this is from years ago, but worth sharing again this season.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Mary's Christmas
But I love this story and hope you do too.
Mary's
Christmas--2012
Here's what Mary
knew: hunger, real hunger for the first time in her life; cold, more
cold than she could remember; fear, again, a first time feeling, if
you didn't count thunder storms; pain, in her feet, all four of them.
And it was dark.
She was wandering in an unknown place, trying to remember home and
the Man and the Woman and the Girl and the Boy. But her memory was
not all it could be. Being in Mary's brain would be like being in a
place like a desert, or an empty field, or snow-covered ground with
just occasional object to break up the monotony. Mary's brain was
like the brain of any Lab/Cocker Spaniel mix, or any Lab's, or any
Cocker Spaniel, any dog at all....
Brendan, who was
'the Man' in Mary's mostly empty mind—which registered only basic
things: hunger, cold, fear, pain, heat, safety, someone's touch, joy,
love--often thought to himself that he would prefer to be in Mary's
head than being in Joe's head, the Maine Coon Cat who lived with
them. Being in Mary's head, Brendan thought, would be simple, easy,
in the moment, verging on Zen. He was not anxious to know what a cat
thought. Cats, he thought, always being a 'dog person', though he
loved Joe greatly, would have a mind that was Byzantine in
complexity, full of traffic circles and cul-de-sac's and dead ends. A
dog's mind, Brendan believed, would be basic and uncomplicated and
verging on sublime. That, Brendan imagined, would be a comforting
place to be for a while, away from the complexities of his own mind,
simple and safe. The mind of Joe, a cat's mind, on the other hand,
would be risky business, something better avoided, something to stay
clear of. Cats, thought Brendan, were inscrutable, foreign, removed.
Extricating yourself from the mind of a cat might be something like
trying to escape quicksand—the more you struggled the deeper in you
would sink.
But on this day,
this Christmas Eve, Brendan wasn't thinking such philosophical
thoughts. His thoughts were clear and full of terror. Mary was
missing and he was beside himself and in mourning. So were the other
people in his house—Lydia his wife and Alan and Ellen, their
children, 10 and 7 they were. For three days, none of them were
functioning at a very high level, not since that night three nights
ago (the first day of winter) when Brendan took Mary with him to go
pick up some gifts at Macy's in the mall in Waterbury. It had been
warm for December and Mary loved to ride in the car. The packages
were waiting for him at the service desk—a few things for good
friends that Lydia had ordered on line to pick up at the store,
already wrapped.
Brendan had left
the window down a bit, so Mary could stick her nose out if she
wanted, but usually she was fine in a parked car, either curling up
in the front passenger seat or stretching out in the back seat of
Brendan's Kia to wait patiently. Mary was nothing if not patient. She
always snoozed a bit when left in the car. And it only took Brendan
10 minutes to collect the packages and get back to his car in the
crowded parking lot.
But the packages
were left, still in their bags, on the pavement when Brendan saw the
overhead light on in his car and the back door open and no Mary. He
ran toward his car calling, “Mary, Mary, Mary come....” But Mary
didn't come.
An elderly couple
was standing near his car—a Black man and woman in their 70's—the
woman was crying into her husband's chest. The man held her gently
and looked up as Brendan came running up.
“My dog?” he
asked, frantic.
The man shook his
head. “We were getting out of our car and saw some boys taunting
her through the window.” The man's hair was white and tight to his
head, his skin was ebony. “Louise, my wife, yelled at them and then
one of them opened the door. Your dog leaped out and ran from them.
They were still yelling and chasing the dog, but he outran them.”
“She,”
Brendan said, realizing as he said it that the gender of the dog
didn't really matter. “Mary's a girl....”
“I'm sorry,”
the man said, “we tried to stop them....I'm sorry about Mary.”
“Which way,”
Brendan asked, “which way did she go?”
The man pointed
toward the far end of the mall, toward Sears.
“That
was awful,” the woman said, between sobs, “those awful
boys...that poor frightened dog....”
“You go look for
her, son,” the man told him. “I'll get your bags and put them in
your car. Go on, now. Mary needs you.”
Brendan ran through
the gathering darkness, calling for Mary as he ran. Several people
moved away as he passed, thinking him deranged, which he was. He
couldn't think, couldn't reason. All he could do was run through the
huge parking lot, calling Mary's name as he ran.
A security guard
going off duty saw him and said, “is Mary your daughter?”
“No,” Brendan
said, “she's my dog.” He realized he was gasping and that his
face was covered with tears. The back of his throat ached as it had
when he was a child and was frightened or greatly saddened. He felt
as lost as a child, terrified, torn apart, his heart breaking.
“Just a dog?”
the security guard asked. “You're this upset about a dog?”
Brendan
ran on, he was coming near the end of the mall now, his heart
pounding, sobbing as he ran. “She not just
a dog,” he was thinking as he called for her, “she's Mary. She's
Lydia's
dog.”
With
that thought, he stopped running. Mostly because he was out of
breath, but also because of that thought. Mary was Lydia's dog. Lydia
picked her out at the animal shelter. Lydia loved Mary almost as much
as she loved her children and, sometimes Brendan thought, a little
more than she loved him. Lydia would go to sleep rubbing Mary as the
dog slept between them on their bed. Lydia made Mary's food because
the dog was allergic to processed dog food. Lydia cut Mary's nails
and cleaned her ears and, much to Mary's displeasure, brushed the
dog's teeth with a beef flavored toothpaste to get rid of tartar.
Brendan walked the dog in the morning and the evening, but it was
Lydia who took Mary to her Mazda and drove her to the old Farmington
Canal at the bottom of the hill from their house in Cheshire and
walked her all the way to Jennifer's bench. There were benches on the
canal path, dedicated to people who had died. Jennifer's was the last
bench. Jennifer had been a child who died and had loved the canal.
“We have to say
hello to Jennifer,” Lydia told Brendan more than once, “then Mary
and I come home.”
Suddenly, Brendan
couldn't think. It was akin to being inside Joe's mind. Nothing was
logical, nothing made sense, there was no way out of what had
happened. Mary was gone and Brendan was lost in a confusion of
thoughts and emotions. What would he tell Lydia? Then he realized he
had to call Lydia and tell her why he wouldn't be home anytime
soon—that he'd be searching for Mary in the dark as the air grew
more chill, as hope slipped away.
The
first call from his cell phone to home had been difficult. His
daughter, Ellen, had answered the phone and wanted to chat about her
school concert and the special doll—something Brendan had no clue
about—that she wanted, really
wanted,
for Christmas. By the time he got Lydia on the phone he had a modicum
of composure back, but she still knew from the tone of his voice and
ragged breath, that something had gone off the tracks, something was
radically wrong.
“What is it,
Brendan?” some anxiety rising in her voice.
“It's Mary...,”
he began.
“What about
Mary?” she interrupted.
“She's gone....”
After a long
silence, Lydia said, “you mean she's dead?”
“No, no,”
Brendan told her, that ache back in his throat, “she's missing. Ran
away. I can't find her.....”
The whole story
took a while to tell, especially since Lydia kept interrupting to ask
questions that didn't quite register in his head.
“I'm going to
look for her for a while....quite a while. I won't be back for
dinner,” he told his wife. “Don't tell the kids yet. Hopefully
I'll find her. I don't want them to worry.”
But
he didn't find her although he searched every foot of the enormous,
very full parking lot. Although he asked dozens of people if they had
seen a lab/cocker spaniel anywhere...”looks like a lab only
smaller, very friendly, named Mary....” Although he walked several
miles of Union Street and Hamilton Avenue in the dark, fearing every
moment that he'd find her body on the road—nothing worked, nothing
helped. Three calls from Lydia, when he could tell beneath her stoic
facade that she was nearing panic, were fruitless. Finally she said,
“Come home, we'll try tomorrow.”
He'd called the
Waterbury Police and the Humane Society, getting an sardonic reaction
from the duty Sargent about “just a dog” and a recording from the
Humane Society to call back during business hours. It was nearly
midnight when he got back to his car and found, as promised, his
Macy's bags in the back seat. He drove home in a stupor that reminded
him of college beer nights. It was like he was watching himself
drive. Like any active and practicing Episcopalian, he seldom prayed,
but on that drive he did, with the kind of fervor worthy of
Gethsemane. He prayed for Mary, her safety, her homecoming. He prayed
for his family and what this would do to them. He prayed for himself,
for his great guilt and regret and pain at senselessly leaving the
car unlocked. And, not surprisingly he received little comfort from
his prayers. Guilt and Regret are ultimately feelings that require
one to forgive themselves. The Almighty has better things to do.
***
Mary had been on
Union Street along with Brendan, but in the other direction. She was
not used to cars—except the ones she rode in—and their lights and
exhaust frightened her greatly. That's not completely true. Fear
isn't an intellectual evaluation for a dog—it is a viseral and
physical reaction. The hairs on Mary's neck bristled. She became wary
and anxious. She wanted to bark but something in her throat, not
un-akin to Brendan's own aching throat, held her back.
Lights flashed—from
cars, from Christmas decorations, from small buildings—she stayed
close to buildings and finally, totally unable to understand what had
happened to her (what took her from dozing peacefully in the back
seat of The Man's car to this inhospitable and completely unfamiliar
'place') didn't register at all. What did begin to surface were long
unknown and forgotten instincts—DNA deep behaviors to keep her from
ultimate harm.
Exhausted, hungry,
chilled, she fell asleep in the partially sheltered entrance to a
Tattoo Parlor for the night. Her dreams, sparse but active, were
troubling, even to her mind that was so nearly vacant most of the
time. She dreamed of The Man's car and of the boys who chased her
away, of her fear and her misery. Just that.
***
Thirteen or so
miles away, Brendan and Lydia clung to each other. Brendan couldn't
eat, could barely think and, like Mary, fell into disturbing dreams.
In the morning the children would miss Mary. Already, Joe prowled
around as if confused and not-quite-whole. His friend—if cats can
be said to have 'friends—was somehow, inexplicably, missing.
Incomplete, he scoured the house while Brendan fitfully slept and
Lydia held him, slipping in and out of sleep, softly moaning and
weeping.
“She's just a
dog,” Lydia told herself several times during that long,
troubled night. But she knew that wasn't true. She was Mary,
she was 'their dog', a part of their family. Mary. And life would not
be the same without her.
***
Mary wandered. She
passed many people and many buildings. Down Union Street she went
until it became East Main. She stayed closed to the buildings to
avoid the traffic. Some people stopped to pet her and she licked
their hands. Others—mostly young boys—chased her and yelled at
her and one even threw a bottle at her that broke on the sidewalk and
she stepped on it with her back left paw and cut herself and began to
limp.
Had she been able
to know, she was going in the exactly wrong way. Rather than moving
toward her home, she moved toward the center of Waterbury, toward the
Green. And, by afternoon of that next day, after the night the boys
chased her from the car and from The Man, she found the park in the
middle of the city. There was dying grass to lay on, and she did,
licking her cut paw, resting for a while. Many elderly people were
there and many young people. Some stopped to talk to her though Mary
only understood a few words. One Hispanic woman noticed the blood on
Mary's paw and used a handkerchief she had brought from Guatemala of
fine linen and a lace her grandmother had crocheted to clean Mary's
foot and pull out a sliver of glass.
Mary licked her
face as she worked. And the woman spoke to Mary in Spanish, soothing
words, words from another place about the dogs in the stable that
first Christmas night.
“I cannot take
you home,” the woman told Mary in Spanish, “my apartment has no
pets.” Mary did not understand anything the woman told her, but
licked her none-the-less.
Several hours
later, a bus driver who had stepped outside for a cigarette before he
had to move on from the Green, saw the dog and took his bottle of
water and poured it into his McDonald's coffee cup and offered it to
Mary. She was parched from her journey and drank it down. The bus
driver rubbed her head and said a prayer in his native language,
Hungarian, for her. Mary understood none of the words, but licked his
hand.
An old Italian man
came by and shared his sandwich with Mary. She had never tasted the
meats and cheeses before, but she ate with gratitude and licked his
hand as well.
She had moved from
the place beneath one of the trees on the Green and already someone
had cared for her wound and someone had given her water and someone
had fed her with Provolone and salami and bread. Though she longed
for her home and her Man and Woman and Girl and Boy, she had been
cared for.
She wandered around
the safety of the Green until darkness was falling again and her fear
came back. The day was turning cold and she was hungry after half the
Italian sandwich and thirst was coming back.
Then a black boy
appeared. He looked like one of the boys that had let her out of the
Man's car and chased her away into this chaos, so Mary was hesitant
when he approached. But the boy was gentle and talked to her in soft
words. The boy took off his belt and put it around Mary's neck like
the leash she was so familiar with and led her to his home.
It was an apartment
on the second floor of a three-family house several blocks from the
Green and the trees. There were loud voices from the bottom floor and
the sounds of breaking things that frightened Mary. But in the boy's
apartment, there was heat and water in a bowl and a hot dog wiener
that the boy put on a plate for Mary to eat and eat it she did.
It was strange to
Mary that there were no Big People—no Man and Woman—where she
was, but water and food was enough. And she slept with the boy in his
bed, the second night of her exile from her home.
Deep in the night,
Mary was woken by noise in the room next door. A Big Person who was
yelling and knocking things over.
“Don't worry,”
the boy said to Mary, “that's just my mom coming home. She's a bit
drunk, I think. But she won't look in on me. We can go back to
sleep.”
And they did.
That day Mary spent
on the Green and that night she spent on Thomas' bed, even after his
mother came in and made so much noise, Brendan and Lydia were busy.
Brendan had a picture of Mary on his I-phone with the two kids
hugging her. He quickly sent it to his computer and printed out 100
copies with the following words: “Mary is lost, please help us find
her. Ellen and Alan want her back to love.” He added his cell phone
and Lydia's to the poster as he printed them out.
Then he and Lydia
spend most of the next day putting the posters up on every telephone
pole and building and walls around the Mall in in both directions.
Ellen went with Brendan and Alan went with Lydia. Each had tape and a
stapler and they worked for two hours before they met, as agreed,
outside of Sears at noon. No one wanted to eat, so they didn't,
separating again—Ellen and Brendan toward the center of town and
Lydia and Alan moving away from the city—calling Mary's name,
looking for her, longing to have her back.
That same morning
Thomas took Mary back to the green, leading her on his belt. In front
of the large Roman Catholic church, he let her go, telling her words
she didn't understand—“I'll be back after school and if you're
still here I take you home again, OK? Mama would be mad to find you
in the apartment. So wait for me, OK?”
Mary licked his
face and then he was gone. It was the day before Christmas Eve,
though Mary could not have known that. All day she wandered around
the Green, growing hungry until a kind woman gave her an apple and
some bologna. The day was chill but not cold enough to harm her, so
she dozed on the grass and waited—for what she did not know. Again
boys ran at her and threw plastic water bottles at her, but they did
not hurt and her foot was much better, though she limped a bit.
All that day,
Brendan and Lydia drove around Waterbury, looking for Mary. Each of
them passed the Green several times, but by then Mary was laying
beside a homeless man, who smelled strange but not troubling to her.
He had given her food he'd gotten from the Soup Kitchen and water in
a Styrofoam bowl from the same kitchen at St. John's Church. The man
had been sleeping on a bench when Mary found him, smelling of alcohol
and human body odor—neither of which is troubling to a dog.
She licked his hand
that was hanging off the bench and he woke up.
“Hi, Dog,” he
said. “What's your name?”
Mary, of course
said nothing. She licked his face.
“What a friendly
dog,” he said to her, “and since it's almost Christmas, I think
I'll call you Mary.”
At her name, Mary
barked.
“So, I've named
you well,” the man said. “Let me go to the soup kitchen and get
us some food....”
Then he took the
twine that held up his pants and made a leash for Mary and tied her
to the bench while he went to get them food.
The man talked to
her through the day, telling her the story of his life: how he had
been much loved as a child in Tennessee and gone to a school called
Vanderbilt but had something bad in his brain that caused him to
become a wanderer on the earth and someone who never could hold a job
or be relied on. But there was something else in his brain—a way of
knowing that he neither asked for or understood. “The way I knew
your name and the way I know I'll make sure you get home safe.”
Mary understood
none of what he said but knew he was a kind and good man and spent
the night with him at a place where he led her on the twine that once
held up his pants. They slept beneath a bridge with several other
people and there was food, generously shared, though not as good as
she was used to, and a small fire in a drum that gave some warmth.
People there called the man who brought her Joshua. And though the
name meant nothing to her, she savored it in her mind and heart.
Back at Mary's
home, things were not well. Presents were not wrapped, the tree was
only half decorated, No one had been to Stop and Shop to buy food for
Christmas dinner. Invitations had been refused. Brendan and Lydia
were growing near despair. The children weren't interested in Santa
or gifts. Everyone—even Joe—was aching for the want of Mary.
How many miles had
they walked and driven? How many thousand of times had they called
her name? How terrible was the pain in their hearts?
Christmas Eve for
Mary began beneath the bridge. All the people, who smelled so odd to
her, were very kind and petted her and rubbed her and called her
sweet names.
She and Joshua went
to the Soup Kitchen for lunch, just as the day before. And Mary ate
well.
In the late
afternoon, Thomas, her friend, who had given her a sleep in a bed,
found Mary and Joshua on the Green.
He rushed up to her
and knelt down and she licked his face.
Thomas looked at
Joshua. “This is my dog, I found her,” he said.
Joshua looked at
him for a long time.
“No,” he said
quietly and kindly, “this dog has a family and tonight we will find
them. You were kind and wondrous to Mary and she will never forget
that, but she needs to go home.”
The boy stared at
Joshua for a long time, first in anger, then in confusion, then in
wonder.
“Who are you?”
he finally said.
“One who knows
things without knowing how,” Joshua told him, “one who will
tonight lead Mary home.”
“Why?” the boy
asked him.
“Because,”
Joshua said. “Stay with us tonight,” he said to Thomas, “stay
with your friend and me.”
“Why?” Thomas
asked.
“Do you really
want to know?” Joshua asked him.
“Yes,” Thomas
said.
“All will be
well, if you stay with us. Mary will go home and you will be safe.”
That is all Joshua would tell him.
Brendan and Lydia
had decided they must go to church on Christmas Eve. They needed to
recapture their hearts and have Christmas...but most of all, each of
them knew, they needed Mary. The decided on the late service at St.
John's, the Episcopal Parish on Waterbury's, Green. Mostly they went
to the Episcopal Church in Cheshire, but tonight they wanted to be
anonymous, they didn't want to have to see their friends and either
pretend to be cheerful or have to tell them the story of Mary's loss.
They just wanted to be together and sing the familiar carols and
listen to the organ and the strings and lose themselves in the
ancient liturgy and familiar stories.
Most of the day
they had taken turns driving around Waterbury some more, but somehow
they knew it would be in vain. They didn't believe they would ever
see Mary again when they were honest with themselves. Mostly they sat
around until it was time for church. They forgot to turn on the
Tree's lights and the kids mostly watched TV with blank eyes, not
using their I-pad or going on line at all.
They left for
church around 9 p.m. As they traveled, Alan said, “aren't we going
to St. Peter's?”
“No,” Lydia
told him, “we're going to the big church in Waterbury.”
Ellen clapped her
hands, the most energy she'd shown in days, “that's where Mary is,”
she said, “maybe we'll find her!”
Brendan sighed.
“Don't get your hopes up,” Lydia told her. “You don't want to
be disappointed again.”
There was silence
from the back seat for several miles. After they turned onto I-84,
Ellen said softly, “It could be the 'Christmas Miracle'....”
Brendan and Lydia
looked at each other in the dim dashboard light and smiled sadly.
Truth was, they didn't believe in the 'Christmas Miracle', but they
were somehow heartened that Ellen did.
Most of the rest of
the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Joshua and Thomas and Mary walked
around Waterbury, far and wide. The boy and the man talked a lot.
Joshua asked Thomas many things: about school (Thomas loved school
and did well); about his parents (Thomas' father was absent and his
mother, he told Joshua, “was sad and drank too much”.)
“I know all about
that,” Joshua told Thomas.
About six o'clock,
Thomas said, “I should go home. My mom will be worried.”
Joshua was silent
for a long while. “No, son,” he said, resting his hand on Thomas'
shoulder, “she has other things to worry about. You stay with me.
I'll take you home when our friend, Mary is safe and going home.”
Thomas started to
insist that he should go home. But instead he asked, “how are you
so sure Mary's going home?”
Joshua didn't
answer for a while. Thomas was used to his silences by now and simply
waited.
“I don't know,
Thomas, how I know,” he finally said, “just know
things. Something's funny about my brain.”
As they got to the
Mall parking lot, Mary seemed anxious and skittish, she began to
whine.
“Let's turn
around now,” Joshua said, petting Mary's head. “Something bad
here for Mary.”
The walked back
down Union Street.
“My friend
Armando got shot in his brain,” Thomas said, reverently, “some
gangs were shooting at each other and he was in the way....He died.”
Joshua said
nothing. After a while, Thomas continued, “it was a block from my
house. I'm afraid a lot.”
A block or so
later, Joshua stopped and looked at Thomas. “Something tells me,
that's going to change soon. You won't need to be so afraid.”
“What makes you
say that?” Thomas asked, further confused by Joshua. Then he
realized he'd never told anyone, not even his grandparents or his
mother about his fear. He'd never talked to a white person, who
wasn't one of his teachers, as much as he'd talked to Joshua that
long afternoon.
Joshua shook his
head and laughed for the first time since Thomas had known him. “That
thing in my head....I can't explain it.”
They were near a
McDonald's and Thomas said, “I'm hungry. I bet you and Mary are
too. My Grandmother gave me $20 last week. She and Grandpa live in
Cheshire. They both used to be school teachers. I could buy us some
food.”
Nodding, Joshua
said, “get yourself and Mary something and me a small coffee with
milk and three sugars. That'll keep me going.”
So Thomas had a Big
Mac and Mary had a cheese burger and avoided the pickles and Joshua
drank his coffee.
“Your
grandparents,” he said Thomas, “they seem like upstanding folks.”
Thomas' face lit up
with a smile. “I love them so. They're so smart and so good. My
uncle and aunt too—they both live in West Hartford and are teachers
too. Something, I don't know, something between my mom and dad made
things go wrong for her. She was the youngest in the family, in
college, studying to be a teacher like the rest of them and met my
dad and then there was me. I just don't know....” The smile had
gone. Thomas was sad suddenly.
Joshua sipped his
coffee. “I think you're going to be fine, Thomas,” he said. “I
think you'll be a teacher...a college professor maybe....”
“That's all I
want!” Thomas said. Then he was suddenly embarrassed because he had
never, not ever, said that to anyone before, much less a homeless,
white man. But it was hard to be embarrassed for long with Joshua.
Thomas had never imagined meeting someone like him—white, wise and
homeless all at once. He suddenly wondered why he was still here.
Surely his mom would be worried. Surely he should go home. But he
knew he wouldn't. He wanted to be with Joshua. He wanted to know that
Mary was going home for sure.
Joshua finished his
coffee and rubbed his face hard with both hands, something Thomas had
seen him do before. He was a good looking man, Thomas thought, for a
white man. His eyes were very light, gray. He was tall, over 6 feet.
And thin, which, Thomas imagined, wasn't odd for someone who ate at
soup kitchens. His face was what some people would call handsome,
though his hair and beard could use a trim. But what was most amazing
about him to Thomas was that he moved slowly but with great grace.
And whatever was wrong with his brain was fascinating to Thomas, who,
in the secret part of his heart, wanted to be a Psychology Professor.
“Now it begins,”
Joshua said, rubbing Thomas' head with his right hand and Mary's with
his left. “Let Christmas Eve get serious....” Then he laughed
again and they set off, this odd trio, toward the Green.
“We're going to
visit the churches of Waterbury,” Joshua told them as they walked.
“Why?” Thomas
asked him.
A block later,
Joshua answered. “You know what journalists ask?” he said, “the
four big questions?”
“'When?'
'Where?' 'Why?' And 'How?' is that right?” Thomas said,
remembering how in 6th grade he'd wanted to teach
journalism in college.
“Exactly right,”
Joshua said some twenty steps on. “You are a smart boy. Here's the
thing, I can tell you 'when'--when they are having Christmas Eve
services; 'where'--at the four big churches down town; “how”--by
walking from one to another. What I can't tell you is 'why?' The
'why?' question is always the hardest.”
“Why?” Thomas
asked.
“Exactly,”
Joshua replied.
The visited the
Lutheran Church first. Joshua knew the times of the services, though
he didn't tell how. They stood at the door and listened to hymns. It
was 7 pm. Then they walked slowly through the parking lot and
on-street parking near the church. Nothing happened. Thomas didn't
ask any questions and Joshua was obviously giving no answers since he
knew none.
At 8 pm it was the
Congregational Church. Same routine. Nothing happened.
At 9 they went to
Immaculate Conception, the really big Roman Catholic church on the
Green. There was only a small parking lot so they wandered the
down-town streets. Again, nothing happened, though Thomas was growing
impatient.
“What are we
doing?” he asked, with a testy sound to his voice.
“I don't know,”
Joshua answered immediately, “and please be patient.”
It was a little
after 10 pm and they were headed toward St. John's.
“I eat here every
day,” Joshua told Thomas. “I like this place.”
Thomas was about to
be fed up and leave, going home to what he imagined, on Christmas
Eve, would be a very drunk mother who might need his help. But when
they walked into the church's parking lot, something happened.
Mary, who Thomas
was leading with the twine from Joshua's pants, suddenly bolted.
Thomas almost lost hold of the twine.
“Let her go!”
Joshua called out. “Let her go!”
So Thomas did.
They found her at a
Black KIA in the middle of the lot. She was scratching at the door.
Other scratches were there. Those scratches looked a lot like the new
ones Mary was leaving in her excitement.
Joshua took the
twine from her neck and tried the door. It opened.
“Always lock your
door in an parking lot,” he told Thomas, who already knew that.
Mary jumped in.
Both Joshua and Thomas rubbed her and got licks beyond counting on
their faces. The they stepped back and Joshua shut the door. They
waited until the light went out and Mary was stretched out on the
back seat before they left.
“So show me where
you used to live,” Joshua said.
Thomas shook his
head. “I still live there. You are one weird dude.”
Joshua smiled.
“That I am,” he said.
“I'm going to
miss Mary,” Thomas said, and it was true.
“Where do your
grandparents live?” Joshua asked him.
“Cheshire, why?”
Thomas replied.
“No reason,”
said Joshua, “just wondering....”
It was a 10 minute
walk, but Joshua kept his hand on Thomas' shoulder all the way and
talked softly to him about things Thomas didn't really understand.
Turning the corner
onto Thomas' street was jarring by the three police cars with lights
pulsing and a number of well dressed Black people standing on the
sidewalk in front of Thomas' building. He recognized them
immediately. His Grandparents and Uncle and Aunt.
“What's
happened?” he asked Joshua, full of fear.
“We will see,”
Joshua answered, “in time we will see.”
As soon as the
people saw Thomas they all rushed to him.
His aunt and uncle
held him until his grandmother and grandfather replaced them.
Great emotion,
hasty explanations, tears of joy and sadness.
It seemed that
Thomas' mother had come home greatly drunk and torn up the apartment.
Her neighbors had called Louise and Mark, Thomas' grandparents and
then they had called his aunt and uncle. All had been at the
apartment since then, wondering and worried about Thomas.
What would happen
was that his mother was already on the way to an alcohol and drug
treatment center. He would go to live with his grandparents in
Cheshire until his mom was better and then both of them would live
there as long as needed.
It was confusing
and horrifying and painful and disconcerting to Thomas, but he knew
life would be better for his mom and for him. So he started babbling
about Joshua and Mary and the KIA in the church parking lot.
All the four adults
who loved him listened with great interest but there was no man named
Joshua there. They were confused.
“He kept me
safe,” Thomas told them, “and Mary went home.”
His grandmother,
Louise, was suddenly interested. “A dog in a KIA? A yellow dog?”
Thomas nodded his
head vigorously.
Louise looked at
her husband. Their looks matched. “Could it be?” was what the
looks said.
Joshua was heading
toward the bridge. His friends would be waiting. He would have liked
to meet Thomas' family, but in the way his brain let him know what he
couldn't explain...well, it was just as well. And it was Christmas
Eve, there might be some fruit cake someone had stolen or gotten from
the soup kitchen or some do-gooder. Who knew? Actually, Joshua did
know, but it annoyed him and he tried to push it out of his mind.
********
The music had been
magical. The ancient liturgy and the Christmas story wondrous. The
sermon had been inspiring. And they tasted the Body and Blood of
Christ on the very night of his birth.
Yet Brendan, Lydia,
Ellen and Alan were still in pain, not feeling the joy and gaiety of
Christmas.
Until, they opened
their car's doors.....
