The Christmas Checks That Never Came

Lily told her about the art set, and Owen told her about the new basketball, and Darlene said “Well, aren’t you lucky,” and cut Lily’s ham into smaller pieces without being asked.

I watched her do that. I watched her cut my daughter’s ham, and I thought about the card in Lily’s coat pocket in the front closet, and I put my fork down because I couldn’t eat any more.

Darlene never said one word about Ruth. Not where she was, not how she was, not whether anyone was going to see her today.

It was as if Ruth were somebody else’s grandmother, in some other town.

At two o’clock, Nick’s phone buzzed on the table. He looked at it and was already pushing his chair back.

“Line down north of town,” he said. “Wind took a tree across it on the county road. I’m on call.”

He kissed the kids on top of their heads. He kissed me, and at the door he leaned down and said quietly in my ear, “Call me after. Whatever she says.”

“I will,” I said.

He looked over my shoulder at his mother in the kitchen doorway, with the dish towel over her shoulder, and something went across his face that I don’t think she saw. Then he went out into the snow.

At a quarter past three I thanked Darlene for dinner and buckled the kids in. I did not tell her where we were going.

The assisted living was on the east edge of town, a long low brick building with a wreath on the front door.

Ruth’s room was at the end of the east hall.

It was small, the way those rooms are: a bed with her own quilt on it, her recliner by the window, a dresser with her wedding picture and a little Christmas tree an aide had brought in, about two feet tall, with tiny colored lights.

She had the lamp on beside her chair, and the room was warm and yellow. Through the big window behind her, the yard and the trees were white with snow.

She was in her recliner in her red cardigan, the one she wore every Christmas, with her white curls set fresh.

Somebody had done her hair for the holiday. She had a book in her lap, but she wasn’t reading it.

“Well, look at this,” she said, and her whole face opened up. “Look who came to see me on Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Grandma Ruth,” I said. I stood behind the kids with one hand on the back of her recliner.

I had on the cream turtleneck Nick’s sister gave me two Christmases ago, and I remember I kept pulling at the collar because it felt too tight.

Owen stood in front of me in his green hooded sweatshirt, the one he wears until I have to sneak it into the wash.

His buzz cut was fresh from the barber on Main Street the week before. He held his red envelope in both hands.

Lily stood beside him in her pink sweater, with her blonde hair in a ponytail I had redone twice in the car.

She didn’t wait for anybody. She walked right up to the recliner and held out her card.

“I made you this,” she said. “It’s a thank-you.”

“A thank-you,” Ruth said. “For me?” She pushed her glasses up her nose and took the card from Lily like it was something that might break.

She looked at the front for a long time. “Oh, look at that tree,” she said. “Look at that star. Did you do that star all by yourself?”