Mr. Delacroix laid a cream colored envelope on the white tablecloth and slid it, with two fingers, toward my daughter. He is a tall silver haired man of seventy, the father of the man Lauren has been seeing, and I had met him barely an hour before. We were at a restaurant in Tulsa for the engagement supper, and my other daughter, Kayla, sat at the far end of the table in her scrubs, because she had come straight from a double shift. Lauren, the dermatologist, had just finished a speech about how some people are born to heal and some are born to wipe.
The table had gone quiet. Lauren was looking at the envelope as though it might bite. Mr. Delacroix said, “I did not come tonight to be rude. I came because my son told me about your sister, and I believed I knew the name.” He turned to Kayla at the end of the table, and his voice softened. “Miss Kayla, three Christmases ago, you worked at Cedar Ridge Care Center on the night shift. Is that right?” Kayla looked startled. She said, “Yes, sir. I did.”
He said, “My late wife, Margaret, lived in that building for her last two years. She had dementia. By the end she did not know me, or our son, or her own name. I visited every day, and every day she looked at me like a stranger.” He stopped for a moment. “That December, I could not bear to go on Christmas Day. I told myself it did not matter. I stayed home. I sat in the dark in my own kitchen.” His hand trembled slightly on the cloth. “And at seven that evening the telephone rang.”
Some of the best medicine is delivered in pajamas, off key, by someone who was not asked to come.
I did not know where this was going. I looked at Kayla. She had gone pink around the ears. Mr. Delacroix said, “It was a young nurses aide. She said, Mr. Delacroix, I am calling from your wifes room. I have my two children with me, and we have brought a small tree. We would like her to have a Christmas, if that is all right with you.” His eyes filled. “She held the telephone to my wifes ear. And I heard two little voices singing Silent Night, off key, and my wife humming along.”
Kayla had never told me. She had left her own children with a neighbor for an hour that night, then thought better of it and brought them along instead, in their pajamas, to a care home where nobody had visitors. She had set up a four foot artificial tree on the dresser, and strung it with paper ornaments her kids had made, and sat on the edge of the bed holding the hand of Margaret for the rest of her break. She had done it without being asked. She had not mentioned it to the staff, or to me, or anyone.
Mr. Delacroix went on. “Margaret died eleven days later. The last clear thing she did, the nurses told me, was to point at the paper star on that tree and smile. I have wanted for three years to find the person who gave her that. The home would only say it had been one of the aides. Today my son said your sisters name, and I knew.” He tapped the envelope. “Lauren, I would ask you to open it. It is not for you. It is addressed to her.” He nodded toward the end of the table.
Lauren slid it along the cloth with a trembling hand. Kayla opened it. Inside was a check, and a letter on thick paper. The letter said that Margaret had left a fund, to be given to the person who had been kindest to her in her final years. The fund was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. It said, in a womans careful hand, For the one who sat with me. Kayla read it twice. Then she folded it very small, and put her face in her hands, and cried.
Lauren was crying too. I had never seen her cry in public. She got up and came all the way around the table in her heels, and knelt beside her sisters chair, and put her arms around her. She said, “Kay, I am so ashamed. I said something unforgivable.” Kayla patted her back and said, “You were just tired, Lo.” And Lauren said, “No. I was just stupid.” That made all of us laugh, through the tears. Even Mr. Delacroix laughed, and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.
Kayla used the money for nursing school. She had wanted to go for a long time and had never been able to afford it. She is two semesters from her degree now, and she still works the night shift three days a week. She says she cannot stay away. The fund of Margaret also pays for a small tree in every room at Cedar Ridge each December, with paper ornaments, and a pair of children from the neighborhood to come and sing.
Last month, Mr. Delacroix asked if he could come along on Christmas Eve. He sits in the corner of the common room in a folding chair, holding a paper star, and when the children begin Silent Night, off key and enthusiastic, he joins in with his deep old voice. Lauren sits next to him. She has learned the words. She still cannot sing, but she holds her sisters hand, and nobody in that room has ever heard anything lovelier.