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The Christmas Portrait

By Phyllis Clark Nichols

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Prologue

Chicago, December 2011

“Dr. Kate, do they have Christmas in heaven?” Marla sat across the table from me. She held tightly as many crayons as she could hold in her doll-sized left hand and colored with her right.
“Now that’s a very interesting question. Do you have a reason for asking?” I continued sketching, not giving any hint of my surprise at her question.
“Well, my sister wanted this pretty necklace for Christmas. She showed it to me in the store window, and she wanted it real bad. But that man in the blue truck ran over her, and now she’s in heaven.” Her crayon never left the page while she spoke. A Christmas tree, donned with a yellow butterfly tree-topper, was taking shape on her page.
I laid my drawing pencil down, propped my elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “That’s a good question, Marla, what do you think?”
“I think there’s Christmas in heaven.” She never looked at me.
“I think so, too. In fact, I think heaven may be like having Christmas every day.”
She continued to color. “That’s good. That means Abby likes it. Maybe I could go there, too.”
“I’m sure Abby likes it there, but for now, don’t you want to stay here with your family?”
“Uh-huh, but I want to see Abby, too.”
“I know you want to see your big sister.” I looked at her work, picked up my pencil, and started to sketch again. A likeness was appearing. “You’re using all the bright Christmas colors today. That makes me so happy. Do they make you happy, too?”
“I don’t know. I just like red and green and blue and yellow.”
“So do I.”
“But you’re not coloring. You’re just drawing. Why don’t you use happy colors like me?” She handed me the red crayon. “Here, you need this one.”
“Thank you, Marla.” I took the crayon and twirled it through the fingers of my left hand. “I’m just doodling while we talk.”
“Do you just sit here and doodle all day, Dr. Kate?”
How purely delightful that sounded. “You’re just full of good questions today. I do get to draw sometimes, but mostly what I do is to sit and listen and talk to people. I help them draw and color and make things so they’ll feel better.”
“That sounds like a fun job. Is that why I have to call you doctor, because you make people feel better?”
“Well, I guess it is. Would it be okay if I ask you a question?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So what’s on your Christmas list this year?”
“I just mostly want my sister back, and I want my mommy not to cry at nighttime.” Marla stopped coloring and searched through the box of crayons. She chose the black one and started to scribble a jagged black border around her Christmas tree.
“You know, that sounds a lot like what your mommy wants for Christmas, too. She wants you not to be so sad. That’s why she brings you here to talk to me. Is there anything else on your list, like a doll, or maybe you’d like a necklace, too?”
“Nope, I just want my sister back and my mommy not to be so sad. There’s nobody to sleep in my sister’s bed.”
I put my hand on hers and removed her crayon. “Marla, look at me, Sweetie. I know this is your first Christmas without your sister, and it will be different. Do you know how I know that?”
She looked at me as though I were about to tell her the biggest secret she ever heard. “Because you’re a doctor and you know things?”
“No. I know because I was just like you. When I was ten, my mother died, and I missed her so much, especially at Christmas. It was very hard, but here I am nearly twenty years later. Everything turned out all right.” I couldn’t tell her when Mama died that late September night she left a vacuum that sucked the life and color right out of my world. Overnight, the trees dressed in red and gold were only naked limbs, and the mountains on the horizon, always—as Mama said—brushed with a gazillion shades of green, looked like chiseled gray stone pasted against a gray sky. The days became so chilly and ushered in the coldest and iciest winter on record in northern Kentucky. For me, even the earth was mourning the loss of Mama.
“Do you still miss your mommy?”
“I do miss her. But now, I’m not so sad anymore. I’m just grateful she was my mother, and I’ll never forget her. She’s the one who taught me to draw, and she’s the one who taught me my job in life is to try to make people happy. She’ll always be with me because of my memories.” I could tell her the days grew warm again even if it seemed forever. And the trees budded and the mountains turned green, but walking those mountain paths wasn’t the same. No more holding Mama’s hand or singing her silly songs. When the colors finally returned, I saw them differently. I can explain this to Marla. I just wish I could believe it for her. Only the passing of days will make her believe. “Don’t you remember how we’ve talked about your memories of Abby?”
She nodded in agreement. “At home, I tried to draw a picture about the time we went camping, and she caught the biggest fish.”
“That’s good, that’s really good, Marla. You keep drawing those pictures. Would you do something else for me?”
She looked up at me. “Sure.”
“I want you to put something on your Christmas list that Santa can put under your tree. I think that’ll make you smile big on Christmas morning. Would you do that?”
“Yes, ma’am. I already know what it is.”
“That’s good, and you be sure to tell your mom what it is. In fact, our time’s almost up, and she’s probably out front waiting on us.”
She slid her drawing into the yellow plastic pouch and started putting her crayons in the wooden box, lining them up neatly. I stood to help her.
“Can I see what you’re drawing, Dr. Kate?”
“Certainly, it’s not finished though.” I slid my sketchpad around the table.
She looked at the drawing and then at me. “See, I knew you needed the red crayon. You like redbirds, don’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“I thought so. They’re everywhere around here.” Her eyes surveyed the room from her three-foot vantage spot.
I took her hand, and we walked toward the lobby. “You know how you chose the yellow butterfly to help you remember your sister? And we talked about how Abby was like a beautiful butterfly coming out of a cocoon and how she’s free now.”
“Uh-huh, I remember. I draw yellow butterflies in all my pictures. I drew one today. It was on top of the Christmas tree.” She was swinging her arm and mine as we walked hand in hand through the studio. It was the first, carefree, childlike body language I had seen since I met her a few weeks ago.
“That’s good. Just keep drawing those yellow butterflies, and I’ll draw redbirds because it helps me remember and stay close to my mother. She had red hair, and she could sing like a songbird.” We entered the front office.
“There’s a redbird!” Marla pointed to the embroidered bird in the center of the memory quilt hanging on the wall next to the door. “And there’s another one!” She pointed to the grouping of pictures above the sofa. “Did you take that picture?”
“I did. I took that picture with my very first camera. The redbird was right outside our living room window.”
“Wow! I’d like to take a picture of a butterfly.”
“Maybe you can someday.”
Marla nearly lunged toward the sofa, and climbed up on both knees. She leaned close to see. “Dr. Kate, do you know him, too?”
“Who, Marla?”
“Him.” Her eyes were fixed on the framed picture next to the redbird.
Her words halted my movement. I replayed them in my head. Do you know him, too?
“You mean the man in that portrait I painted?”
“Uh-huh. Him.” She pointed to the picture and then looked at me.
“Yes. I met him a long time ago. Why, do you know Mister Josh?”
She turned around and sat down on the sofa. “I sort of know him. He was at the park looking at yellow butterflies the other day, and he talked to me about missing Abby.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“No. He knew my name though, but he never said his.”
“Marla, would you tell me about him?”
“He had on a different coat and he didn’t have all those colors around him, but it was him.”

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