Finding Father Christmas Read Free

connections.
    In Santa Cruz, my mother went to work wearing a Renaissance costume that was sewn by a bald woman who had seven cats and no
     television. In San Diego, our hotel room was right next to the dinner theater where my mother sang and danced every night
     in a sailor suit. Performances were twice on Saturdays, and the food was plentiful, if I didn’t mind eating at midnight, which,
     of course, I didn’t.
    I was a gypsy child. An only child. As such, I believed everything my mother said, including her embellished account of how,
     one moonlit night, she slept beside a lake on a feathery bed of moss.
    “Silently, so silently, the Big Dipper tipped just enough to drop one small yet very twinkling star into the hollow of my
     belly. That tiny star sprouted and grew like a watermelon until… ”
    Her deep, midnight blue eyes would widen as she declared that one day, without warning, I popped right out and peacefully
     went to sleep in her arms.
    “And that day, my darling,” she would conclude in her winsome voice, as a plumpness rose in her high cheekbones, “was the
     happiest day of my life. You became to me the sun, the moon, the stars, and all my deepest dreams fulfilled. Never doubt the
     gifting of your being or the beauty of your light, my sweet Miranda.”
    Like a baby bird, I swallowed every juicy word that tumbled from my beautiful mother’s mouth. We looked alike, with our dark
     hair, defined eyebrows, and slender legs. Her eyes were the deepest shade of blue before the color could be called black.
     My eyes, however, were the fairest shade of blue with the sort of transparency seen in a marble when held up to the sun. The
     lightness in my eyes and skin transferred to the feathery lightness of my logic, as well.
    Until I was almost nine, I had no formed sense of reason. I was a child with delayed rational development. I didn’t understand
     the peril of such an existence with such a woman. I didn’t know a fine line existed between art and deceit. I couldn’t tellwhen she was performing and when she was telling the truth. All of it was real to me. Every word, every smile, every tear.
    My strongest memories begin with the day we drove into Ashland. The hillsides of southern Oregon were paling from green to
     yellow, and the hot scent of the drying grass came through the car window like a faint sweetness riding over the sticky smell
     of the eternal 5 Freeway’s tar and asphalt.
    We checked into our room at the Swan Motel on a Tuesday afternoon and ate pizza, sitting cross-legged on our bed. After that,
     we were living in the rhythm of her performance schedule. Every day seemed to be a Wednesday or a Thursday. It didn’t matter.
     My mother only came back to our room to sleep for a few hours during the darkest part of the night.
    Most days I would go with her to the theater, where I would find new ways to make myself invisible. For a nine-year-old I
     was fairly successful at my career as a phantom. When I wasn’t so successful, the next day I always had a babysitter named
     Car-lita, who brought me cookies made with pink coconut.
    A few times I stayed by myself in the motel with the door bolted and the television turned up as loud as it would go. I never
     told anyone that my mother left me alone.
    The best mornings were the ones when I would wake to the sound of water running in the shower. That meant she wasn’t going
     to sleep for hours while I tried to stay quiet. On those mornings I would stay in bed, pretending to be asleep, and soon my
     mother would lean close with her long, black hair dripping tiny kisses on my face. She would say, “Awaken, my little bird!
     Let us fly away and dine on golden sunbeams.”
    Those were the mornings we crossed the street holdinghands and ate breakfast at the small cafe with the purple flowers by the front door. We always sat next to each other, nice
     and close, in the red vinyl booth. I always ordered waffles. Waffles with strawberries that came cold