The Morning After —

Okay. So on Christmas morning I learned something: going back to bed and pulling the covers over your head? Not a good plan. Oh, yes, it sounds good. Here—everything in your life has changed, nothing is working right or feeling right. But giving it all up to live in a quilt cave? Even if the place could sustain life—what kind of life would it be?

And what exactly was missing? Oh, sit down and give me a minute of your time. Did I stay awake half Christmas Eve night, waiting for excited little animals to close their eyes and submit to sleep so I could deliver the benighted ritual slippers and go to bed myself? I did not. I slept like a baby, not even troubled by visions of the morning’s long planned delights. Did I wake abruptly and early, finding myself eye to eye with some berserker child who could not bear to be abed another minute? No, I did not.

I rolled out of bed at a slovenly eight o’clock on Christmas morning to find my husband off feeding the horses. The one person in the house still left to play the part of the child? Stuffed with sleep and not even twitching. There were no stockings ready downstairs. Because I hadn’t made any; we are all too old now for silly things like that (sob). I went downstairs to find the colored lights all lit, the carpets vacuumed (that would be Guy). But nobody had, after bouncing on my bed, followed me, perching themselves at the top of the stairs, breathless and jigging. Nobody to torture with hair brushes and rules about making beds and wearing robes. Even the married children who had, at one point, announced that they would be up by seven thirty? Awake all night trying teething tricks on Scooter, and so bleary-eyed by ten o’clock, that they were still in their own house.

Through which friends and neighbors, saints and angels, enter—

Our home was all dressed up with nowhere to go. Me, too. Silent, sparkling house. Me, sitting there on the couch kicking my heels, dressed (if you want to call it that) for the barn. But the horses were fed. All that was left for me was the treadmill. Jingle bells and awaaaaaay. And even though it was right across the hall from the sleeping “child,” my morning gallop made absolutely no dent in her sleep.

Storm light

You’re going to think this is stupid. M’s missionary call. Skype for the first time. At ten o’clock he was supposed to call from Argentina. What if something went wrong? What if the call never came? What if we couldn’t figure out the Skype? Cam is the Skype guru, after all, and where was he? With Lorri, still messing with that grandchild of ours.

Ten o’clock came. G and Chaz were hanging out at my desk, waiting. Nothing happened. I knew nothing was going to happen, which is why, even though I was now showered and in my best flannel jammy pants (the green plaid ones), I was back on the couch again, trying to pretend that nothing was actually supposed to happen. Ten-O-four and still nothing. “Are we supposed to call him?” I heard them saying. And then there was a series of mysterious, Skypie noises. “No.” “Yes—look—wait, is that his name? That’s not his screen name.” “But it’s ringing.” “Rejected—the call’s rejected?” More Skypie noises.

And then a voice. I thought it was Cam’s. But no. It was Murphy. Murphy talking out of my computer. (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.). “Come in!!” they called. But I didn’t want to till I was sure. Pressure behind the eyeballs.

But it was he, his own self. And they sat me down behind the desk. There he was—a little green sound bar. And he said, “Mom?” and water gushed out of my face. Then Gin was on and Cam was on – four little green sound bars, filling up all at once. I could see that they were there, but all I could hear were these little electronic burps—voices phase canceling each other. Total confusion. And then total collapse. No sound bars. Call gone.

“He’ll call back,” they said. But he didn’t. And I went to sit on the couch again. When dogs and horses are sad, they don’t show it on their faces. The faces are, in that way, quite dumb—all the desires and disappointments and fears and angers and joys all present behind the face never show on it. And so I sat on the couch.

But then he was back on. And we learned to mute ourselves so we didn’t cancel each other out. And we figured out the slight sound delay. And M talked. He talked smiles and work and what he did during a day and answered questions, and asked them. And Cam gave him advice. And G did. And Gin was there, too. All of the little sound bars back, and I realized that I was staring at them as if they were faces, the whole time. Our family gathering, not around the table, but around the desk.

It was only later that I realized the miracle of all that. It was after his time was up, and he’d sent kisses and hugs by proxy. So wonderful to hear his sweet voice, and the growth in him. The man he has become. We’d rung off (he had to be the one to hang up). And then I called Ginna on Skype and we video chatted so that she could show me how my gifts looked on her little person (Skype is SO much better than video iChat). Another miracle. I have read letters in equity court cases that date back to the very late seventeen hundreds, letters stating that such-and-such a son had taken his family west years before, that there had been one letter, and then nothing ever again. That the remaining family had no idea whether that son and his kids were still alive or where they were.

But we know, now. Because we can see our kids through the computer screen. Is this not magic? Is this not an age of miracles? We call it technology. But God probably has a term for it too and has been using it for millennia.

And then the world woke up and shook itself. Scooter came through our front door in the arms of his folks, and there was breakfast. And after that, presents (Scooter chewed all the bows off for us). Some good presents, and some silly ones too. And talk and happiness and singing and chocolate, and neighbors dropping by with treats. We ended up happy, slightly bilious, bent over under the weight of so much contentment.

My dad called me. And that was exciting. My dad who began to know me the first time he ever looked at himself in a mirror. He called, he called—my dad, my dad, my dad who told me that he trusts me and loves me and who thus, strength and comfort gives. And I was so glad.

The kids finally went home with the weary, wounded baby. We slogged off to bed the horses down. Then it was night again, and we were left with music and the wind and the books we were reading and the one child left—who is not exactly chopped liver, herself. The family apart, but all together in ways no one has ever dreamed of in all the history of the world.

So it ended well. Happily. And things finally felt right.

There, Gin.  You like where we put him?

Just before bed, we found a leak in the roof. Slept with big old bowls covering the damp spots in the upstairs hall. At about one o’clock this morning, Chaz fished me out of sleep to say that the electricity in the house had pretty much exploded. There’d been a brown-down, then a terrific pop when the power surged back on. “The lamp almost blew up.” And what about the DVR, the clocks, the computers? What about the three months of work on my Dad’s book all saved on my backup drives? But here’s the odd thing: that evening, when the eyes were finally closing on their own, I did something I always think about doing and never get around to: I’d pulled the backups off my system and actually unplugged them. I’m not sure that saved the day; everything else works this morning. Still.

The fat dog started whining about five hours later (we’re talking about just before six in the morning). Considering that this bad dog had somehow gotten up on his arthritic back legs and raided the dining room table, the whining is no wonder. I found the cheerful cellophane bag that had once held about three pounds of fudge, now licked clean under the table this morning.

It is now officially the day after Christmas. The accountant called. There’s that hill of emptied present boxes to deal with. And next week, the year end mess. But for now, G is in the kitchen playing with the krumkake maker, and the computers seem to be bright and perky. So life starts all over again—another year cycling, another adventure.

Okay, so here’s the thing about the quilt cave: the only antidote for not knowing what is going to happen next is simply to decide to do something. Janus, the two-faced God, was able to look back and forward at the same time. Not a bad trick, if you can get it. And you can get it – if you try.