Snow

 Sometime in the fall, when every day was grey and wet, when the coal-oil lamps were lit as soon as supper was over and the eaves dripped all through the long night, the weekly boat delivered a spark of colour; the Christmas catalogue from Sears-Roebuck, one per household. Two inches thick, smelling of fresh ink, glossy and bright. The Wish Book, Dad called it.

The first half of the book was the clothes section. Women’s clothes first, starting with the cover; the most elegant lady in a long coat. Gloves and hat and jewelry; city clothes, Sunday morning clothes. Inside, more of the same, then housedresses, jackets, shoes, purses. Underwear, pages and pages of it. Corsets with whalebones, with hooks and eyes, with laces. Stockings and garter belts. I studied it all carefully. Someday I would be a woman and wear things like that. It all looked very uncomfortable, though.

Men’s clothes came next; I flipped the pages quickly. Children’s clothes; little girls in perfect ringlets wearing birthday-party dresses. On to the tools, the washing machines, the dishes.

And finally, the toys. A dozen or so pages near the back of the catalogue. Dolls and looms for the girls. And the important part, the purpose of it all: the boys’ section. Trucks. Black metal trains that shot real sparks. Meccano. Tinkertoy. Microscopes. Ah!

In these pages I would find Christmas presents for my brothers. And wish. I knew I would get doll clothes or a loom or a sweater, as usual. But just look at that chemistry set! Just read the list of items in that box! What I could do with that!

I read every word of that toy section, even to the descriptions of the extras: “XY94357 – Batteries for the XY94356, set of four. $0.99.”

Eventually the order form was filled out, with the code numbers double-checked, the totals added up. I passed the catalogue on to Dave, reluctantly.

When the 1951 catalogue came, Mom told us to just look at it, but not to order anything; we would be getting money for Christmas, and we would go to the city – to the States! – to buy our own presents. She gave me $5.00, all for myself. I folded the bill into an inch-wide square and put it into the coin purse I used for my candy money at camp. But what would I buy with it? There was nothing in the girls’ section of the catalogue that appealed to me. I had my doll. She was old and half-bald, but I didn’t need another. What for? I had two looms already. And I couldn’t buy boy stuff; people would laugh. I checked the prices of Meccano sets, though.

In December, we took the boat down to Vancouver. We did the normal things: ate in Chinatown, visited some people in stuffy houses, waited for Mom and Dad in church offices. At a lot where a row of pointy flags flapped in the drizzle, Dad bought a car.

And then it was Christmas Day, and there was no more business to be attended to, and we had eaten pie and pickles and cranberry sauce in a brown house with a monkey tree in the yard,  and we were free at last. We crossed the border with the last shred of daylight.

It was snowing when we drove into Seattle. I rolled down my window and caught some on my sleeve until Mom made me shut the window again. Dad was driving slowly, looking for a motel.

It’s Christmas,” he said. “We’re going to find a place with television.”

I thought he was joking at first, until he passed several motels without stopping. And then, there it was; “Television in all the rooms,” the sign said. And below, in blinking blue neon, the magic word, “Vacancy”. Dad pulled into the driveway.

We sat on the beds in the semi-dark, watching. I had never seen a television before; it was like seeing a filmstrip without the projector. Except that the picture was much smaller. Greyer, too. And there was something wrong; the voices were staticky and snowflakes blurred the image. “It’s the weather,” Dad said. “Can’t be fixed. I’m sorry; should I turn it off?”

Mom said yes; we kids said no. The television stayed on.

The movie was a story about toys who had come alive. Tin soldiers marched and saluted, stuffed animals rushed about, a ballerina doll got off her pedestal and danced down the street. There were doll-house castles with towers and drawbridges, prancing wooden horses, a marching band. And around it all the snow swirled. At times, a deep fog would sweep over the screen, a fog that permitted only glimpses of moving figures, a flash of bare arm here, a carriage wheel there.

The voices were no clearer. A soldier talked excitedly with the ballerina; I could hear his tone but not his words. Trumpets blared, then faded in mid-note. A town crier shouted – I couldn’t make out what.

I couldn’t follow the story. But it didn’t matter; it was still wonderful, magical. Just right, really; why should mere mortals expect to see clearly into this other world?

The weather worsened, outside our window and on the screen. Just before the blizzard struck, I got a final glimpse of the ballerina back on her stand, on the tip of her left toe, arms over her head, the right foot pointing at the horizon. She was spinning slowly.

She danced through my dreams that night.

The next morning, Boxing Day, we went shopping. “Everything’s on sale,” Mom said. “We’ll get really nice things this year.”

In a store where the boys bought trucks, I found a new wig for my doll, marked down to four dollars. Back at home, Mom helped me glue it onto her head. I combed the hair back and tied it in a bouncy pony-tail just like the one the ballerina wore.

Reassurance

Connie opens her eyes and watches the sunlight dancing on the rug. This is her home, her green rocker, her own teapot and cup.   But will they send her away?  At her age, where can she go?  

The wind blows in the cedars; so lonesome, always.  Her afghan has slipped; her knees are cold.  Where is Peggy?

Her brother is sitting in the wing chair; very dapper in his civvies.  "...demobbed two days ago;  I'm taking the train back East," he was saying.  "Good to see you looking so well, my dear.  I see your husband takes good care of you."

"And Peggy," Connie says, "Do you know Peggy, my daughter?  Can you stay for tea?  There are biscuits and strawberry jam."  She reaches for the hand-bell on her tray, rings loudly.  The children file in, shucking off raincoats and rubbers.  "Good morning, children, good morning, good morning!"

"Morning, Mrs. White," they repeat, dutifully.  A first-grader has brought a grubby fistful of dandelions.  Peggy will put them in a glass. 

Peggy is in the doorway, drying her reddened hands on a tea-towel.  She should take better care of herself; her grey hair needs cutting, and there are dark circles under her eyes.  "Did you ring?" she asks. "I'm making some tea and sandwiches, be ready in a few minutes.  Salmon OK?"

"Strawberry jam.  I want strawberry jam."

"OK, a strawberry jam sandwich.  Do you want salmon, too?"

"No. No salmon, strawberry jam.  And tea.  And my knees are cold."  Peggy picks up the blanket from the floor, tucks it around Connie's knees, and bustles off without a word.  Why is she so rushed?

"It's all these clocks," says mother.  "Tick, tick, get up, tick tick, gobble your breakfast, tick tick, run out the door, tick tick, run, run ,run."  She rests her feet on a horsehair footstool.  "More haste, less speed, I always say."

Connie's clock doesn't tick; the hands just go around silently.  There's a battery in back, so she never has to remember to wind it up.  Peggy got her one of those new-fangled clocks with no face, just numbers that keep changing,  but it made her nervous and she gave it away.  There's no clock here in the porch; when the sunlight  touches the geranium, Peggy always brings her lunch.  So reliable, dear Peggy.

Her grandson is pouring tea.  He never puts in enough sugar.  Where is Peggy? 

Ah, here she comes, with a tray of sandwiches and a folding chair. The salmon sandwiches look good, cut in tiny triangles and garnished with fresh parsley.  Connie has one, after all.  Peggy puts an extra spoonful of sugar in her tea.

The sun has gone behind a cloud and Connie shivers.  She must have nodded off; her tea is cold. She rings the bell and her grandson comes. Handsome young man; looks just like Father. "It's chilly, I'll take you in," he says, reaching for the afghan.

"No.  I like it on the porch."  

Father leans over her.  "And how's my darling girl today?"  She loves the smell of him:  wool and cigar smoke and a faint memory of green soap.  "Busy day today in the hospital, I almost forgot your errand."  He places a brown-paper package in her hands.  She tears at the string, folds back the brown paper and layers of pale tissue.  Underneath is a mound of soft wool.  "Let's just tuck you in," Father says.  Hands caress her shoulders.

"Feel warmer?" says her grandson.  "Looks like the sun is coming out again, too!"

It is: the geraniums blaze in the slanting rays; flowers red as her school sweater, scented leaves brilliantly green.  Mother always loved geraniums.  And hollyhocks.  Why does nobody have hollyhocks any more?  Connie used to make little princess dolls out of the flowers; such beautiful flowing pink skirts they had.  She wore a pink dress, too, at the Sunday School picnic that day, the day Doug first walked her home.

Doug.  Walking down the lane, holding her hand.  Over the breakfast coffee, "Any more of that plum jam, my dear?"  Sitting beside her in church, singing just slightly off key.  Driving; right hand resting casually on the gearshift, left elbow out the window, rain or shine.  Joking, always joking, even when the chemotherapy melted away his flesh and scattered his hair on the wind.  "They'll pay me big bucks, now," he said.  "Before and after photos.  Eat all you want, lose 25 pounds!"

"Mom!  Are you crying?"  Peggy is kneeling beside Connie's rocker, holding her hand.

"No, I'm fine.  It's just the sun; it's too bright in my eyes."

"Here, let me turn the chair a bit.  There.  That's better."  

She has brought the afternoon pills.  And the supplement.  Ugh.  Delicious! says the label, but did the advertisers ever taste it?  Father pours out a big spoonful of castor oil.  "It tastes like the devil, but it will give you strong bones.  Open up!" he says.  Connie opens her mouth obediently.  Peggy places a pill on her tongue and holds a glass of cold water to her lips.  "Down the hatch!" says Father. She swallows.

"Good girl!" says Peggy "One more, and we're done! That's it!  Now the milkshake. You like that, anyhow." Connie smiles insincerely over the rim of her glass.  

While Connie drinks, Peggy sits and rests, rubbing her neck with both hands.  Before she takes the empty glass, she rearranges Connie's coverlet, tenderly, as though she were tucking in a baby.  

Connie is dozing again when a toddler pulls at her sleeve.  Peggy?  No, Peggy is grown up now.  Peggy’s daughter?  No, her granddaughter.  "Ganny," she says. "Ganny. Up."  Connie winces as the baby scrambles over her knees, and twists around to snuggle under the coverlet.  Within minutes, she is asleep.  

"She has your smile," says Doug.  He brushes the child's hair off her face with a careful finger.  "Two beautiful women!"  

"Flatterer!" laughs Connie.  He looks healthy and tanned, salt-and-pepper hair slightly tousled.  Not a trace of the cancer that killed him.  He stretches out a hand to her, inviting her to walk in the garden.

"Doug?" Connie apologizes.  "I can't go with you.  I'm old, I need a walker. Doug, I'm an old lady, I can't stay awake, and if they send me away, where will I go?"  She is sobbing now.

"Shhh! Don't cry, dearest, we'll be all right as long as we're together."  He always says that.  

"As long as we're together."  Connie smiles at him, comforted.  She rests her cheek on Doug's tweedy shoulder.

 "Peggy," Connie asks at bedtime, "am I too much work for you?"

"Of course not, Mom!  Hands up.  Good.  Now let's get this nightie on."

"I should go to a nursing home."

"This is your home.  You belong here, Mom.  OK, now, under the covers.  Let me fix that pillow." Peggy straightens the pillow, pulls the blankets up another inch and dims the light.  She bends and kisses Connie on the forehead.  "Gonna be sunny again tomorrow.  Have a good sleep."  At the door she turns back, smiling.  "We'll make it, Mom.  As long as we're together."

She leaves, but Mother sits on the slipper chair at the foot of the bed.  She is singing a lullaby.