Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

She opened the window and Santa leaned in and said to Dorothy in a deep voice, "Merry Christmas, little girl!"

Dorothy had to laugh; she had not expected this surprise visit from Santa, especially one who sounded a lot like Bess Goodnight.

Ada and Bess, who had been up at the grammar school earlier this morning handing out presents, had stopped by the barbershop for a little Christmas cheer on the way home and were feeling no pain. As modern women of the world, they often joined the boys in a friendly drink or two and had brought Mother Smith, who also enjoyed a little nip now and then, a paper cup of eggnog.

Anna Lee arrived at the train station looking wonderful and full of news about all the new boyfriends she had. No surprise there. And of course Doc was happy to have the apple of his eye home, looking so beautiful on the platform, and so was everyone. Dorothy couldn't wait to get her home. She told Anna Lee that no matter how old or grown-up they were, she just did not sleep well unless both her children were home in their own beds and she knew they were safe and sound.

That night, by the time Dorothy finished up in the kitchen, Doc was already in bed. She cleaned her face with cold cream and turned off the light and got in beside him. After a moment, she said, "Doc, are you still awake?"

"Just barely."

"Hasn't this just been the loveliest day? Practically perfect?"

"Yes."

After another moment, she said, "Doc, ask me what I would wish for if I could only have one wish come true."

He did not have to ask.

"He would have been twenty-six this year, Doc."

He reached over and patted her hand. "I know, honey."

No matter how many years had passed since their first son, Michael, died, every holiday had always been tinged with a secret sadness. For the first ten years every Christmas morning the two of them had gone out to his grave and decorated it with a small tree and little toys, and every Easter an Easter basket had been placed there. Every year on his birthday and on the anniversary of the day he died they missed him more. Rarely did a day go by when one or the other did not think to themselves Michael would be six or twelve or whatever the age he would be that year. Although they never discussed it with anyone, donations made in memory of Michael Smith had paid for beds and wallpaper for an entire wing of the Children's Hospital. Most of the money to buy a Seeing Eye dog for Beatrice Woods came from a large donation to the Princess Mary Margaret Fund in his name.

Now twenty-two years had gone by. Dorothy wondered what kind of man he would have been. What young girl would have loved him and maybe even married him by now? What would his children be like, and would they look like him? Although he had been gone for many years, a picture of him as a child was always alive in Dorothy's mind. She continued to see him standing there and waving at her, the little boy that did not live. She often thought about the bud that never bloomed, the egg that never hatched, and wondered what happened to them. Did they just disappear, never to exist, lost forever, or would they come back again some spring? For years she looked for her little boy in every small child she saw, looked for him in the eyes of every blond boy with blue eyes like his. But she never found him again.

On the morning of December twenty-fourth, Bobby could hardly wait for the night to come. Ever since Jimmy had become their boarder and lived with them, the Smiths had started to open their presents on Christmas Eve. Jimmy had to catch the 11:45 P.M. bus to Kansas City to spend Christmas Day visiting his friends at the veterans hospital. And it was a good thing, because by that time Bobby and Mother Smith, both too curious for their own good, had usually poked, shook, and rattled their presents almost to death and the gifts might not have lasted until Christmas morning. Still, it was a long wait. Once Dorothy had seen a newsreel of Joan Crawford, her favorite movie star, and her children gathered around a piano singing carols on Christmas Eve, they had to do the same thing. Now, every year after dinner she made them all go in and gather around the organ and sing. Bobby hated the custom with a passion. As far as he was concerned, it just delayed the real meaning of Christmas: presents. At around 9:30 that night, when they finally sat down to open them, the phone rang. Dorothy said, before picking up the phone, "Wait a minute… let me see who this is… Don't open anything yet." Oh, rats! thought Bobby, who was just about to tear into the big box with his name on it.

They could hear Dorothy saying to someone on the phone, "Oh no… oh, you poor thing… Oh… well, bless your heart… Yes… I'm sure he will… Oh, you poor dear." She came back in and looked at Doc. "That was Poor Tot. Her mother stole all the presents she had wrapped and hid them in the backyard and now she can't find them and she wondered if you would go down and open up the drugstore for her so she could get a few things for the kids to have in the morning. I told her you would."

"All right," said Doc and got up to get his coat. "You all go ahead and open the presents. I'll be back in a little while."

Dorothy said, "We will do no such thing. We are not going to open anything until you get back."

Bobby asked his mother, "Can't we open just one?"

"No, Bobby, put that back down."

Mother Smith sighed. "Poor Tot, to have to work all day and then to have to put up with that crazy mother of hers and try to raise those two children at the same time. I don't know how she puts up with it all myself."

"I don't either, and to make matters worse," Dorothy said, "James fell into the tree and broke everything again."

When Doc got downtown he went in and turned on the lights in the drugstore and Poor Tot came in right behind him wearing her aqua chenille robe and house shoes, looking as frazzled as she had the last time this had happened. They went through and picked out a Sparkle Plenty doll and some hair barrettes for Darlene, who was seven, and a few stuffed toys for Dwayne Jr." who was two and a half As they walked around looking, she picked up a little plastic see-through purse and said, "I just don't know what to do next, Doc, scream or jump off a building. James is spending my money faster than I can make it. I'm fixing hair all day, and he's out all night drinking it up."

Doc told her what he had been telling her for years. "Honey, what you need to do is throw the bum out."

Tot looked up at him and said what she always said. "I know I should but if I don't take care of things, who will? God knows nobody else is going to put up with him."

After Tot left, with profuse thanks, Doc had to wait on several other people who'd come in and wanted to get things as well. But he did not charge them. Everything was free on Christmas Eve, he said.

It was an hour later by the time he could get home. Finally, Bobby was able to rip open the big box from his parents. Inside was a great record player, and his grandmother gave him the two records he wanted most, Mule Train and Ghost Riders in the Sky.

And underwear.

He received money from Jimmy, a Rover Boy book from Betty Raye, and Anna Lee surprised him with a genuine Jungle Jim pith helmet.

Dorothy got a robe, a cameo, and new curtains, Doc a new pipe and pajamas and slippers and, from Bobby, a fishing-tackle box. Mother Smith's presents were handkerchiefs, perfume, and a beautiful new boxed set of playing cards. Jimmy got his yearly twelve cartons of Camel cigarettes and, from Bobby, a toenail clipper. The girls got perfume, clothes, and cash money, toenail clippers from Bobby, and Dorothy had bought them both scrapbooks. Minnie and Ferris Oatman, who were doing a Christmas-week gospel sing in North Carolina, sent Betty Raye a white leather Bible with her name embossed in gold on the front. And she unwrapped a lovely silk scarf that had her name on the name tag but not the name of who it was from. Later they all went out on the porch and waited for the bus with Jimmy and at 11:45 it pulled up in front and he got on.