Your Healing Touch
Part 11
By Amy
Emerging from the bathroom a mere twenty minutes later, feeling refreshed and renewed, I marvel at the fact that I was able to blow dry my hair neatly into place, complete my understated make-up job, and dab on a slight amount of perfume, all in such a short amount of time. I think to myself that if Danny weren’t waiting for me in the kitchen, I probably would’ve lingered much longer under the steaming hot water of the shower. Knowing that that marvelous creature awaited, me made a hot shower seem like a root canal – slow and painful.
“That was fast,” Danny says, as I my bare feet trod across the kitchen floor toward the coffee pot.
Feeling a tad bit sexy in my faded blue jeans and snug red shirt, I pour my coffee into the mug ever so slowly before turning around to face him. “I don’t really spend a lot of time on myself… my appearance anyway. I’ve always thought that if someone didn’t like me because of the way I looked, then I didn’t need them anyway. I’m just me, and everyone else can take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it,” he responds, and my breath catches in my throat as I turn around. It’s now that I realize he changed clothes while I was in the shower. Shirtless and barefooted, like myself, he looks like an Adonis leaning against the kitchen counter in a pair of blue jeans that look like they were made for his body.
“Thanks,” I say, unsure of how to respond to his last statement. “I guess I’ve just always thought it was important to be myself.”
“I like that in a girl,” he says.
Curious about the kind of girls he’s known before, I ask, “How many girls like that have you known?”
“Just one,” he replies with a grin. “I met her last night.”
A new sense of confidence fills me, and I smile before saying, “Wanna read some more?”
“Of your story?” he asks rhetorically. “Of course I do.”
Reaching toward my laptop which still sits atop the kitchen counter, I quickly plug the battery in and open the computer onto the kitchen table. “You can read while I make breakfast.”
“You don’t have to cook,” he says as begin opening a chapter for him to read.
“I know that,” I say coyly. “I want to. How does a cheese omelet sound?”
“Better than anything I’ve cooked for myself in quite some time,” he answers.
“It’s settled then,” I say. “You read and I’ll cook.”
I motion for him to sit down at the table, and as he does my eyes follow the nakedness of his strong back muscles. My heart pleads with my hands to touch him, but I refrain, not wanting to give too much of myself away.
“What am I reading?” he asks as he looks at the screen. “What part of the story is this?”
“This is the first Christmas I spent without my mom,” I answer solemnly.
“I’ll be spending Christmas without my father this year,” he quietly whispers.
“I know, Danny,” I say, finally letting my hands touch his body, resting them gently on his shoulders as I stand behind him. “I thought it might help you to read this… to know that you can get through it.”
“Thank you,” he says, his voice still a soft whisper, as his left hand reaches up to his shoulder to grasp mine. “I seem to be saying that a lot.”
“No thanks necessary,” I say honestly. “It’s nice to have someone to share my story with, since I haven’t shared it with any of my family yet.”
“You have no idea how much this means, that you’re letting me into the post personal, private part of your life,” he says. “That you would do that to simply help me amazes me.”
Thinking to myself that there’s much more to it than that, I answer, “If it gets to be too much, stop reading.”
“Not a chance,” he replies with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I want to know as much about you as I can.”
Reluctantly removing my hand from his shoulder, I answer, “Well in that case, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on my omelets.”
Quickly making my way to the refrigerator, I begin removing the necessary ingredients, as Danny begins to read about the first Christmas after my mom’s death.
Stealing quietly down the stairs, long after her father and Kyle had gone to sleep, Kris crept into the living room and stared at the glowing Christmas tree. Technically it was Christmas morning, considering that it was well past midnight, but the darkness outside stretched Christmas Even into the early morning hours. She did not understand what had compelled her to come here in the middle of the night, since the evening had not been an especially festive one. Rhonda, her mother’s best friend, and her son Greg, Kris’s best friend, were there. They did the best they could to down-play the blatantly obvious absence. Kris’s father and Kyle had done what they could to make the tree-trimming the joyous occasion that it used to be. But despite everyone’s efforts, Kris’s heart still ached in a way she could not describe, a way she believed would never go away.
This would be her first Christmas that she would endure without her mother, and Kris had given up hope of ever feeling happy again. Her mother had always created such special moments surrounding the decorating of the Christmas tree, and having to experience that event without her was almost more than Kris could bear. She supposed that was why she had come down here – to try and recapture, at least in her own imagination, a little bit of the magic her mother could no longer manufacture.
Something was missing from the tree; she just could not put her finger on what. The angel sat at the top. The silly looking reindeer that Kris had made in Sunday school when she was five years old hung at eye level. Last year, she had begged her mother not to hang it on the tree, reasoning that it was tacky. But Paula had insisted that it was special because Kris made it with her own hands and it would always hang in a very prominent spot on the tree. The sparkling lights twinkled in the darkness. But something wasn’t right. All of a sudden, Kris remembered.
Quickly, she tip-toed to the bureau on the opposite wall of the living room. Opening the bottom cabinet and reaching toward the back, she found the box of her mother’s most cherished tree ornaments and pulled it carefully onto her lap. She took a deep breath before opening it, knowing that inside were tidbits of her mother’s personality… the last remnants of a woman so incredibly, so extraordinary.
Gently lifting the top from the small, white box, her eyes immediately beheld the small pink baby rattle proclaiming “Baby’s First Christmas”. She still remembered the story her mother always told, of how she bought that ornament just after Kris’s birth in October, believing whole-heartedly that they would win the custody battle for her and bring her home with them. A sliver silhouette of the baby Jesus, lying in the manger, was also there, and Kris recalled how her mother never let anyone forget the true reason for the Christmas celebration.
Then Kris noticed a small envelope in the corner of the box. Reaching for it, she smiled at the sight of her mother’s handwriting on the outside. The envelope was labeled “My Sweet Kris”, and with tears beginning to form in her eyes, Kris opened the envelope and watched a beautiful gold star, with the outline of a heart engraved on it, fall into her hand. She pulled a small slip of paper from the envelope and began reading.
My Sweet Kris,
Last weekend we visited the cabin together – you, Kyle, your daddy, and me. It was a wonderful time, as always, but what I remember most was the time you and I spent outside together late at night. Do you remember talking about the stars, and how the city lights dim their light? The stars are so much brighter in the country, when they’re not dimmed by the street lights and car lights of the city. I told you to always let your love be like the stars in the country – bright and shining, undimmed by the things that this world has to offer.
This gold star is for you, so that every Christmas season you can remember that special night we shared. The heart engraved on it is to remind you that the love inside you is like a bright, shining star – brighter than anything else in your life. Never let that love die, Kris. Always let it shine.
I love you, my sweet Kris, more than my own life, Mom
As I set a plate of toast and a cheese omelet beside the computer, Danny’s tear-stained cheeks look up at me. “Michelle, that was the most touching thing I’ve ever read.”
Quickly, I recount to him the night at the cabin and the conversation my mother and I had, and why the ornament remains so priceless to me. “You see, I thought that Christmas would be awful. I thought it would be the hardest thing ever. And it was difficult. But just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, there was my mother, right in the middle of it… just like she always was. It was then that I realized that in every part of my life, everything that I did, there were little pieces of her… moments she’d left behind… a word, a fragrance, a touch. It didn’t make the hurt go away, but it did make me feel a lot less lonely.”
Without warning, Danny grasps my hand and pulls me to his lap. His face pressed against my collarbone, he cries quietly, as he whispers, “That’s why I’m here.