December: That mean season when the bitter wind rattled the window panes and snow drifted under the doors of the hotel.
Amanda shivered and pulled her shawl more tightly about her as she headed to the kitchen to stoke the stove. Damn! Callie had gone home for the evening, leaving the wood box empty again. Amanda cursed under her breath as she trudged out to the wood pile. She picked up as much as she could carry and was just heading back inside when she heard a muffled cough. “Is anyone there?” she called. The wind howled around the side of the building, blowing snow in her eyes, and she sputtered and hurried back toward the door.
“Scuse me, ma’am.”
Amanda turned back. A disheveled figure held out a piece of wood. “You dropped this. Would you like some help with that?”
“Well, yes, I guess I would.” She transferred the wood to the man’s waiting arms, climbed the steps, and held the door open for him. He dumped the armload into the wood box and turned back toward the door.
“Thank you,” she called out to him as he left.
Hurriedly, Amanda added several logs to the fire and stood warming her hands over the blaze.
Time to lock up. As she turned the key in the door, she saw that the man was still there. He was sitting on the bottom step. He blew on his hands alternately. The snow had started up again, and as she watched, his dirty coat turned slowly white.
Amanda sighed. This must be her lucky day. Another transient she’d have to feed. She opened the door. “I suppose you’re hungry,” she called down to him.
The ragged man jumped to his feet, snatching off his hat. “Well, yes, ma’am. I sure am.”
“Thought as much.” They always were, she thought. “Well, you best come on in out of the snow.”
The man gratefully accepted the cold chicken wings and cornbread she found in the ice box. She was surprised to see him use the knife and fork she provided. Most bums just dug right in with their hands.
“What’re you doin’ in these parts, if I might ask. If you’re lookin’ for work, it’s a bit scarce this time of year. Of course, Howie might be lookin’ for someone to help out at the stable …”
“Oh, no, ma’am, I’m not looking for a job.”
Amanda waited for him to continue, but he merely smiled at her and went on eating.
“Well, you can’t very well go on livin’ on charity all winter, now can you, an able-bodied fellow like you?” They were all the same, she thought. These men needed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps the way she had done. Why, her old man had kicked her out when she was fourteen, and she’d been making her own way ever since. Amanda had little patience with freeloaders.
“I’ll only be here for a short time,” he said between bites.
“Just passing through, eh?”
The man paused in his eating and wiped his mouth on his napkin. “Be here about as long as it takes, I guess.”
“As long as what takes?”
“My assignment.”
Amanda was getting interested in spite of herself. “Your assignment?”
“Yes.”
“What assignment?” This was starting to sound a bit far-fetched. Maybe the man was loony and she’d better call Austin to lock him up.
“Well, you see, it’s like this. I’m an angel.”
Amanda suppressed a snort. “You? You’re an angel? Oh, come now. You’re filthy. And I saw you blowin’ on your hands out there. If you were some sort of immortal being, you wouldn’t be subject to things like temperature.”
“Angels feel the cold.”
“And you’re eating my food!”
“Angels get hungry too.”
“I see,” Amanda said sarcastically.
The man rose to his feet. “No, I don’t think you do – yet.” He smiled at her again as he got to his feet. “But there’s time.” He headed for the door and opened it. “I thank you for the food, Amanda.”
Amanda started. “I didn’t tell you my name…,” she began as the door closed behind him.
She looked down the steps as she slowly turned the key in the lock. The man was nowhere to be seen.
~~
December: Frigid nights when Amanda piled extra blankets on her bed and shivered all night anyway while the water in her pitcher formed a layer of ice.
It was always the same dream. In it, Amanda cradled the angel in her hands, mesmerized by its spun glass hair and tiny, real feather wings. The angel’s wax face smiled back at the little girl in rags, the little girl with streaks of dirt on her face and untidy hair. She crooned Silent Night to the angel, the two of them hidden away in the barn stall where no one would find them.
Suddenly the barn door jerked open, and her father strode angrily toward her and grabbed the precious angel in his meaty fist.
“Get on outta here, girl. I told you to finish them chores. If I have to feed the chickens myself, I’ll lay the hide offen you a layer at a time. You hear?”
Amanda scrambled to her feet and fled. It was much later when she crept back to the barn and found the angel crushed in the filthy muck where her father had thrown it down and the cows had walked on it. Her mother’s Christmas gift to her was ruined. Amanda had gathered the broken pieces and hid them in the loft while hot, silent tears coursed down her cheeks. She had cried herself to sleep that night and many nights afterward. And every time she dreamed the dream, she woke with tears on her pillow.
~~
December: When dirty, tracked-in snow melted on the floor of the Dove and the hem of Amanda’s dress stayed soggy all day long.
“Ike! Get your lazy backside down here and clean up this floor!” Amanda yelled up the stairs. She stood with hands on hips watching Ike saunter slowly down the steps.
“What were you doing up there all this time, if I might ask?”
“Well, you told me to change the beds in numbers two and seven.”
“Yes, I told you that an hour ago. I think you’ve been napping in them instead of changing them.”
Ike stifled a yawn.
Amanda glared at him. “See to these floors. The mop’s in the kitchen.”
“Incompetent bungler,” she muttered to herself as Ike took himself off to the kitchen, moving at a snail’s pace.
The door opened and shut quietly, and she pulled her shawl more tightly about her in the ensuing draft. She looked up to see the tramp she’d fed last night regarding her, hat in hands.
“Oh, it’s you again, is it? Well, I’ve no more food for you.” “There’s no free lunch here,” she added, as several patrons passed on their way to the already crowded dining room.
“No, ma’am.” The man continued to regard her expectantly.
“Well, what is it then?” she asked with thinly-disguised irritation.
“You’re about to have a very important guest.”
“Amanda laughed. I have lots of guests. This is a hotel.”
“Best get your best room ready. And save it till she comes.”
“Till who comes? Say, who are you anyway? You know my name, but I didn’t catch yours.”
“My name’s Jonathan.”
“Jonathan what?”
“Just Jonathan.”
Amanda sighed. “Won’t tell me, huh?”
“That’s all you need to know right now, Amanda. Just have the room ready.”
“Say, wait a minute . . .,” Amanda began. But Jonathan was already gone. The man certainly had a knack for disappearing quickly, she thought. He was kind of bossy too. She didn’t give him another thought as she went to check on things in the kitchen. It looked like Callie was handling the rush all right.
Back at the desk, Amanda checked in Mr. and Mrs. Trent Ferguson, just in off the stage. She called Ike to help them with their luggage and made small talk until he arrived, dragging his feet as usual. Amanda watched them up the stairs. Ike was banging their suitcases into the woodwork at every step. She winced as he hit one stair post especially hard. She swore she could hear it crack.
She hadn’t heard anyone else come in and was surprised by the soft cough behind her. She turned to find a young woman standing there.
“Can I help you?”
“I need a room for the night.”
Amanda noticed the dark circles under the girl’s eyes and the slight tremor of her hand as she signed her name in the register, Elizabeth Martin.
Elizabeth. That had been her mother’s name. She had been thinking of her all day.
“You’re in luck; I have one room left. That’ll be a dollar.”
The girl pulled some coins out of her pocket and laid them on the counter.
Amanda reached for the last key and was surprised to see that it was for room number seven, her best room. That was strange. She could have sworn she gave that to the Ferguson’s. Jonathan’s words came back to her. ‘Just have the best room ready. Save it till she comes’. An important guest? Surely not this no-account girl, dirty and tired and looking for a warm place out of the cold.
She handed the key over. “Would you like some help with your bag?”
“I don’t have one.”
Amanda thought she looked like she could do with some help anyway. The girl’s coat was several sizes too large for her, and she nearly tripped on the stairs. “I can have some hot tea sent up to your room if you like,” she called after her. The girl merely nodded without turning around.
“Humph, I wonder what her story is,” Amanda said as she heard the door to number seven click shut.
~~
December: The month Catherine had died, all those years ago. It seemed like yesterday.
Amanda tossed and turned in her bed as the scenes replayed in her dreams.
“Fetch me some clean water, honey.” Her mother bathed Catherine’s face again and again, as if she could wash the fever away. “Heat up that stew for your father.” But her father pushed it away. He took a bottle out to the barn and came in later, stinking drunk. How thin her mother looked as she bathed Catherine’s tiny body while her fever rose and rose.
Amanda awoke bathed in sweat, threw back the covers, and got out of bed. She banged on the sash, but the window was painted shut, a product of Ike’s clumsy painting job the previous summer.
She just had to have some air. She pulled her wool cape out of the chiffarobe and laced on her boots. She let herself out the back door and descended the steps.
The night was still and cold as death. The moon shone brightly, obliterating the stars. Amanda walked and walked and before she knew it, she was passing by Creel’s store. Without really meaning to, she stopped in front of the store window. There were never many Christmas decorations in Curtis Wells. But Creel always managed to order in a few. The town children loved to press their noses against the glass and examine his display in detail.
This year he had a manger scene. It wasn’t an elaborate one. There were just a few figures, the holy family crudely carved out of wood, like something Unbob would whittle. The figures stood in a bit of straw, surrounded on three sides by some kindling, propped up to look like stable walls.
Amanda was just turning away when something caught her eye. Suspended above the manger scene was an angel. Its sweet wax face smiled serenely down at her. Real feather wings and gossamer hair glinted in the moonlight. It was her angel! The one she had lost all those years ago. And yet it couldn’t be. Amanda stood and stared at it till finally the cold penetrated her coat, and her feet felt frozen to the boardwalk. Reluctantly, she turned away. It was time to go back to bed. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and there would be more work than she cared to think about. She’d better try to salvage what was left of the night.
The next morning she was surprised to see the tea tray outside the door to number seven. It didn’t look like it had been touched. In the kitchen she asked Callie about it. “Oh, I took it up last night just as you said. She said to leave it outside.”
“Take her a fresh one. See that she takes it this time. She was looking mighty poorly yesterday when she checked in. I hope she isn’t sick. And if she is, I hope she isn’t contagious. That’s the last thing I need around here right now. Oh, and remind her to pay for her room today if she’s staying on.”
Things went to heck in a hay wagon for Amanda that day. Her orders hadn’t come in on the stage. There were going to be short rations for Christmas dinner tomorrow. And on top of everything else, Helen quit. That meant she’d be waiting tables by herself. Her feet ached just to think of it.
Later that morning, thinking maybe she could flesh out Christmas dinner a bit, Amanda decided to head out to Creel’s to check out his canned goods selection. She was surprised and a bit annoyed to find Jonathan on the steps outside, surrounded by a throng of children. He was waving his hands wildly in the air as he told them a lively tale. The children shouted with laughter.
Unbob jumped up when he saw her. “Miss Amanda! Come and listen to the story!”
Amanda pushed past him. “I can’t, Unbob. I’m much too busy today.”
“But he tells the best stories ever!” Unbob glanced at Jonathan and then said to Amanda in a conspiratorial whisper, “He’s an angel, you know.”
“Sure he is, Unbob.”
Unbob went back to his place on the porch, and Amanda was amused to see Call, sitting on the hotel bench and by all appearances, very much involved in the story. She could swear he wore a ghost of a smile on his face. “Humph!” she muttered, “It would take an angel to get that much animation out of Call.”
As she reached Creel’s, she stopped for another look in his window, but the angel wasn’t there. Had it been sold? Inside, she questioned the store owner.
“What angel? There wasn’t any angel. Just the crèche Mr. Olsen carved.”
She thanked Mr. Creel and paid for her goods. “Have them brought over right away. I need that mincemeat this afternoon.”
Outside, she looked at the manger scene again. She was surprised at how sad it made her feel, how empty inside. Had she only imagined the angel?
When she got back to the hotel kitchen, Callie held out a dollar bill. “Miss Martin said to give you this.”
“Is she all right? What did she say?”
“Only that she was real tired and not to disturb her tonight. She doesn’t want any dinner.”
“Well, that’s up to her,” Amanda said as she pocketed the money. She had more important things to think about than reclusive guests. As long as the woman paid her room rent, she could behave any way she liked.
Long into the evening, Amanda and Callie baked pies for the next day.
Amanda was dead-tired, and when she finally went to bed that night, she fell immediately into a heavy sleep.
The dreams continued. Catherine was gravely ill. She cried and cried. How Amanda longed to comfort her baby sister. She stroked Catherine’s fevered brow, but the baby only wailed.
Amanda awoke with a start. Thank God it was only a dream. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. But then she heard it again. How could it be? She threw on her wrapper and opened her door. The crying was coming from the second floor. As she mounted the stairs, she saw Mrs. Ferguson standing outside room seven wringing her hands. Call was there too. “Been knockin' on the door, but there’s no answer,” he said.
Amanda rapped on the door. “Miss Martin? Are you in there? Are you ill? Shall I fetch the doctor?” There was no answer. She looked at the others. They all knew there was a baby in there. Hurriedly she tried the door. It was unlocked. Inside, the room was tidy as if no one had been staying there, and on the bed, wrapped in one of her clean towels, was a tiny newborn baby. Elizabeth Martin was gone.
“There’s a note here,” Call said, reaching for a piece of paper on the nightstand. Amanda nodded to him as she reached for the baby, and he read it aloud. “Please look after my beautiful baby girl. I cannot care for her. Her name is Catherine.”
~~
Christmas: The time when love was born a baby and hope heals broken hearts.
Dr. Cleese nodded. “Yes, you are doing it just right, Amanda,” he commented as she tested the temperature of the bottle by shaking a few drops on her wrist. The baby slurped the milk happily. Amanda stroked the soft fuzz on her tiny head, and Catherine spit out the nipple and smiled up at her and cooed.
“Now she needs burping. Just put her over your shoulder and pat her.”
Dr. Cleese slipped out as Amanda rocked Catherine. When she was sure the baby was asleep, she took her and laid her in a dresser drawer lined with clean towels. She covered her gently with her shawl and went to look out the window. On the street below, Jonathan was waiting and watching. When he saw her, he smiled and waved. She waved back. The baby cried out softly in her sleep, and Amanda went to check on her. When she got back to the window, Jonathan was no longer there. As she turned away, her gaze caught sight of something on the bureau. It was her Christmas angel. Amanda smiled. “Thank you, Jonathan.”
The End
12/2006
