Old Pop's Last Christmas

At first Matthew refused even to believe that Old Pop had disappeared. When Mary Ellen called him at the office, he had told her to calm down and just wait them out. It was not the first time he had been interrupted by a frantic phone call with some dire news about her family. It was Matthew's considered opinion that Old Pop was probably no further from home than his own bedroom or some other place that Gramma had not thought to look for him. But, no, Mary Ellen assured Matthew, Aunt Ima and Uncle Bill had looked for him too, and there was no sign of Old Pop anywhere. And Gramma insisted she saw him leave with his suitcase. Just got in a cab and off he went. This was supposedly a day or two earlier. When Aunt Ima and Uncle Bill asked her how come she took so long to tell them about it, Gramma said she thought he'd come right back as soon as he cooled down.

Now it had been nearly a week and still no sign of Old Pop. So instead of the Caribbean, Matthew and Mary Ellen were visiting Shreveport again this Christmas. Moving to Washington, DC, was supposed to have been a fresh start for them, a separation as well as a new beginning, and this would have been their first Christmas away from the family. To make certain, Matthew had promised himself and Mary Ellen that they would fly to the islands instead of home to visit her mother in Shreveport. He had bought the non-refundable airline tickets, booked the hotel, and taken care of all such details well in advance, including the cat sitter, so there would be no second thoughts or turning back. Of course, he had not reckoned on Old Pop deciding suddenly to disappear.

Matthew had to cancel the hotel booking, and that was okay, but the airline tickets cost him a cancellation fee, which he had tried to get waived for a family emergency, but the airlines did not have any provision for runaway granddaddies. They did take into account that he was now flying on the same airline to Shreveport by way of Atlanta, and was in fact flying first class, which was the only way Mary Ellen would ever consent to fly all the way to Shreveport. But it had still cost him a cancellation fee, and that was one more item to add to the long list of fees and surcharges he had run up over Mary Ellen's family.

As the plane began its decent, he reminded himself that he had promised to stop keeping track of such debits or asking why they seemed to be blessed with such peculiarly afflicted relatives and in-laws. Instead, he would learn to enjoy the few small pleasures granted to him. In fact, at that moment he was beginning to understand Mary Ellen's attitude toward first class air travel, especially where Shreveport was concerned. And so he leaned back and sipped the last of his complementary Johnnie Walker before taking a brief pre-landing nap. Mary Ellen was staring fixedly out the window, as she had been throughout most of the flight, probably thinking about the hotel room they would not be enjoying on St. Thomas. But Matthew decided not to make inquiries.

When they landed, Matthew quickly collected the bags. One thing you could say for that airport, it was never crowded. They were in their rental car and headed east on I-20 within minutes of landing. Mary Ellen had insisted on booking a hotel room, and this time Matthew had to agree it was probably not wise to stay with Mary Ellen's mother. The whole family had all moved, lock, stock, and barrel, to Shreveport from New Orleans when Richard, Mary Ellen's cousin's husband, had been transferred. Aunt Ima and Uncle Bill didn't want their precious daughter, poor Sara Jane, to be all alone in a strange town, with only Richard and the two kids for company, so they decided to move as well, and since Edna, Mary Ellen's mother, would have been left all alone to take care of that big old house, she had to come too. That would have made more sense, of course, if Matthew and Mary Ellen were still living in Shreveport, but fate or some other benevolent force had saved them. By the time the family arrived, Matthew had already agreed to move to Washington, DC, to go to work for the government.

When they checked into the hotel, one of Shreveport's finest old downtown hostelries, Matthew startled Mary Ellen by inquiring about discount rates. The clerk at first pretended to be confused, perhaps in part by Matthew's unsouthern effrontery, but he promised to look into a discount rate as soon as the manager returned. Matthew immediately sensed he had made a tactical blunder, but he thought it was worth a try, and this might be his only chance to recover some of their financial losses on the trip. Meanwhile, Mary Ellen retreated and stood by their bags and attempting to ignore Matthew's not very convincing assurances that he was well acquainted with hotel policies and his insistence that the clerk get back in touch with him with the adjusted room rate later that afternoon.

After the porter managed to get them and their bags neatly established in their room, Matthew gave him a generous tip and instinctively went to the window to check the view. It was about as good as you could get in Shreveport in those days. If you looked carefully through a break in the roof tops you could almost make out the muddy banks of some nameless tributary of the Red River. This was long before the Army Corps of Engineers spent millions making the Red River navigable so that Shreveport and Bossier City could become home to several massive cassino barges and their land-based luxury hotels.

As he attempted to orient himself, Matthew began to sense an unnatural silence and the chill of Mary Ellen's steely glare trained at the back of his head. When he turned cautiously toward her, she said in the calmest tone she could muster, "I know you resent this trip and my family and the fact that you didn't get your vacation to St. Thomas, and I know you think this hotel room is costing too much money, but did you have to make a fool of yourself with that poor desk clerk? Couldn't you see he thought you were some kind of an idiot."

Matthew felt just the tiniest sting of truth in these remarks, as well as the carefully measured reproach in their tone, but decided to hold his ground. "I don't think he did. And what's more I know for a fact that he's supposed to give me a lower rate if I request it and one is available. I just read about that in the in-flight magazine." Mary Ellen gave him one of her exasperated sighs, as though she had suddenly discovered still another fateful flaw in his mental makeup. "But, Matthew, wouldn't it be worth a few extra dollars a night to retain what little anonymity and privacy we can while we're here? Who knows what lunacy they've had on TV or in the newspapers about Old Pop wandering off. And I hope to God you're not going to call up any of your old cronies from the college on the off chance they might have a spare room for us to stay in."

He had to admit the woman knew his tendencies. "Well, as a matter of fact," he lied, "I'd thought about saying hello, but decided we should scope out the family situation first. Besides, I suspect most of them are off somewhere during the holidays, visiting family or having family visit them. Or for all I know they're off at some convention. I think the MLA may actually be in New Orleans this year. Of course, I'd like to get in touch with some of the guys, but I agree we should keep a low profile until we get this business about Old Pop settled." Matthew was wondering if there really had been news coverage: "Senile granddaddy from New Orleans wanders away. Frantic family searchs everywhere. Call this station if you've seen an ill-tempered old geezer wandering around your neighborhood."

Mary Ellen fixed him once again with a cold stare. "If that display in the lobby was your idea of a low profile I think I'm just going to go to my mother's and get drunk. And I don't want you telling anyone from the college about Old Pop or anything else about my family. I don't even want them to know where they live. And I certainly don't want any of them coming over for any visits. If you value what's left of this marriage, you'll settle down and do what I tell you from here on until we can get back to Washington. No more manic displays or demands for discounts or this will cost you a lot more than you bargained for."

Matthew began quietly putting away his things. He realized he'd gotten off easy. Mary Ellen was obviously too worried about the family trouble to really focus on his foolishness. He didn't know what he'd been thinking of. Mary Ellen hated his quest for discounted rates and bargain motels. She said it made them look cheap. It was time to get focused on the problem at hand, to find out for sure if Old Pop was really missing, which he still doubted. Then maybe they could come up with some kind of plan.

Mary Ellen was trying to calm herself down and work up the courage to call her mother and let her know they'd arrived. Matthew kept his distance, then decided to slip back down to the desk to see if he could repair some of the damage before the clerk had time to actually call the manager. He picked up the ice bucket and said he was going to go fill it. Mary Ellen agreed that would be a useful errand for him and said she'd call her mother in a minute. Matthew took the elevator to the lobby and went directly to the front desk. The clerk looked up, smiled, and said he'd be able to give them a discount on the room if Matthew could produce an Automobile Association membership card. Matthew said he believed that he could, and the clerk quoted him a price that Matthew thought was reasonable enough, but probably no more than ten dollars below the regular rate. Matthew said that would be fine and asked where he could get some ice. The clerk gave him directions, and Matthew went back to the room feeling vastly relieved and still pleased that he had gotten at least some sort of discount. Nevertheless, he told himself to stay calm and not pull any more egregious stunts.

Wedging the filled ice bucket against the door, Matthew fiddled with the room key, actually some sort of coded plastic card that worked only when inserted and then removed with just the proper velocity. When he managed to get the door opened, he saw that Mary Ellen was on the phone to her mother. She seemed fairly composed. He heard her say they'd be coming over a little later and no she was sure the hotel would be fine. Matthew had to admit he was glad they would have their own room to come back to that night. "How's your mother?" he whispered, but Mary Ellen just gave him a noncommittal smile. When she put down the receiver, Matthew tried again.

"What's up?"

"What do you mean 'what's up'? You know what's up. I told her we'd be coming over there in a little bit. Now get something out of that minibar and fix me a drink."

"What do you want?"

"Gin and tonic. Do they have any Tanqueray?"

"Looks like Beefeaters."

"That'll have to do. What are you doing?"

"I'm pouring myself a Scotch."

"No you're not. You're going to have to drive all the way over to Mama's. I don't want any more funny business out of you."

"Just one drink?"

"Plus how many on the plane?"

"Jesus Christ."

"You can leave Him out of this -- for now, anyway."

Matthew saw he'd escaped again, but worried that Mary Ellen appeared to be distracted. He tried to pour the Scotch back into the little bottle so he could drink it later that night, but he spilled most of it on the table. Then he quickly fixed Mary Ellen a gin and tonic.

"Don't they have any lime?"

"I guess not. You want me to call room service?"

"No. I suppose I can just do without."

"Probably only take a minute."

"Why do they provide gin and tonic and no lime? That's just like this damned town. They try to be civilized but they just don't have a clue."

Matthew tried to think of some way to deflect her from this anti-Shreveport theme. She had a vast store of resentment built up against the town, the college, and Matthew for bringing her there some twelve years ago. They had thought they were leaving forever when Matthew got the government job in Washington, but they hadn't counted on Richard and Sara Jane being relocated to Shreveport by Richard's company. Then the whole family had decided to abandon their roots in New Orleans so they could be close to the kids. They were still trying to sell the big ramshackle old house "on the edge of the historic Garden District," as they said in the newspaper advertisements. A lot depended on how you took that word "edge," which had been Uncle Bill's substitution for the more problematic "fringe." Selling the old house had been their main plan for financing the move until the real estate market collapsed. Of course, the house was pretty much a lost cause anyway, as far as Matthew could tell. The family had done only the barest minimum of maintenance over the years, so it was unlikely that anyone would be willing to buy it now in its present rundown condition, and apparently their visions of yuppie suckers lining up to take it off their hands were somewhat hallucinatory. Matthew and Mary Ellen had not been at all surprised by this, so they willingly paid to move Mary Ellen's mother, and helped to maintain her in a small apartment near the rest of the family. Meanwhile Uncle Jack, the only member of the family left in New Orleans was supposed to handle the sale of the house. Matthew thought that sounded like leaving Jesse James in charge of the bank, but he kept this opinion to himself.

When Mary Ellen finished her drink, Matthew drove them over to her mother's apartment, which was only a block or two away from the house Aunt Ima and Uncle Bill were renting, temporarily, until the sale of the old house in New Orleans. Old Pop and Gramma were staying in a smaller house just behind Aunt Ima's and Uncle Bill's. It occurred to Matthew that the little house had probably once been for servants, but it offered the perfect arrangement for Gramma and Old Pop, or at least it had until fairly recently. Gramma was able to take care of most of the cooking and housework, and Old Pop had the run of the yard and both houses. Uncle Bill never seemed to set foot out of his "studio," which was the front bedroom where he slept and took most of his meals. That left it to Aunt Ima to do the shopping for the entire family, usually taking Mary Ellen's mother Edna and Sara Jane along on what appeared to be almost daily expeditions to the local Kroegers or Albertsons.

The new surroundings had given Old Pop a good deal of range to wander in, and according to early reports, he had spent the first several months getting to know the neighbors. Not that Old Pop was a sociable man. In fact, so far as Matthew could determine, he hated nearly everyone. But he enjoyed roaming around and exchanging opinions with anyone who would stop long enough to listen. In those first few weeks Old Pop had disappeared more than once, but the family had so far managed to track him down each time after a frantic search, during which Aunt Ima nearly always proclaimed him lost for good. Her own opinion was that Old Pop had Alzheimer's disease, which she insisted on calling "Old Timer's" disease; it was one of her favorite little jokes. She professed to be convinced that one day he would simply wander off and they'd never find him.

So naturally Matthew had assumed this latest episode was only one more in the series of crises reported by Mary Ellen's mother. As they drove over to Edna's apartment, however, he began to wonder if there might be something more to it this time. He felt a sense of foreboding that had lately begun to oppress him during encounters with the family, and driving through the familiar terrain of Shreveport seemed to give it all an added dislocation. He had grown used to this feeling in New Orleans, but Shreveport had always felt like home, the place he had returned to after the family encounters. And then he realized that there was also some slight feeling of guilt and relief in knowing that had he not moved to Washington, he and Mary Ellen would be in daily contact with all of this madness.

So Matthew tried to push aside this jumble of thoughts and impressions and concentrate on the drive to Edna's apartment, which was in an old neighborhood not too far from their own Shreveport home and the college where he had taught classics and humanities for nearly ten years. Force of habit and memory took him by their house and the campus before he began turning down less familiar streets. It was a cold gray day, with clouds that seemed to threaten drizzle more than rain, but so far it was fairly dry and the holiday traffic was light. Edna's apartment was in a very nice garden complex near a shopping center. On the other side of the main road, across from the shopping center, was the neighborhood where the rest of the family had settled down, at least temporarily. And further down that road was the pharmaceutical company Richard worked for. Matthew remembered the apartments; he had seen them often on the way to the shopping center, but the neighborhood where Uncle Bill and Aunt Ima, Gramma and Old Pop were living was unfamiliar to him, a part of Shreveport he had never ventured into, yet still exactly what he expected to find.

Edna was sitting on her little patio waiting for them. All she had on over her dress was a knit sweater draped over her shoulders. "Aren't you cold," Mary Ellen asked as they got out of their rental car.

"No, of course not." Edna laughed. Matthew thought it was almost as though she ignored the weather, refused to give in to it. She might complain about the heat or sometimes the rain, but unlike most southerners she seemed indifferent to cold. She got up slowly and showed them around to the front door, where the dog was growling a greeting.

"Well, what do you know that's good," Edna asked, probably not expecting an answer.

"Not too much," Matthew ventured. Mary Ellen had warned him not to go into the business with Old Pop right off, so he began cautiously asking about the weather. "Looks like its trying to rain here, has it been a wet winter so far?"

"No, not too wet, just nasty and gray like it is now. We've had some drizzle off and on for about a week, but not enough to do any good. Are you hungry?"

Matthew looked to Mary Ellen for a signal, but couldn't read her expression, so he offered something noncommittal. "Not particularly. You didn't fix anything did you?"

"Nothing much. I made a roast and some potatoes."

"Mama," Mary Ellen sighed, "I wish you wouldn't go to so much trouble over meals while we're here. Matthew and I can eat out, or we can bring something back to eat here. Besides I'm sure we be eating later at Aunt Ima's and Uncle Bill's."

"I know that, but I had the roast anyway, and I've got to eat too you know."

Matthew observed this minor struggle for control of the situation, but could see that neither of them was really committed to victory. Matthew began to think maybe Old Pop really was gone. Food was always an issue on these visits. Some version of this conflict over dinner had gone on every Christmas Eve since Matthew and Mary Ellen met. Mary Ellen's mother would prepare a substantial meal for them early in the afternoon or evening. Then later they would all go over to Aunt Ima's and Uncle Bill's for an even larger supper, prepared with great care and at enormous expense. "Well, now that you bring it up, I guess I am hungry," Matthew offered tentatively. "Why don't we go ahead and eat something."

Dinner was handled very efficiently, and while Mary Ellen and her mother cleared away the dishes, Matthew found his opportunity to pour himself a generous Scotch from the bottle he kept in Edna's pantry. Mary Ellen saw what he was up to, but seemed to have decided he deserved the drink. He was not exactly comforted by that thought, however, and sensed the potential for greater tension later in the evening. The only sensible thing for Matthew to do at this juncture was to slip out onto Edna's tiny patio for a quiet cigar with his drink and let Mary Ellen sort things out with her mother.

The cigar and Scotch allowed Matthew an occasion to ponder his situation and take stock before any real action was called for on his part. He knew that later that evening they would all go over to Aunt Ima's and Uncle Bill's. And until he had the chance to see for himself what the lay of the land was over there, he would try not to speculate too much on any specific course of action. He tried to imagine what it was that they might expect of him and Mary Ellen. Clearly, this was a time for the family to circle the wagons, to seek comfort from shared misery, to make sure that everyone was forced to pay more or less equally for the latest suffering that Old Pop had delivered on the family. Matthew also wondered whether Old Pop was really the cause for family concern. He noted that Edna had not yet mentioned the disappearance. It was almost as though she had decided to ignore that minor inconvenience while her daughter and son-in-law paid their usual Christmas visit. What else remained unspoken was the well known fact that Matthew and Mary Ellen had no intention of coming for Christmas this year, had in fact visited everyone at Thanksgiving just so they might avoid another Christmas trauma and might instead spend a few peaceful and unencumbered days on an island in the sun.

Islands in the sun, however, were not a part of Mary Ellen's family's plan. Matthew tried to suppress the conspiracy theories that kept occurring to him, tried to believe that Old Pop really had disappeared and that there really was a family crisis, despite what he was beginning to see as evidence to the contrary. He wondered if there had been anything in the newspapers? Were the Police out looking for him? But he kept coming back to the same question that had nagged him all the way from Washington. Now that he and Mary Ellen were here, exactly what were they supposed to do?

Best not worry about that now, he told himself, as he puffed on one of the maduros he had brought along with him as a treat and a diversion. Instead, he concentrated on the thick clouds of smoke he was able to exhale into the moist Shreveport air and listened to the relative quiet that had descended with the approaching holiday evening. Matthew was sure that Mary Ellen was getting all the latest news from her mother. When the proper time came, he would be let in on the family business.

Later that evening they found Aunt Ima and Uncle Bill awaiting their arrival with what appeared to be the usual Christmas Eve meal, spread out buffet style on the dining room table. From somewhere Uncle Bill had produced tamales, chili con queso, salsa, beer, all the traditional fare of his Texas upbringing. Aunt Ima baked an enormous ham as well as cakes and pastries. Sara Jane and Richard and the kids had already settled down in their favorite places. Richard was carefully devouring the least dangerous food while Sara Jane was excitedly competing with her mother for everyone's attention. Only Uncle Bill actually acknowledged their arrival as Matthew, Mary Ellen and Edna came into the large family living room. Aunt Ima and Sara Jane were laughing and yelling about some recent indignity the family had been made to suffer, apparently at the hands of the Shreveport natives who, it naturally turns out, are even worse than those awful people they had to put up with in New Orleans. Uncle Bill tried to ascertain what kind of trip Matthew and Mary Ellen had from Washington. As Matthew began to formulate some more or less coherent reply, Aunt Ima ordered them all to simultaneously sit down and go get something to eat at the dining room table.

Matthew went over and began to survey the food laid out on the table. There was enough for a family ten times their size, and he knew it would all be delicious. He would actually have enjoyed tucking in to this holiday evening feast a little more had he not just finished a very substantial dinner of roast beef and potatoes at Edna's apartment. But he knew he would have to make a respectable show of appetite. There was no way he could turn down this offer of food, so he greeted Richard and Sara Jane, nodded in the direction of the kids, and joined Uncle Bill at the table, where the host was busily constructing a gigantic ham sandwich on a Kaiser roll.

"So tell me, my friend, what are all those crooks in Washington up to these days?" Uncle Bill asked absent-mindedly, as he busied himself with his sandwich.

"The usual enormities, I suppose," Matthew proffered, knowing that anything more circumstantial would very likely lead to an extended political discussion.

"Does any one of them really know what he's doing?" Uncle Bill persisted.

"I doubt it. There's certainly nothing to suggest that any of them knows how to do anything other than lie, raise obscene amounts of money, and get re-elected." Matthew felt this was safe bi-partisan ground. He was well aware that Uncle Bill had once been a genuine big-city anchor man on the evening news in New Orleans, but these days he seemed rarely to dwell on what most people would call current events. The way Matthew heard it, one day he just quit the television news business to devote his full attention to drawing comic books and making movies. Long before Matthew met Mary Ellen, Uncle Bill had written, directed, and produced a classic horror film that still turned up on television from time to time in the wee hours of the morning. But for all the years Matthew had known him, his only profession was drawing, and sometimes writing, comic books. Earlier in his career, he had even drawn a few issues of Superman, but recently his preference was more toward Illustrated Classics and Tales of Gothic Horror.

Matthew glanced over at Mary Ellen who had already taken a seat among the women, abandoning him to Uncle Bill and to Richard, the men of the family, who were now supposed to talk politics and business, discuss world affairs, and leave the women alone to handle the serious family concerns. That, at any rate, was the theory. In fact, Matthew suspected it would not be more than a few minutes before Uncle Bill would be wondering if he had heard the latest about extra-terrestrials or the discovery of Noah's ark -- not unrelated events in Uncle Bill's present view of the world.

"What are you working on these days, Matthew? Do you ever get any writing done now?" Uncle Bill inquired, throwing Matthew off for a moment, since he had not exactly anticipated this sober line of inquiry.

"Yes, sure, I've done a little of my own work. I don't get much time anymore, going to an office eight or nine hours a day doesn't leave much time for any work of my own, but I get a chance to write something now and again. Mostly book reviews."

"Oh yeah? What kind of books have you been reading?"

"Ah, well, the usual stuff I guess. I just read a new study of Ovid."

"Mythology?" Uncle Bill perked up.

"Yeah, that's right," Matthew answered warily.

"Do you ever get the chance to study the Egyptians?" Uncle Bill asked thoughtfully, as he was already finishing off his very substantial sandwich, and no doubt, Matthew thought, not the first course of the evening.

Uncle Bill decided it was hardly worth rejoining the rest of the family in the living room, and simply pulled a chair out from the dining table and made a place for himself within easy reach of the food that Aunt Ima had spread out buffet style. Over the years, Matthew had acquired considerable girth, but Uncle Bill was one of the largest men Matthew had ever known, and dining was something he took very seriously. For Uncle Bill a meal often went on for hours, as he sampled everything on the table in various combinations. The sandwich he had just constructed was clearly just a sociable snack, a little something to keep him occupied while Matthew began his own assault on Aunt Ima's cuisine. When he and the others had caught up, Uncle Bill would guide them through some unusual combinations they had not thought to try. And eventually, he would make a huge pot of strong Louisiana coffee, his particular forté, which he and Matthew would drink black while turning their attention to the desserts.

On toward midnight, as he looked for an opportunity to excuse himself, and as Uncle Bill continued with a detailed explanation of the exact parallels he had discovered between the current world political predicament and the prophesies of Nostradamus, Matthew noted that the discussion among the women seemed to have circled around to the problem of Old Pop. Matthew could hear Aunt Ima placing the major blame on Uncle Jack, who in her opinion had always provoked Old Pop's weird behavior, and she wouldn't be surprised if he was somehow behind this latest episode. It was then that it slowly began to dawn on Matthew that no one had yet spoken of trying to get in touch with Jack to see if Old Pop had simply found his way home to New Orleans.

His frustration almost more than he could bare, Matthew attempted to get Mary Ellen's attention. "Shouldn't someone try to call Jack?" He asked quietly.

At first no one acknowledged him, as they continued their animated discussion, but at last he was able to catch Mary Ellen's eye. He tried again, "What about calling Uncle Jack?"

She frowned at him but apparently picked up the hint. "Mama, have you given Uncle Jack a call. Maybe Old Pop is with him."

Edna at first seemed to ignore her daughter's suggestion, apparently unwilling to offer any direct assistance in the matter. Then abruptly she interrupted Ima, "You called Jack didn't you?"

"No," Ima interjected just as abruptly, already having launched into an extended narration of Jack's previous sins against the family. "Why would I call Jack. You know as well as I do that man's useless in a crisis."

"But maybe Old Pop is with him," Matthew offered, aware that everyone would see his suggestion as impertinent, but he was determined to be heard.

"Why would Old Pop want to have anything to do with Jack?" Ima scoffed. "He can't stand Jack." Then she added for emphasis, "Nobody can."

"But isn't Jack staying in the old house?" Matthew persisted.

While he and Mary Ellen tried to communicate with Ima on this topic, Edna seemed to give in and went to the telephone and started dialing. For just a moment he wondered to himself if Edna did not already know that Old Pop was home in New Orleans, but he immediately banished this disloyal thought from his mind. He could hear Edna talking to Jack, whom since he was hard of hearing she had to address at full volume, but as Edna raised her voice, Ima stepped up her own a decibel or two, continuing to recount the long history of family bitterness between Old Pop and Jack and Jack and the rest of the family, so that Matthew was having trouble following the telephone conversation.

Then he heard Edna saying, "Okay. Okay. Merry Christmas to you, too. All right, I'll call you back later." She put the phone down and turned to the rest of them with the slightest trace of a smile still lingering on her face.

As Aunt Ima continued at full volume, Mary Ellen and Matthew simultaneously asked Edna, "Well?"

"Jack says 'Merry Christmas,'" Edna yelled out, then added with a chuckle, "He sounded pretty full of holiday spirit."

"But what about Old Pop?" Matthew and Mary Ellen asked almost in unison.

"Oh, He's there," she said, then added matter-of-factly, "been there all week. Jack thought we knew. Old Pop said he just wanted to be home for the holidays. Even if he had to spend them with Jack."

At first Matthew wanted to scream, but he was caught off his guard by a succession of feelings. Frustration, exasperation, but strangely not anger. Then he started to laugh until he saw Mary Ellen's expression and knew his laughter would not be appreciated in these circumstances, so he stood up abruptly and asked Mary Ellen, "How about a gin and tonic?"

Just at that moment Uncle Bill walked in from the kitchen with a steaming pot of coffee. He smiled grandly and said, "Its great having you kids here for Christmas again this year."

After a brief pause, Matthew smiled at Mary Ellen and added, "With a lime of course."

A strange feeling, the opposite of déjà vu, seemed to descend on Matthew. Of course, he could not have known at that moment that this would be Old Pop's last Christmas, that in February the old man would die of a stroke, and only a brief time afterward Grandma also would pass away. Then one by one the others would follow. Nor could they have realized then, Matthew and Mary Ellen, that they were, in spite of themselves and their own holiday plans, spending their last Christmas with Mary Ellen's family, with Aunt Ima's great spreads of food and Uncle Bill's fantastic stories, and all the noise and confusion and joy.

© 2005 by Michael L. Hall