My Grandmother was quite fey. She had one foot in this world, and the other, well, it was somewhere else. This story was taken from one of the stories of my family that she loved to retell with her special Texas twang reserved for great tales like this. I hope you enjoy it. Btw, this story is in one of my short story collections, and is copyrighted as part of that book. Note: The formatting kind of got lost in the copy/paste process, but of course you know that in its original form the formatting was perfect. That's my story. KRH
Family Secret
or
The Christmas Angel
Fat Uncle Burt pulled us out of the living room where the family was gathered. In the cold entry, where heaps of coats and scarfs hung on a peg and stuck out from the wall, he told May and I to sit on the wobbly bench.
May took hold of the old wallpaper, the way we did each morning when pulling on our shoes, and tore off a strip and laughed.
“Not now, May.” I pushed her hand to her lap before Uncle Burt noticed. Cold air whispered around the front door and touched my face.
“Here you go, girls.” He dropped our coats on the bench. “Make sure you change into your boots.”
“Been snowing all night, Uncle Burt. We don’t want to go out on the porch. It’s too cold,” I said.
“Ha. Cold? You girls was raised in the snow. Who you trying to kid?”
His red cheeks shook as he tied my boots. I smelled a medicine cabinet odor on his breath.
“Adie, now you’re the oldest, so make sure you two don’t leave the porch. You watch your sister.” He pushed us out the door and shoved a fur cap onto May’s head.
“We want Momma,” I cried.
“Button up your coats. The adults want to speak with your momma and the doctor for a while, then you girls can come in.”
He closed the door and I heard May crying, so I said: “Let’s play we’re at a royal ball.”
“That’s dumb. I want Momma.” May pressed her face to a gray patch of wall where the paint had fallen off.
“And you’re Princess May, and all the boys from the kingdom have come to dance with you. You’re wearing a white silk dress and you’re walking down the staircase, and all the dancers stop when they see you because you’re so beautiful.”
“Is it white like the one in the momma’s magazine?” May turned.
I brushed the hair out of her face. “Just like that, but it has a long train that slides down the steps behind you, and the buttons sparkle like icicles.”
“Okay,” said May.
I was showing her how to raise her arms as she walked, because that was how a princess walked. The porch changed into our palace. We danced and laughed, and I played a prince come to speak with the beautiful May.
Our play continued until the doctor burst through the door while pulling on his coat.
“I’m sorry! That’s all I can do.”
“Damn, you say you’re a doctor? What good was it having you here?” shouted Burt, chasing him across the porch.
May and I had seen Burt wail into a fellow in town just for looking at his wife. So when he chased the doctor across the porch, cursing, his face all red, we knew there was gunna be trouble. I didn’t have to say anything to May, just grabbed her hand, and together we ran right off the end of the porch and landed in the snow and hid.
As we peeked around the corner, Aunt Dot and momma’s friend, Johnny Ray, ran onto the porch. If Burt was going to give that man a licking, we wanted to see the whole thing.
“Burt!” said Johnny Ray. “The girls are watching.”
Burt let go of the skinny doctor and knocked some icicles from the edge of the roof.
“Come on girls, let’s get you back inside.” Uncle Burt waved us over.
Aunt Effie met us at the door and led us by the hand through the circle of family and friends, and upstairs to our bedroom. It felt good to hold Effie’s hand. She was my favorite.
“May, Adie, you big girls, come over here and sit.” Effie sat us on the bed, and when her husband came into the room she straightened up and her voice changed.
“Mort,” said Effie, “you just get on downstairs. I’m gunna talk some with these girls.”
“They’re just children. Don’t say anything.”
“Listen, I’m fixing to say what needs to be said.”
I saw Effie’s hands ball up into fists, and I scooted back across the bed and pulled May with me.
“That ain’t right, Effie,” said Mort, shaking his head as he walked out.
“Now you two, I’m gunna tell you a family secret. The men don’t know, but us women, we keep the secret. Do you want to know?”
I nodded. I didn’t care what was happening downstairs, or if that old pony in the barn was being eaten by a wolf, because I could see a sparkle in Aunt Effie’s beautiful eyes that said this was restricted knowledge, adult stuff, and I was going to get something more special than a jaw breaker in my pocket at school.
“Don’t ever tell no one except me and your sister, you hear? Can you two do that, all your life?” She looked hard at May, then at me.
I nodded.
“Now, you listen here. Once you hear this, it’s forever. Never speak of it, understand?”
I scooted beside May, and we said yes in unison.
Aunt Effie smiled and touched our cheeks. “You two have always been two peas in a pod. Your momma made me promise to tell you. The women in our family have a power.”
Tears dripped from her eyes, and I started wailing with May.
“Your momma and I used it when we was your age. Adie, if you and May pray real hard, you can call an angel to make your momma all better, and she won’t have to go away. You’ve been to the church and know how to pray. If you want to help your mother, you have to pray long and hard, and can’t stop until Trudy comes.”
“Is that the angel’s name, Trudy? I like that name.”
“Yes, honey doll.”
“How will we know it’s our angel?”
“Oh, baby darling!” She sat on the bed between us and squeezed us tight. After a good long hug, she wiped my face and smiled, and said: “Adie, darling, your angel smells of roses, and fills the room with that scent. She lights up the whole room with a light that makes you warm and happier than you’ve ever been, like you’ve been walking in a summer garden.”
Effie had us change into our pajamas as she closed the curtains, but we would not climb into bed. We stayed kneeling on a pillow, saying the Lord’s Prayer over and over. Every so often I shoved May to wake her.
“I want to sleep,” she’d say.
“This is for Momma.” That reminder always made her straighten up. And in a short time she’d be saying the words with me, until she started to wobble again.
***
The house was still as the forest when I awoke. Effie was gone, and May had climbed into bed.
“May,” I whispered, sneaking across the room. “Let’s say one more prayer for Momma, and then we’ll sleep, okay?”
I had to whisper it a few times, and rub her hands, before she opened her eyes and got out of bed. We knelt on the pillow and repeated the words, but I stopped suddenly, fed up with the praying and called: “Please, Trudy Angel, please help our Momma.” I couldn’t help crying, and it didn’t matter that May was tugging on my top.
“Adie, look and see!”
The glee in her voice startled me.
“There’s a light outside. It’s our angel. She came for us, Adie.”
May pulled the curtains open and light warmed my face like I leaning close to the fireplace.
With May shrieking and laughing, I looked through the window. Outside in the snow stood a beautiful Angel, with the biggest, most wonderful smile, and she was looking up at us.
May and I held hands and hopped up and down and laughed as Trudy stepped right through the wall, and stood in front of us without touching the floor.
“Adie!” cried May, and hugged me. “We brought the Angel, just like Effie said we could. Now Momma’s not going to go away. I want Momma.”
“Adie and May, that’s right. You two can sleep now. Your mother is going to be fine.”
***
“’Bout time you girls got up.” Uncle Burt opened the door and the floor boards creaked. “Is that flowers I smell? Have you two been playing in your mother’s perfume?”
“Just you never mind, Burt. Go on and get to your breakfast.” Effie tried to push the big man out the door, but he brushed her away.
“Don’t you smell roses, Effie?”
“Yes, I smell the roses. Now go on.”
“Are you going to tell them?” he asked.
She pushed him out the way and closed the door. “You girls did it, didn’t you? Did you see Trudy?”
May laughed and jumped up and down on the bed. “Trudy came right through the wall and spoke—”
Effie walked around the bed and took my arm, nodded, and looked at May’s arm. “It’s the same as your momma and I got.”
May plopped down on her butt and touched the red mark on her forearm.
“See May,” I said, when she took my arm and compared marks.
“Your momma and I got one just like it when Trudy came to us.” She rolled up her sleeve. “You girls did it. Your momma wants to speak to you.”
“Momma can talk!” shouted May.
“She took a turn for the better during the night. Don’t tell the men folk about Trudy. They’ll just laugh, but we know the truth.”
***
Husbands came along, and I named my first child Trudy. May too got married, and had a beautiful little girl she named Belle. She was so excited to speak to me when Belle was born, and waited until her husband, Ron, was out of the room before she brought up the angel.
“You know what this means, right, Adie?”
“Two girls in the family, so the secret is there still.”
“Belle doesn’t haven’t the mark; neither does Trudy. They weren’t born with it like we were.”
“Adie! I can’t believe you would say that. Look at our baby photos. That mark came when Trudy touched us. You know that’s the truth. Don’t let go of that, Adie. You have to remember the angel.”
But it was difficult to hold on to that memory, or what I thought was a memory, when I had a husband and a daughter, and a career, new friends, and violin lessons for Trudy twice a week.
When May’s second child, a boy named Ty, was diagnosed with autism, she stopped calling.
May was a voice that whispered of something beyond this world, even if it was a child’s dream. When the calls stopped, I could feel her pain all the way from Houston. I had trouble sleeping. One night Ron found me bundled up on the sofa in the middle of the night, unable to sleep.
I wasn’t lying when I told him work was stressing me out, but the cause of my insomnia was my bond with May. The mark on my arm, the Trudy mark, as we called it when we were children, had started burning, and I knew May was in trouble. I tried rubbing it with ice and ointments for poison ivy and other rashes, but nothing stopped that burn.
One night Ron came up as I stood at the sink rubbing ice on my arm. Over the years he had learned there were certain things I could not speak about, and when he saw the ice, he stood silent for a moment, then nodded, and told me to go to Houston. In such a loving way he sweetened the deal by saying, “It’s been a long time since Trudy played with Belle. It will be good for everyone. I’ll live on frozen dinners, but I’ll survive.”
“I love you,” I said, holding his hand. And looking into Ron’s eyes, I knew he understood that there was something between May and I that could never be mentioned.
I took Trudy out of school, and we left the following afternoon.
May and Joe lived in the country outside Houston, and it felt good to be out of the city. Country was my childhood, and would forever be the real me.
I wasn’t surprised when only Joe picked me up at the airport. He had been a Marine, and combat had made him reserved.
“It’s good you came.” He carried my bag out the huge revolving door of the terminal. Once we got Trudy into the truck, Joe closed the door.
“Adie, you have to help me with something.”
His eyes shifted about the parking garage.
He pointed to my arm. “That mark on May’s arm, she didn’t have it when she was a child. I’ve seen the pictures.”
“No, Joe.”
“You have the same mark, exactly.”
“I can’t—“
“May won’t tell me how it happened. We have two children, and still she won’t open up about that. Was there another man? Were you two in a cult or something?”
Tears formed in my eyes. “Joe, its only love. There wasn’t another man or cult. There was only love, not the love between two people, but a love beautiful and precious that helps people. But if she tells you about it, she’ll destroy it.”
We walked to the back of the truck, and Joe opened the tailgate. I set my bag in the bed, and he grabbed my arm.
“Joe!”
“Look at this.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “Please, hold your arm up. This is a copy of the mark on May’s arm.” He aligned it to the mark on my arm. “It’s a mirror image to the one on your arm. How can that be?”
“Can you two hurry up?”
“We’re coming, Trudy,” I called.
I put my hand on Joe’s face. “May is a gift, and she loves you with all her heart, but she’s protecting something special, understand?”
“I guess I have to.”
***
The floorboards of their house creaked as I walked. On the side facing the dirt driveway, was a big front porch made for summer lemon aide and fresh-baked cookies eaten on one of the old rocking chairs. From the porch I counted four rusting cars here and there in the yard, just like the wrecks that surrounded the cabin where May and I grew up.
Joe led me to the bedroom, and when I saw May in bed, in that dark room, I asked Joe to take the kids somewhere. The moment the house emptied of noise, and I heard the door slam, I climbed in bed and wrapped May in my arms, and we cried about Ty.
“I had so many plans for him.”
“He’ll always be like a child. Why is that bad?”
“It’s not bad, just different. I expected him to grow up, and experience life like Belle is going to. She’ll be okay, I know that. She’s a leader with the other children. But Ty, he sits alone and talks and talks, like someone is talking back to him.”
“Is that why you took him to a doctor?”
May nodded and cried.
Sister to sister, Man and I spoke for hours each day, about so many things. Her concern for Ty came out in bits and pieces.
My first day there I was nervous, and felt I needed to be doing something. As days passed I relaxed, and my conversations with May carried me, like a warm flood water, into a past filled with laughter.
During my fourth day there, Trudy asked why I was so happy and laughing all the time.
It was country, pure and simple. My worries were fading, as though each day someone removed a large stone from the backpack of stress that I carried in the city. Being with May was healing. I needed it. Just listening to her speak recharged my batteries.
We ate ice cream and talked for days. I helped her with sewing projects, and together we took the kids to school. I’d start a sentence and she’d finish it, just like in the old days, two peas in a pod.
One evening Joe and I were sitting at the kitchen table while May kneaded bread dough on the counter. A cloud of flour flew up each time she slapped the dough. We sipped iced tea, and the cool evening breeze danced in the wind chime on the porch, filling the house with magical notes. I wanted that moment to last forever, but an explosion in the yard brought it to a sudden end.
“What the hell,” said Joe, pushing away from the table.
A moment later Belle screamed in a way that sends terror through the heart of a parent. Before that terrible scream ended, Ty and Trudy screamed.
Joe, May and I, ran into the yard, and found Belle on the ground, her face bloody. Ty was jumping up and down, shouting and screaming.
“Momma, I dropped my sucker in that hole, and Belle lit a match to look inside, and it blew up. I’m sorry, Momma!” Trudy pointed to the gas tank spout of a rusty car.
May lifted Ty. “Joe! Is she okay? Tell me she’s okay,” she screamed.
“Get the truck keys. We’re taking her to the emergency room, it’s her eye and ear, May.” He lifted Belle.
***
The hospital waiting room was cold. The linoleum floor reflected the bright lights overhead. One of the vending machines gurgled and moaned several times each hour.
“Her hearing and sight … my little girl.” The slick chair squeaked as May moved and rested her head on my shoulder.
“The specialists will be here in the morning,” I said, and glanced at Trudy in the seat beside me.
May must have known what I was thinking. She leaned forward. “Can we still do it?” Tears flowed down her cheeks.
“We’re too old.”
“We did it once.”
“We were girls.”
“It’s my baby girl, Adie. We don’t have two girls to call Trudy. Don’t you feel the mark burning?”
“For more than a week.” I took her hand and touched it to my cheek. “I’m always with you, May. You know that.”
She held my hand and led me over to Joe and Ty. May sat beside her husband and stroked his hand until he woke up and looked about.
“Is the specialist here?” he asked.
“I love you, Joe.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
“Please, I need to ask you something. Adie and I are going into Belle, and we’ll be in there all night. If you ever loved me, please don’t come in, or let the children in.”
“This is about the mark, isn’t it?”
“This is for Belle.”
May pulled him forward, and kissed him passionately.
***
I didn’t know if I could still call the angel. I didn’t know if we ever really had. Over the years the whole thing had gotten blurry and faded, but I was going to try with all my heart, for Belle, that precious girl, and for May.
Just like I remembered, we knelt beside the bed and began. Over and over we recited the Lord’s Prayer. My knees ached, then became numb. At some point I was thinking apart from the prayer, wondering if we could do it, wondering if I believed in my ability, and whether angels existed.
Every time I wanted to stop, I thought of Belle laying there with the bandage around her head, covering her eyes.
When I could no longer keep my back straight, I leaned on the bed and recited. Hours passed, and still I followed May’s voice, keeping up with her words, with the prayer. At some point I realized that this was not all about Belle or May, but maybe this was for me as well. Was this a refresher course?
I must have fallen asleep on the bed when I felt May pick up my hand in hers. That brought me back, and I tried with all my might to reach inside my mind or body to summon that force, that power, that had once come alive and healed my mother.
***
May and I thought it was the light of dawn that brought us out of our trance, our prayers. Somewhere in the hospital I heard voices and movement. It was morning.
I couldn’t stand right away, and had to drop to my butt and stretch.
“I don’t smell roses. We didn’t do it.” May cried and pulled the cover off the bed as she dropped to the floor.
I crawled over and held her. “Belle is going to be okay. Don’t blame yourself.”
“All my life I believed it.”
“We did all we could, but we’re not girls any longer.”
“My baby.” She cried.
We rocked back and forth there on the floor, and I held her in my arms. When May stopped crying, I helped her stand and held her around the waist as we hobbled to the door. “Let’s just see what the specialist says.”
But then I realized it was still dark outside. There was no light shining in around the blinds, and I started to sob. “May,” I shouted. “Oh my God, it’s still dark out. We saw a light, May. What was that light?”
May jerked upright and looked about, laughed hysterically, ran to the blinds and looked out. “I saw it too!” She slapped a hand over her mouth and would have dropped to the floor if I didn’t grab her.
Ty opened the door and the smell of roses swept in and filled the room.
“We called Trudy, Momma,” he laughed.
“But Trudy was waiting with you,” I said
Ty bounced from one leg to the other. “Not that Trudy. We called my angel, Trudy.”
He ran and wrapped his mother in a strong hug as he laughed.
“Is that who you’re always talking to, darlin’?” May ran her fingers through his hair.
“She loves me.”
“Oh-my-gosh, Joe! What happened?”
We hurried across the waiting room. Joe was sitting on the floor with his back against the coffee machine, an empty paper cup in his hand, the brown contents a puddle beside him.
“She wasn’t touching the ground,” said Joe, staring at nothing.
“Oh, baby.” May dropped to the floor and hugged him as Ty hugged them both.
“It was real. She lit up the whole room, walked right into Belle’s room. I saw her.” Joe cried.
My daughter Trudy took my hand and looked up at me. “Is Trudy an angel, Momma?”
“Yes, and so are you.”
“Did you name me after her?”
“Yes, and I’ll never let you forget her.” I hugged her.
May touched my leg with her foot, and pointed to a red mark on Ty’s arm.
“Of course, different from ours—” I lifted my daughter’s arm.
“Why are you all laughing?” asked Belle, standing in the doorway to her room.
***
We spent the morning laughing and playing with Belle, waiting for the Specialist from Dallas. When Belle got sad about the injury, her mother told her that nothing was wrong, and not to worry.
When the doctor with the shaved head finally arrived, he stepped into the room. “I smell roses, but don’t see any flowers.”
That made us laugh.
When the bandages were taken off, the nurse carefully cleaned dried blood from Belle’s face, and the plastic surgeon again examined the photos taken when Belle entered the emergency room. After much talk with the nurse, he took the adults aside.
“If that is the same girl as in those photos, then a healing beyond explanation has taken place. I don’t know what to say, except I wasted a flight from Dallas. Her vision is normal, and there are only slight scars that should heal. The hearing in that ear is slightly less, but that shouldn’t hinder her in any way. But those scars, to heal like that overnight.” He shook his head.
We took Belle home that evening, and found Ron on the porch. It was good that Joe had seen Trudy. That allowed him to tell my husband without any of the women or Ty mentioning the family secret.
That night I found there was a new bond between Ron and me, as though all the questions, the lingering doubt about the mark on my arm, or my past, had been resolved.