Silent Night

I wrote the following years ago as part of a fiction writing group in New Jersey.  It seem appropriate to the season.

It was one of those frustrating, last days before Christmas. I wore the wrong shoes to the mall and my feet hurt so badly that I picked up the first thing I saw in the kid’s sizes, not caring if it matched or not. Concentrating on not limping, I was unaware that the ranks of shoppers had dwindled down to an unseasonal few and so was quite surprised when I walked out the door to see that the earlier dusting of snow had been replaced by at least six inches of the white stuff. The parking lot was deserted, so I slogged to my car wishing for once that we didn’t live so far off the beaten path.

Apparently, everyone else was safe at home because the road was practically deserted, peacefully so. Clutching the steering wheel tight and driving slower than usual, I made it home, tense, but safely. The dark house confirmed the suspicion, aroused by the lack of bus tracks down our seldom traveled street, that the children, although they would be highly insulted if I referred to them that way...they were fourteen and seventeen after all, weren’t home from school yet either.

Dropping my packages just inside the front door, I immediately called their school...no answer. Just as I was looking up the number for the bus company, I heard the stomping of feet on the porch and ran to open the door. They were going to be chilled through and through. Instead, when I flung the door open, I was greeted by a tall, rangy, stranger who pulled his blue stocking cap off just as I turned on the porch light. I backed into the house and quickly latched the screen, still holding the door open. Any fear for my own personal safety was quickly replaced by suspicion that he had, or at least had knowledge of the whereabouts of my children.

“What?” I asked, peering through the screen.

“I’m sorry ma’am to bother you, but you see, it’s my wife.” He pointed with the blue cap towards a battered grey car that I hadn’t noticed before, at the end of our driveway. “I think it’s her time.”

“Time?”

“ Yes’m. I don’t think we’re going to make it to her sister’s place in Silent Springs...that’s where we’re headed.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t stand here all day long explaining things with my wife out in that car about to have a baby.”

“A baby?” I asked, slightly incredulous. That someone would stop on our remote road because they were going to have a baby was too much to believe. Convinced it was a hoax, I wanted to close the door, but not before I knew if his appearance had anything to do with my children.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you in,” I told him through the still shut screen.

“Then, would you just come with me and look at my wife?” he asked.

Thoughts tumbled through my head...they had my children and were going to take me too...”Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, and I don’t know what you’ve done with my children, but you better not harm one hair on their heads or I’ll...”

“I’m not trying to hurt your children,” he said, as my sentence trailed off “I’m only trying to get my own born”. And with that he straightened the cap on his head and retraced his footsteps back to the car.

I waited long enough to see hear the sound of his engine turn over and see smoke appear, signaling that he had started their car before I closed the door and turned inside to call the bus company since no one was answering at the school. When I finally reached them, I was told that every bus was back but the # 4 bus. “Is that the one that goes down Hook's Neck road?” I asked. “Yes, that’s the one. Apparently the radio is out because we’ve tried to reach the driver, but he doesn’t answer. I’m sure everything is ok; it’s just the weather that is slowing him down.”

I hung up and walked to the window and pulled back the curtain to see if the car had left. It was still sitting there, engine running, and lights out. There was enough light from the snow to see, but the windows were steamed over so I couldn’t make out the occupants. Deciding I would confront the man once more for an honest answer, I grabbed my coat and marched down the drive. At my insistent knock, the window rolled down. My glance skipped over the man in the blue cap to the girl in the passenger’s seat. She was no older than my own Lucy, seventeen at the most. Her face was ashen and covered with beads of sweat, yet she smiled weakly at me, and then winced as she clutched at her stomach. “Good Lord, Man.” I cried as I pulled at the driver’s door handle. “You need to get her out of here.”

“That’s what I was trying to say.” I looked at the red, faced man and saw the tears gutting his face. Why, he was not much more than a boy himself. “Here,” I cried, as I ran around to the other side of the car. “Let me help.”

Together, we helped the girl out of the car and half stumbled, half carried her to the house.

I led them to my bedroom and we helped her on to the bed. “We’ll put her in here” I put another pillow under her head, and then gathered up some more blankets. All the time, the young girl was trying to make herself comfortable and whimpering quietly.

"I’ll call 9ll." I said as I started to leave the room.

“I don’t think that’s going to do any good. This baby’s going to come too soon, and beside, we can’t afford no doctor, anyway. That’s why we were on the way to Mary’s sister’s house. She’s a midwife and she could help us out.”

However, before I even started down the hall to make the call, the girl cried out. “This is it, Joey” and the tone of her voice made it clear she was serious.

You know how it is in an emergency, a sixth sense takes over and you do what you have to do. I boiled water, gathered blankets, called the hospital for emergency instructions and watched in wonder as a most beautiful baby boy entered the world.-

In the midst of everything, the children came stumbling home. All safe and sound with tales of being stuck in a ditch and waiting at a farm house until the bus was pulled out. “We would have called, Mom”, Lucy, ever the responsible one said, “but the snow was so heavy it knocked out the farmer’s telephone. He had to take the bus driver into town to get a tow truck.”

“Yeah,” Brian, the eleven year old chimed in.” and I think Lucy liked old Tony.”

“Tony?”

“Yeah, the kid that lived where we got stuck.”

“I didn’t either, he was just nice.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s not what it looked like”

They chattered on until I told them they would have to be quiet.

“I’ve had my own excitement tonight.” I explained as I led them to the bedroom door.

I opened the door and introduced the wide jawed children to the boy who sat staring in awe at his wife and new born son.

“Did you really do that Mom?”

“Where did you learn how?”

After a minute of ooohing and aaahing over the tiny baby, I led them out of the room and closed the door so we could all tell our stories in more details over a cup of hot chocolate.

Finally, around midnight, I realized that it had stopped snowing. I slipped on my coat and walked down to the end of the driveway to put one of my old quilts in the back seat of the car in case they needed it in the morning. The furious snow had been replaced by a clear sky and a full moon that turned the silent snow to silver. A lone window shown from my house where inside my children were all safe in their beds and the girl Mary and her new baby lay sleeping. I found myself humming as I walked back to the house....”...all is calm, all is bright...”