“Where did you hear that?” I demanded.
The girl and her friends stared at me as if I were a freak, which in some ways I’m sure I must have been, even in Santa Cruz. They all sang the song together and then told me it came from a commercial for frozen pastries on TV.
I had never heard the commercial because we didn’t have a TV, and we never, ever ate frozen pastries. We ate only organic foods and socialized with an eclectic group of all-natural free thinkers. Birthdays and holidays weren’t celebrated, but journeys to enlightenment were encouraged with gatherings and music and dance.
I told those three girls to “buzz off,” only I used a more earthy term than that. Afterward I never belonged to anyone or any group the rest of my time in school.
Four years into our make-believe family affair, Doralee’s cancer returned, and two things happened. Actually, three.
The first pivotal event was Doralee’s reading a book that prompted her to spurn all her earthy rituals, burn down a shrine in the backyard, and embrace an oddly traditional form of Christianity. She prayed regularly in the name of Jesus Christ and read entire chapters of the Bible every day.
“The true return to Eden is found in Christ,” she told all her friends. “Not in this lifetime, in these fallen and broken bodies. It’s all yet to come, in eternity. Everything we’ve longed for can and will be fulfilled in Christ. He is coming back to claim all that is rightfully his, including the souls of all who have been adopted into his kingdom.”
Doralee lost a lot of friends, especially toward the end, when her passion for God, heaven, and her new, resurrected body were the only things she wanted to talk about. Even up to the hour of her passing, she didn’t waver from her claim that she had received a new life—an eternal life—when she trusted in Christ. She kept talking about “the Lamb” redeeming her.
I was with her that afternoon. I watched death come and take her, and it was astonishingly beautiful. Her expression transformed from the constant pinch of agonizing pain to a smoothness and a very real absence of fear. Her aura was the closest thing I had ever seen to genuine peace. And then, as I watched, she left her body.
The second significant event with Doralee was that, before her pain became unbearable, she revived the search for my father. She made a list of all the names of actors who appeared on the playbill of The Tempest and set about trying to track down any one of them. The dates of the performances listed on the playbill were nine months before my birth date. Doralee made the connection one day and concluded that one of the par ticipants in the theatrical company might know something or someone. Or one of the actors might be someone. Someone such as my father.
Fifteen years is a long time when it comes to picking up a trail on a troop of gypsies. None of the leads went anywhere. However, Doralee’s realization that the performance dates of The Tempest connected to my birth played on me for years.
The third turning point occurred after Doralee’s death. As an unusually savvy fifteen-year-old, I chose to emulate the lifestyle of deceit that had been so professionally demonstrated to me over the years. I left school, and since I looked older than I was, I fabricated the few necessary documents to appear eighteen. Then I moved to San Francisco.
Within a week I had effortlessly landed a job as a waitress at a large hotel and had enrolled in a bookkeeping class. I wanted a career in numbers and not words because even I knew that numbers couldn’t lie.
For the next thirteen years I remained steadily employed at an accounting firm in the Transcontinental Building. I had a nice studio loft with an excellent view of the Bay Bridge, a loosely held circle of friends, no cats, and two ex-boyfriends. Josh, the longest running boyfriend, was the one who had unknowingly prompted me to make my journey to England.
I should have realized why a graduate psych student who wanted to work with abused children was keenly interested in me. Josh was convinced I was hiding something.
My clear-eyed response to him had been, “I had a wonderfully unusual mother, and she was very protective of me. I was not abused.”
Josh went with my answer but always seemed to be looking for more. “Not all abuse is physical,” he claimed.
I had become such an expert at making my history invisible that the only details I willingly handed over to Josh were airy and unsatisfying to someone who wanted to one day make his living analyzing the human psyche.
Up until Josh, everyone who sincerely asked about my life before San Francisco was given the sparse yet dramatically satisfying account of how my mother had died in the arms of her other love, the stage. Orphaned, I’d gone to live with an “aunt” who later died of cancer. If the interviewer probed further, I easily sidetracked him with details about Doralee’s seven cats, all named after Egyptian pharaohs.
Josh was the only person, aside from Doralee, who didn’t stop probing about my father.
Early in our relationship I told Josh, “My father is dead. He died before I was born.”
Then one night, in an uncharacteristic blip of vulnerability, I showed Josh the blue velvet purse. I showed him the playbill for The Tempest and the photograph. I did not show him my birth certificate. He thought I was twenty-seven. This wasn’t the time to reveal that I was twenty-four.
Josh took the photograph and held it like a forensics expert would. “What if your father is alive, and these two clues are your trail to find him?”
I shrugged. All I had experienced in the past were dead ends.
“The photo looks old enough that this screaming boy could possibly be your father.”
“Maybe.”
“One thing we know is that the man in the photo is dressed as Father Christmas. There’s no doubt. He’s a British version of St. Nick, if I ever saw one.”
Josh studied the stamped wording on the back of the photo. ‘The Carlton Photography Studio must be located in England then. Or somewhere in the UK. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track down a lead on ‘Carlton Heath.’ It could be a town or a family name. And then you’ve got Bexley Lane, which is going to narrow it down for you. You have some key pieces here.”
Josh speculated that my father might still be in the UK, but I told him my mother had never been abroad. At least she never had told me about being out of the US. If my father was from England, how and where did my mother meet him?
Josh didn’t yet have a theory for that piece of the puzzle. He turned the photo over and over, deep in contemplation. Looking up at me with a lightbulb-over-the-head expression, he said, “It’s a wallet-sized photo.”
“Right.” That fact was obvious.
“What if this picture was kept in a wallet?”
Now I was getting impatient with Josh, the amateur analyst.
“Don’t you see? Your mother had a relationship with this man, and when she realized the relationship couldn’t last, she stole what she could—a photo. She took it from his wallet.”
Josh had no idea how close he was getting to the truth of how my mother would operate. I alone knew how smooth my mother could be at performing such a sleight of hand. But when? Where?
I took the photo back from Josh and noticed for the first time how pointy Josh’s ears were. He wore his hair too short for a person with such ears. On that night of my vulnerability, I stared far too long at his ears.
Two weeks later I used his ears as a frivolous excuse when a girlfriend at work asked why I broke up with Josh. ‘It’s because of his ears,” I told her. “I looked at him one night and realized I could never stay in a serious relationship with a man with such pointed ears.”
She stared at me in amused disbelief.
“Think about it. If we had children, they would all come out looking like elves!”
A week later she asked Josh out to coffee on the premise of consoling him over our breakup. I think the two of them are still together. I’m glad. Josh deserved someone sincere. I had not yet learned how to fully develop that quality. But to my credit, I was trying.
I will always
be grateful to Josh for his analysis of my mother’s treasured pieces of evidence. It took me several years to move forward with Josh’s leads and to allow myself to believe my father might be findable. Once I tracked down the village of Carlton Heath, a half-hour train ride southeast of London, it only took a few more clicks on the computer to find Bexley Lane.
And here I was.
I glanced around the auditorium and thought of Josh. He would have been happy to know I had taken this risk. He also would have been surprised that I set foot inside a performance hall.
The theater lights flickered the universal cue for the audi ence to return to their seats. I stood to let a trail of people pass me. Settling back, I gazed around the theater and realized I was sitting in the presence of my former competition—my mother’s old love, the theater.
The lights dimmed. With a sigh, I nodded my acceptance.
Merry Christmas, Eve Carson, the actress. This is my gift to you. It’s the only gift you ever asked of me. The gift I resisted giving you for so many years. Tonight I have made peace with your beloved theater.
Chapter Eight
Just before the curtain went up, I involuntarily glanced at my watch. The hands had moved one minute, now reading 11:59. Odd. I liked it when numbers were dependable. Having a broken watch was getting to me.
Wee Scrooge in his flapping nightshirt rose from the center of the stage on a belt and pulley and flew out of his bed crying, “Oh, Spirit of Christmas Present, speak kindness to me that I might not faint from lack of hope.”
Offstage the Scotsman’s booming voice replied, “You have yet a few more images to view before this night is passed.”
I smiled at the sight of flailing Scrooge being whisked back and forth across the stage on the sophisticated rigging. One of his slippers fell off, prompting a ruffle of chuckles from the audience. The Peter Pan touch was endearing.
Just then I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. Katharine stood in the aisle, motioning for me to follow her out into the lobby. I slipped out as quietly as I could.
“I see you came,” she said. “I’m glad. What do you think of our liberal adaptation?”
“It’s clever. The young actor playing Scrooge is doing a great job.”
“Yes, he is. Listen, I won’t keep you from the last half. I wanted to speak with you before you left. Ellie was the one who told me you were here.”
I remembered the rosebud-embroidered handkerchief in my pocket. “Is Ellie the Sugarplum Fairy?”
Katharine chuckled softly. “Yes, and she’ll appreciate that you recognized her costume. I’m afraid I asked if she had come as a pink snowflake.”
“I heard that.” Ellie moved across the lobby to join us.
“I was just about to extend the invitation to the cast party at your home.”
“Yes, do join us. We would be delighted.” Ellie stepped up with a metal cash box in her arms. “I have to run this out to the car. Katharine, you and Andrew would be able to fit one more guest in your car, wouldn’t you? Oh, and I’m Ellie, by the way.”
“I’m Miranda.”
“Miranda, you will come, won’t you?”
Katharine added, “It would be the simplest way for you to connect with someone who might know about the photo. All the insiders from around Carlton Heath will be at the party. Please say you’ll come.”
I hesitated, concerned about catching a train back to London afterward.
Katharine and Ellie assured me I could find a ride to the train station whenever I was ready to leave the party. They both appeared eager for me to join them, so I took a small risk and said yes.
I returned to my seat, settled in, and enjoyed the entertainment. The local actors seemed to be giving the performance their all. Tiny Tim closed the night with one final “God bless us, everyone!” and the applause rose as the curtain fell. Cheers, chuckles, and more applause continued until the entire cast appeared onstage for a bow. I had forgotten how radiant some actors were when they stepped out of their characters and stood under the shower of streaming applause.
Those were the times my mother glowed.
Katharine was waiting for me in the lobby. She and her husband, Andrew the Scotsman, offered me a ride to Ellie’s home.
We climbed into their compact car and were barely out of the parking area when Andrew said, “Did my wife tell you we’ve been married fourteen months come this Saturday?” He was still wearing the hat with the flowing white hair and was driving on what my brain kept thinking of as the “wrong” side of the road. I was seated in the front, at Katharine’s insistence. The place I occupied should have been the side fitted with the steering wheel and brake pedal, were this an American car.
“And what about you? Are you married then, Miranda?” Andrew looked at me, but I wished he would look instead at the dark and narrow road we were rolling down at a precarious speed.
We seemed to be heading out of town. For a moment I wondered why I had entrusted myself to these strangers. At home I would never blithely jump into a car with people I had just met. Nor would I go to any sort of party held at the home of people I didn’t know.
A voice in my heart was telling me what I hadn’t expected to hear on this trip. This journey was changing me. Change had not been my goal.
“Are you then?” Andrew asked, looking at me expectantly.
“I’m sorry. What did you just ask?”
“I asked if you’re married?”
“No, I’m not.”
Andrew looked over his shoulder at Katherine. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Katharine didn’t answer, but I nearly did. I was thinking: You’d better keep your eyes on the road’.
Andrew glanced forward and then back at me. “I’m thinking you should meet my son, Ian. Will you be staying over the Christmas holidays?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Not here in Carlton Heath. I’m staying in London.”
“Are you now? Have you got family in London, then?”
“No. I—”
“Andrew, my love,” Katharine interrupted, “you’ve missed the entrance.”
“Awk! I have indeed.” With a quick turn, he set the small car in the opposite direction and steered through an open-gated entry to a large home lit up with tiny white lights around the eaves.
The home wasn’t a manor per se. Not that I had ever been to a manor to compare it with Ellie’s home. But it was grand, distinct, and impressive.
The large two-story house, composed of dull red brick, was dressed up with a grand arched entrance, tall rounded windows, and a fairy-tale-like turret in the south corner. Nothing about the picturesque structure looked standard or mass-produced. It seemed like a one-of-a-kind creation sprung from an artistic mind. The closer we drove, the more beautiful each curve of the house appeared in the headlights of Andrew’s car.
“What a beautiful place,” I said, wishing I could find better words to describe how the house made me feel.
“The house was built by Edward’s grandfather, wasn’t it, Andrew? Or was it his great-grandfather?”
“It was his great-great-grandfather. He was an artist of some fame. Have you heard of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Miranda?”
I shook my head.
“Aye, well then, I don’t imagine it would much matter to you who the builder was or why it was built in such a fashion, nor why Edward is so keen to keep the place as it is.”
“And who is Edward?” I asked, lost in the conversation.
“Edward Whitcombe. Ellie’s husband. Son of Sir James Whit-combe.” He looked at me as if waiting for a response. “Have you not heard that name before? Sir James Whitcombe?”
I nodded slightly. I thought I had heard the name, but I wasn’t sure where.
“We consider Edward and Ellie Whitcombe our resident touch of royalty, I suppose.”
“Royalty?”
“Are you stretching the matter a bit, Andrew?”
Andrew cut the car engine and ignored his wife’s admonition. ??
?You see, when Edward’s father was knighted by Her Majesty a number of years ago, it gave a certain rise to the village status. Katharine and Ellie have been friends for a long stretch. That’s how Katharine came to settle here in Carlton Heath, not long after the passing of her first husband.”
“Andrew, I’m not sure all of this family history is going to be useful to Miranda.”
“Right. Well, to finish what I had to say about Edward and Ellie, I call them our resident Lord and Lady, just to get a rise out of them. They’re nearly like family to us, wouldn’t you say, Katharine?” Andrew slid out of the car and held out his hand to help Katharine disembark.
“Yes. Almost like family to us.” Katharine slid her hand through Andrew’s arm. He offered his other arm to me, and I played along with being escorted by Christmas Present across the gravel driveway. A dozen other cars were parked in the expansive area between Andrew’s car and the house. We could hear sounds of laughter from inside as we traipsed through the cold air up to the well-lit front door.
Pausing under the arched entry, Andrew knocked soundly on the massive oak door. I noticed a banner of words painted over the doorway in a Victorian script: “Grace and Peace Reside Here.”
The door swung open, and Lady Sugarplum Fairy welcomed us with her rendition of Andrew’s line from the performance: “Come in, come in, and know me better, friends!”
“Well, there you have it,” said Andrew. “Next year you’re the one to play the role of Christmas Present, Lady Ellie. You have the lines already.”
“Lovely! I was thinking an all-female cast would be a clever twist next year. What do you girls think?” Ellie’s hair swished as she turned her head to look at Katharine and me. The motion invited a shower of pixie dust to leave her pink hair and rest in sparkles on the threshold.
“Do come in out of the cold before you answer that,” she added.
“The answer is simple.” Andrew motioned with a half bow for Katharine and me to enter first. “Have we not caused the poor man enough reason to turn over in his grave each Christmas when we take such liberties with his story?”