Post #165 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Memoir Writing Contest, Grand Prize Winner
Women’s Memoirs is pleased to published Donna DeWeerd’s Grand Prize Winning story. Congratulations, Donna.
Pease, Please
A Christmas Present
“It’s ugly, just the way I like it,” Momma says as she brushes a pile of dead pine needles from our Christmas tree into her hand. She throws them into a nearby ashtray, right on top of her cigarette butts. She squishes them down with the burnt end of a fresh Pall Mall.
Bubble lights perk along the front of the tree, amber changing to red, gold, then amber again. Hanging from the front door knob is a metal clothes hanger pulled into the shape of a wreath and wrapped with peppermint candies. Under the front window, a teddy bear wearing a red and green argyle sweater sits on the end table. Ribbon candy melts into the glass relish dishes.
Momma
Behind Momma, Lolly and me – she’s my big sis- we act the fools, making monkey sounds and jumping around, trying to get Kathy to crack a smile. “Kathy, Kathy, look at me. Ewew. Achach,” we yell, scratching under our arms. “No, look at me, baby girl. Over here.”
Kathy Pease squats by the tree with her diaper peeking out of her little red ruffled panties. She’s pretty small for a two year old. Blinking from the flash, her sober face looks up at us, sort of. Her eyes are so far apart they seem to be looking at different corners of the room.
She hardly ever smiles. Actually, I can count on one hand the number of times she has smiled or cried while she has been staying with us. She sure takes the Christmas cookie for quiet.
When Daddy brought Kathy home last spring, we all thought Momma would be upset. See, Daddy collects stray people like the pound collects stray dogs. He is always finding somebody who needs something, then bringing them home for Momma to cook for or take care of. But in this case, the case of Kathy Pease, Momma just scooped her up and never has let go. Her planned week’s stay has turned into almost a year.
After the photograph, Momma grabs Kathy and her pocketbook, shooing us out to the car. The peppermint wreath spanks the door as it slams behind us, with Momma shouting, “Let’s get going shopping. That sale at Western Auto– half price on the whole store- goes from noon to nine. Let’s get there before all the good stuff is gone.”
We leave Daddy at home to unplug the sink, jammed up with god knows what.
Western Auto has it all. I buy a big bottle of Evening in Paris for Momma. A compass for Daddy. A roll of tape and goo for Lolly so she can set her hair straight. Lolly and me, we pool our babysitting money, adding in some Daddy gave us and get a Winnie Doll, one that walks and talks and sings.
***
Back home, presents all wrapped, we are just sitting down to our supper when the doorbell rings. I’m facing away from the door as Daddy opens it but I can tell from the look on Momma’s face that it isn’t good news. She looks over at Kathy in the high chair, looks like she might snatch her up and run. When I turn around, I see Kathy’s whole family, even her mother, crowded into our front room.
“Hey, Ken. Sorry to barge in on you all on Christmas Eve like this.”
“Henry. Henry Pease. Come on in and take a load off. We’re just starting supper. Will you have some? Boys? Are you hungry?”
This last remark is directed down toward the three snotty-nosed kids standing by their dad, stepping stones in size, all bigger and more raggedy versions of little Kathy Pease. The boys all nod yes while their father says, “No, but thanks just the same.”
“We’ll just be taking Kathy now. That’s all we came for,” says the mother of Kathy. I can’t believe my eyes that she is standing here in our front room. Jeez, Kathy’s mother. Lolly and me have been wondering about her for a long time. The grown-ups always talk about her, about how she drinks, about how Henry and his kids have to get along without her while she dries out in the pokey. Well, I guess she is finally dry enough.
“I’ll be taking her,” Mrs. Pease says again, reaching for Kathy. Right next to me, she lifts her stick arms, and I get a whiff. She smells like the inside of our old Samsonite train case, musty and stale, mediciney. I hold my breath until she puts her arms down.
Momma backs away from her, still holding tight to Kathy.
Kathy’s daddy starts in, “Thank you very much for your kindness, Miz Donnelly. I really appreciate you watching out for little Kathy during our troubles, but we is all back together now, as you can see. That old Judge McDonald let people go early, it being Christmas and all, so we just want to…”
My momma turns away from him and looks like she is about to run out the back way with Kathy.
Henry Pease isn’t taking no for an answer. “My wife is home now and we is going to have us a fine Christmas, the boys, Kathy, her mama and me. Out to Simms Ranch, that’s where…”
Momma whirls around to face him again. “Simms Ranch? That place is for drunks and jailbirds. It is not a place for kids. And at Christmas? Henry, really? Look. Kathy has a new dress. A stocking, for God’s sake. My girls have saved for months for a present. Please leave her here for one more day. Leave your boys, too. You all could come over for dinner tomorrow.”
“That won’t be right. My wife here wants her kids by her. We is fixin’ to…”
“Henry, you know that wife of yours is always on her way back to a fresh drunk. Do not do this, please.”
Like it’s going to help, Daddy goes into the kitchen and comes out with a bottle of Christian Brothers brandy. He hands Lolly a box of popsicles who passes ‘em out to us kids. Daddy shoves aside the wrapping paper and ornament boxes, and says, “Let’s crack open this new bottle of Christmas cheer, whadda’ you say, Henry?”
“No, thanks anyway, Ken. Shirley here, she cain’t be drinkin’ now. One drink and she’s off to the races again.” Mr. Pease stands between the bottle and his wife, like he is protecting her from a vicious dog. Mrs. Pease, she don’t look so hot.
Daddy puts the bottle down on the coffee table, unopened.
“Henry, here’s the thing. We’ve had Kathy with us for quite some time and have made plans for her to celebrate Christmas morning with our family. But I understand now that it can’t be. So, we’ll just take a minute to adjust here, get used to the idea, and then let you folks be on your way.”
“Like hell,” my Momma shouts.
“After all, Betty, she is the mother and she wants her children for Christmas.” Daddy says to my Momma, who looks like she is going to pop him one, right then and there.
For a minute or two, no one talks. Us kids are just standing there gaping at them, licking our popsicles, waiting. Then, all of a sudden, Momma, she hands Kathy to my Daddy and disappears into the back of the house.
Henry Pease tells my Daddy to give him his little girl. Kathy tries to squirm out of his arms when Daddy hands her over.
“Get over here by the door, boys. Thanks, once again, Kenny,” Kathy gives up her struggle and hangs there like a rag doll in her Daddy’s arms. The boys move like one person toward him and the door.
Coming back out, Momma bustles around the room picking up this and that and stuffing it into a huge Western Auto paper bag. That corner of the room looks like the day after when Christmas has been put in boxes for another year.
“Here’s her things. Just take ‘em. Go on now,” as Momma hands the full sack to Mrs. Pease. Then Momma says something to her no one else can hear, as Mrs. Pease grabs the bag tight and nods. Momma’s got no lips left from sucking them into her mouth so tight. I know that look and it isn’t one you want to mess with. Mrs. Pease look like she knows that much.
Momma takes the candy wreath off the front door and gives it to the big boy. She gives the next one the Christmas teddy bear and the little one a dollar bill. She goes over to Mr. Pease and hands him the biggest package under the tree. It’s the Winnie doll. That package is bigger than little Kathy Pease herself. He struggles to hold them both, Kathy and Winnie.
Turning, without even kissing Kathy Pease good bye, Momma walks back down the hall.
Daddy starts after her but she yells behind herself, “Don’t you dare.”
After the Pease family leaves, there’s a big hole in the lineup of packages under the tree, a hole where the Winnie doll has been. The front door looks so plain without the peppermint wreath. The coffee table is whistle clean.
Supper is forgotten. Daddy pulls the curtains and unplugs the bubble lights.
“Hit the hay, girls,” Daddy says. “Santa needs to do his work.”
Coming out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth, I hear him asking Momma through the bedroom door, “Have you seen my new bottle of brandy? Santa needs a nightcap.”
A mumbled answer from my momma, then Daddy yells through the closed bedroom door, “Jesus, Betty. That won’t help a thing.”
***
On Christmas morning everything looks different. Firstly, it’s cold. It’s never cold in the desert on Christmas, but today it is. Second, “Santa” Daddy put together the Western Auto booty while we slept and now it is spread like litter under the bubbling lights. Finally, Momma seems cheerful, again. Maybe ‘cause she got what she wanted, a new Hoover.
Lolly is in the bedroom trying her bonnet hair dryer and the goop I got her, fancying herself up for 9:00 Mass. Daddy is getting ready for one of his twice a year times going to church with us, the other being Easter. Momma and I are ready and waiting by the car.
“That looks really nice on you, makes you look like such a big girl.” Momma is looking at my Christmas outfit, a plaid straight skirt and matching vest.
“Well, I am thirteen you know, practically a woman,” I pick at an imaginary lint piece on my skirt, and pull my new Tangee lipstick out of my handbag for the tenth time this morning.
“I know. My baby girls are both growing up.”
“Momma, do you miss her like crazy this morning?” I’m almost afraid to bring it up.
“Don’t worry, child, Kathy Pease will be back soon. Really soon, I’m sure.” She smiles and looks quickly at Daddy as he comes out of the house. “Won’t she, Kenny?”
“How do you know that for sure, Momma?”
“Your momma has her ways,” Daddy says with a big sigh, “She has her ways.”
Momma. Still loves babies.
