The Christmas Promise
Donna VanLiere
One
November, one year earlier
I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one…. That is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.
—Mother Teresa
I peeked through the kitchen drapes that morning and rushed to grab a bucket and rag. Looks like a nice one, I said to myself, straining to see out the window. Someone had left a refrigerator in my driveway. I squeezed dishwashing liquid into the bottom of the bucket and filled it with warm water, splashing my hand till it disappeared in suds. I tied up my running shoes—the sassy pink neon ones with the green stripes—and slipped a bottle of household cleaner into my coat pocket. A blown porch light stopped me on the steps and I looked up at it. “Good grief. That bulb didn’t last very long. I need to get one of those bulbs that last a year.” I stepped into the kitchen and reached to the top shelf of the utility closet. Back on the porch, I unscrewed the old bulb from the bottom of the light casing. “There you go,” I said, screwing in the new one.
I turned to the refrigerator in the driveway, sizing it up. “Not too big. Twenty cubic feet, I’d guess.” I opened the door and backed away, holding my hand over my nose. “I’ll have you cleaned and find a new home for you by lunchtime,” I said, slipping on a pair of bright yellow latex gloves. I was used to talking to myself; I’d been a widow for seven years. I was never concerned about talking to myself; what worried me is how I answered myself, and I was really troubled when I argued with myself! I pulled out one shelf after another, soaking my rag and scrubbing at unrecognizable globs of petrified food. I sprayed down the inside and tackled the back wall with a vengeance.
“There is a junk law, you know!” I cringed at hearing that familiar voice and closed my eyes. Maybe if I couldn’t see her she wouldn’t actually be there. “The city has mandated codes.” I scrubbed harder. “Gloria Bailey, I’m talking to you.”
How I despised that tone. I took a breath and lifted my head to see my neighbor standing on the other side of her fence. “Good morning, Miriam.”
“Gloria, does anyone ever bother to let you know that they’re dropping this rubbish off?”
I shoved my head inside the fridge, scrubbing at the walls. I once told my friend Heddy that there wasn’t enough room in the cosmos for Miriam’s ego. Her affected British accent was as real as her blond hair and her name. Miriam Lloyd Davies. Come on! “It’ll be gone by noon, Miriam,” I said, wringing out the rag.
“I doubt it, by the looks of it,” Miriam said. “But if it’s not gone I’ll need to have it hauled out of here. I don’t pay taxes to live next to a junkyard.”
It’s amazing how perfect your posture becomes when you’ve been insulted. Every vertebra in my back straightened to supreme alignment as I walked up the driveway. “I don’t pay taxes to live next to a junkyard!” I said, whispering.
When I moved into my home six years ago a lovely young couple with two small children lived in the house next door. They were always polite, smiling and waving each day, even leaving a present on my doorstep each Christmas. If my work annoyed them, they never showed it. Miriam moved in three years ago when the young couple found themselves expecting a third child and in need of a larger home. She was graceful and statuesque—fitting for a stage actress and professor’s wife—but I found her to be cold and distant, although her husband, Lynn, was always gracious and warm. Lynn died a year after moving into the home. I tried on several occasions to befriend Miriam, assuming our widow status would assure some sort of bond between us, but just because someone is plopped into your life doesn’t mean a friendship will be forged.
I often felt pasted together, compared to Miriam’s refined look. I looked my age (sixty and proud of it) while Miriam denied hers (fifty and holding). I’ve never been what you could call fashionable, but I take pride in my appearance. I like my clothes to match and am most comfortable in cotton and jersey (but no belts). I don’t wear anything that hurts! Miriam preferred slacks with a designer blouse or cashmere sweater and she was always neat, nothing disheveled about her. Her hair was the color of golden honey and framed her face in a chic bob. She promptly made her next appointment at the beauty salon for five weeks to the date of her last cut and coloring. My hair was salt and pepper (more salt than pepper) and hung in soft, or rather, annoying curls around my face. When it got too long I simply bobby-pinned it back until I found the time to give myself a trim.