Classes wouldn’t be back in session until early January, so Alice had a little time to go up north for a visit. She hadn’t seen them since summertime. That’d been a nice, long weekend lounging with her feet up and nothing of much importance in her head. It was a bit nice to be around the people here. Too much of them depressed her, but a few days here or there was fine. She’d told them she would try to come more often. And maybe she could’ve. But all semester, she’d been pulled in a hundred different directions and wasn’t ever in the mood to get away. And her agent was breathing down her neck, always coming to her with new propositions for books and essays she was too thinly stretched to write well.
Sometimes she ate cannabis chocolate and read over the essays from when she was young. She couldn’t believe how fresh and excitable she’d once been. There were pieces on Mary Shelley and Carson McCullers and The Second Sex. She couldn’t help herself by to take out the most recent articles and introductions and whatever she’d scribbled over the past few years. She supposed they were acceptable, although in a stale and banal sort of way. But everyone would know this and they would begin to eyeball her and sense that she would be returned to a lesser college if she should slip even further.
Thankfully, a new idea had come on slowly all the past two days as she sat here with her feet up. Her head had begun to spin. She was quiet and allowed herself to shake. It was clear. She would take a semester or two off and go attack the great subject of Atop the Steeple. The idea had struck when she’d been walking with the children through town on their way to the general store for hot chocolate and cookies.
Atop the Steeple began to eat at her. Last night, before getting ready for bed, she’d gone around thumping her head and exclaiming, “Of course! Of course! Of course!” Atop the Steeple nipped even when she sat with Grandpa and Grandma, with Tim, her son, and Susan, her favorite, in the warm and yellow kitchen after a hearty dinner of chicken dumplings. It was now the last night of her visit. She was getting jittery to go back home. Christmas was the day after tomorrow, but that didn’t seem to matter much now that Atop the Steeple was in her brain.
“Let’s get a big dessert for everyone,” Grandma said as she warmed milk and cocoa mix on the stovetop. “We have oranges, chocolates, tea …”
“I would prefer a beer,” Grandpa said with his usual restful charm.
“How dare you,” Grandma told him with a mocking sneer. “What do you think, Mom?” She looked Alice over. “Whatever you want, you just tell me.”
Alice smiled and nodded and pinched her lips together with her thumb and forefinger. She felt her brain racing into absurd and frivolous possibilities, but she caught herself, and she stayed close to Atop the Steeple, and she studied herself, liking how her initial thoughts on the old forgotten novel were already progressing so assuredly into the complexities. She hadn’t read the book in several years, and the story had returned to her in an instant.
Grandma brought the cocoa to the table and Alice took her mug and sat back with it, her legs crossed and stretched, and her chin resting upon two fingers. She stared into the tendrils the milk made in her mug, like church-spires, she saw them as.
“We wish you could stay for another two days,” Grandma said. “Until Christmas. Alice?”
“Don’t you want to?” Grandpa said. “For Christmas?”
“You must be very busy this time of the year.” Grandma looked about uncomfortably but trying to smile. “Must you go back to your school, Alice? You can’t stay through Christmas?”
“Hmm?” Alice shook her head and smiled. She held the mug tightly between her hands until she felt her palms burning. It was wonderful to drink cocoa inside this cozy kitchen on such a bitter evening. “This has sure been a wonderful visit.”
Grandma brought the box of chocolates to the table. Alice stuck her hand into the box without caring to look to see which one she got. The one she ate was coconut and she chewed it dumbly, remarking with a silly, private laugh how she’d always hated coconut and why.
But that didn’t matter. It was important to understand it all when it came to something like Atop the Steeple. She would need to read the book carefully several times over – immediately – if she left here, early enough – she would go with the book to her office and to begin. Every word would need to be studied and understood. It would take a long while, and she would need to prepare herself on the difficulty, so she wouldn’t get beaten-down, perhaps distracted by a different project, perhaps so frustrated that she would become meek and develop corrupt, narcissistic habits like heavy drinking. There wasn’t anything worse than not taking a book to its very edge, far past where the cowardly hesitated before returning to friendlier places. Grandma pushed the box to the kids. Tim got up onto his chair to look inside.
“We got all sort of treats for dessert tonight,” Grandma said. “I say we have a little Christmas morning early this year. Mom is going home tomorrow.”
Susan jumped off her chair and ran to the window. Her tiny pink nose pressed up against the clean glass. “It’s snowing,” she said in a girlish squeak. “We’re going to have a white Christmas.” They all stared at her rocking in front of the window and Alice felt her eyes getting a little damp as she watched, and the air inside her stomach compressed, but that soon passed.
“Maybe so,” and Grandpa whispered something in Tim’s ear.
Tim nodded and brought the box of chocolate to his sister. He waited as she slowly and excitedly looked over all the chocolates before carefully choosing. She wobbled slowly from one foot to the next as she ate the chocolate and watched the intensifying snowfall.
“Good job there,” Grandpa said into Tim’s ear, loud enough for them all to hear.
Grandma passed by the table and gently pressed her hand against Grandpa’s back, against his neck, atop his head, and her hand rested before she continued to the refrigerator.
“If it’s snowing now, I say we don’t waste it,” Grandma said as she brought the milk to the stovetop for more cocoa. “Isn’t it magical out there? We’ll go sledding in the afternoon.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying a few more days,” Alice said. “It’s been a great time.” They’d taken the kids snow sledding and even Alice had gotten her rides in on the old wooden toboggan. The three of them raced down the hill hollering like wild dogs. “I sure hope it’s a white Christmas for you.”
“That’s right. And I have out stockings all stuffed for everyone.” Grandma left the room. “Christmas came early this year!”
“We all wish you would stay a few more days,” Grandma said tentatively.
“I wish so too,” Alice said vaguely. She wished stupidly she had a little whiskey in her cocoa. That would help her Atop the Steeple.
“But you must get back?” Grandpa looked at her questioning.
“Yes,” Alice said as she took a white chocolate truffle. This wasn’t her favorite. “I’ll need to leave early tomorrow. Yes, quite early.”
“Well … I don’t,” and Grandpa looked away. They’d always had a difficult time talking with one another. “You look rested, so much better than when you arrived.”
“I looked so bad off when I arrived?” Alice laughed a little and took another chocolate. Pecan, she thought pleasantly, as she bit clean through it. “It was a long semester. But that’s over with. I feel refreshed and clean.” The pecan cream was soft on her tongue. “I’ve decided what I will work on next. A big project. I might have to take some time off for it.”
“Time off from what?”
“From teaching,” she said. “I’m a little inspired … stupid as it sounds, I feel somewhat brilliant and cocky.” She chuckled, but she didn’t want to start talking about Atop the Steeple with them. They wouldn’t understand. “I rubbed clean my blackboard and … well, I was stuck the last year or two, I guess.” They gave her dead looks. They didn’t understand and would never. “Everything I worked on and published seems trivial and pointless. I hate to say it like that, but that’s the truth.”
“I don’t understand,” Grandpa told her plainly. She held her mug of cocoa with both hands and carefully brought to her lips.
“A new project,” Alice said suddenly, but vaguely. Her lips hung open for a long moment before she decided not to say more on it. They were nice people, but too dense and lame to care much. “Well, my agent was bothering me on what I was going to do next.” She was doing her best to keep the bother from her voice. “I’ve been distracting myself too, with stupid articles and little pieces, sketches, and that sort of thing. My real work has been lagging.” She then laughed and clapped her hands. “I only needed a little time to think. My brain is now settled.”
“Look at them,” Grandma said as she returned, her arm full of the stockings she’d plucked from the inglenook. “We’re going to have our Christmas right now.”
“I rubbed off my blackboard, you know? Everything is nice and clean.”
Alice thought for a moment on her washed slate. Upon it, she could see the proud and vibrant picture of Atop the Steeple’s front cover. It was from the edition she’d read as a young woman, that summer after college concluded, she now saw plain. She held withing her a faint image of her sitting underneath a magnolia tree, reading the story.
She took another chocolate and grinned. “Look at me now,” she said brightly and almost laughed very hard, for all the work from last year could now be easily discarded and forgotten for good. The next year was suddenly big and healthy and packed with noise and motion. She could become prominent again, she thought, if she were diligent and serious enough.
“Come to the table, Susan,” Grandma called. “We’re going to open our stockings.”
Alice closed her eyes. “Look at me now,” she exclaimed. “Everything is so simple and clear. I had all these pains and nicks in my body. My elbows clicked and then my neck would have a strain, or my feet would hurt, or my stomach gurgled. I even had this pressure in my chest. I sometimes thought I was going crazy. I used to stroll around and my head was in the clouds.”
“That’s horrible,” Grandpa said hesitantly. His eyes were large. “Did you get it checked out?”
“Only stress. Wow,” she sighed and stifled a happy curse. “Did you put a little whiskey in my cocoa, Grandma? … I’m joke, of course, but I feel a little drunk … must be the inspiration, this book, these new beginnings … I simple have all this good energy going all through me.”
Grandma turned and picked Susan high off the ground. They laughed deliriously as Susan was spun about the room, her spindly legs churning. Then she was brought back to the table, sat down and her stocking was put in her hand. Grandma sat beside her and snickered as she watched them open their stockings.
“I’m only getting ready to begin on something and it’s going to be a nice long study,” Alice told them. She pressed her palms upon the table to keep from quivering too much. “I got a lot of work in front of me, but I can already see it.”
“Yes, you seem very settled,” Grandpa said. His fingers groped with Tim’s stocking. He pulled out a plastic candy cane full of tiny peppermint candies. “What do we have here?”
“That’s what good homemade dinners and all this resting does to me,” Alice said reflectively. She opened her own stocking and looked inside. “Look at all these things in here!”
“The one in green wrapping is from Susan and that box is from Tim,” Grandma said. “We went to a store in town and I let them pick out something for Christmas and they wrapped it too, didn’t you?” Grandma looked down at the kids and nudged them but they were too busy looking at their own stockings. “There’s nothing better than Christmas, isn’t there? I hope you had a good time. Did you, Alice?”
“I got all sorts of plans,” she said reflectively. “Now I’m itching to get back.”
“Oh, you don’t want to take a few more days off?” Grandpa said with consideration as he helped Tim unwrap his small present. “Christmas only comes around once and year and in the middle of February you will be …”
“What a time to be alive,” Alice said to them. Suddenly, she didn’t know why she said it, why she was speaking to them like this. “There’s nothing better than to be all miserable and blocked up …,” she continued, cheerily. “Suddenly, you have a big breakthrough and everything that you need to do becomes clear.” She looked all around, registering their reactions, but there wasn’t anything of meaning and intelligence and wisdom in their faces, so she looked away and … there’s an old book I read when the summer after college, when I met James and …”
“You didn’t meet James until much later,” Grandpa said. There was a careful look in his eyes as he peered at her from over the stacked presents. “Ten years later.”
“Yes – what I meant to say is that I read it then, but that I kept reading it, every few years and that, well, I remember that I met him when I was reading it. The work made a great impression on me. I didn’t know it until recently. That is did and now, I’ve been bopping my head and saying, of course, of course, of course!”
“What’s the book?” Grandma asked.
“It’s a book that meant a lot to me,” Alice said, not wanting to explain it. He wouldn’t have heard of it anyways. Very few people would’ve. “It was one of the books that came along for me at the perfect time,” she said matter-of-factly. “I made sure to read it whenever I was a little down. Books come along and they make everything better. I knew that all along but I didn’t think of it until right now, that I’m going to write a book on the book, a commentary, an explanation, an argument, a history even, a personal history, a … well, my mind is exploding with ideas. I feel I must begin right away on this new project – I don’t even know what it is!”
“That must be a wonderful feeling,” Grandpa said. He seemed not to know what to make of it but his manner didn’t reduce into contempt, like usual. “What’s the book called? Maybe I will read it too. Maybe I can give you a few pointers.” He almost looked like he was to laugh, as he shook her a small bag of caramel popcorn Tim pulled from his stocking.
“Don’t bother her like that.” Grandma bowed and whispered something into Susan’s ear. “We have oranges and caramels. My grandma always would tell me that when she was a little girl she would have an old-fashioned Christmas … they always did it a little different in her country, much different than we do it in America. But I like those traditions better.”
“There’s something a little false and greedy about America, isn’t there?” Alice said.
“I don’t know,” Grandma told her and looked about. A flash of glaring irritation passed over her face. “I was only saying that my grandma grew up differently.”
“Look at what your mom gave you,” Grandpa said to Tim as they fiddled with a box wrapped in green tissue paper. “What could it be? What could it be?”
“It’s an airplane that you can put together with glue,” Alice said. “You can probably fly it too.” She looked to Tim proudly as he held the airplane in the light and inspected it. “I was trying to decide between a train and the airplane.”
“This is a wonderful present, Mom,” Grandpa said. His cheeks were crimson. He fiddled with his stocking.
Tim looked at the airplane and turned it over in his hand. He didn’t seem to know what to say on it but he tried to smile and say thank you. Grandpa leaned down and whispered something into his ear and they both laughed and nodded vigorously.
“What a great little sketch book,” Grandma said, bending her face down to Susan’s shoulder. “You’ll be able to fill the whole thing with your beautiful drawings.”
“A sketch book and a box of colored pencils,” Alice told her daughter. “When I was little I loved to sit by myself and draw. I could waste a whole afternoon by myself just drawing.” She chuckled warmly and took another chocolate.
“Did you take the white chocolate?,” Tim asked as he poked through the box.
“The white one is mine this time,” Susan said nervously and she got up onto the chair to better look. “He got it the last time.”
“It’s hers tonight,” Grandma said as she came to the table with the pot of hot cocoa to top them off. “But nobody wants to get sick tonight, so we’ll all go to bed soon.”
“The white one isn’t even here,” Tim said as he shook his head at Susan.
“I see there’s a little bag of chocolate in your stockings,” Grandpa said quickly. “But bedtime is coming alone now. Nobody wants to get sick on too much dessert.”
All day, the country had been black and purple and now Alice watched the snowfall turn the world white and wondered if it would clear before tomorrow.
It was suddenly imperative that she return. Her mind raced, for she would need to go to her office for the book and laptop, and then home to begin. Atop the Steeple was a very important thing. Possibly nothing else was as serious. She would need to rush towards it. But she also must remember to go slow and watchful. There would be endless hours in worthy search for the loud, vulgar truth. Plenty of people searched for that in other books. Nobody much ever found it. Perhaps she would, if she were fortunate, in Atop the Steeple. But now everyone could be so lucky, and she would need to make a careful design of the cacophonic madness this book caused within her brain.
“You want to get up early with me to chop wood, don’t you?,” Grandpa teased.
“I always do,” Tim said. He stretched and yawned. “But I want the chocolate now.”
“You weren’t up with me yesterday,” Grandpa went on. “You were up watching movies and I had to go out chopping by myself without your help.” Grandpa picked Tim up with one big arm and Susan put her hands out too to be lifted. “One more chocolate for each of you and then we’ll go off.” Grandpa swung them about. “Everyone needs to be well rested for tomorrow. It’ll be a winter wonderland out there. We’ll get out the toboggin and go riding, should we?”
Later, Grandpa and she sat at the kitchen table drinking big mugs of cocoa mixed with whiskey and topped with marshmallows. Grandma had put the children to bed and she now busied, mumbling as she cleaned. Whenever Grandma passed the table, she touched Grandpa on his shoulder, his hand, the back of his neck where the skin was pinched into rounded rolls, or the shiny rosy bald spot atop his head. Grandpa drank the toddy seriously. He was more reflective and somber than when the children had been up. More than a few times, his eyes flashed to the bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter. Alice wanted him to go get it but he stayed put.
“They like you coming up here,” he said vaguely, with the expectation that more would follow. “They’re always so excited to see you. Believe me.”
“Of course, they do,” Grandma agreed a little too readily and agreeably.
“Don’t interrupt me … I’m only saying, Alice, that they like you coming up here, but they only don’t know how to … I know they’re a little quiet, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
Alice nodded like she understood but she’d been thinking on Atop the Steeple as she drank the toddy and felt a little thrown about being talked to. The way they bothered her always made her feel like the initial moments after awakening from a long, drowsy nap. It’d been so quiet between them ever since Grandpa and Grandma had returned from the children’s rooms. It was always difficult for them all to talk naturally and friendly-like. She thought she might have a few too many drinks this evening, by her lonesome, and she longed for them to turn in.
“What I mean is that it’s hard on them,” Grandpa said. “It’s only that it’s hard on those kids to understand … Alice, it’s nobody’s fault. You must do what you need to get by.”
“I don’t think we need to get in this now,” Grandma said. “We can talk about this some other time.”
“I was only trying –”
“Please,” Grandma told him.
“I suppose that they’ll understand when they get older and …”
“Don’t you think you’ve had too much,” Grandma said. She stood stock-still and stared at him meanly. “I said we can talk about this some other time.”
“What do you mean?” Alice asked. “Too much what?”
“We don’t need to be talking like this, not now. It’s been a good night.”
“We’re only talking a little,” Grandpa told her. “Aren’t we, Alice?”
“I’m saying that we don’t need to be getting into some big argument,” Grandma told him.
“We’re not going to get into any sort of fighting. No, we won’t.”
Alice exhaled slowly to keep from asserting something she shouldn’t. The whiskey and Grandpa’s strange, stern talking made her feel a bit off-kilter. She resented him, she believed, and she would need to get back to Atop the Steeple. It was already much too late, and she didn’t want to stay up drinking and then be in a poor, rushed mood tomorrow.
“We don’t want to be fighting,” Grandma said nervously. “That’s what I’m worried on.”
“I’m not worried,” Grandpa told her pointedly. “Alice?”
Grandma studied them both for a long time. “I’m not worried either.” Her earnest eyeballs moved shifted slowly from Grandpa to Alice.
“Hey, why don’t …” Grandpa paused and sighed. “Sit and have a drink with us,” he told Grandma kindly. “No? Well, we don’t argue anymore. Do we, Alice? There’s no point in that fighting. Is there?” He looked to her. His eyes were tight and pointed. “Is there, Alice?”
“None at all,” Alice said. “There’s nothing ever to worry about.”
“Yes, there’s no point in that.” He seemed to be getting a little flustered. “I was only saying that … sit down, Grandma … take a load off … I’m only saying it’s hard for them to use to it and everything. I know they’re a little quiet, but that’s no big dead, is it?”
“They’re doing perfectly well, Alice,” Grandma said. “Don’t you think so?”
“It’s only a little confusing when some things are one way and then they change,” Grandpa pondered. “Little children don’t much know what to do when what they have used to changes, does it? It’s hard on everyone but … oh well,” and Grandpa paused, left the table, poured himself a little bit more cocoa into his mug and took another chocolate from the box. He turned the chocolate in his fingers before eating it.
“Please, be careful,” Grandma muttered. “You don’t want to be sick tomorrow.”
Grandpa shook his head at her. “I’m only going to say they’re doing well. They’re adjusting and so very happy, much better than ever.”
“Of course, they are,” Grandma agreed.
Grandpa turned to her. “I’m saying it aloud. There are all sorts of things that could’ve happened.” His eyes impressed upon Grandma.
“Nothing would ever happen to them,” Grandma said proudly, but with a quickening inflection. “They wonderful children.”
“She’s right, Alice. They have more friends than any child I’ve ever seen.”
“They sure do.”
Grandpa nodded vigorously. “I was a little worried, we both were, because we weren’t sure if they were going to have trouble making friends. But they fit right in just like a hand into a glove and we must take them everywhere all the time. It sure can get exhausting.” Grandpa cleared his throat. “It can always be a little difficult to think exactly what someone believes and of course that goes double with children because things are so uncertain. But I’ve been so impressed by how they’ve been. Aren’t you too?”
“I don’t know why she wouldn’t be,” Grandma said. “They’re such well-behaved –”
“Of course, of course,” Grandpa told her. “There was a tiny incident in school the other day, Alice, some big argument in Susan’s class. The kids were divided. But Susan took no part. She refused to take a side.”
“Alice, she’s such a good girl. All the different kids wanted her on their side but because she took none, the others gave up their argument and wanted to be like her. So, the big conflict evaporated in an instant. Isn’t that unbelievable?”
“It is,” Grandpa said and took a long drink of the toddy. “We were amazed and the teachers were so delirious with –”
“I know I couldn’t believe it when I was told,” Grandma broke in. Her cheeks were bulged and rosy. “Susan didn’t seem to understand much of anything about it and I wanted to tell her how proud I was, but she only said that she thought they were being stupid and … their teachers always say how polite they both are.”
“I told Susan they were being stupid but a lot of people are,” Grandpa said and leaned forward. His eyelids blinked wonderfully. “I told her that a lot of people act stupid about all sorts of things and that she was good to stay out of it and be a good model for the rest.”
“It’s an important lesson to learn.” Grandma laughed.
“It was the only thing that she could do, even though it was the most difficult way to be. Because she was alone and in the middle. That’s the hardest place to be and … well,” Grandpa sat back and folded his hands. He didn’t seem so excited anymore. “Isn’t that something?” he said quietly. “I thought it was. I hope you’re proud, Alice. Are you? Alice? Alice?”
Photo by Kirill Balobanov on Unsplash
