What Child is This? (December 23rd)

“Have a wonderful holiday,” the old man said with a bright smile, holding out the bag containing the merchandise just purchased.

Maribeth Mason, her bloodshot eyes hidden behind huge sunglasses even at that early evening hour, stifled a sneer and nodded, offering the man a wan smile as she accepted the bag from him. She pulled her overcoat around her and, with her purse secured under her left arm and the bottle of wine she had just bought held fast in her right hand, she pushed out of the liquor store and out into the icy chill of the evening.

The boulevard was bustling with shoppers and festooned with grand displays of garland and sparkling lights. None of it really registered much to Maribeth. There were a small pile of brightly-wrapped gifts in a corner of her apartment...next to a small fragrant Christmas tree she had bought and decorated a week earlier...but there was, here and now, not a shred of Christmas spirit in her battered soul. She walked steadily towards her apartment building some three blocks away. Done with crying...at least she hoped she was...she was anxious to get home, open the carefully-selected wine, and drink enough to make her pain go away (the last she knew was not really possible but she was willing to give it a shot.)

From somewhere she could hear someone singing...”I’ll Be Home for Christmas”...and it made her frown...when it started to make her tear up she shook it off with a muttered curse and a renewed vow to find some measure of oblivion that night.

A few days earlier, Maribeth had been full of the spirit of the season...happily shopping and looking forward to driving to her parents’ house on Christmas morning...driving there with Robert and a small pile of brightly-wrapped gifts. But that was then. She would still drive to her parents’ house on Christmas morning...neither Mother or Father would have understood or been unhurt by her absence...but Robert...Robert had excused himself from her life two days earlier.

“This is getting too intense,” he had whined to her, “I think we need to take some time off from each other...”

Maribeth had looked at him blankly. What the hell was he talking about? Her silence had made him uneasy. Three years and things were “getting too intense”? Three years and “we need to take some time off from each other”? What the hell was he talking about? Maribeth finally found her voice, “What the hell are you talking about, Robert?” she had asked in a voice as quiet and portentous as midnight.

He fumbled around for other words and, finding none, just shrugged. And then, seeing that she was not rushing to fill the space, he said, “Well...you know...”

And, suddenly, she did. “I hope the two of you are very happy together,” she said, her voice devoid of inflection.

Robert had looked stricken and then he tried to compose himself. “I don’t know what you mean...” he lied.

Maribeth had sighed and slumped back into her seat...the other patrons of the restaurant falling away into a silent haze...and just stared at him. She hoped there were no tears in her eyes betraying the pain in her heart...but there was nothing to be done about it one way or the other. Robert said other things...she could tell because she saw his lips moving...but none of it registered. Eventually his lips stopped moving and he paid the check and left.

As she turned the corner she looked up and saw her building...she banished thoughts of Robert to the shallow eddy in her memory stream where he dwelled...should be able to keep them there for a good fifteen or twenty minutes she thought ruefully.

Maribeth took a deep breath and kept walking steadily...her thoughts flowing to yesterday...to the box of knick-knacks, Christmas cards, photographs and the like that she had carried home yesterday. The box had been unceremoniously dumped next to the pile of brightly-wrapped gifts and given no further attention. The box was filled with the contents of a desk; a desk in an office she had occupied for four years. It hadn’t occurred to her...or to any of the other twenty-four people in her department...that their usefulness to the company would have come to such an abrupt end. Hadn’t occurred to her...or to any of the other twenty-four people in her department...that this news would come to them in envelopes that were supposed to contained Christmas Bonuses and, instead, contained severance checks and laser-printed letters of recommendation. Three days before Christmas. It hadn’t occurred to her for a moment.

“Company’s downsizing,” the vice-president in charge of personnel, looking more bored than embarrassed, had come down to tell them. “You know how tight the market is...and, well, we felt we needed to go in a different direction...you’ve all been wonderful assets...”

A couple of the other twenty-four hurled tart epithets at the man, gathering their own boxes of knick-knacks, Christmas cards, photographs, and the like and brushing brusquely through the small gauntlet of security guards the vice-president had brought with him.

The vice-president had hemmed and hawed a little...his face blushing deep crimson...as Maribeth and some of the others picked up their boxes and walked the gauntlet towards the elevators. The piped-in music had mocked her with its chipper seasonal lilt as she rode down with some of the other twenty-four. There were perfunctory hugs, angry diatribes, and facile promises to “stay in touch” in the lobby and then they went their own ways into the cold late afternoon.

And now, a day later, it still didn’t make much sense. But Maribeth didn’t want it to make sense just now...just to go away for a while...she hefted the bottle of wine slightly as she made her way past the alley next to her building. It was then that she heard a small, plaintive cry. A cat, she surmised...but then there was another...and it was not a cat. It sounded like...but that couldn’t be...

There was only a dim, amber lamp attached to the building illuminating the alley and Maribeth was not especially anxious to venture down to investigate. But then, another more insistent cry sang out...and she knew that it was not a cat...and she knew that she could not ignore it. She took another deep breath and held out her wine bottle, entertaining notions of being ready and able to turn it into a weapon if necessary, and walked slowly down the alley.

The doorway illuminated by the amber lamp was a fire exit from her building. The doorway was recessed and the cries were coming from the shallow alcove that separated the door from the alley proper. Maribeth peered cautiously around the corner into the alcove and was startled at what she found. There in a wicker basket, bundled tight against the elements, was a baby...not more than three or four months old...with a note pinned to the blanket (just like in a bad movie, Maribeth thought, as she glanced around looking for someone...but there was no one in sight.)

Maribeth knelt down and looked at the note...please take care of my Maria, I can’t do it anymore...Maribeth sighed audibly (definitely a bad movie.)

“What are we going to do with you, Maria?” she asked wearily. The child looked up at Maribeth with curiously untroubled eyes and gurgled softly. “Okay, kiddo,” Maribeth said, “first thing I guess we have to do is get you out of this weather. Then I’ll figure out who I need to call...”

Maribeth sighed again, put the bottle of wine into the basket (oblivion seemed an increasingly unlikely destination) and then picked the whole thing up. This was the last thing in the world she needed, she thought, as she made her way back up the alley. Maribeth kept looking around and listening...hoping that someone would come running up saying “Give me my baby!” But only silence greeted her.

Maribeth let herself into the building (the doorman knocked off at 6:30) and rode the elevator up the four stories to her apartment. She put the basket down on the coffee table and took off her coat. The baby was strangely content and quiet, looking around her apartment with big, curious eyes.

Maribeth extricated the bottle of wine from the basket and put it aside. Then, after contemplating a long time, she reached over and picked up the child. “Hello, Maria,” she said softly. “How could anybody abandon a beautiful girl like you?” The child just cooed quietly in response. She patted the girl’s fanny, determining that the child was dry...and apparently not hungry. Maria was obviously well cared for...and probably hadn’t been in that alcove very long. It didn’t make any sense to Maribeth...but, she laughed to herself, not much did these days so what was one more thing?

Maribeth carried the child over to an aged rocking chair...it had belonged to her grandfather...that was in the corner opposite the tree and the gifts and sat down. She rocked slowly...the child slowly slipping into slumber in her arms...trying to remember that she was supposed to be feeling sorry for herself...supposed to be drinking herself into sweet oblivion...and not being able to do so.

She looked over at the tree...its bows and ribbons and angels a reminder of a happier time not so very long ago. And then she looked down at the baby in her arms, left to the tender mercies of the elements and of chance by someone who just couldn’t cope anymore.

As the child’s big brown eyes closed slowly, Maribeth reached over and picked up the phone. In time, a policeman and a social worker would arrive to take her report. And then they would take the sleeping child to a foster home. But until then, Maribeth would rock with the child, forgetting her own heartache and anger for a while. She would find some modicum of Christmas spirit in the soft breath and tiny heartbeat of the baby in her arms and find herself regarding the small tree and the small pile of brightly-wrapped gifts as something softly and wondrously magical.

In the morning, the wine would still be unopened as Maribeth, her bathrobe pulled snug and a mug of steaming coffee next to the phone, made calls after a peaceful night’s sleep. The social worker would tell her that Maria was safe with a family who would take good care of her for the time being and her mother would tell her that she needed to bring nothing with her on Christmas but her smile and her small pile of brightly-wrapped gifts.

“Have a wonderful holiday,” the old man in the liquor store had said.

Maribeth sipped her coffee and glanced at her little tree. “Maybe I will,” she said aloud, a whisper of a smile playing about her mouth.