“It’s okay,” he whispered when the baby indicated that she wanted Cal to hold her. He’s had a year of practical experience with Kate and Rob’s baby and he let her balance on his knees as the rest of us stood to sing the opening hymn, “Angels We Have Heard on High.”
She was quiet while the choir sang an arrangement of “Adeste Fideles” in glorious harmony, but began to squirm and fuss a little when Dr. Yelvington took the pulpit. We passed her back to Portland, who calmed her with a bottle; ten minutes later, she was sound asleep.
Cal started to take out his Game Boy, but Dwight gave a negative headshake and he put it away again and tried to look interested in what Dr. Yelvington was saying about the true spirit of Christmas.
Afterward, we sought out Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash to wish them a merry Christmas and to thank her for the fruitcake. Portland and Avery and Portland’s parents were going to have Sunday dinner with them to celebrate the baby’s birthday, and Aunt Zell assured me that there was enough for three more, but I had left a ham in the oven with a sweet potato casserole and we needed to get back before everything turned to charcoal.
As soon as lunch was cleared away, though, Cal began to pester Dwight to go for the mistletoe.
Mistletoe’s a parasite on deciduous trees. It’s spread by birds who eat the gummy white berries and then perch in the twigs at the end of a branch to clean their beaks, so it’s not easy to harvest. You can’t just shinny up a tree and break some off because it’s usually growing out at the tips of branches too thin to support even a boy’s weight. But if you have a good eye and a steady aim, you can shoot through the thick green stems and bring home enough to kiss half the county.
We’re not particularly gun-crazy in my family. You’ll never see an AK-47 in our houses, but most of my friends and I did grow up with utility guns. Farmers liked to keep a loaded rifle hanging on pegs over their bedroom doors where they could easily grab it if needed in the middle of the night. If any child ever touched his father’s gun without permission, I never heard about it.
Daddy gave each of the boys a simple bolt-action .22 as soon as he thought they could handle the responsibility. Seth got his at ten; Will was fifteen. He taught us to respect both the gun’s danger and the life of whatever animal we killed. That last was rammed home to me the day Adam and Zach shot a couple of brown thrashers down at the edge of the woods when they were eleven.
“I ain’t gonna give you the licking you deserve,” Daddy told them when he found the little corpses and brought them up to the house. “Not this time. But you boys ever kill another songbird, you’re gonna clean it and cook it and eat every last bite of it. You hear me?”
All through my teen years, I enjoyed trailing along behind my brothers and their dogs on a frosty moonlit night to hunt for coons and possums with my own little single-shot .22, and I got pretty good at plinking cans and shooting the paper targets the boys pinned onto hay bales, but when Dwight unlocked the gun case in our bedroom that afternoon, I had to admit that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fired it. My brothers don’t hunt much anymore and their children don’t seem very interested either. Reese is about the only one in the next generation who wants to bag a couple of deer every fall.
Dwight and Cal had changed their suits and ties for jeans and flannel shirts as soon as we got home. Even though I was going out again, I hadn’t wanted to get ham grease on my red wool suit, so I had changed into a long blue zip-up robe. Now I sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed to watch as Dwight tucked a box of cartridges in his jacket pocket and took out his .22 Remington with its 3x scope. Although Cal had lived with us for almost a full year, this was the first time he had seen the gun case unlocked and he was surprised to learn that the second, smaller .22 belonged to me. I gathered that Jonna hadn’t approved of guns and wouldn’t have them in the house. He hadn’t even been allowed cap pistols or a BB gun. As so often happens when something is forbidden, his fingers clearly itched to hold one.
“If you want to start teaching him how to shoot,” I told Dwight, “take mine. It’ll fit him better.”
Cal’s eyes widened with excitement. “Can we, Dad? Please. Can we?”
“You sure?” Dwight asked, and I knew he was asking about more than the use of my gun.
“Nine’s about when Daddy started you boys, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, “I guess it was.”
I reached over and took Cal’s arm and turned him to me until we were face-to-face and our eyes were level. With my hands on his shoulder, I said, “This is serious, Cal. A gun is not a toy. You’ve got to listen to your dad, pay attention to what he tells you, and do exactly what he says, okay?”
Instead of pulling away from me, he nodded solemnly. “Yes, ma’am. I will. I promise.”
“Good. If you keep that promise, then when Dad says you’re ready, you can have my gun to keep.”
“Honest?” In his sudden excitement, he gave me such an exuberant hug that I fell back on the bed and he fell on top of me, which struck us both as hilariously funny. Especially when Bandit jumped up on the bed and started licking our faces.
As we untangled ourselves, I realized that for once, he wasn’t self-conscious about having hugged me in broad open daylight, and I doubted that I’d get a better present this whole Christmas season.
Laughing and chattering in anticipation, he ran to get his own jacket, Bandit dancing at his heels.
Dwight shook his head at me. “I hope you’re right about him being old enough.”
I lay back on the pillows. “It’s like the birds and the bees,” I teased him. “If you don’t teach him at home, he’s going to pick it up on the school bus or on the street.”
He leaned down to kiss me just as Cal reappeared in the doorway.
“Oh, jeez,” he said. “Y’all aren’t going to get mushy now, are you?”
Dwight gave him a scowl that didn’t fool either of us. “Aren’t you supposed to knock first?”
“Not if the door’s open. She said only if it’s closed.”
So I was back to being “she”?
Perplexed, I kicked them both out so I could get dressed for Mallory Johnson’s funeral.
