Splintered Heart Read Free

smile — not his small smile but his big one, when she surprised him with a new big word.
    "I absolutely comprehend," Marian said when her father was finished. And she did understand. Christmas was for Christians, not for Agnostics.
    Most all the children in her school were Christians. The school was filled with red, blue, green, gold and silver decorations. There was a Christmas tree with colored lights, colored balls and tinsel in her classroom. There was going to be a Christmas party with candy canes, grab bag gifts, and Christmas carols.
    Uncle Milton and Aunt Paula lighted candles, sang Hebrew songs, gave her cousins each a Chanukah gift — last year a Mickey Mouse watch for Sammy, a locket for Natasha. Marian's best friend, Mary Ellen Warner was a High Episcopalian and she was going with her family to Acapulco for Christmas and New Year's. At Marian's home, the holidays only meant she didn't have to go to school.
    But Agnostic was O.K., at least it made Marian one of a kind. Not "run of the mill" which was what Mary Ellen said about the Lutheran, Protestant, and Presbyterian girls in their class.
    Marian tried to pray agnostically. She had been reading about Joan of Arc who had talked to God and heard voices. Marian tried talking to her idea of God in her mind. She wanted HIM to talk to her about her brother.
    Three-years-old, her brother Ralph was fun to play with. He had a very sweet, nice smile but he couldn't talk at all. He couldn't drink from his cup. He hadn't even learned to go potty, so they'd taken him to a clinic for testing.
    Mamma had said it was water in the brain. Then she had started crying and gone to bed with a headache.
    Daddy said, "Marian, I want you to promise me you'll be brave and strong. And gentle with Mamma. You've got to be the daughter and the son, a very extra special child for a while."
    In the bathroom with the door locked, Marian had looked it up in the Medical Book. She couldn't find out about water in the brain but she found out about Birth Control, Polio, Scarlet Fever, Sex, Spinal Meningitis, Whooping Cough, Syphilis, and T.B.
    She was terribly worried about keeping the promise that she'd made to Daddy. She prayed agnostically, that she wouldn't get one of the diseases and a head full of water like Ralph.
    All the girls in Marian's class expected dolls — the kind that wet themselves, or dolls with real human hair and wardrobes. One girl was getting a fur coat and the boys were hoping for radios or bicycles. Everyone knew it was parents who gave the presents, but the talk was still of Santa Claus and what Santa Claus might be bringing them.
    "I know Santa's bringing me a pair of pink satin toe shoes, and a Punch and Judy puppet theater," said Mary Ellen Warner. Mary Ellen was taking ballet for grace, and elocution lessons for poise. "What about you, Marian?"
    "Probably my parents are going to give me an Encyclopedia Britannica." An encyclopedia had already been ordered, not for Christmas but for the family's general self-improvement.
    "An encyclopedia?" Mary Ellen Warner wrinkled her nose the way she did when a boy came over to play with them.
    "Actually I think I'm probably getting a Longines watch and a string of cultured pearls and also probably a piano!" That impressed Mary Ellen Warner. When Mary Ellen got too snobby or stuck up, Marian had to invent ways of making her shut up.
    "Couldn't we celebrate Christmas just this year, Mamma?" Marian asked her Mamma wistfully. Occasionally Mamma would say yes to things without a great deal of fuss, but Mamma just said the usual — "You'd better ask your father."
    The thing about Christmas was not just the presents. It was the decorations and the music. All the children's voices lifted in song made Marian feel as if she were part of a huge family holding hands around the equator of the world, looking up at the same stars and sending notes of music up into the clouds like the ever widening smoke rings from her daddy's cigarette.
    The