Finding Noel Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.



I’ve wondered why it is that some people come through difficult times bitter and broken while others emerge stronger and more empathetic? I’ve read that the same breeze that extinguishes some flames just fans others. I still don’t know what kind of flame I am.
    MARK SMART’S DIARY

DECEMBER 3, 1974
    There was something different this time. Even at the age of seven, Macy had developed a sense about these things. In the last year she had bounced in and out of foster homes with such frequency that she had already lived with seven different families. But this time there was something about the confederacy of big people that set off warning signals inside her head as shrill as a school bell. Where was her little sister?
    A squat, melon-faced woman with dyed yellow hair looked at her flatly, a cloud of smoke billowing up from the cigarette clamped between her teeth. She wore a thick black wool coat that fell to her shins and fit her body like a cover on a barbeque grill. The only color she wore was a Christmas tree broach with bright red and green faux jewels. The woman’s eyes emotionlessly crawled over her while the other two adults, her father and the woman from the state, seemed to avoid looking at her at all.

    It was late afternoon. Macy rocked on her heels, occasionally kicking a little at the snow with her oversized red Converse sneakers.
    She had sensed that something would happen today. Yesterday was a good day, maybe the best in years, and experience had proven there was always something suspicious about that. She had spent the day with her father, just the two of them, on an all-day daddy-daughter date. She had asked where her Sissy was, but her father said this was a special day for just them. They had gone to a movie and bought popcorn and Raisinets. Afterward, they had gone down to the dollar store where there were more treats: a caramel apple, a pencil with a jack-o’-lantern eraser, a candy valentine’s heart, a green shamrock: every special day of the year combined into one. Then her father had carried her home on his shoulders, a rare treat, for he still limped from his childhood bout with polio. They had chattered and played all day, blissfully ignoring the question she knew would be answered in time. Life had taught her that no good day went unpaid for.
    Her father wore the same clothes as the day before: the tan down vest, the motor-oil-stained T-shirt not quite concealing the tattoos on his upper arm. Still he looked different now.
    The woman from the state looked like a giant to her—taller than her father by nearly a head—gaunt in the face, her cheeks pale, her nose red from the cold. She was a caseworker and Macy had seen many of them. Most of them had been kind or sympathetic, others frantic or burned out, but toMacy they were all the same—ushers to new unwelcome worlds, away from her family’s problems.
    Always there were problems. She didn’t understand why caseworkers and foster parents had to be a part of their family’s problems. Ever since her mother died, their problems had gotten worse. Much worse. Why didn’t her father just stop using the drugs that made the problems and these people come? Why didn’t the caseworkers take the drugs away instead of her?

    The tall woman finished speaking to her father, then turned to Macy, crouching down on her haunches so that she was only slightly taller than the little girl. “Macy, this is Mrs. Irene Hummel. Mrs. Hummel is your new mother.”
    Macy glanced furtively at Mrs. Hummel, then to her father, and his expression did not change with the caseworker’s words. Mother? This woman didn’t look like any mother she would want.
    â€œI had a mother, thank you,” she said meekly, hoping against experience that something she said might make a difference.
    Mrs. Hummel blew out a large puff of smoke, briefly obscuring her face.
    â€œYou’re very lucky,” the