly fretful. Every time Lynn went to the nursery, the baby was crying. When the nurse brought Melinda into her room, Lynn would give the baby the breast—first one, then another—but there didn't seem to be anything there. Finally, that night, she sat in the rocking chair in the corner of her room, the baby in her arms, rocking and rocking, letting her suckle. When the nurse came to take the baby, Lynn said, "Please leave us alone."

She sat there in the darkened room, holding her child at breast, weeping, rocking, weeping, for an hour, perhaps longer. She lost all track of time. Finally, exhausted and hopeless, she took the baby back to the nursery. The next morning, her breasts were engorged and painful—so full that, at the thought of her child, they began spouting little fountains of milk that ran down her sides and abdomen like tears.

[This was written during the early eighties, at a time when I was stressed about work and child-care responsibilities. Although it has been submitted several times, it has not been published]