Sister draped the rosary hanging from her belt over their hands and whispered in French. A ray of sunlight poured over them. Warmth drenched Claire. She had not felt this comforted since David’s death. She hoped she was healing.
But the memory of the day she arrived at her mother’s empty house clawed at her. Pain seared her heart, and it was Sister’s loving concern for her that had opened a wound Claire hadn’t consciously thought about in more than thirty years.
Chapter 16
Balancingthewrappeddogpuppet box in one arm and the cookie box in the other, Claire headed through falling snow toward the Christmas market to purchase more cookies. Lured by a display of grapevine wreaths decorated with miniature birds made of wine corks, she wished she had brought a bigger suitcase.
A group of parents and children swarmed a carousel, and moms and dads helped their kids hop onto the magical creatures. Santa, pulling a donkey wearing a red-leather harness decorated with silver bells, jingled his way through the crowds.
Attracted by the bright, hand-painted ornaments glittering from a stall overflowing with glass icicles, bells, and angels, Claire wandered down a quieter lane. As she stood before a grouping of hand-sewn, felt gingerbread men, storks, and hearts, a memory she’d held tightly in her heart unspooled.
Disoriented and a bit dizzy, she collapsed onto a nearby bench, hugging the puppet and cookies to her.
The scent of pine pulled her to her boarding school in Vermont. The laughter and chatter of girls erupted around her. She had organized an ornament-making day, and all the girls sewed ornaments out of felt, fabric, and ribbon scraps for the school, convent, and church Christmas trees. Claire embroidered silver sequins outlining a white dove’s wing, stitched orange glass beads around a goldfish’s tail, and gathered lace for a bespectacled mouse’s collar. Each of the nuns had a favorite, and the girls embroidered the nuns’ names on the back of their chosen ornament.
Spotting a tan and black felt dog kindled a memory of Claire’s favorite ornament, a pink poodle on which she’d sewn pink pompoms at its ankles, ears, and tip of its tail. She’d attached a string of rhinestones for a leash and circled them around the dog’s neck as a collar. She fashioned the dog after her mother’s favorite brooch. Claire had been so proud of the creation, she thought that if she gave the ornament to her mother for Christmas, her mother would love it and love her for making it.
During Thanksgiving weekend, Claire wrote a letter to her mother asking for permission to come home for Christmas. Her mother sent her written permission to Mother Superior. The nuns begged her to remain with them, but Claire convinced them, claiming she was sixteen, nearly an adult and old enough to make the trip on her own. She was so proud of the ornament, she cradled it in her lap the entire bus ride to Connecticut.
When Claire arrived, there were no carols, no tree, no lights. Her mother ordered in Chinese food for dinner. Claire attempted conversation as they ate, but her mother responded only with, ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When they finished dinner, her mother went to bed.
Some Christmas Eve, thought Claire. She stayed up watching and crying all the way through,It’s a Wonderful Life. But She was determined to have a nice holiday, so she got up early to cook breakfast, but all she found in the kitchen was instant coffee and seven TV dinners stacked in the freezer. No milk, no bread, no orange juice. She made coffee and poured herself a cup, but it was terrible without cream. Her mother didn’t even have sugar or Coffee mate.
Mother came downstairs at ten, turned on the TV, and lit up a cigarette. Claire ran and got her coffee, and, when she returned, Mother dug into her robe pocket, pulled out a check, and slid it across the coffee table.
Claire assumed it was her Christmas gift and thanked her. She lovingly presented her beautifully wrapped poodle.
Mother didn’t even look at it. She pulled off the paper, said, “Nice,” and tossed the poodle on the coffee table next to her ashtray.
Claire remembered Sister Francine clapping in delight when she saw the poodle, and Claire now understood that the nuns tried to dissuade her from coming because they were trying to protect her from her own mother. She missed them as much as they said they would miss her, so she decided to return to the convent the next morning. When she was packing to leave, she found the poodle, covered in cigarette ashes, in the garbage. Mother hadn’t even waited to throw it away until Claire left.
Something inside Claire shifted. She no longer wanted her mother’s love. She wanted the truth.
She waited until Mother got up and sat on the couch. She wore a pin-striped navy suit, a white silk blouse with a bow tied at the neck, stockings, and heels. Her poodle brooch twinkled from the lapel of her jacket. She pressed her knees together and tugged her skirt to cover them. Claire wondered if she was going to the office—the day after Christmas.
Claire put a cup of coffee on the table in front of her mother, placed the ash-covered poodle ornament next to it, and sat opposite her.
Mother just sat there, staring at the ashtray. Her cheeks were flaccid, her hair streaked with gray, her hands riddled with age spots, as if youth had never graced her.
Claire dragged her fingernails across the couch cushion. “Would you look at me, please?”
Mother shook out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled, and gazed at Claire with half-opened eyes, like she was trying not to notice her daughter—a smudge on the décor.
Anger pulsed through Claire, giving her courage. ‘Why do you hate me?”
“Because I chose to have you.” A smile wavered.
Her answer dizzied Claire. Was her mother happy, or angry, or smug for having chosen to have her, or for hating her?
Mother flicked the lighter open and closed, open and closed, open and closed. “When I gave birth to you, I lost everyone else in my life.”
Although she had expected her mother to deny her hatred, Claire wasn’t surprised. She was angry and hurt, but she was calmer than her mother was, which made her brave.
If she couldn’t have her mother’s love, she wanted the whole truth.
“Who is everyone else?”
“My parents. They kicked me out. Told me if I didn’t give the baby up for adoption, they’d disown me.’ She drew deeply on her cigarette, exhaled smoke, and with nonchalance said, “So, I disowned them first.” She flicked ashes in the tray.
