Tomorrow Will Be Christmas

by
Frank Westcott

...for Michelle `98 ...A Story for the Season

White fern-patterned frost cracked and melted and froze again on the cabin's small white-trimmed front panes as the heat from the fireplace spread across the room and touched the glass, black against the night. From his paisley-patterned green and yellow corner chair beside the oak lamp table, Luke Morrison watched the fire's golden reflection dance on the panes and then shoot upwards in one orange and jagged dragon's tongue. A sudden draft had passed over the chimney, causing a flurry of snowy powder to flutter briefly from the eve before disappearing into the darkness. Luke raised his long-stemmed glass and let it rest silently against his lower lip and allowed his tongue to lick absently at the port.

Sonny, Luke's cat, more comfortable now with the heat from the fire, curled and purred behind Luke's ear, and swished his tail lightly against the man's neck. "You miss her too, don't you fella," Luke said. He reached behind his head and stroked the cat's skull on the ridgebone between the ears. The right ear, half missing, lopped off in some alley fight, twitched twice then straightened like a

one-sided pyramid with the peak blown off by some reckless tomb raider. Pyramids, Luke thought. "Somebody built 'em...and somebody tears 'em down and if nobody does, time will erase them...eventually. Your ear too, Sonny. Your ear too. And me and this place and someday Carol, too. Just like Molly, Sonny. Just like Molly. Five years she's been gone. And now Carol's not going to make it home for Christmas. Should never have told her French was going to be important in this country. Should never have told her that Sonny."

Luke got out of his chair. He walked past the fire to the front windows

where he could see the lake, if he pressed his nose against the cold, black glass and cupped his hands around his eyes. The moon was high over the far shore and looked down on the cone-shaped evergreen peaks sticking up like church steeples, rising from the black ridge mass, and holding the shore brush and smaller trees tightly to its black bosom.

Luke's window faced northwest. A little to the south along the far shore he could see Bart Shannon's yellow porch light. He couldn't see the porch, but he knew it was there just as he knew it was Shannon's yellow light.

He turned back to look at the fireplace. He studied the polished cedar log set in the fieldstone three feet above the firepit. In the center, beneath a long tapered oblong crack opening like a pickerel mouth, were the initials C.M./68. That was the year they moved into the place. Carol was fourteen. She and her friend Sandra spent the summer on the lake while he and Molly divided their time between the cabin and the mill in town where they both worked. He remembered being angry with Carol for cutting into the log and how she pouted. Her lips curled up and she wrinkled her nose, ready to cry, but she didn't want to at fourteen when she was trying so hard to be grown up. And he remembered how her long straight raven hair would swing back and forth when she and Sandra practiced dancing on the grey rug.

The mantel clock chimed twelve times and whirred as the spring reset itself. Luke returned to the yellow and green corner chair and rested his head on the high back. "No sense sulking, Sonny. We'll just have to make the best of it." He reached behind his head and rubbed the cat's ridgebone between the ears and Sonny purred. Luke slept.

There was no other heat in the cabin but for the fireplace. Luke had piled the logs high and set the draft well. The heat would keep him warm for most of the night.

He dreamed of the years at the cabin. They had made the best of it then, too. It was there they lived best and laughed best. It was there Molly took sick and Luke's hair went white like the roof snow and his smooth angular face suddenly deepened and creased. He'd spent thirty years slugging logs at the mill. He still loved the smell of the fresh-cut wood, especially after arain, and how the sawdust would sink down like a wet sponge under his boots and then spring back.

After Molly died, he quit the mill and moved to the city so Carol could live with him while she went to the university . The cabin was their only tie to life with Molly and the most important one. Luke didn't want to stay in the Toronto house for Christmas. Not this year when Carol would be in France working on her orals. He left work at noon saying he had to take care of some things. They didn't need him at the plant anyway. All the presses were shut down for the weekend and Boxing Day. There was nothing to clean.

Out in the Queen Street parking lot others were taking off early, too. Sam, Luke's overweight boss, too big for his coat, waved as best he could while carrying two shopping bags stuffed with gifts from Eatons. Two giggly girls, both with short blonde hair and without makeup, were laughing at some private joke and nodded to Sam and Luke.

Luke edged his pickup onto the street and turned right towards Yonge. He made another right past the crosswalk and headed south to Richmond. Then he was off towards Spadina, the Gardner, and home. Luke packed quickly, bundled Sonny into his arms, and piled into the cab. He paused at the driveway's end and looked at the long, narrow, wartime-built, two-bedroom west end bungalow. No tree lit the window. No wreath adorned the door. Nothing to stay for. The cabin was the place to be. He'd feel close to Carol. Close to Molly. It was better to be out of the house. The cabin drive would be clear. Bart Shannon saw to that.

Luke awoke early. The fire had burned down to ashes which covered the bottom of the firepit like grey down. There would still be a few orange coals glowing beneath the grey. Luke blew on his hands and slowly pulled himself out of the armchair and went to the red log box to the right of the fireplace and beneath the north window. It had snowed during the night.

Thick white mounds lay heavily on the spruce boughs, weighing them down so they looked like spreading green vanilla ice cream scoops. About four inches of snow sat like one long rectangular lemon cake on the top of the picnic table. The ice on the lake was freshly covered, too. Dock boards stacked in a criss-cross pattern on the

shore had slid sideways and would have fallen onto the ice except for the white anchor boulder supporting them.

A male Hairy Woodpecker flew past with its rapid wingbeat, lighted ten feet up on a birch trunk, and began driving its conical beak into the tree. Luke stirred the coals with a piece of kindling until they glowed orange and he could feel the heat pressing against his face. He took three split logs, one oak and two maple, from the wood box and set them up against each other on top of the coals, so the flame from the coals had to reach up to the wood, and would ignite the logs more quickly. Soon the cabin would be warm again.

Luke went to the kitchen off the south side and got the cooking pot. He emptied four cups of water into the pot from one of the old vinegar bottles he'd brought, and hung the pot on the angle bar above the flames. Sonny knew coffee for Luke and fresh milk for him would be on the floor soon. Molly never liked it when Luke set his mug on the floor. Luke always figured if you knocked it over at least the mug wouldn't break. "Never broke a dish in my life," Luke used to boast. Now he could break all he wanted and set his mug where he liked. It didn't matter.

Luke reached into his pant pocket for a Kleenex and felt the small package he'd bought for Sonny. He walked over to the couch where Sonny had gone during the night and set the blue box with red ribbon between Sonny's grey front paws. On the box Luke had printed: TO SONNY, FROM LUKE. "Merry Christmas, Sonny," Luke said and scratched the cat's half-ear as Sonny tore into the wrapping and released the nip.

The water started to bubble in the cooking pot. Luke returned to the kitchen and brought a jug of milk and a bowl. He poured Sonny a good helping, added instant coffee and milk to his brown glazed mug and carefully swung the angle iron away from

the fire. Then he tipped the pot so the boiling water flowed neatly from the side vent into his mug.

The mantel clock chimed seven. Luke wondered what time that would be in Paris. "Come on Sonny, have some milk with me. No turkey, but good milk."

Carol's probably having three French hens," Luke said and smiled at his play on the Christmas carol. He started humming the tune.

The whir of a snowmobile buzzed out on the lake. Luke went to the north window and saw Shannon's son, Marty, doing eights and spinning zeros around the red buoy sticking up and frozen in the ice. The machine looked new. Must've been for Christmas. "Nice, eh, Sonny. Marty's a good lad. Have to thank him for keeping the drive clear."

Luke leaned over to pat Sonny again. He felt the corner of one of Carol's postcards dig lightly into his skin where they were tucked protectively, like rare manuscripts.

"You know Sonny....Carol's all grown up now... she doesn't need me. Only you and me now, Sonny. Or is that backwards somehow?

Backwards like looking into the lake and seeing the trees behind you reversed, and not knowing which way is which. Or, being under the water moving rocks into the dock posts and looking up at the silver ripples above you, and being in two worlds at once, and not feeling part of either,

and out of touch with what you know, until you gotta come up for air, and you break the surface, and everything's right again. Is that how it is Sonny? Is that how it is with Carol?...Maybe I had it backwards all the time. Maybe I needed her with me today, and now, I know I don't, and I needed her with me when she went to university in the city, and I really did, and that's why I left this place... Well, this is home, Sonny. Really home. There ain't no place like this. Not down there with all that noise and clang clanging. That's why we left, Sonny. That's why, dammit. Wanna come back here to live, for the good months anyway? Maybe even for Christmas all the time? Sonny, you keep settin' there. I'm goin' over to Shannon's to let 'em know we're here. Maybe tell 'em we're comin' back.

Luke felt good. He was coming home. There was nothing keeping him away now. Not even himself. He'd broken the surface and the trees were the right way again, and there was only one world, and he was standing on it.

"Anybody home?" a bass voice bellowed from the back kitchen. "You up Luke? Gawd...it's freezin' out there." Bart Shannon's six-four,

two-hundred-and-forty-pound bulk, smothered in his brown parka and heavy ski pants, lumbered through the doorway and stamped his feet in the corner of the grey rug. Tiny white icicles were matted together in his beard below his chin where his breath had been caught by the cold morning air and froze. "Merry Christmas, you old saw duster.

Welcome home, draddit." Bart took off his leather mitts with the rabbit fur around the cuffs and stuck out his massive right hand like a big-hearted drooling St. Bernard, happy to see his pal.

Luke took the hand and slapped his friend on the back and looked up at Bart's broad forehead and well set eyes. "Was just tellin' Sonny I was comin' to see you folks. Gawd it's good to see you. Come on, set down and I'll fix you a hot coffee. Warm your soul a bit."

Bart winked at Sonny, "Got somethin' here for your Pappy, cat. Got it here somewheres. So many damn pockets in these coats. Ah, here it is. Message from Carol. Phoned this morning. Pearl wrote it all down for ya. Figured I'd better get to ya being Christmas and all. Just froze my rear chassis gettin' it here." Bart handed the folded yellow paper to Luke.

"Is she..." Luke didn't finish and began to read Pear's scratchy handwriting... Merry Christmas, Dad. Called all through the night and couldn't get you at the house. Finally called Pearl and Bart. Hope you're at the lake. I love you. Am coming home. Don't come down. Stopover in New York. Will be in Toronto tomorrow. Sandy'll pick me up at the airport and bring me up. Love you, Carol.

Luke's hands were shaking when he sat down in the corner chair and looked up at Bart. "She's comin' home, Bart. She's comin' home."

Bart unzipped his parka and untied the belly cord. "Yep...Now don't get yourself all worked up, Luke, and be expectin' her to stay. She's got a lot to do and she's gonna do it. You raised her that way and you did right. Just don't go gettin' yourself hoping. She's like them pigeons of Wally's. They'll always come home between explorations, but he can't keep 'em caged so they don't go off."

Luke smiled and it was a good smile. "Bart...I don't need her that way

now. Not no more...`cause I didn't think she'd be home for Christmas and I found out I could do it okay." And Luke smiled big with his teeth and whole face, so the skin below his grey, unshaven cheeks rolled up onto the round bones. He laughed and water filled the soft pockets beneath his eyes.

Bart smiled too. "Now get your duffle and your cat. Yer comin' over to our place. Pearl's got a turkey smellin' up the house like there never was a Christmas before, and pies, and pudding to beat all. The cabin'll keep. It always has.

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