Cardinal Wings
written by: Madison Henry
Christmas begins with an early morning and lots of prep work. Since my kids moved out and started spending Christmas morning with their own families, my early rising no longer consists of four cups of coffee and endless wrapping paper. Nowadays, I awaken to an alarm, not to excited squeals about Santa coming overnight or insistent tugs on my arm tight enough to bruise. I don’t trample downstairs with one hand gripping the railing like a lifeline, yawning in response to “Daddy, look-it,” or “How did Santa know I wanted this?” Santa was an all-knowing, omnipotent god in those days. How would I know? Because I was him. Nowadays, I’ll be lucky to get a phone call from each of the kids once a week. The love is still there, but I’m not aware of their desires anymore.
I went to bed at a decent hour last night; I wasn’t up well past midnight with my wife while we wrapped presents and ate cookies to set the stage for our kids to enjoy once the sun rose. My house, dusty and cozy in the blinding white light of a snowy morning, is quiet, yet filled with the noise of those memories from long ago. Later today, the quiet will dissipate in the wake of my adult children and grandkids arriving for lunch, showing off everything Santa brought them. I’ve passed that torch to my kids; there comes a time when you’re too old to wear the red hat. Our presents are labeled “From Grandma and Grandpa” to save the long explanation if the grandkids don’t receive something they asked Santa for. By the time everyone has eaten, I’ll settle in for my post-lunch nap between dessert and gift exchanges, to eventually be woken by my wife smacking me in the gut.
I slap the alarm and stretch my arms above my head, rub my eyes. My joints pop and scream in protest. I reach across the covers to where Sarah usually lays, but my wrinkled hands come up empty. She must be up and moving already. Despite waking later than my Christmas mornings past, my old body is struggling to rumble to life. For the past ten years, I’ve had a red check oil light blinking on my forehead for my doctors to scrutinize. I shuffle to the kitchen to start a coffee and retrieve my tacklebox of vitamins and pills those doctors prescribed to combat my leaky engine. It seems that’s all they can do. At my age, there’s only patching up parts, not replacing them with a newer model.
I sift through the cabinets trying to find my pill tacklebox while Mr. Coffee gurgles and spits. There’s no sign of it, or my wife.
“Sarah?” I call. No answer. I call for her again. My poor wife is deaf as a post. The cardinals on our kitchen window tap at the snowy windowsill in search of leftover seeds from the empty bird feeder. I have to go out and refill it.
As I collect the coffee and head to the garage for bird seed, I realize Sarah and I have not discussed our plan of attack for lunch preparation. Maybe we don’t have to at this point in our lives. We have created countless Christmas meals together; we know what everyone likes and dislikes. We know that our youngest granddaughter will pick at the turkey like it’s a science experiment on her plate, so we have to cook a small ham for her to eat instead. We know that our oldest son will forgo the green bean casserole in favor of an extra slice of pumpkin pie, despite our daughter-in-law’s chastisement. We know that my wife’s famous sugar cookies will be gone within an hour, so it’s best to make an extra batch. We learned our lesson one year when the grandkids insisted we make more, and our kitchen was full of little sticky hands, spilled flour, and wide eyes at the oven window.
My parents were the same. It was supernatural, the way they could predict and prepare for anything. About forty years ago, our Christmas mornings were switched. I was the one carting my family to my aging parents’ house for lunch after I’d spent all morning cleaning the living room of wrapping paper and policing turns in the bathroom. Back then, when I was knee-deep in the trenches of parenting, watching Mom and Dad execute a perfect Christmas luncheon was a source of anxiety. How would I ever measure up? I barely remembered to leave chicken out to thaw before leaving for work. I barely remembered to sign permission slips from school before they were due. I barely remembered to get the boys to brush their teeth for bedtime. I would snap at the kids when I was overwhelmed, quick to anger after a long work day, and worried about the next mess or disaster they’d create. I spent parenthood constantly in fear of the next hurdle to jump through. My head was on a swivel. Would it ever stop spinning enough for me to create magic?
I found out as the roles of parent and grandparent were reversed that making magic wasn’t as difficult as I originally thought. It merely took the absence of running feet in the house for me to appreciate the moments when it was there. It made me want to recreate that longing and love in everything I did. The longing for magic I didn’t have the time or patience to make for my kids in my youth. The absence of my children made me want to draw them back in as much as possible, and to bring their miniatures along with them as time passed. I could give my grandkids everything I couldn’t as a parent to my own kids. I had the time and the resources now to fill the house with running feet that I relished in instead of worried over. So I entered grandpa-hood with a lot to prove, but I like to think that my grandkids say I do my job well.
I flick on the light in the garage. The bulb sputters, just as surprised as I am when I see that the car is gone. The only explanation I can think of is that Sarah needed to go to town for a last-minute gift or ingredient we’re missing. Why didn’t she wake me to go with her? I don’t like my wife driving on her own. Since she lost her hearing, her reflexes aren’t what they used to be, and I don’t want her to get in a wreck.
Once I feed the birds, I will try to get ahold of her on the cell phone. But, where the bird feed bag usually sits, is a trash can. Did Sarah move the bag? Why would she move the bag? We’ve always kept the animal food by my work bench. Before birds, there was a lineup of cat and dog food in the same spot, varying colors and sizes throughout the years as pets died and were adopted, but never moved. That corner was our animal food corner. Maybe it’s my proclivity for everything needing a place that makes me so disoriented at the bird food’s move; Sarah and I have had our fair share of fights over my obsession with tidiness. Well, she calls it an obsession, I call it order. The flimsy light above the space where our car should be flickers and crackles until it peters out completely. I throw up my hands in frustration as I leave. The birds will have to find food elsewhere. I have to call my wife.
The landline is hooked to the wall in the living room. My kids make fun of Sarah and I for keeping one, in light of the new century bringing an abundance of cordless phones, but I like the familiar feel of the receiver’s curve in my palm. It reminds me of watching my mother gossip with friends after supper, holding the shiny receiver against her curls and twirling the cord with her finger while my brother and I sat at her feet playing marbles and tried not to get hit with the sloshes of martini she accidentally flung as she laughed. My grandkids ogle the phone like a dinosaur fossil in a museum, which is part of why I’ve kept it. I love watching them confounded by objects of the past. I have Sarah and my cell phone’s number taped to the wall beside it, along with the phone numbers of all my family and the doctor’s office. The phone rings and rings, but Sarah doesn’t pick up. Thankfully, I don’t hear the cell phone ringing anywhere in the house. She has it on her, at least. I get the voicemail, and listen to the recording of her and me saying to leave a message at the tone with a thundering heart.
“Hey Honey, it’s me. Wondering where you are. Please call me back.”
I hang up and decide to get a head-start on the cooking to take my mind off the worry. The turkey and ham take the longest, so I set out the baking racks, pots, and seasoning, then preheat the oven. I can’t find seasoning salt for the life of me. That might be what Sarah went to town for. She is more proactive than me, and probably noticed the seasoning salt’s absence a while ago. While her hearing is gone and that’s a nuisance for anyone having a conversation with her in a crowded room, the disappearance of the sense has allowed her to be in her own quiet bubble of productivity. My Sarah has little to no distractions, so I can turn the TV volume up as loud as I please. I could wait on using the seasoning salt, but there’s also the baking and side dishes. Hopefully, she gets home soon. For now, I’ll have to resort to salt and pepper for the sake of getting the meat in the oven.
The cardinals peck at the window impatiently. They stare at me with hungry, beady eyes, ruffling their brilliant feathers. I hate that I haven’t been able to feed them, but Christmas lunch can’t wait. When Sarah returns, she’ll tell me where their food is. My family will be looking forward to this meal, I’m looking forward to it, too. It’s the only time of year when everyone is together. We share holidays with in-laws now; I don’t have my family all to myself. As my kids grew up and Sarah and I were in the midst of living paycheck to paycheck, endless homework at the kitchen table, and late nights soothing sicknesses or waiting for teenagers to return home, I never thought I’d miss the days when my house was constantly busy with the sounds of playing or prepubescent whining. Lo and behold, here I am, wishing that I was waking up to my kids fighting over who got a turn with the new BB gun instead of the silence that awaits me.
Once the meat is prepped and in the oven, I start on the next dish that I can do without Sarah’s help. The clock above the stove ticks forward, inching toward noon with every nudge of the hand. We’re three hours away from when everyone is scheduled to arrive. With every tick, my breath becomes more labored with panic. I need to call Sarah again, and if she doesn’t answer, I’ll phone one of the kids.
The phone rumbles in my hand. Ring, ring, ring. Just as the voicemail is about to play, Sarah answers. “Hello?”
It’s quiet on her end of the line. “Sarah, where did you go this morning?” I ask.
“Hello?” Sarah says again.
“Sarah?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, Honey. Are you coming home?”
“Hello?”
Her signal must not be great. I didn’t see her hearing aids on the dresser this morning, but I shout into the phone anyway. “Are you on your way home?”
Silence on her end, then a click signifying that she has hung up. “Damn it,” I mutter, scrolling the phone numbers on the wall. I call my youngest daughter first, since she lives the closest and might be able to get ahold of Sarah.
Ring, ring, ring.
The clock inches onward.
My daughter Joannie answers with a hesitant “Hello?”
“Joannie, it’s Dad,” I say. “Any idea where your mom went? I can’t get a hold of her, and I’m worried…”
“Hello?” Joannie says.
You’ve got to be kidding. Is there something wrong with my phone? Just as I’m about to shout over the shitty connection between Joannie and I, she starts to cry.
“Joannie, baby, what is it?” I ask. She doesn’t answer, just hangs up.
The sound of any of my daughters crying has always distressed me. Partly out of frustration that I don’t know how to stop it, partly out of the pain I heard in their wails. Pain I wished I could suffocate, extinguish, because my beautiful girls didn’t deserve to feel it.
What got Joannie so upset? Were the kids giving her a hard time this morning? It’s best to let her handle the Christmas drama on her end, and if she wants to talk about it later, we can. Sarah and I understand present mishaps and sibling spats all too well. I call the other daughter who lives close by, but I get a voicemail for her instead, so I give up to continue cooking. At least Sarah answered the phone. She’ll be home soon. Everyone will be home soon.
To dissipate the quiet, I search for the TV remote to turn on the news. Like everything in the house, the remote has its place, its throne. It sits beside my armchair on the coffee table, never disturbed, not even by the grandkids. They know that the remote is a sacred artifact, and that to move it even an inch would be to invoke the wrath of God. Yet, when I go to its normal spot, the remote is not there. I sigh. This is why I’m so nit-picky about the placement of things around here. Now, I have to bend my old joints further and carefully navigate the cramped living room, stuffed wall-to-wall with furniture, to locate the damn thing. Our living room is so packed that we can’t put the Christmas tree in here anymore; we put a small one in the front room adjacent to the dining room instead.
My remote is silver with blue buttons, something that sticks out amongst the honey oak in our living room. Silver is what I search for, waiting for it to pop out of the corner of my eye. There’s a Christmas song my older grandkids sing from one of the Burl Ives shows: Silver and Gold, Silver and Gold, mean so much more when I see silver and gold decorations on every Christmas tree.
The silver remote eludes me. My neck aches. When Sarah gets home, we’ll talk about what to say to the grandkids about touching Grandpa’s remote. That remote is my connection between my house and the real world. Without it, I’m untethered. Sarah and I don’t go out much. The news is my reminder of life moving on without me. It’s a morbid, all-consuming obsession of mine.
I sit in the armchair to catch my breath. On autopilot, I reach to set my hand on the coffee table, as I normally do when sitting in my chair. My hand does not hit the cool marble of the table, but instead wraps around a remote. What the hell? I hold it in front of me. It’s a black remote, the same color as the marble of the coffee table. Huh. I press the red power button and the TV is alive. I enter the channel number for Fox News, and the familiar backdrop and texts appear. The sight and noise relaxes me a bit, although the unfamiliar black remote in my hand unsettles me. I can’t sit for long. It’s time to make the potato casserole.
Since Mom died, I have taken over the responsibility of making her cheesy potato casserole. It’s been a crowd favorite since 1940, and I couldn’t take going through a holiday after her death without it. Her sudden absence was worse enough. I spent months in preparation for the first Christmas I made the dish for, desperately attempting to recreate the feeling of eating in Mom’s dining room, the gooey potatoes taking the place of her warm embrace, the aroma of cheese bubbling in the oven replacing the smell of her hairspray. She left the recipe on a notecard, the instructions faded by the years, but try as I might, I couldn’t get the potatoes to taste exactly as she made them. My potato casserole was decent, but still a cheap imitation of her artwork. Even now in my twentieth year of making the dish, as I chop the potatoes and layer them with shredded cheese, I feel inadequate.
I slide the potato casserole onto the oven rack beneath the turkey and ham, listening for the creaking of the garage door. Nothing. There is nothing but the ticking of the clock, the tapping of the cardinals at the window. Sarah’s still not home. The panic settles heavy on the back of my tongue, sucked in like an intake of breath. My pulse beats in a quickening tempo throughout my body, teetering on the edge of calm about to dive into fear. The scent of cooking meat and cheese fills the kitchen. The cardinals flap their wings. Where is my wife? How is she not back from town yet? We don’t live that far from the store. We’re down to an hour before the kids get here.
I go upstairs to change out of my ratty pajamas, holding the railing close to my torso as I pull myself up stair by stair. I have a Christmas sweater I inherited from my dad that I’ve worn since he passed. Mom knitted it for him as a present when we were kids. Somehow, Dad and I must have adopted the same diet, because it fits like a glove over my gut. Sometimes a handmade trinket was all my brother and I got for Christmas. It’s what Mom and Dad could afford when we were young. Their finances got better in the final throes of the Depression, but I was taught early on to save everything, keep track of everything. You never know when it’ll be swept out from underneath you.
I pull the sweater over my head, slip into Levis, and strap them into place with a belt that hugs me below my stomach. While I strain to buckle it, I notice that I haven’t put on my wedding ring, so once the belt is secured, I go to the dresser where Sarah and I set our rings in a small dish. Except there is no dish. No ring. Mine and Sarah’s are both gone.
I was proud of the updated rings I was able to buy us for our fortieth wedding anniversary. Sarah’s first ring was a dull, cheap thing, and I set out to get her a nicer one as soon as we could afford it. They are two bands sautered together, the plain silver one is the original from our wedding, the gold one over top is inlaid with small diamonds. Silver and Gold. The bands wrap around each other, a promise of our glittering golden years together in remembrance of all that we were before.
My silver and gold ring is missing. It has to be on the floor somewhere, but a first glance at the carpet proves futile. I’m hesitant to get on my hands and knees when I’m on my own for fear of not being able to get back up. I’ll have to have one of the kids help me find it when they arrive. Which will be soon. I go to the bathroom and brush my teeth when I hear the click and whoosh of a door opening downstairs. Sarah’s home.
Thank God.
Relief filters through the fear that gathered like thick glue in my throat. She won’t hear me from upstairs, so I spit the toothpaste out and go down to meet her.
“Sar–”
I choke on my words, falling into the shadows of the staircase. It’s not Sarah, it’s a man. A young man with reddish blonde hair stands in my living room, tall enough for his head to almost touch the ceiling. He sets two paper bags on the table, then takes off his coat and gloves, blowing into his hands for warmth. Who is he? I don’t recognize him. How did he get in? A forehead-smack realization dawns on me: I didn’t lock the door when I came in from the garage.
I’m frozen on the stairs as he comes in further, looking confused at the TV playing Fox News. He picks up the remote, shuts it off. He stares at the black remote in his hand for a moment. The silence envelops us, but he doesn’t appear to notice me breathing heavily a few feet away from him. Is he going to rob us? Is he one of those creeps who tortures the elderly? What’s he got in those bags? He might be desperate. The holidays bring out the best and worst in people. Maybe he has children who he was unable to buy gifts for?
I could show him the safe. I could shove money in his hands and shoo him out the door, promising never to tattle on him in a show of Christmas goodwill, then call the cops as soon as he’s out of earshot. I could do it now before Sarah gets home. Come downstairs with my hands raised, and lead the perp right to the closet where my safe and gun collection is stored. He won’t know what hit him.
Raising my arms above my head, I carefully tread the last few stairs until I’m facing the man’s back. Pure terror keeps me silent, holds my tongue down with heavy weights, unable to bring attention to myself. Maybe he’ll look around and deem robbing us useless. The man walks away, back turned to me, into the kitchen, where I hear he’s talking on the phone. His cell phone.
“You’re right, I forgot the Baileys. Shit. I just got back from town.” Quiet as he waits for a response. I tip-toe behind him, hunching behind Sarah’s armchair. “Nowhere else is open today. I’ll go back. Shit, sorry, I’ll go now. It’ll be fine. Ok. Love ya.”
The man hangs up and mutters “Shit” again, before collecting his coat at the door and leaving. The door shuts and I scramble to lock it before he can return. I have to call the police. I was almost robbed and God knows what else. I pray the man doesn’t run into Sarah on his way out. My hands tremble as I dial, breathing hurts like ice picks are stabbing me in the stomach.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Yes, there was a man in my house. A man walked into my house. I live at…”
“Hello? What is your emergency?”
“There was a man in my house!”
“Hello? Hello?”
Desperation curdles in my gut, dropping like an anchor, the disbelief of my predicament wedging deeper and rendering me breathless. “H–Help me! Someone tried to rob me!”
There is a long, steady beep signifying the call has disconnected. I throw the phone against the wall, breaking the stand. It all falls to the ground in a crackling heap of plastic and wires. Jittery, I grip the back of the couch as I shimmy away from the destruction I’ve created. Did the man already take what he wanted? Did he get to the kids’ presents before I noticed him?
I hurry to the front room to check under the tree and to make sure the front door is locked. Twinkling lights meet me, sparkling with glass ornaments in the white lights and sunshine streaming through the bay windows. Nestled underneath, to my bone-shaking relief, are presents of all shapes and sizes. Clear glass angels and hearts, reindeer and candy canes, glisten like dew drops at the ends of the pine branches. Something about it is missing. This tree is almost too pretty. Sarah and I include our kids’ art projects from years past, mismatched ornaments we received as gifts, Baby’s First Christmas mementos, and dollar bills for the grandkids to steal during games. We use red garland…I thought.
Do we use red? As I bask in the brilliant glow of the tree, I question whether we’ve always used red or not. This garland looks new, fluffy and not stripped bare to the thread in random places. It’s not red, but a mixture of silver and gold.
Mean so much more when I see silver and gold decorations on every Christmas tree.
I didn’t notice Sarah bought new garland. I like it, it reminds me of our rings. I can’t forget to ask the kids for help in locating mine. I hope I can find it before Sarah notices it’s gone.
The grandfather clock on the wall chimes noon. The timer beeps on the oven. Sarah is still gone, and the kids will be coming any second. They will help me, now that I’ve broken the phone. One of them can find their mother, one of them can call the police about the break-in. It won’t be the greatest start to our Christmas lunch, but after our perfect track record, perhaps they’ll let this one slide.
I shut the timer off, shove the oven mitts on, and peek into the oven to check the meat with the thermometer. The oven’s heat radiates visibly in the boxed space, hovering around the pans like a mirage. Nothing’s ready to be taken out yet. I’ll start the buttered noodles without Sarah; I’ll get the Hawaiian rolls in the oven. What else are we missing? The kids will bring desserts, Joannie will bring the green bean casserole, and Sarah’s cookies can wait. It’s not like my wife to lose track of time like this. Perhaps my kids are right, perhaps her mind is going a bit. The quiet admission squeezes my heart, reminds me of the little time we have left.
The noodles boil, the buns bake, the clock ticks onward to 12:30. Where are the kids? The ones who live closest are usually here by now. We’re supposed to eat at 12:45. That’s the unspoken rule. Lunch starts at 12:00 but once all the food’s laid out, the kids catch up with one another, and the grandkids show their cousins their new toys, we actually eat 45 minutes later.
Did everyone forget? The thought inspires unwelcome beads of tears in my eyes, brought on by the panic of Sarah’s disappearance and the horror at my children forgetting about me. I wouldn’t blame them if they forgot. Who would bother with this old man as I am now? Limbs too creaky, breathing too labored to be fun to play with. Instead of my grandkids running to hop on my shoulders or chasing me with a hose in the garden as they used to, now they look at me as if I’ll break in the slightest wind. What would be fun to any of them about coming here for Christmas? Perhaps they told their parents they were too depressed around me. I am depressing. I’m a shadow of the man I was.
No, none of them would forget to come home for Christmas. I wipe my eyes. My kids wouldn’t abandon Sarah and I. Sure, they’ve mentioned having our holidays at someone else’s house so Sarah and I wouldn’t have to do any work, but if that’s what they decided for this year, they would have let me know in advance. I’m letting the strangeness of this morning get to me. But as the clock hands hit 12:45, I truly think I have been forgotten. The house is suddenly, breathtakingly cold.
The door to the left of the kitchen jiggles. Someone is trying to twist the knob to get in. Sarah? The kids? My heart soars with the excitement of seeing them, with the consolation that my love is not one-sided today. Someone came home. I locked the door, so I hurry to help whoever it is inside with a smile stretching the wrinkles on my face.
I leave the oven mitts on the table, and am just about to reach the door when the lock clicks out of place on its own. When it swings open, letting in a gust of snowy air, my smile falls. It’s the same tall man from earlier, with another paper bag, and he isn’t alone. Two women follow behind him, one as young as him, the other middle-aged. They both wear puffy coats that resemble the cartoon Michelin man. The older woman holds grocery bags, the younger one holds a carseat with a bundle inside.
Sickness gathers inside me, dizzies me with its nauseating weight. Who are these people, and how did they get into my house?
“Morgan called,” the older woman says, unbeknownst to me standing mere feet from her. None of them are looking toward me, none of them notice the owner of the house they’re trespassing. “Said they’ll be another two hours at least.”
“Whatever,” the man replies. The young woman sets the car seat onto the couch, and the man pokes his head in. “You ready to start without Uncle Morgan?” he asks the bundle in a sing-song voice. “Uncle Morgan’s always late.”
The presence of the two women and baby relaxes me. This is an odd group, but maybe they mean no harm. “Excuse me,” I say.
None of them turn.
I say it louder. “Excuse me.”
The older woman turns from the baby, brushing right past me into the kitchen with her bags. I’m standing in front of her, and she doesn’t look at me. She sets the bags on my counter with a sigh. “Hello?” I demand. “Why are you in my house?”
“I’ll start the ham now,” the woman declares. “It’ll be ready by dinner.”
I already have things in the oven. “No,” I protest weakly as I watch the woman dump the contents of her grocery bags. My mother’s cheesy potatoes are in the oven, my granddaughter’s ham is in the oven, my son’s favorite Hawaiian rolls are in the oven…
“What are you doing?” I grumble at the woman who does not hear me.
She continues to assemble her ingredients, ignoring me.
“There’s no room!” I yell. The woman stiffens. Blasts of frigid air sweep around us. “Get out of my house!”
“Did you guys hear that?” the woman asks the young man and woman.
The young woman lifts the baby into her arms, bouncing him as he cries, his nap interrupted. “It’s an old house. We hear lots of stuff.”
“Huh,” the older woman mutters, turning her attention back to unwrapping the ham over my sink.
“The oven is too full for that!” I shout. I pull the handle down on the oven door, gesturing inside wildly so she may notice. “Look–”
The oven is hot, but there is nothing inside. No turkey or ham, no rolls, no potato casserole. I inhale shakily, staring at the oven in wonderment. The woman jumps, feeling the heat, and gasps as she sees the open oven. “Holy shit,” she says.
“It’s fine,” the man tells her. He saunters into the kitchen to help. “This door’s always doing that.” He wrestles it effortlessly from my grasp and shuts the empty oven. I struggle to catch my breath, my vision gets blurry. I sit at the small kitchen table, my stomach flipping uncontrollably like a rogue airplane somersaulting in the clouds.
“Did you turn the oven on before you left?” the young woman demands.
“No,” the man replies.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh my God, yes I’m sure, Claire.”
“Then we need to get a new one,” the woman named Claire proclaims. She rocks the crying baby, kissing his head. “That’s not safe.”
“We can’t afford a new one right now. Nothing’s wrong with this one.”
Of course there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s my oven. Just like the couch their car seat is on is mine, the table is mine…this house is mine. It’s been mine for sixty years. Mustering the last of my strength, I stand and stomp right in front of the man. In my younger days, I would have been eye-level with him, but my hunched back puts me at his chin. I point a trembling finger at his face. He looks right at me, but there is no recognition in his gaze.
“Listen,” I growl. “Get out of my house and there’ll be no trouble, you hear? I’m gonna give you ‘til the count of ten. One…”
I back up and head to the closet where my guns are. I shout over my shoulder. “Two…”
“Do you wanna open presents when Morgan and Sam get here?” the older woman asks her companions.
“Three…”
I hold my hand threateningly over the door knob to the closet. My heart skitters into my throat. “Four…”
“Sure,” the young man answers. “Want me to start the coffee and Baileys?”
“Five…”
I twist the door knob.
“I’ll feed Teddy first, then I’ll have some,” Claire replies.
I hover at the closet’s entrance as the door creaks open. Cold crawls out of the closet, the smell of dust and mildew alongside it. “Six…”
“Sounds good,” the older woman says. She plops the ham into a pan, drizzling a glaze over top.
I step into the closet. “Seven…”
The silver and gold fibers on the Christmas tree glitter in the sun along the tile floor of the front entryway.
“Decaf or regular?” the man asks.
“Regular,” the women say at the same time.
“Eight…” I reach toward the top shelf where my pistol is in a locked case.
The people in my kitchen shuffle around and joke with each other. The sounds of their laughter pull on my heart, tugging insistently like the hands of my children on those Christmas mornings long ago. I swallow the lump in my throat, yell so the mysterious group can hear me. “Nine…”
“Surprise!” say two different voices in unison. The door to the living room opens and the group gasps in shock.
“Morgan!” the young man exclaims.
My hand rests on the top shelf. I can’t feel the pistol’s case. “Merry Christmas!” someone says.
I step back, looking at the row of unfamiliar coats in front of me, at the line of unfamiliar shoes on the floor. The walls of the walk-in closet are bare, my safe and gun cabinets are gone, unbolted and ripped from the wall, leaving peeled paint and holes, black like cardinal eyes, in their stead. My skin raises in goosebumps.
Someone knocks on the closet door. I jolt backwards, finding a man wearing the same Christmas sweater I am. A younger man, with cropped brown hair, sturdy arms, a thin waist. The sweater is baggy on him. He has a plain silver ring on his left hand, unblemished by wrinkles and liver spots.
“Hey,” he says. Under this man’s knowing stare, under his clear, blue gaze, I cry. I cry because he is everything I was, because he is everything I wish I still was. I cry because he is me.
“What’s happening?” I ask him through my tears. “Why are you here?”
We pause a moment, looking at each other, listening to the merriment in the next room.
“Why are they here?” I ask the younger version of myself.
“You know why they’re here,” he says gently.
The sweater grows wet at my collar, warm and sticky, and I touch the material at the base of my throat. My hand is coated in blood, as brilliant as the cardinals’ wings.
“What…” I choke on another sob.
“You fell,” the young me says. “Remember? Last year, you had a heart attack and fell.”
“Am I…?”
I can’t finish the question. Younger me nods. There is a glow around him, a golden halo. He reaches out to me.
“But Sarah,” I protest. I push past the younger me, making my way to the front room where my grandkids’ presents sit beneath the silver and gold tree. I point out the furniture, the loveseat Sarah and I picked out at Sherman’s warehouse, the matching end tables I made in the garage, the TV stand I got from my brother who passed five years before. “My things are still here. Sarah will be home any minute…”
“Sarah let this new family keep most of the furniture,” young me explains. “They’re just starting out, and she thought you’d want your things to go to someone in need.”
“Sarah’s coming home,” I insist, wiping my eyes.
“No, she’s not. Not for a long while yet.”
He holds out his hand to me again. The silver band on his finger glistens. “Where’s my ring?” I ask.
“Sarah has it.”
The silver and gold band belongs with her, just as my heart always has. Silver and gold, how do you measure it’s worth, just by the pleasure it gives here on earth? My grandkids’ voices rise in a chorus of a memory, of us singing Christmas carols by the multicolored lights of the tree. The gold band is still a promise of our golden years to come, even if our time together on Earth has ended. I’m thankful Sarah has it. I’m glad she’s coming home, just not as quickly as I thought.
“So, no one forgot about me,” I say. That’s why my family didn’t come. That’s why Joannie was crying. She saw the caller ID and remembered her dad. That’s why Sarah couldn’t answer me. She didn’t hear me talking to her. I’m a ghost, but I’m a loved ghost.
“How could anyone forget us?” younger me asks. He smiles, shakes his head. “Come on. Let’s go wait for her. I promise, when it’s time, we won’t find her here.”
I take one last look around the room, at the place that Sarah and I built and raised our family in. If these walls could talk, they wouldn’t even know where to start. I love this house, but the golden aura of younger me tells me that there is something better waiting on the other side. I hold his hand, and as my grip tightens, I fuse into him, shed my old, wrinkled shell and step into the unburdened body of my youth. Breathing is easy, my heart doesn’t thunder, my tears are dry. I glance at the silver ring on my left hand, knowing that when Sarah joins me, the golden band will reappear, whole once more. I step away from the laughter, the smells of cooking honey ham and coffee, and float into the golden light streaming through the bay windows.
- Cardinal Wings - December 22, 2024
