Legacy
 
                                                            
 
 
(Previously published in the Baltimore Sun Magazine, December 1991, Winner of Best Short Fiction)
 
 
 
    TONIGHT  I   SIT   POISED   OVER  A  STACK  OF  CHRISTMAS   CARDS,   MY
annual appointment to impart warmth and cheer to friends and family.  Each year I offer the lone opinion that this should be my wife’s job, she is the nurturer of the family. But my family assures me that nurturing is not called for in sending Christmas cards. By profession, I am the writer of the family. (Never mind that I’m a sports writer, that my idea of glad tidings is finding the office pool for the Redskins game has topped two hundred dollars, that the only emotional words I ever put to paper were when Bob Irsay snuck the Colts out of Baltimore and when Dave Drevecky lost his pitching arm.) To my family, the very fact that I earn a living with words uniquely qualifies me for this daunting job.
    “Be witty,” my wife, Janice, says on her way through the room with a mug of hot cider and the Sunday paper. She gives me a pat on the back for encouragement.
    Occasionally I try reminding everyone that I am half Jewish (on my mother’s side) and that surely this disqualifies me from being the official Christmas card signer. I mention this less than once a year because it never gains me any respect when I do.
    One year, my then fourteen years old daughter said, “I just think if you’re going to use your Jewish heritage to change opinions, you should do it for a worthy cause. Like advancing peace in the Middle East, or freedom for Jewish political prisoners. Not to get out of signing Christmas cards.”
    “You’re right,” I told her. “I should stick to achievable goals, not hopeless ones.”
    So, here I sit. I tap the desk with my pen. Something witty.
    “Why don’t you get out the cards we’ve received this year?” Janice suggests
   Good idea. I’ll steal my inspiration from someone else’s card. Retrieved from the hall mantel, they are the standard collection from friends, business associates, family... but here’s one. I stare at the brief message.  “Wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons” and below, in wobbly blue ink, “Dearest ones, all my love, Muriel.” I lay it down.  Dearest ones?
    “Janice, who is this card from?”
    It could be a different Muriel.
  Janice barely glances at the card. She’s already seen it. “Your Aunt Muriel, Tom.” There is a trace of a smile on her lips. Janice thinks my family’s entanglements are pure silliness. She pats me again before returning to her paper, a condescending pat which I don’t acknowledge.
     So, Muriel has written our family.
   Muriel is my mother’s only sister. Years ago, when I was a young boy, I remember frequent visits from Muriel, always full of laughter and surprise gifts. We would pile into her car (unlike my mother, Muriel could drive) and go for drives in the country or to the shore. Those were the only times I saw my mother giddy. “Ruth and Muriel on the road!” she would cry out the window. “Look out for Ruth and Muriel!”
    But later, Muriel stopped coming. My mother no longer spent hours giggling on the phone while dinner bubbled over and burned on the stove. Muriel’s name was never mentioned without a shadow descending on the conversation. For almost thirty years, not a word passed between the two sisters. I never knew what terrible thing Muriel had done, but I knew, from the silent way families have of communicating important things, it was unforgivable.
    But this summer, my mother passed away, and now, through the silent chasm of the years, Muriel speaks. My reaction is anger. Does she think I would be so careless with my mother’s memory that a mere Christmas card could wipe away decades of pain? Would I let the carefully stoked fires of the past die out so easily? No, Aunt Muriel. Ruth’s son will not forget so quickly.
    My daughter of sweet sixteen wanders halfway into the room and pauses as though she is lost. A phone is attached between her ear and shoulder. Being the wonderful detective that I am, I deduce that the party on the other end of the line is a male adolescent. Oblivious to listening ears, she stands in the middle of the room, punctuating her conversation with giggles and rolling eyes. Long and leggy, like a colt, she inspires a secret sort of awe. I am a young man really, still soulfully rooted to days when I pursued such girls myself. Yet here she is, flesh of my flesh, monument to my aging.
    She scowls at the pile of perfectly blank Christmas cards and silently wags her head. I’m about to offer a lame excuse when the creature in the phone causes another wave of giggles and sends her shooting off out of the room. I have the feeling of years ago in school, when I waved to a pretty girl only to find that her enthusiastic wave back was for someone behind me.
    But I am forty-two now, and back to earth. Aunt Muriel and my daughter aside, there are Christmas cards to sign. Something witty.
   I went shopping today, my yearly foray into the perilous side of Christmas. I am content to let my wife do the majority of holiday shopping for our family; she does not arrive home with the life beaten out of her as I do. Yet I make this courageous annual trip because an injustice would be done otherwise. I know that no matter how often a desire is expressed, a list written, a hint dropped, there are certain items that will never make it under our tree. As defender of non-educational, non-environmental, and non-health recreational pursuits, it is my duty to sneak out once a year and right this wrong.
    This year the shoppers seem more ferocious than ever. I had no end of ladies elbowing me away from the sales piles, out-charming me for assistance, and out-lasting me in the two hour wait for gift wrapping. How to convey the frustrations of a shopping wallflower into a Christmas message? Something witty.
    Aunt Muriel could have been among those ladies.
    I have no idea what she looks like now. Is she shriveled and blue haired, walking with a cane? Or robust and red cheeked, a grandmother of twenty? Did she marry? Find happiness? I root out the envelope with her address on it. It’s not a ten minute drive from our house. I won’t be sending her a card of course. To do even such a small thing would be cutting across the firmly held convictions of a generation.
    “How’re you doing honey?” Janice calls from behind her paper.
    “Oh fine.”
    “Don’t forget the Beidermans and the Harts.”
   In an inspiration of witticism, I scratch off ten quick notes to friends around the country.
    Our Christmas cards are the family picture type. We make a handsome picture. Janice is lovely as always, unchanged over the years, and I have not suffered badly except for my hair. But our children are the miracles among us. Every year finds them different people; the two boys, growing by handfuls, and my daughter, mysteriously becoming the spitting image of her beautiful Grandma Ruth.
    Does Muriel have daughters or granddaughters to watch grow into her likeness?
   There are carolers in our yard; Janice and the boys step out onto the porch to listen. I will just lean back in my chair and enjoy the moment. Superimposed on the half frosted window, I see the reflection of our lighted tree by the fireplace and the moon, together. This is the stuff of Christmas. Cherished minutes of quiet reflection. My family around me. Peace on earth.
 
    It is two in the morning. The house is dark except for my lamp, the dog snores on the hearth beside me. Outside, nature wraps up the evening with a dusting of snow, just enough to coat the trees and delight fools like me who are still up; by morning it will be gone. I have completed a large stack of cards, now waiting on the hall table to be dispatched. Aunt Muriel’s card lies open before me.  Dearest ones?
    Why did you write us, Aunt Muriel?
  With a gust of cold air and slight stamping of feet, my daughter, whom I pictured sleeping soundly upstairs, blows through the front door. She puts her arms around me and plants a chilly kiss on my neck.
   “Goodnight, Daddy,” she says cheerfully. “Get some sleep.”  She pats me on the back, just like her mother. She will be seventeen soon. The baton is being passed.
    I take out a piece of note paper. I loved my mother. Love her still. But peace on earth really is too difficult to find. I can’t change the whole world for my children, but I can start with my own little corner on earth.
    Dear Aunt Muriel,  
         It was good to hear from you after all these years...