The Christmas Portrait Read online

  “I did. I took that picture with my very first camera. The redbird was right outside our living room window.”

  “Wow! I’d like to take a picture of a butterfly.”

  “Maybe you can someday.”

  Marla nearly lunged toward the sofa, and climbed up on both knees. She leaned close to see. “Dr. Kate, do you know him too?”

  “Who, Marla?”

  “Him.” Her eyes were fixed on the framed picture next to the redbird.

  Her words halted my movement. I replayed them in my head. Do you know him too?

  “You mean the man in that portrait I painted?”

  “Uh-huh. Him.” She pointed to the picture and then looked at me.

  “Yes. I met him a long time ago. Why? Do you know Mr. Josh?”

  She turned around and sat down on the sofa. “I sort of know him. He was at the butterfly haven the other day, and he talked to me about missing Abby.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “No. He knew my name though, but he never said his.”

  “Marla, would you tell me about him?”

  “He had on a different coat, and he didn’t have all those colors around him, but it was him.”

  Her response took me back twenty years back to Kentucky to that first Christmas without Mama.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cedar Falls, Kentucky

  1988

  I DIDN’T THINK TOO much about redbirds until Mama and Daddy took me and my little brother on a Fourth of July picnic last summer. Daddy planned to go up to the mountain pass where the waterfall was because he knew it was one of Mama’s favorite spots. From there she thought she could see Ohio and West Virginia and all the way up to the end of Appalachia. Daddy said she had some kind of special eyes if she could see all that, or else her geography was a little off, then he just laughed.

  But Mama wasn’t up to hiking the mountain trails that day, so we went out to Granny Grace’s pond for our picnic and to go fishing. Daddy took my brother, Chesler, out in the boat. And that was when Mama—Diana Joy Harding—told me. Mama said it just like she woulda told me she was going to the store to get milk. “Katherine Joy, I’m going to heaven before long, not because I want to, but just because it’s my time to go. I wish I could stay here to watch you grow up, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that because I’m sick, and they’ve run out of ways to make me well.”

  Then I saw the tear roll down Mama’s cheek. I wanted to hold her just like I used to hold my baby doll that cried real tears. In all my life I had seen Mama cry only one time because she was sad. That’s when Grandpa died. The other times Mama just cried from laughing so hard.

  I knew all about going to heaven because Daddy explained it to me when Grandpa went. Going to heaven meant Mama would be in a better place, but she’d still be gone. I wouldn’t see her anymore ’til I got there. I couldn’t brush her long red hair, or sing her made-up songs, or hear her stories about all the trouble she and Aunt Susannah Hope got in to when they were little girls.

  Seeing Mama’s tears made me cry too. So we just sat there on that quilt, and I held on to Mama like I was never letting her go to heaven without me. She was quiet for a few minutes before she said, “So, Katherine Joy, I want us to choose something that’ll always remind you I love you and that I’m still there in your heart and in your memory. Something that will make you remember me every time you see it.” It was right then that the redbird swooped down. A redbird. Just like Mama’s hair. And that bird could sing like Mama too.

  That was our last picnic. Mama got real sick, and she had to go to the hospital. Chesler and I stayed with Granny Grace for two whole weeks because Daddy was with Mama every minute at Cedar Falls Memorial. The doctors let Mama come home when she told them she had things to do. When Mama felt like it, she mostly played quiet games with us and cuddled with Daddy on the sofa to watch a movie. But when she didn’t feel good and had to stay in bed, she made lists. I heard Daddy ask her one time what she was doing, and she said, “I’m making a list of the lists I need to make.” Mama was like that.

  She made lists of what we were supposed to do after she went to heaven. Her pink and yellow and blue slips of paper covered the bulletin board in the kitchen. The first thing on Daddy’s list was to put up the bird feeders before winter set in. Learning to wash the dishes was at the top of my list, but there wasn’t much on Chesler’s list since he was only five.

  Mama could even make dishwashing fun. She would go over to the cabinet by the refrigerator, and when she’d pull on the handle to open the drawer, it sounded like one of Granny Grace’s squawking guineas. Mama would laugh and squawk back, and Daddy would get up and start toward the door. “I’ll get my toolbox and fix that drawer right now.” That was Daddy. He liked to fix things, but mostly he liked to make Mama smile.

  Then Mama would say, “No, I like that sound. It’s like the dinner bell, only when the drawer squeaks, it’s time for Kate to wash the dishes.” She’d take one of Granny Grace’s homemade, checkered aprons out of that drawer and tie it around me. I stood right beside her to rinse the dishes after she washed them.

  Mama would sing her bath time bubble song while washing the dishes. She’d put the bubbles from the dishwater on my nose and let me put bubbles in my hand and blow them against the kitchen window.

  Mama had a song about everything. If she didn’t know one, she’d just make one up. And when the redbird showed up in the cedar tree outside the kitchen window, Mama made up a redbird song. When I told her my teacher said the redbird was really a cardinal, Mama said, “It’s a funny thing about birds. We call a black bird a blackbird, a blue bird a bluebird, but a redbird a cardinal. Kate, I can’t think of one word that rhymes with cardinal, so if it’s okay with you, let’s just sing about the redbird.”

  When I mentioned to Mama that maybe we could get a dishwasher, she stopped washing, put down her dishrag, and pointed out the window. “Now, Kate, if there’s nobody standing right here washing dishes, then that beautiful redbird in the cedar tree would have nobody to look at through the window.”

  Mama liked to walk down by the creek behind our house when she felt up to it. She said she hoped we would have an early fall because she wanted to see the red and gold leaves reflecting in the creek water just one more time. One afternoon after I got home from school, Mama put on her boots and the thick wool sweater Granny knitted for her, and we walked down the path to the creek and climbed up on the big rock at the bend. Really, it wasn’t quite sweater weather, but it seemed Mama was always cold.

  When we got to the top of the rock where Mama liked to sit, the sun was warm, and Mama just started singing the Irish folk songs Grandpa liked. And then right in the middle of one, she stopped and stared into the water and got real quiet like. I tried to hum to her, but then Mama started talking to me about life being like that stream. “Sometimes life’s calm like that pool of deep water around the bend, and sometimes it’s rough like the white-water upstream, but it’s always headed somewhere, Kate,” she said. “It’s always headed somewhere. But no matter how rough or calm the water, there are always the solid rocks underneath just getting smoother as the years go by.”

  Mama took my hand and held it with both of hers, but she didn’t look at me like she usually did when she asked me a question. She was still looking at the water. “Kate, your life is going to get like the upstream white water for a while. You might not know which way you’re going, and you might think you can’t keep your head above the water, but you have smooth, solid stones underneath you, girl. You just remember that. Do you know what those stones are?”

  When Mama talked like that, I felt the sadness squeezing me so much I couldn’t breathe. I shook my head, but Mama wasn’t looking at me.

  “Katherine Joy, do you know what’s going to keep your head up and keep you going somewhere?”

  “You, Mama. You’ll keep my head up.” I was glad Mama wasn’t looking at me so she wouldn’t have to see my teary eyes. If she h
ad seen me, I would have just told her it was that Kentucky breeze making my eyes water.

  “No, Kate. I won’t be here to hold your head up.” Mama let go of my hand and pulled her sweater around her tighter. Then she pointed to the water’s edge. “You think you can climb down there and pick up three smooth stones?”

  “Yes, Mama. You want more than three? I can get ’em for you.” I would have done anything to make Mama happy.

  “Three will do it.”

  I scooted down from the top of the big rock to the edge of the creek, and I looked around until I found three smooth stones about the size of Granny’s prize chicken eggs. I had to put two of them in my jeans pocket so I could climb back up to the top where Mama was sitting.

  She took them from my hand. “Oh, good, you found three beauties. Now I want you to remember what I’m telling you, Kate. These are to remind you of the things that’ll keep your head above water when I’m gone.”

  She handed me one of the rocks. “This rock is your faith. I taught you to pray when you were learning to talk. Praying is talking to God. Faith’s depending on Him. You already know how to do that, and you just keep doing it, my sweet daughter, even when you don’t feel like it, or you don’t want to, or it doesn’t make a dab of sense.”

  Then she handed me the second rock. “This rock is your family. You have your daddy and Granny Grace and Aunt Susannah and your little brother. They’ll take good care of you, but you must remember life’s going to get rough for them too, and you’re one of their rocks. So sometimes, you’ll have to be strong for them. You’ll be the lady of the house when I go to heaven, so you’ll have to help Chesler grow up, and you’ll have to take care of your daddy and remind him of the things he might forget.”

  I wanted to scream, “I can’t do that, Mama. I don’t want to do it. You have to stay.” But something stopped me before I said it out loud.

  “And this final rock is for forever. Forever, Kate. Remember, life as we know it here on this planet is not all there is. There are things we cannot see here, but they are real. So you live and love knowing it’s forever. Think you can remember all that?” That’s when Mama looked at me.

  I slowly repeated the words. “Faith, family, and forever. I won’t forget, Mama.”

  She smiled and squeezed my hand. And that night after supper, she helped me paint the words on those rocks. Faith. Family. Forever.

  Mama didn’t make it to see the leaves change colors. She went to heaven in September not long after Chesler’s birthday. She had been sleeping mostly for about two days. Granny was always on one side of the bed holding Mama’s hand, and Daddy was on the other. They didn’t talk much, but Daddy had Mama’s favorite music playing, and the birds were singing outside.

  It was in the middle of the night. Daddy came to my room and said it was time for me to say good-bye to Mama. He got Chesler up too. I went to their room and lay down beside Mama so I could feel her hair. Chesler didn’t want to, so Granny held him in her lap. I tried to sing to Mama, but I couldn’t. She woke up a little and whispered something. Granny must have understood because she held Chesler next to Mama’s face. That was one time he was sweet. He kissed Mama on the cheek, and then he said the strangest thing. He said, “Good night, Mama. See you in the morning.”

  Mama smiled a little when Chesler said that, then she turned her head to me and said, “Give me your hand, Kate.”

  I found Mama’s hand under the cover. It was warm and soft, and she squeezed my hand just a little bit. Then she whispered, “I’ll always and forever love you, my sweet Katherine Joy.”

  “I’ll always love you too, Mama.”

  Mama got quiet after that. Then she squeezed my hand a little bit more and whispered so soft, “Always remember what I taught you, Kate. Faith, family, and forever.” Then Mama looked straight at Daddy sitting right behind me on the bed, and it was like her eyes just froze on him. Her hand wasn’t holding mine anymore, but I was holding hers like I was the last thing to tie her to this earth.

  Daddy sat there looking at Mama. He was sitting still like her too. Then he got up and took me by the shoulders. “Kate, I want you and Chesler to go with Granny now.”

  I didn’t want to leave, but Granny said Daddy needed time alone with Mama. I turned around at the door. Daddy was kneeling on the floor, holding Mama and crying into her long, red hair.

  Everything changed that night Mama went to heaven and Daddy cried so hard. Sometimes it seemed like it was just last night, and sometimes it seemed like about a million years ago. But now it was almost Christmas, and I didn’t know how to think about Christmas without Mama.

  Daddy was at the table with Chesler while I washed the dishes again. I didn’t mind though because I could think about Mama. The redbird was in the cedar tree. She sat there looking at me, doing what redbirds do, tweeting and pecking at the tree limb. She flapped her wings every now and then and shook the snow off the branches. I wondered if she wanted to be inside this warm house with me, my daddy, and my brother. If Mama were here, she’d be singing the redbird song. I could almost hear Mama. “Be careful about rinsing out the sink so your daddy won’t be looking at dried-up spaghetti sauce in the morning, and put away the dishrag like I taught you.” Mama liked clean. The redbird flew away when I turned out the light over the sink.

  I looked at Daddy sitting there with his long arm around Chesler, and I remembered how Mama used to look up at Daddy because he was so tall, and she talked about his broad shoulders and how he made her feel safe. Mama said Daddy was the handsomest man she ever saw with his brown eyes and high cheekbones.

  I missed hearing Mama say things like that, and I knew Daddy did too. But he didn’t have much time to be sad with all the things Mama left on his list, like helping Chesler do his reading assignments. Chesler could sing better than anybody except Mama, but he couldn’t read too well yet. Daddy sat next to him listening to him read his rhyming words while he opened and stacked the mail.

  Somebody sent Daddy a letter asking for money, and they sent address labels. Daddy handed the labels to me as he kind of mumbled, “Kate, maybe you would like these.”

  I sure did. They had redbirds on them. I figured Daddy didn’t want them because Mama’s name was on the labels too, and her address was in heaven now. I cut the pictures of the redbirds off the labels and stuck some on my pink notebook. I saved some for later.

  When Chesler finished reading, Daddy said, “Let’s make hot chocolate and play Skip-Bo. Nothing much to watch on TV tonight.”

  Daddy thought if he put chocolate milk in the microwave, it came out hot chocolate. I wished Mama had made a list about that. She heated milk, and melted chocolate and sugar on the stove, and put marshmallows on top. Mama knew how to do everything, and she made everything special, even a cup of hot chocolate. Daddy did things differently, but he was trying.

  After Skip-Bo and hot chocolate Daddy helped Chesler with his bath and tucked him in bed. Then the bathroom was all mine. I got to stay up until nine thirty and read because I was going on eleven.

  Right after Mama went to heaven, Daddy wasn’t too good at doing bedtime. Some nights he would forget and not come to my room until after ten. I reminded him that Mama thought sleep was important for growing children. Daddy said, “If you can remember sleep’s so important, why don’t you remember to turn the light out at nine-thirty?”

  Then I said exactly what Mama would have said if she were standing with her hands on her hips right here in this room. “John Chesler Harding, I don’t think we’re communicating.”

  When I said that, Daddy smiled a little. He hasn’t missed too many nights since that conversation, and he was right on time tonight. He sat down on the bed, and I put my book away. “Kate, have you been practicing your lines for the Christmas pageant at church?”

  “Yes, sir, two weeks left, and I already got them memorized.” I didn’t get a big part in the play this year. Pastor Simmons probably thought I might be too sad. But anyway, I knew my four lines, a
nd I would be singing with the choir.

  “What about your brother? You think he’s ready too?”

  “He can sing that solo backward, but he’s gonna look funny in that sheep costume.” Our choir teacher knew that would be a good part for Chesler. “Let’s see, if Chesler’s a little sheep and you’re his daddy, that makes you . . .?”

  “That makes me a ram.”

  “And Mama?”

  “Well, then Mama would be an ewe.”

  That sounded weird, and I must have looked puzzled because then Daddy said, “Not you, y-o-u, but ewe, e-w-e.”

  I had to think about that a little. “Sure am glad he’s not a little goat, then you’d just be an old goat.” I was always trying to think of ways to make Daddy smile again.

  He laughed a little bit. “Do you remember last year’s Christmas pageant?”

  “Sure, I remember.” Last year when I was nine, I was the angel. Mama made me a whole costume, wings and halo too. I didn’t know it then, but now I knew what gossamer was.

  Granny Grace said to Mama, “That angel costume has to be of gossamer. Katherine Joy Harding will not wear a king-sized, white pillowcase with holes cut out for her head and arms. It must be gossamer.”

  Mama made a white dress with more layers than Aunt Susannah Hope’s chocolate layer cake, and Daddy bent coat hangers to look like angel wings and a halo so Mama could cover it with gossamer. I didn’t think there was anything Mama and Granny Grace couldn’t do with a glue gun.

  I got a rash two days before the pageant. Mama said, “Kate, I told you not to eat all those strawberries. Rash or no rash, you’re putting on that angel costume, and you’re going to recite the second chapter of Luke in front of the whole church.” Mama was backstage with me at the pageant and just before it was time for me to say my part, she whispered in my ear, “Remember, Kate, angels never scratch.”