Christmas Lights Read online

  She had promised to accept it, but like it was a different story. In the three weeks since her prayer, she seemed to have become invisible. If she walked in Jason’s path, he walked around her. If she waved, he looked beyond her. If she smiled, he smiled at the person next to her. Finally she had given up. She stopped smiling and waving and handed it to Jesus. She gave Him all of it this time.

  So for her now to be staring at Jason across the crowded church basement was truly surprising. A shriek louder than the rest from Trevor shook her from her stare.

  “Shhhhhhhhhh, listen,” she crooned. “I swear I was kidding. Santa is still going to bring you toys.”

  She was alternating her attention between Trevor seated next to her and Jason and Mrs. Armstrong coming toward her, holding the hand of a cute-as-a-button four-year-old with long blond ringlets. Julianna patted Trevor’s back with one hand and ran the other hand through her hair, wishing she had taken more time with it that morning. As they got closer, she pretended to be intently interested in both Trevor and his untouched cutout.

  She tracked them out of the corner of her eye, watching them wind their way through the maze of the tables and people coming closer. She glanced around. They were definitely headed her way; there was no room anywhere else. Julianna tried to look busy and focused on her cutout. When they appeared, Julianna looked up and tried to act surprised.

  “Here’s a spot for you two,” the director said brightly. “Jason Green, Julianna Tenley,” she introduced. Making timid eye contact, Jason and Julianna greeted each other. Julianna’s stomach squeezed, and all of a sudden she wasn’t convinced this was such a good idea.

  “Amanda, this is Trevor. Trevor, this is Amanda,” the director said. Julianna could have kicked herself; she should have jumped in and done that. Trevor had finally calmed down, the arrival of the others distracting him. He was now glaring at Amanda, who had seated herself sedately in the chair next to him. Julianna looked at Jason, who was still standing awkwardly above them. He got the hint and sat down on the other side of Amanda.

  The director walked away. Julianna had the oddest urge to run after her, grab her leg like a child, and scream, “Don’t leave me alone with him.”

  She could feel Jason’s eyes on her. All of a sudden she was flushed with embarrassment. When she glanced up, there was just a flicker of eye contact.

  “Hi,” Jason managed self-consciously.

  “Hi,” Julianna answered, her voice sounding oddly high and thin.

  “We go to school together, right?” he asked so timidly it was if he were walking on eggshells.

  What Julianna wanted to say was “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve been dying over you. Eating, sleeping, and breathing you, and you’re not even sure if we go to school together.” But what she actually said was “Yeah. I think so.”

  “I know so,” he answered.

  His reply took her by surprise. And when she looked up at him, he was smiling at her. Not a small subtle smile but a big beautiful smile, the same smile she had seen from a distance and wondered if it would ever shine on her. For a moment it mesmerized her, but then she had to look away. Her mind raced, searching for some sort of witty, alluring reply, but it was blank.

  She was just about to say anything. She opened her mouth but instead of her own voice coming out, she heard a horrendous screech from Amanda instead. For a few seconds Jason’s and Julianna’s only reaction was to stare at her with their mouths open. The sound was the equivalent of a fire truck siren, loud, high-pitched, and long. It was startling that such a huge sound could come out of such a little girl. She sat poker straight, her arms at her sides, and her head tilted slightly upward. Finally, Julianna reacted, jumping from her seat and hurrying to Amanda’s side. She began rubbing her tiny back.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked. Amanda only screeched louder.

  “I can’t make it better if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” Julianna tried, stealing one of her mother’s favorite phrases.

  “Amanda, tell me what’s wrong,” she begged, making sure to keep her voice gentle enough to sound kind while still making it loud enough for Amanda to hear over her own howling. The problem was that everyone else in the room heard her too, and pretty much all of them were watching them as if they were watching a really interesting television show.

  “Tell me honey, please,” Julianna begged. Finally Amanda gave her a clue by motioning her howl toward Trevor.

  “Trevor?” Julianna guessed, as if she were playing charades. “Did Trevor do something to you?” Now Amanda added head bobbing to her screaming.

  “Trevor, what did you do?”

  “What did Trevor do to you?” she asked Amanda. The screaming got even louder, although if anyone had asked Julianna a minute earlier, she would have said that was not possible. Amanda now clutched her left arm.

  “Did you hit her, Trevor? Did he hit you?” Amanda responded to this with louder screaming.

  “Trevor hit you in the arm?” Julianna stated, solving the puzzle. Amanda was now nodding up and down frantically while she continued to holler.

  “Trevor, why would you do that?” Julianna asked him incredulously.

  Trevor’s response was to position his back poker straight, put his arms down at his sides, turn his head slightly upward, and scream.

  “Oh, brother,” Julianna grumbled, shaking her head back and forth, not believing her rotten luck.

  What a sight they were, two four-year-olds sitting side by side, in identical positions, screeching to the high heavens. Jason was still frozen. As he looked at her pleadingly, his eyes seemed to say “Please fix this.”

  Julianna looked at his frightened face and almost felt bad for him. Then she grinned. It was all a little funny, she realized, looking from Jason to the children. She laughed, then said to Jason, “You can laugh. It’s kind of funny.”

  His face relaxed and he looked at the children, then at her, and laughed too. “It is kind of funny?” he said. His words sounded somewhere in between a statement and a question. Julianna nodded and chuckled. They were incredibly cute children, even in this condition. For another second they smiled together, then, catching sight of Mrs. Armstrong marching toward them, Julianna’s smile vanished.

  “It’s not funny anymore,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Jason. He saw what she saw and his smile disappeared too.

  The director hurried over. “What happened?” she asked through clenched teeth, somehow implying that they might be making her look bad.

  Jason and Julianna shrugged, wagging their heads simultaneously.

  “Hers hit mine,” Jason announced clumsily. Julianna winced at his lack of tact.

  “Trevor seems to have tapped Amanda,” she explained a little more smoothly, hoping somehow to save the service hours for both of them.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Armstrong said. She seemed relieved. “That type of behavior is actually quite age appropriate for this developmental stage,” she began.

  From there on Julianna was able to hear only fragments of sentences through the noise of the howling four-year-olds in her ears. She nodded respectfully, pretending to be enlightened by every word. Jason was squinting and nodding as well, obviously also unable to hear. Julianna almost laughed again.

  “… developmental, age appropriate, inappropriate, misplaced, repressed, latent, catalyst, and overt …” Mrs. Armstrong droned on.

  Through the noise, Julianna was able to get the gist of this long-winded explanation even though she didn’t buy it.

  “So you see,” the director said, her voice rising to deliver her final sentence, “it all is completely developmentally age appropriate.”

  She seemed completely satisfied with herself. She nodded at the four of them, Mary Poppins style, and said, “So I will leave the rest to the two of you.”

  With this she turned on her heel and strode away. Jason looked at Julianna in a panic as he realized that the director was leaving them in charge of the whole mes
s.

  “Relax,” Julianna said, glad Mrs. Armstrong was gone.

  “Follow me,” she told him, scooping up Trevor. “Get yours.”

  Dutifully, Jason picked up Amanda and followed Julianna. She led him across the basement to a couple of empty chairs positioned against the wall.

  “What did she say?” Jason asked, wide-eyed. Julianna sighed and over her shoulder she explained.

  “She said he hit her because he likes her.”

  Jason screwed up his face. “Does that make sense?” he asked, flabbergasted.

  “It doesn’t to me,” Julianna said. “But I’m not a four-year-old boy either.”

  “I am—uhh, I mean, was,” Jason stuttered, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Trust me,” Julianna said. “You still are.”

  “Hey,” he said in mock disgust.

  Together they laughed.

  Julianna plopped Trevor into one chair, and Jason put Amanda in the one next to him. The children continued to howl, noses high in the air, while Julianna snatched four candy canes off the nearby Christmas tree. She unwrapped them quickly.

  “Do you have any idea what to do?” Jason asked.

  “I know exactly what to do,” she told him. And she did. She popped the first cane into Amanda’s screeching mouth, the next into Trevor’s, and a third into Jason’s. Instantly, the three of them were silent, just as she knew they would be.

  “Always works,” she stated happily, popping the last one into her own mouth. The two four-year-olds licked joyfully. Jason did the same.

  Julianna didn’t care what the manual said. Instinctively she knew what to do. She didn’t have to think about it.

  Julianna crouched before the two children while Jason stood behind her.

  “You,” she began, facing Trevor with just the correct combination of gentleness and sternness. Poking him playfully in the tummy, she said “You may not hit people.”

  “I not hit her,” Trevor corrected between loud sucking noises. “Me punch her.”

  Julianna stifled a chuckle, amused by his innocent honesty. “I know,” she acknowledged. “Why would you do that?”

  “Me like her.” He shrugged matter-of-factly, swinging his legs back and forth. Julianna’s heart melted. He was hilarious. Behind her she heard Jason gasp in amazement.

  “That’s wild,” he said as if he had just witnessed a miracle. “Just like the lady said.”

  Julianna found his amazement funny and was glad that he couldn’t see her grinning. “And you,” she continued, turning to face Amanda. She playfully poked Amanda’s tummy. “You may not howl like a siren over almost nothing.” Amanda giggled.

  “You say ‘I’m sorry,’ ” she instructed Trevor.

  “Sorry,” Trevor mumbled, examining exactly which stripes he had sucked off of the candy cane.

  “And you say ‘That’s okay,’ ” she encouraged Amanda.

  “That’s okay,” Amanda said, more than happy to comply.

  “Now,” Julianna said brightly, “let’s be done with all of this nonsense and have some Christmas fun.”

  They skipped alongside her back to the craft table. She thought she heard Jason mutter “wow” again behind her.

  The time passed easily with the common bond of the children uniting them. The teenagers laughed and chatted sometimes with Trevor and Amanda, sometimes with each other. Julianna learned that Jason had two sisters, wanted to be a lawyer like his father, and liked Cap’n Crunch cereal so much that he ate it out of a mixing bowl.

  When he wasn’t watching, Julianna studied his face, trying to imagine what it would be like for a boy like that to like her, to really like her.

  They spent the remainder of the afternoon pleasantly, making cotton-ball snowmen, hand-print Christmas trees, and Popsicle-stick mangers. They sat in a circle on the carpet and sang Christmas carols and listened to Mrs. Armstrong read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Finally it was time to go.

  Trevor’s and Amanda’s parents came at the same time. Together Julianna and Jason carried the giggling children to them. Julianna gave Trevor a kiss on the cheek. Jason gave Amanda a high five.

  Alone, they stood self-consciously surrounded by the comings and goings of the others.

  “Well, I guess that’s it,” Jason said.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Julianna agreed.

  “We got our hours,” he offered.

  “Yes, we got our hours,” she repeated.

  “It wasn’t too bad,” he said.

  “No,” she replied. She knew she was being sensitive, but she hoped he had enjoyed his time and not just thought it was not too bad.

  “Well, I guess that’s it,” he said again, this time swinging his arms back and forth at his sides.

  “Yeah. I guess so,” Julianna agreed, her heart sinking a little deeper into her chest. They stepped away from each other at almost the same time.

  “Bye,” he said.

  “Bye,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas,” he offered.

  “Merry Christmas,” she said, feeling sad that it was all over. She tried not to stare at him as he walked away, but then she let herself, thinking why not.

  She gathered her things, sliding on her coat, gloves, and scarf. All of a sudden she felt tired. It was as if she were a balloon, once flying high but now somehow the air had seeped out until she was flat on the ground.

  She trudged up the basement steps and pushed the heavy metal door. It screeched open to reveal the bitter cold evening. The sky was dark and cloudy. When she looked up at the steeple light, she could see flurries of snow dancing around it. She walked along on the sidewalk cobblestones that went around the perimeter of the building. When she turned the last corner, she eyed the statue of Mary that sat tucked away in the bushes surrounded by dormant rose bushes. She realized that although she passed the statue several times a week, she almost never even really paused to look at it unless it was surrounded by the beautiful blooming summer roses. But today something drew her to it. The statue looked pretty even without the roses around it. Below the statue was a single small spotlight. The light was weak and flickering a bit, and the angle was wrong so that half of Mary’s face was in the shadow and half was in the light. Julianna crouched down and found the bulb. She swept the dried leaves away and tightened the bulb so it stopped flickering. She used her scarf to polish the lens, then repositioned the light so that all of Mary’s face was gently, beautifully illuminated. She made it perfect, then knelt to pray. She breathed deeply, letting the cool air come in and out of her. She decided on a simple “Hail Mary.” When she was done she asked Mary to bless her and keep her and guide her. She was just about to get up when suddenly a bold punch landed on her arm. It almost knocked her over. She looked up and gasped. Jason was standing above her with his gigantic proud smile. She clutched her arm.

  “Why in the world would you pu—” Julianna stopped herself. She had been about to ask him why he had punched her. But she realized by his big goofy grin that she knew exactly why.

  Still smiling, he said, “I’m not real sure why I punched you,” he said teasingly. “You seem to be able to figure these things out.”

  He was absolutely the cutest thing she had ever seen.

  “Okay,” she said, grinning back at him.

  “Okay,” he said, appearing quite satisfied with himself. “See you at school,” he said with a laugh.

  “See you at school.”

  He stood there for another second, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  “Well, Merry Christmas … again.”

  “Merry Christmas.” Julianna blushed.

  Peering from around the bushes until he was out of sight, she watched him walk away. Then, once he was gone, still kneeling, Julianna looked at the statue of Mary, studying Mary’s face. The serene smile seemed to be saying that she understood. Before getting up, Julianna whispered “Thank you.”

  Her heart danced as she started for home and Christmas Eve dinn
er with her family.

  Adrianna

  She opened the closet door and eyed the half-used rolls of Christmas wrap. She decided on the blue foil with the silver snowflakes and a white satin bow. She took a roll of tape and a pair of scissors from the top shelf. On the floor in the hallway with just the glow of light from the rising sun, she carefully cut the paper to size. She looked at the gold ring, rubbing it with her thumb and forefinger to give it a slight shine. Then she placed it in the box and carefully wrapped it, folding and taping the edges. Then she placed the bow on top and she crept back into the bedroom. She set the box on the night table, taking care not to wake the sleeping figure in the bed. She held her breath when he sighed and rolled over. Within a moment he had settled. But she didn’t let herself breathe again until she was out of the room.

  A few minutes later she was driving down the highway. The wet Christmas Eve snowflakes smashed against the windshield then dripped down the glass as the tears of a broken heart dropped from her eyes and slid down her face. She went to the only place where she ever felt at home—the church. She drove into the deserted lot.

  She pulled open the heavy wooden door and slid inside. The warmth surrounded her. She stomped the snow off of her furry winter boots. The stillness and quiet were deafening and made her question if she could hear at all. She looked around the empty church.

  “I’m home,” she whispered upward. Something her mother taught her. When she was a child, her mother would usher her and her sisters into the church, guide them to kneel and pray, and say, “Tell your Father you are home. The church is truly your home. As long as there is an open church door, you have a home.”

  Unable to pray at first, instead she just sat. She breathed deeply, trying to make it natural. She hadn’t realized just how tense she had been or just how much she had been holding her breath. The church was cozy, and its warmth surrounded her like a hug. She did feel at home and safe within its walls, which was why for the first time in months she was actually able to cry. She let herself cry long and hard, just as children do. She just wished she was crying over something childish. But she wasn’t. She was crying for a broken marriage, her broken marriage. Actually, part of what hurt so much was that it came as a bit of a surprise. Her marriage wasn’t perfect, but she was happy and she thought her husband was too. But the fight the night before proved otherwise. She wrapped her arms around herself in a hug. An involuntary shiver wracked her. She sat in the pew reliving the events of the last evening. This time when she cried, it was like a grown-up, softly, with the tears gently falling down her face.