Bethlehem Revisited: A Modern Nativity

A work of creative nonfiction
by Nadine York

It has all the elements of the original story, except for a few variations. The woman was pregnant, but she also had a three-year-old in tow. They were in transit, but Joseph was glaringly absent. There were no wise men, but a group of very wise women filled in without missing a beat. I was the innkeeper.

It was December 26, the morning after, and I was on my way to my daughter's with a guilty heart. The day before, I had managed to let her and her family down by not showing up to exchange presents. Let me explain myself. I was fifty-five years old, single for many years, and in the throes of a lovely, new, late-in-life relationship that has since developed into marriage.

On that Christmas Day, Pete and I had dinner at his house with about ten guests. After dinner, as the afternoon progressed, the guests stayed and others showed up. By evening, a party had bloomed into warm swing. At eight-thirty the phone rang.

"Mom, are you coming? The girls are here. We've all been waiting to see you."

My insides ripped. Our plans had been vague regarding time, and clearly I had taken advantage of the ambiguity. I loved my daughter and her husband and his two girls, who had become my instant granddaughters five years back. I loved them all to pieces and I was newly, madly in love with Pete. A recipe for conflict. I had resolved it by stewing in the juices of procrastination and indecision all afternoon.

"The girls have to go soon. Their mom is picking them up at nine."

We both knew it would take more than thirty minutes for me to drive the miles separating us. I had no excuses to allay the disappointment in my daughter's voice.

"I'm sorry," I offered weakly. "I'm really sorry."

The phone call ended with my promise to visit tomorrow. Our party disintegrated to just Pete and me. I sat on the couch and cried about what a bad mother I was. Pete held me.

That's how I came to be cruising relatively early through downtown Boise the day after Christmas. The day's winter inversion, with its freezing gray fog, resonated with my mood and the virtually empty streets. I turned right onto Myrtle and approached the connector that would take me to the Interstate.

I had just passed the last intersection and signal light, that place in the road that invites drivers to press foot to accelerator. On an average day, three corridors of traffic create a tangle of lane changes here, as the hurried and the impatient jockey around the slow and distracted. On that day, I was alone on the road, as well as distracted, so I was already past the two figures, one tall and one child-small. They had emerged all of a sudden out of the gray at the side of the road. A woman, visibly pregnant, and a girl child, on the highway, hitchhiking, the day after Christmas. Something deep in me pressed the brakes, brought the car to a stop.

I backed the car carefully as they moved deliberately toward me, only as fast as short legs and bundled bodies could move. Who arranged this meeting?

"Thanks," the tall one said as both of them settled inside.

I have little recollection of the details of her face. She was woman, fair skinned, pregnant, youngish, a mother. She was desperately determined. Later, I would add the words cautiously secretive, too. I think I would not recognize her if I saw her again.

The child was an instant love. I don't remember her name. I think of her now as Ariel. A halo of silken black curls escaped her hood, framed her face: smooth coffee-with-cream skin, eyes large, round, brown. She was the sweet perfection of beauty that only children possess. It tickles to life the motherly instincts in women of any age. She stared at me. I smiled at her.

"Where are you going?" I asked the mother, thinking I would take the time to go out of my way and deliver them to their destination.

"Idaho Falls," she answered without looking at me. She said it as if it were just across town instead of across the breadth of the state.

I felt my good intention wither. I wasn't even going in the same direction.

"I'm going to Nampa," I apologized. "The best I can do is get you to the Interstate pointed east."

She barely nodded. I was just a vehicle in her journey. But questions tumbled and spun inside my head. Who was she? What precipitated her winter flight? Why hitchhiking? Instead I just suggested that a bus might be a better option in weather such as this. She told me what I already knew, that she didn't have money for a bus. We rode along in silence while my conscience wormed through images of shivering mother and child standing for indefinite periods of time. Who would stop to give her a ride? What predators were out there, ready to pounce?

"Would you be willing to accept the gift of a bus ticket?" I didn't want to insult her with charity.

Her yes was simple acceptance, with no evident revelation of enthusiasm, relief, shame, or gratitude. Just a yes, a change in plan, which I acknowledged with a change in direction back to the Greyhound bus station downtown. I dismissed thoughts of my personal budget scarcity. I had resources; I would manage, and my daughter, Steph, would understand a little more delay. Overall, I felt relieved. This was right.

When the ticket agent informed us that the next departure time for a bus east would be at two-thirty in the morning, sixteen hours away, I felt a new confusion and dismay. I looked around at the bus station's scuffed linoleum floor and rigid plastic seats, remembered the misery of a long-ago twenty-four-hour bus ride with Steph, then five years old. I could hear my brain rearranging my day.

"I'll tell you what," I heard myself proposing. That's how I became the innkeeper. "But first you'll have to come with me to my daughter's." I hoped and prayed Steph would understand this slight change of arrangements.

In the thirty-minute drive to Nampa, I gathered most of the factual information I would ever get about my guests. Her name was Elaine—my sister's name I told her, helping me to remember. She was eight months' pregnant. Ariel was three. They'd been living in Seattle, and no, they weren't going back. She didn't say so directly, but they were running—running from, not to. There were connections in Idaho Falls, but no telling if they were family or friends or just acquaintances. For that matter, there was no telling if any of the above were true, but it's the story we settled on.

I watched Steph's face as she opened the front door. She took in the two additional faces, and with just a quick look at me, welcomed us all into the warmth.

"This is Elaine and Ariel," I said. "They're on their way to Idaho Falls, but the bus doesn't leave 'til the middle of the night, so they're hanging out with me."

I hadn't needed prayers for Steph's understanding. She herself was five months' pregnant and the sight of Elaine's near-term size was all the explanation she needed. She recognized there was story, but more important in the moment were warmth and food and compassion. She fixed warm drinks and lunch, and we made what talk we could. Afterward, Steph and I exchanged family Christmas packages, and while I readied to leave with my guests, she packed sandwiches, cookies, and fruit juice for Elaine and Ariel's bus trip.

Later, back in Boise, I stopped at the grocery store. Some milk for Ariel, Elaine agreed, and some soup and other things to make a supper for ourselves later. "By the way," I warned her, "some friends are coming over this evening. . . ." I told her about my drumming group, eight women hauling our African djembes and yashikas, our claves, rattles, and other rhythm instruments to each other's houses weekly, learning and practicing rhythms, singing songs, laughing, and talking. That night's practice at my house was a dress rehearsal for a performance downtown on New Year's Eve.

"They'll be here at seven until at least nine." I felt like I was offering it as an apology, for the imposition into her privacy. "You can join us if you want, listen or participate. Or you can hang out in my bedroom, reading or napping, or . . ." The options ended there. My house was small.

Ariel easily made herself at home. She was warm and fed, her bulky outside clothes were shed, and she had space to move. Her mom was nearby, so it was just another part of the adventure. I pulled out books and paper and coloring crayons, and we settled into some serious art and play together. Elaine looked on, gently responsive to her child's enthusiasm and remindful of manners when Ariel's behavior edged beyond expected boundaries.

By the time the women began to arrive, Ariel was very much at home. More people added to the adventure. Elaine's reserve held tight. There was no energy in her for new people, for talk, for trust. She rightly conserved for what she must do.

Women and drums clambered through the front door—cold air clinging, day-after-Christmas smiles beaming—ready for music and play. The sight of Ariel, her sturdy little body and curious face, was a surprise.

"Who's this?" they chorused.

"She and her mother . . ." I began. In an instant, Ariel was welcomed and included, and Elaine's cloak of privacy noted and honored.

Like my daughter, with warmth and grace, my friends slipped through the pregnant moment, tucked questions into recesses, and moved forward. We had work to do. Warming cups of tea in hand, we settled into circle formation. Little by little, rhythm replaced words as our hands moved in familiar patterns.

Ariel was ecstatic. Truly this was a party, just for her. She moved around the circle, looked and smiled at all the women, ran to her mother in the kitchen and back to the group. She slapped drums and shook rattles. She leaned her small body against me and rested a hand on my leg. Her light touch burned like a brand, the sweet innocence of a child's trust. To this day the memory persists.

When we started to sing, blending our voices, Ariel stood stock-still and stared—as if she'd heard some silent command, or was playing the game "Statues." Only her head turned, looking from face to face, her eyes filled with tears ready to spill. Then she broke and ran to her mother.

By nine-thirty, practice was over, and the women had said their goodbyes. Elaine and I cleaned up quickly and started to make up the hide-a-bed in the living room. While we stretched sheets and stuffed pillowcases, I mentioned Ariel's response to our singing.

"Oh," Elaine hesitated, and her eyes looked far away, "someone we knew always sang to her." Did she say something that made me think it was a father? I invented a handsome African-American man to account for Ariel's toffee skin and black curls. Perhaps he was a musician. It was good to know there was some sweetness in the memory left behind, to balance whatever necessitated an escape.

I retired to my bedroom and left mother and daughter to tuck themselves in for the few hours of stolen sleep until departure. Sleep came slowly to me—so many thoughts and feelings tumbling over each other.

In the end, the goodbyes with Elaine were just as uneventful and empty of personal connection as the whole day with her had been. I woke her at one-fifteen. She used the bathroom, gathered their few belongings, roused and dressed Ariel. At the bus station, I bought the tickets, pressed them into her hand along with a twenty-dollar bill. No traveler should be without some emergency mad money, especially a pregnant woman with a small child.

"Here's my phone number and address," I said handing her the paper I had written out before we left the house. "If you need some assistance . . . or if you just want to write, let me know you're okay . . ." I trailed off. I didn't want a commitment. It wasn't thanks I was fishing for; I just wanted her to know the door was still open.

The bus east was ready for boarding. The small group of night travelers and well-wishers moved outside into the smell of diesel exhaust and the low rumble of the bus motor. An overhanging roof, the bus station's dim lighting, and the incessant inversion obscured any sign of night sky.

"Take care," I said to Elaine, while swooping Ariel into a good-bye hug. The two figures walked away to join the short line climbing the steps into the bus. They didn't look back, and I never heard anything from them, but it's funny how I feel so blessed by the whole experience: Ariel's hand on my leg, the memory of our women's voices harmonizing into a child's tears, a deeper renewed bond with my daughter. Unwrapped presents, a day late and just in time.

Copyright 2006 by Nadine York