Colors of Christmas Page 9

  Many people would hear in their heads the great solo from Handel’s Messiah, but Astrid heard the soft voice of the priest who had welcomed her into his church so many years ago when the ground of her life was anything but smooth and level. He had put her on the highway for God, and it had seen her through the valleys she hadn’t imagined could still lie ahead, much less that she would come through them to see God’s glory.

  A brief litany of prayer followed. Astrid’s lips moved for the congregational responses while in her heart she pondered one person: Carly. She was a physical therapist. Presumably within a few weeks Astrid would be walking again and the two would have no reason to meet. A sense of urgency gripped Astrid’s heart. Carly was walking through a valley. Astrid didn’t know its terrain—yet—but she recognized it nevertheless.

  Hope would be the only answer.

  CHAPTER 15

  Astrid rolled into the therapy and exercise room just after breakfast the next day. When Carly’s head lifted from the laptop on the desk, Astrid exhaled relief. All day yesterday, after the church service, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. But Carly was there and put a smile on her face as she waved Astrid over.

  “We’ll start with some heat again,” Carly said. “It seems to loosen you up pretty well.”

  “Truth be told,” Astrid said, “having my feet wrapped in heat is my favorite part of therapy.”

  “I have all kinds of fun for you today. Pushing a rolling pin with the arch of your foot, rocking a board back and forth.”

  “And the marbles,” Astrid said. “Don’t forget the marbles.”

  “Never.” Carly moved to a therapy table and lowered it. “But in fact, I was reading an article about some new exercises that made me think of you. Are you game for being a guinea pig?”

  “But of course.” Astrid wiggled her eyebrows.

  “I put the magazine in my bag. Give me a minute.”

  Astrid’s eyes went to a small rack of narrow lockers, expecting Carly would have stowed her personal belongings, but instead Carly went to a duffel against the wall that had seen better days. She unzipped it and rummaged around.

  “Are you planning a trip?” Astrid ventured.

  “No.” Carly’s arm went into the duffel up to her elbow. “Just some stuff.”

  It was none of Astrid’s business what was in Carly’s bag or why she had brought it to work, but it was a curious sight. When Carly lifted a baseball bat out of her way, Astrid’s eyes narrowed. What in the world? If the calendar showed mid-June rather than mid-December, she would have supposed Carly was the athletic type and played in a softball league. But a baseball bat in a scruffy duffel was a peculiar thing to carry around a week before Christmas. Of course, people did a lot of peculiar things right before Christmas. As far as Astrid knew, the bag could hold assorted gifts for Carly’s four-year-old son. But the baseball bat was full size, the sort that Alex’s eldest son used on his school team.

  Carly pulled out a magazine and shoved the bat back in.

  “It was a pleasant surprise to see both you and Sam pop in on Saturday,” Astrid said, eyeing the bag as Carly zipped it closed.

  “As hard as I try,” Carly said, “I never quite get my notes finished. I can take stuff home to read and plan, but I can’t access the system from home to enter anything. At least I’m caught up for now.”

  “I suppose the therapists don’t cross paths with the kitchen staff too often.”

  “Not too often,” Carly said. “I think Sam is actually an employee of Sycamore Hills. Technically the therapists work for an outside agency contracted to provide services here, so we don’t go to staff meetings or employee events.”

  “Sam seems very nice,” Astrid said.

  “I’ve only talked to him a few times. Once we walked out together at the end of the day and discovered we had parked next to each other.”

  “A serendipitous moment,” Astrid said. Carly began to wrap her foot in warm cloths.

  “I suppose.” Carly chuckled. “He did come to my rescue when I was about to spill a pile of ill-balanced reading material all over the parking lot.”

  “So he’s thoughtful. I suspected as much.”

  “He seems like a sharp guy.”

  Ah. So Carly had noticed.

  “Friendly, too,” Astrid said.

  “No question about that.”

  “Helpful and responsible,” Astrid said. “He came in on his day off, after all, just to be sure the meals were right.”

  “I hear people mention him now and then,” Carly said. “He gets out and about for someone whose job is overseeing the kitchen.”

  “One must never let one’s job confine one,” Astrid said. “I learned that lesson when I was half your age.”

  “Did you have a job you didn’t care for?” Carly repositioned a pillow and gestured that Astrid recline if she wanted to.

  “Several,” Astrid said, “but never a job I wasn’t grateful for. Life wasn’t easy after the war. My father wanted to rebuild, but he lost his property.”

  “Lost it? How?”

  “The building had belonged to a Jew before my father bought it. Papa had all the documents to prove that he had paid the owner in full through the bank, but the bank said none of the money reached Jewish owners. It had all been confiscated by the Nazis without notifying anyone. Many Jews returned to Germany after the war, and the previous owner of Papa’s building was one of them. Since he had never been paid, he was entitled to the property.”

  Carly dropped onto a stool. “So your family still had nothing?”

  “Nothing. Most owners received money from the Allies to rebuild, but we were not so fortunate. Papa was fifty-six and had to start from scratch.”

  “My mother is fifty-six,” Carly said. “My dad passed away a few years ago, but he left some life insurance, and she has a home and a job and a retirement account. I hate to think what her life would be like if she lost everything now.”

  “Papa was shocked. We all were. But he would have started over.”

  “Would have? What happened?”

  “A year later he was accused of a crime—the crime of speaking without thinking of the consequences. He had trusted the wrong person, after all, and because of one sentence, a friend was sent to the Russian front, where he was killed.”

  “Surely he could not be held responsible. He didn’t know. And the war was over.”

  “Nothing made sense in those days. When the summons for his arrest arrived, my aunt helped him get false papers and escape with a group of refugees. Eventually he found work—nothing like having his own Apotheke—but my parents lived apart for ten years. We couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh, Astrid!”

  “It was hard,” Astrid said. “Papa’s dreams for us never came true. I do not make light of it. But I joined the church during those difficult times in the countryside, so I would never take them back. My faith gives me such hope.”

  She had barely finished elementary school at age fourteen when Mama found a job for her. She was up every day at four in the morning to take a workers bus into Würzburg, surrounded by grimy railroad workers who smoked. No other girls or women rode this bus, but Astrid had no other way to get to the job her mother had arranged for her with the woman who had designed Mama’s dresses in better times. Once, she missed the bus back to the village in the afternoon and had to walk the twenty-four kilometers. It took seven hours.

  The next year she worked for a dentist’s family as domestic help—scrubbing floors, harvesting fall vegetables, pulling up weeds, running errands, looking after the baby. Every two weeks she had a weekend off. Papa was away all those years and Harald had moved to Munich. Mama became ill, and Uta was too young to look after her. Astrid pedaled back and forth on a bicycle, losing weight by the week, until her aunt had to come and nurse them all back to health. But in postwar Germany, Astrid was grateful to have any work at all that might contribute to the welfare of her family.

  La
ter, a toothache took Astrid to her aunt’s dentist, where she met the dentist’s son, who was also a dentist. He wanted to marry, and if it hadn’t been for Heinz, they might have wed.

  “I find Sam charming.” Astrid made a minute adjustment in the wrap on her foot. “I once knew someone very much like Sam. Married him, as a matter of fact.”

  Carly’s eyes widened.

  “I took my brother’s fresh laundry to him in Munich,” Astrid said. “He was at the university there, living on bread and cheese. Heinz was his friend. He was a refrigeration engineer for the Americans, setting up refrigeration for the snack bars all around Munich. One day I arrived just as Harald and Heinz were getting ready for a bicycle outing. Heinz insisted I should come and scrounged up a bicycle for me to borrow.”

  She would never forget that day. The ride through the lush, green, wooded area. The spring sun. The ancient tower that was all that was left of a medieval castle. Walking along the Isar River talking. The very day that Heinz said he was falling in love with Astrid. He had just received a visa to immigrate to America.

  America!

  Heinz looked her in the eye and asked if she would like to join him there someday.

  How could this be? They had just met!

  Emotions kicked into high gear, though. They got engaged on her eighteenth birthday a few weeks later, in May, and then married in September. They managed a honeymoon in a mountain resort, and then lived in Munich for three months before it was time for Heinz to leave. A married woman whose husband was an ocean away, Astrid moved back in with her mother and sister to await news that she could join Heinz. Finally he found someone to sponsor her immigration. Though this meant she was leaving her mother and sister, still in destitute circumstances after eight years, nothing could have stopped Astrid from boarding the boat. After all the Nazi years, after all the circumstances that took her father away and altered the family’s financial and social standing, life in Germany remained arduous. She shed no tears when she left Mama and Uta. It seemed that members of the family had to find their own ways to a better life. No one earned enough to keep the family out of poverty. After a year apart, Astrid and Heinz were finally together again in Cleveland, Ohio.

  Heinz had rented a room for the two of them with a German family. After three happy months, Heinz received a draft notice into the US army. There was no choice. Heinz would go into the army, and Astrid would work in a candy factory and try to learn English.

  One morning just after five, as she was getting ready for work, the doorbell rang. Astrid opened the door, and an army officer handed her a telegram.

  WE ARE SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR HUSBAND HEINZ ASMUS WAS KILLED DUE TO A HAND GRENADE EXPLOSION THIS MORNING, THE 18TH OF JANUARY, 1954. STOP

  She screamed.

  Heinz was gone.

  Carly’s eyes were saucers as she listened. The wraps around Astrid’s foot had gone cold during the telling.

  “But you hardly had any time together.” Carly’s voice caught.

  “Just a breath,” Astrid said. “I choose to believe we would have been deliriously happy for the rest of our long lives.”

  Carly removed the wraps and began manipulating Astrid’s foot, gently testing progress in range of motion.

  “And Sam reminds you of your husband?” Carly said.

  “Yes. At least in how I remember him. It’s been nearly sixty years. Sam has the same light in his eyes Heinz had. Heinz knew what he wanted and went after it.”

  “Including you,” Carly said.

  Astrid laughed softly. “Yes, including me. I was well loved.”

  Carly turned away for supplies.

  “Someday,” Astrid said. “Don’t lose hope.”

  Carly shook her head and sighed heavily. “I have a feeling you mean Sam. He seems nice, but I’m not looking. I missed my chance for Prince Charming when I squandered it on Tyler’s father. That was a mistake from the get-go.”

  Astrid sat up and reached for Carly’s hand and locked on her eyes. “Don’t lose hope.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “You’re not alone. There is always a second chance.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Astrid had always been a newspaper person. Alex and Ingrid claimed they got all the news they needed by reading on their phones. Astrid had a phone. It was even a smartphone, thanks to Alex’s insistence. And she even knew how to send a text and get on the Internet. But it wasn’t the same as pouring a second cup of coffee and unfolding a newspaper to leisurely look at whatever piqued her interest.

  After her therapy session with Carly finished, Astrid took the elevator downstairs, rolled through the dining room into the adjoining bistro for coffee. Someone had assembled a tabletop tree since yesterday, bringing the total to seven. Astrid got lucky. A staff person was tidying up the bistro.

  “Have you come for your newspaper coffee?” Maureen said.

  Astrid nodded. Eight days at Sycamore Hills and already she had a recognizable habit. “When I break free of this contraption on wheels, I’ll be able to pour my own coffee and carry it across the hall.”

  “Until then, it’s my privilege to do it for you.”

  Astrid made a wide turn and headed to the library, where she chose a table near the window and across the room from the fireplace and tree. Compared to the towering trees of the lobby and parlor, this one looked ordinary. It was the ornaments that drew her attention, as they had for the last week. The entire set was cross-stitched little vignettes of the Christmas story, or symbols that had come to be associated with Christmas, all in tiny gold-rimmed round frames. There must be a history to how Sycamore Hills came to possess this collection. Perhaps it had been donated by one of the residents. Certainly it reflected years of dedicated work. Everyone had a story. Astrid would have to make a point to ask Penny about the ornaments.

  Maureen set a steaming mug of coffee on the table. “Enjoy. You can give me the news highlights later.”

  Astrid smiled and picked up the mug to breathe in the aroma before testing the temperature against her lips. After a satisfying swallow, she smoothed the newspaper in front of her and began with the front page. This was a local paper that wouldn’t take long to consume. Then she would move on to what she thought of as the big city paper.

  She finished her coffee halfway through the second paper and leaned over to move the mug out of her way.

  Her pants pocket rang. That’s what her youngest granddaughter said when a cell phone went off in someone’s pocket. Astrid leaned to one side so she could release the phone from dark captivity. The screen announced Alex was calling.

  “Alex! How are you?”

  “I’m doing well, Mom. How about you?”

  “Settling in.”

  “Therapy going well?”

  “I can very nearly pick up a small marble with my toes.”

  Alex laughed. “A useful skill, no doubt.”

  “No doubt. How is France?”

  “Complicated.” Alex’s jovial tone shifted. “I was supposed to fly home tomorrow, but this deal is taking longer than I anticipated.”

  Astrid moistened her lips and awaited explanation.

  “Just a couple more days,” Alex said. “It’s still a week until Christmas. I have plenty of time to get home, and we’ll all have Christmas together just like we planned.”

  “Of course we will,” Astrid said. “You should see this place now. They take the holidays very seriously at Sycamore Hills. Trees and tinsel and garland everywhere.”

  “I haven’t even seen the tree at my own house yet,” Alex said. “The boys promised to put it up while I was gone.”

  “Then I’m sure they have.”

  “Have you heard from Ingrid?”

  “Only briefly. That reminds me—do you recall what you did with the gold ornaments?”

  “The ones from your grandmother?”

  “Yes, those.” What other gold ornaments would she be asking about? “I asked that we be sure they came with me here.
”

  “I remember,” Alex said. “I packed them up myself. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay long enough to unpack the boxes, but they should be in one of them.”

  “I’ve unpacked everything,” Astrid said, “and they weren’t there.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss a box?”

  She was living in six hundred and twenty-three square feet and had only a small front closet and a larger one in the bedroom. It wasn’t as if a box could have been set down someplace where she wouldn’t easily see it.

  “Are we sure we got everything off the truck?” Astrid said.

  “I looked in the empty U-Haul myself. They’ll turn up.”

  Astrid controlled her sigh so Alex wouldn’t hear it. The ornaments wouldn’t simply “turn up.” She was quite sure they weren’t in the apartment.

  “So you’re rebooked for the day after tomorrow?” she said.

  “Right. I’ll get in late, but I’ll pop over the day after that.”

  “It will be good to see you.” He would see for himself that the ornaments weren’t there. Her stomach squeezed at the thought that three ornaments that survived the bombing of Würzburg and spent a year buried under rubble would now be lost to negligence.

  “My meeting is about to start,” Alex said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  He clicked off, and Astrid’s phone went dark. She dropped it into the scooter’s bag and returned to perusing the big city newspaper. About the time she wished she had another half cup of coffee, the commotion began. Even in the library down the hall from the reception desk, it was hard to ignore the fact that something was happening—and had the potential to go wrong. Astrid closed the newspaper, folded it—she was never one to leave a mess—and arranged herself on the scooter to navigate toward the sound.