This Christmas Morning, Installment 20

Chapter 8, Part 1

Winter winds were howling outside the window and the Norwegian goat bells were clanging from the door as Jana woke to see her own frozen breath. At first she hoped that the pilot light was out in the furnace and that

Roy

would rise and light it before she was forced to put a foot on the icy wooden floor. She buried her head in the goose feather pillow. The clanging was joined by six chimes of the hallway clock. It gradually occurred to Jana that the front door must have blown open. She muttered a most un-Christmas-like greeting to the day, drew herself slowly up and pulled the robe tightly about her shoulders.

The music box lying in the center of the hallway floor was the second sign something was amiss. Grandpa was standing barefoot in the open doorway, dazed. He was holding a hatchet in one hand and a card in the other.

“What are you doing?” Jana asked. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh.” There was a glazed look in his eyes.

“Waiting for Santa Claus.” His bare feet were covered with snow.

“What are you looking at?” She stepped to the door. “Grandpa? Dad?”

He lifted the hatchet in defiance. “Winter. Cold.”  

“Come out of the doorway. You’ll catch your death...”

“Death.” His voice was so sad. So very old.

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“The winter of my life...”

“What are you talking about?”

He laughed again; a laugh colder than the morning. “You have no idea.”

“Dad, I know what you must be feeling...”

“You don’t have any idea how I feel!” he snapped back angrily. “My world...”

“Life is not over just because mom is gone...”

Grandpa lifted the hatchet like a weapon. “My whole world came crashing to an end on Thanksgiving Day. Maybe not your world, but my world. My whole world! And it can never come back!” Grandpa’s voice turned suddenly soft. The hatchet fell from his hand onto the icy step. “She’s not gone, Jana. She’s dead. Dead. And no amount of hoping, no amount of praying is ever going to change that.”

“Dad, what’s...”

Grandpa walked slowly into the house, reading the card. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Meyer. A very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from your friends at the Thalacker Mortuary!” He ripped it in half and threw it in Jana’s face. “My world!”

“Stop talking like that! I’m your world, too. And Monty. And my Melissa and Leo.

Roy

and now Fern.”

He sneered. “Don’t say Dewey or you’ll ruin the mood.”

Jana was ready for this fight. “How dare you treat me like this! I come to this house, put on a happy face, drag out the decorations so that it will be nice for you and the kids...”

Grandpa tried to shout her out. “Okay! You want me to say that you’ve done a great job? Kid, everything is perfect! Just plain perfect! This is the best Christmas I ever...”

Jana wanted to slap him. “Now you’re patronizing me!”

“I didn’t ask you to...”

“You think I enjoy this charade? You think this is how I really feel - all Christmas cheer and smiles? You hard-hearted old...”

“What do you want from me?” he shouted.

“I just want...”

“What do you want?”

Jana bit her lip. “I want a Christmas that... I just want... I don’t know what I want. I’ve been so damn busy that I’ve forgotten what I... what... what am I doing all this for?”

“What?”

She tore a limb from the plastic tree. “Christmas. What are we doing it for? What is anybody doing it for?”

“No one asked you to come here.”

“Love asked me to come here! You old...”

“Guilt asked you to come here.”

“Ahhh!” Jana was too frustrated for words. She threw the branch at her father. “OK. Yes, love. Yes, guilt! Sometimes they’re part of the same emotion.”