A Christmas Within

The first flakes of snow falling beyond the windows of Jessie Cordon's house sent a shock through her spine. She knew it was going to precipitate from what the weather had been saying on the TV all week, but to see it now… She hoped it wouldn't cancel any flights. After all, half her family was supposed to arrive from all over the country that day, just like they did last year, just like the year before, and for many years prior to that.

"Looks like it's starting to come down," said her husband in his fluid drawl.

Jessie cupped the mug of steaming coffee in her delicate fingers and inhaled the pure mist. "Marty, d'you remember how much it's gonna snow?"

She felt the shawl be readjusted by his careful hands until it was wrapped around her arms. He said quietly, "I dunno… Maybe ten inches is what I heard from Al Buford on the TV, but y'know Al's been off by quite a bit lately. Jimmie down by the old mill says it'll be at least two feet. He's usually pretty on the money."

"Two feet!" cried Jessie. "That's not possible!"

"Why not?"

She looked at the sky imploringly. "The kids are flying in today! Christmas is tomorrow!"

"I know, honey… it'll be okay."

"We haven't missed a Christmas together as a family since," she thought back, her jaw tightening as she realized, "since ever! Ever since baby Julian was born, we've had all of our Christmases together."

Marty put an arm around her. "I know… this year it's gonna be tough. Word on the radio is that the airports are all but shut down."

"They can't do that!"

Looking up at the sky himself, Marty said, "Oh, I don't know… I wouldn't like flying in this weather."

She moved away from him, the shawl loose around her thin, taught frame. "How can you be so calm about this? Our babies are out there somewhere, stranded at airports, who knows if they've even got food–"

"They're not babies, Jessie," he said with only the briefest sternness on his consonants. "They're adults, and they'll be alright."

"Oh they will, will they?" said Jessie in a fluttery, hysterical voice. "Well, why don't we just wrap a bowtie around them and send 'em off to Japan!"

Marty smiled, crinkling the weathered skin around his eyes and setting the dimples back deep in his cheeks. With the holiday scruff on his face, he looked frustratingly handsome. Jessie at least thought that his blue eyes hadn't lost a hint of their power. When he spoke to her in that calm, placating voice, she felt like one of his university students must have felt. Part of her hated it, the other part felt inevitably reassured. He said slowly, "It'll be alright, Jessie. We've raised them well."

"Don't they have those cellular phones?"

"They may, but the signal's awful out here. I know Taylor got us one last Christmas, bless her heart, but it just doesn't work that well out here."

"You mean we can't call them at all?"

Cautiously, he put his hand back around her shoulders. She didn't throw it off, so he smiled and said, "It might just be you and me this year, babe."

This was enough for her to shake him off again. "I'm going to pray."

He looked after her trailing shawl solemnly. Their house was a two story home made of a dark brown wood which showed through on the interior. Upon every wall there were either carefully placed pictures of their little nuclear family or some buck antlers or fish that Marty would had collected over the years. From the kitchen, medium size but functional, she went to the wider living room, which had a blaze roaring in the fireplace. It was above the fireplace that they had a depiction of Christ on the cross. It was a little sculpture given to Jessie by her mother, who had made it herself out of clay. She knelt before it and began speaking:

"Oh Lord, please hear my prayer," her voice was soft but steady. "My children are somewhere out in the world, they're lost and I ask you to provide them guidance. Please, bring them home to me. Let not this Christmas be spent in a cold house.

"And thank You for all that you have already done for us. Thank You for providing us the bounty with which we can feed our children. Thank You for these walls which keep us warm. Please, my only request to You is for some help to bring my babies home. Amen."

As always, Jesus lay unmoving upon his cross, hanging in that poignant depiction of misery which so often brought tears to her eyes. She looked at him for a while. The dancing light of the fire coupled with the wind now seemingly blowing whole drifts of snow across the large windows behind her cast a curious moving glow on Christ's face. Jessie likened it to the light of heaven coming from within his emaciated body.

"Please," she repeated, "bring my babies home."

Already worried sick, Jessie did not think about all those times that Christ did not answer her prayers directly; all those times that the Lord had been asked but, like the effigy of his son in eternal suffering on Jessie's mantle, had remained unmoved. When Patricia was sick as a child, Jessie had often asked the Lord for guidance. None had come. Patricia had died from cancer less than a year later, and Jessie had been devastated, but not once did she question His omnipotence. Rather, she implored Him for some insight into the divine plan which had taken her daughter from her at such a young and tender age. None had come. Yet one year following that, her youngest child, Arthur, had been born, healthy as a bull. Jessie had tied that narrative into her daughter's death by saying that it was the Lord sending her a healthy child for the one she had lost – that the suffering of Patricia had given way to the buoyancy of Arthur.

Julian, Taylor, and Arthur… three children. Jessie had always thought she wanted three children. Just because her last ended up being a son instead of a daughter, what did that matter? The Lord had answered that prayer, hadn't he?

It ashamed her to think in this manner, but part of her mind was bent on her most recent prayer as her most important. Of all the times that she had brought her hands together and bowed her head, this moment seemed to her to be the greatest. She'd had over eighteen years to come to terms with Patricia's death. Eighteen years in which their family had never spent a Christmas apart. Now… they were all stranded around the country.

She knew roughly where they were, of course. Julian was working in biotechnology in Boston. Taylor was doing her PhD in chemistry at the University of Michigan. Arthur was still junior studying business at UCLA. An empty nest, that's what she had, and three birds on every end of the country trying desperately to get home.

Jessie sensed Marty in the room. "Why didn't they fly in earlier? They know how much this holiday means to me!"

"You know why, dear," said Marty patiently. "Taylor had to finish up an experiment, Arthur was spending some time with his girlfriend's family, and Julian couldn't get time off of work before his shutdown."

"Always the answers with you," snapped Jessie. "Well those answers aren't gonna do me much good tomorrow morning! Look at all the presents under the tree!"

Indeed, the staple of the Cordon Christmas was the massive fir tree brought up from Lawson's Farm down east of the town. It had been thoroughly searched for spiders and then brought in by Frederick Lawson himself, since Marty's back had been acting up again. Upon its dark green needles sat hundreds of twinkling little lights in red, blue, purple, orange, yellow, and green, and silver and gold tinsel was wrapped about it pleasantly, and the lights reflected in the crinkly little slivers in all sorts of odd ways. Ornaments were hung, most heirlooms from her and Marty's families, including little dolls made of pasta once hand-crafted by Marty's mother. Other ornaments included university specific merchandise helplessly brought into her house by her children, despite their father's warning that such products were shockingly overpriced and cheaply made. Beneath the tree sat a gold-trimmed red carpet in a large circle, upon which sat roughly a dozen presents wrapped in unique paper. Some were large, others suspiciously book-shaped, and some were small. She knew the book-shaped ones were from Marty, who insisted on giving his kids academic novels even though he knew they would never read them.

She caught him looking at the books as well. With a small smile, she said, "They'll read them one day, Marty. When they're less busy."

"Oh, I'm sure," he said, the edges of his eyes once again crinkling into crow's feet. "When they do, they'll think of us."

A sudden gust of wind rattled their windows. The inside of the house was toasty, but Jessie shivered just looking at the snow outside, which had already fallen a few inches. The tops of the bushes in their gardens looked all fuzzy and white, as it was apt to do when large flakes were falling amidst the wind.

"They're not coming, are they?" asked Jessie in a hollow voice.

Marty guided her to one of their leather recliners near the fire. "They'll be here soon. Maybe not on Christmas, but you'll see them-"

"Oh, they wouldn't miss Christmas!" cried Jessie, and tears began to form in her eyes. "They've never missed a Christmas! I'm gonna pray-"

"You've prayed enough," said Marty, a touch of sternness in his voice. "The kids are safe. They've got good heads on their shoulders. They're not like Shelby Thompson's kids, remember them? Could've sworn they'd lose their way on a Nascar track."

Jessie gave him a watery laugh. "D'you… Do you remember that call we got from her when those kids first went to college? She told us that one had gotten caught by the police for being a minor at an alcoholic party?"

Marty shook his head. "Don't know what she was teaching them. The first thing I taught Julian when he got into college was how to jump the damn fence."

She punched him lightly in the arm. "You did not teach him that!"

He responded only with a coy smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes. "Let me get you your coffee. Want a cookie with it?"

"Oh, yes please!"

A minute later, he shuffled back into the room with a freshly heated coffee and a warm chocolate chip cookie. She took a small bite of the cookie and sipped the coffee, gazing at the tree across the room sadly. His face looked tight with concern as he noticed her knee bobbing up and down. For some time, the two just existed in that room. That was a lot of what marriage was, Jessie had found. Simply existing together. The romantic overtures were few and far between, made all the more special because of their rarity. Most of the time, they were simply peacefully in the same house, reading their own books, doing their own things. Sometimes, they sat on the couch together and watched TV, his arm around her shoulders. It was so warm in his embrace that she often didn't care what was on that weird electric panel that spat out colorful images. Just so long as it wasn't golf. She'd do any sport besides golf.

Yet at the moment, she didn't even know if even that would relax her. With every gust of wind, her heartstrings pulled at the thought of her children sitting alone in some airport in their various parts of the country. Had they eaten? Had they slept?

"Are you sure that cell phone doesn't work?"

Marty went to the foyer and grabbed the giant brick of a thing. How it worked, Jessie had no idea, and she knew her husband hadn't the slightest idea either. He put on his round glasses and peered down the bowed bridge of his nose at the buttons. He pressed a few and said, "Look, no signal… Wanna try?"

She waved her hand and scoffed. "Like I'd know what to do with that darn thing."

He chortled. "Yeah, don't know what Taylor was thinking, honestly."

"She's a good kid," said Jessie, as though he denied this. She felt bad for snapping at him, but she knew he'd forgive her.

In fact, in the next moment, he was cupping his hand around her cheek and saying, "I'll be going out in a moment."

"Out? Where?" she looked up at him with wide eyes, and he smiled down at her.

"Someone's gotta get ahead of the salting and the shoveling."

She started, nearly spilling her half-full mug of coffee. "Marty! With your back? Just let the Gardner kids take care of it!"

He squeezed her cheek a little and laughed. "Those kids are lazier than a bear in winter! They'll miss all the edges and forget to do the walk."

"Dear-"

"I'll be fine, honey," he said. "Just don't you worry about the kids. Everything'll be alright. Just keep that phone near you and press the green button if it starts ringing. That's about all I know for working it."

"But-"

He kissed her forehead. "I gotta go. I'll be back soon. I love you."

The only words which came to here were the right ones: "I love you too."

And then he was gone, and she heard the door close, and she heard the snowblower start. There she sat, in the leather armchair, the one opposite her bare and empty, where so often Marty had sat reading his paper, writing his lesson plans… Whenever he worked, his brow crinkled in a very particular way. She loved it.

Time ticked onwards. With every passing minute, the sky seemed to grow darker, the wind seemed to howl more, and the snow came down with more ferocity. Finally, as the sun was truly setting and night came crawling over the night sky with force, that little ember of hope which burned in Jessie's heart, tied so closely to the Lord who watched over her, was quenched. Her babies weren't coming home for Christmas. They'd be here in their own time, sure, but they wouldn't be home for Christmas. She thought she'd cry, but then Jessie felt an indescribable warmth in her heart. It was as though something, or someone, was externally giving it a hug directly; it was as though her soul was finding its mate and dancing from joy.

Suddenly, the phone rang in her hand, startling her. She did drop the mug, which clattered unbroken on the ground, long since empty of coffee. She picked it up and pressed the green button as hard as she could, until she felt the plastic creak. Putting the thing up to her ear, she said, "Hello?"

The crackly voice of her son Julian answered, "Mom? Is that you?"

"Yes! Yes, it's me, Julian! How are you? Are you safe?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Julian sounded distant, as though he was caught in the storm outside. "But we have bad news. I just got off the phone with Taylor and Arthur, and it looks like your area is completely cut off from air traffic. We won't be able to fly in until the day after Christmas. I'm so sorry, we know how much this means to you… We should've flown in earlier, we know."

"Oh… oh, it's okay, sweetie." Part of Jessie couldn't believe what she was saying, because her mind wanted to yell at them, but her heart was full and it was telling her that everything would be okay. Christmas would just be a couple days late this year.

From what little she could tell from his inflection, he still sounded concerned. "How are you doing, though? Has anyone visited you in the last few days?"

"No, no one special," said Jessie. "I'm fine though, Julian, really. Your father's been keeping me company. He's really such a sweet man."

"Dad?" Julian sounded perplexed, then concerned. "Oh, mom…"

"What? Why do you-" but then she broke off. A memory came to her, something far and something dark and melancholic. She blinked and realized she could no longer hear the snow blower outside. In fact, she wondered if she had ever really heard it. And the mug which had fallen to the ground… it was a very particular mug. Upon it was Marty's picture, and underneath it… two dates.

She looked around the room, slightly panicked now. Julian's voice on the phone said, "Mom? Hey, mom?"

Jessie didn't hear him at first. She had seen the picture of Marty which hung behind Jesus on the mantle. A large picture, a beautiful picture of him, hung for only one purpose. He no longer existed with her.

This knowledge should have been enough to bring her to hysterical tears. Yet instead, she found a smile forming on her face. Marty… Marty's memory would always be hers. That love, the same love that had brought her coffee and a cookie today, the same love which had assuaged her amidst her petty panic at the thought of spending a Christmas without her kids, that love was very real, and very present. Marty hadn't occupied that chair across from her's in some time, but the impression he had left in her heart, in her very being, was perhaps the only ember within her that would ever remain unquenched.

"Mom! Are you okay?"

She took a sharp breath, coming back to her senses, and said, "I'm fine, dear. Just got a little confused."

He paused, as though gathering himself. "Don't scare me like that again!"

"I'm sorry, Julian," she said kindly. "But really, I'm fine."

Her eldest son seemed only to superficially believe her, but with no other recourse, he answered, "Alright… we'll be there in a couple days. Sooner, if possible. I'm sorry you're spending Christmas on your own."

In her mind, she thought, I'll never be on my own, dear. Your father will be with me. To her son, she said, "I've got a warm, safe house, plenty of food, and a book I've really been meaning to read for ages. I think I'll be okay if we have to delay Christmas for a couple days."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

He paused, but again could find no recourse to get anyone to check in on her. So he contented himself by saying, "Okay. We'll see you in a couple days. Love you."

"Love you too, Julian. Give Taylor and Arthur my love too."

"Will do, bye."

With that, the phone turned to static, and Jessie stood up and drew the shawl around her. She went over to the bookshelf on the opposite end of the room from the Christmas tree and indeed found a volume she had been meaning to read. After heating up some leftover lasagna in the microwave and pouring herself a tall glass of full-bodied red wine, she sat down at the table underneath their quaint chandelier and began to read, no longer frightened of a Christmas alone.