I first saw the girl on a train coming into Chattanooga station. She was young and pretty enough but I think it was the smile that caught my attention. I made a good impression, being back from WWII and still in my uniform with four combat ribbons and a purple heart, enough so that she showed that smile when I walked down the aisle of the train. Chattanooga was just a stop over; I was headed out west to seek a fortune in California. I had seen the grape arbors in France and had it in my mind I was going to build a vineyard. But that smile stopped me and the next thing I knew it was eight weeks later and I had to do something. That's why I went home for Christmas alone, despite her asking me to stay, I needed some time to think.
If anyone could help me sort all this out it would be Dad, he and Mom had been married for 58 years this past summer and I still saw him give her a kiss when he left the house every morning. So home I went, home where I knew I was welcome and I got there on Christmas Eve, just in time for decorating the tree.
Dad and I went to the back of the farm and cut a cedar. He found one with some of those blue berries growing on one side. I don't know what kind they are but he always found one, said Mom liked so much he couldn't bare bringing home a tree without them. I reckin he would have painted some on otherwise. We shaped the tree down on the back porch and made a platform out of an old washtub filled with gravels. I tripped helping carry the tub in and spilled them gravels all over the steps, he laughed and smoked on his pipe while I was picking them up.
"So why you been staying up in Chattanooga since you got back, your Mom she's been worrying about you."
"I had some things I had to take care of before I come home."
Dad knew that wasn't the whole story but he never was one to pry none. He figgered it would all come out eventually. I got the gravels back into the tub and we carried it into the living room them pushed the trunk of the tree down in them so it was secure. I had offered to buy them a stand for the tree one year, but he said, "That's the way your Mom likes it and I reckin that's the way its gotta be."
After dinner Mom and I trimmed the tree with popcorn strung up on thread and candle. Dad sat in a kitchen chair he pulled into the room and played Christmas carols on his guitar. When we finished Mom lit the candles then joined Dad with her dulcimer. I don't know if there is anything makes me want to be home more than Christmas Eve with mountain music. It went over and over in my head on the battle field in France the year before. There was a lull in the bombardment and I could hear that music as sweet as if I was there. I had closed my eyes and imagined Mom and Dad sitting there singing to me. It was a reason I made it through that hard time and it was a hard time.
The next morning I woke up when I heard the both of them down in the kitchen getting the coffee started so I got up and pulled on some warm clothes. I could go help Dad feed the cattle before breakfast. Felt good to put on something besides a uniform for a change and that flannel shirt felt so soft, like Mom had washed it the day before.
"Morning," I said as I walked into the room. Dad was standing there beside Mom, both of them looking like they had been caught at something. Then I realized he had his arm around her waist and knew I had walked in on him giving her a hug.
"Good morning son," Mom said as she handed me a cup of coffee.
I held the cup with both hands letting the hot steam carry the scent of the coffee into my face.
"Thought I might help you feed this morning Dad," I looked at him as I took my first sip.
"The help would be well thought of son."
Then he reached over and kissed Mom on the cheek and said, "Maybe we can talk someone into a pancake breakfast when we get back."
It had been a cold Christmas and the snow lingered around from the week before. Grandpa used to say it was waiting on its brother. We finished feeding the stock then Dad picked up and axe. "We've got to break the ice on the pond before we quit, the cows can't get in to drink."
As we walked down to the pond I gathered up my nerve and asked Dad, "Do you still love Mom."
He looked at me like I was crazy. "Sure, more than I did when I met her," Then waited like he was expecting me to say something else.
We walked on in silence for a while before Dad broke it, "Something you want to tell me son?"
It all came spilling out, the vineyards in France and how I had heard California had the right climate to grow grapes, how scared I had been the whole time I was in Europe. How there were things I had done I would never talk about. We reached the pond and I took first turn at chopping the ice. It was a precarious job. You had to stand right next to the water to hit the ice and yet you had to be careful not to slide in when it broke so I quit talking while we were finishing cutting five big holes. If you didn't make them big enough they would freeze right back up and a cow wouldn't break the ice to get at water. A horse would paw at it until it had broken but a cow would just stand there starring at it, no matter how thirsty it got.
We were walking back up to the barn when I told Dad about the girl in Chattanooga. He put the axes up and sat down on a bale of hay before he said anything back, "So this girl, do you love her?"
"Oh she's pretty Dad, she's got walnut colored hair and big old blue eyes and when she smiles the whole room lights up."
"Yea, but do you love her?"
"Well I guess so, we never fight and she is sweet as she can be."
"Yea son but do you love her?"
He kept asking that question until I had to answer it. But I didn't know how so I asked him, "How do you know if you are in love?"
He lit his pipe and took two or three puff's on it before he answered, "Love marks a man son, it shakes him down in his boots. It's different for a woman, she knows what it is. But a man, most of the time it takes by surprise. He don't know the difference in just having a crush and real love."
"How do you know."
"Why if you you've ever been there you can see it on a man, it's written on his face."
"Am I in love?"
He laughed, "Why son that's something you have to decide for yourself, if I told you might not believe me and you would always wonder if I was wrong."
"But how do you know if it will last? How did you know yours and Mom's would last."
"Well now that's a different kind of love son, that's the kind you decide on. It not that stuff that hits you like a sledge hammer and makes your knees buckle it's the kind that grows on you because every day when you get up you start it out with a kiss and the words in your head. Then when you lay down at night you fix anything that you've done wrong before you go to sleep. Cause you know when you get up in the morning you are going to love her all over again. You know it because you decide it."
We got up and walked back down toward the house, kicking the snow off our boots on the outside and then taking them off beside the back door, setting them just inside where they would stay warm. Dad walked over to Mom and pulled her to him sideways, giving her a kiss on the cheek when he did. "I think I want to skip them pancakes this morning and go right on to Christmas dinner," he said. "The boy and I had a talk while we were out and he needs to go back to Chattanooga on the afternoon train. He's got some business he needs to attend too."
CC 2009 Michael Gray
