Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer Page B

nervously at her feet.
    “Aaah, Mom, it’s all right.” David put the poker back in its stand. “I’ll put the pot here on the hearth. In case we need it.” He lifted the heavy vessel of water from Polly’s hands. “Look,” he said, trying to cheer her up. “The tree, the stockings, the presents—none of them burned.”
    Polly’s lip quivered. “That’s right. That’s good.” “Come sit down here,” David said gently. “You’ve had a shock.”
    Polly had forgotten how to move her legs.
    “Mom.” David put his arms around her and hugged her for a long time. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s really okay.”
    He ushered her to the sofa. Docilely, she sat. Her dog sat, too, leaning against her legs for comfort.
    “I’m just going to check on Amy and Jehoshaphat.” David left the room.
    Because the front door was open to let the smoke escape, her son’s conversation floated in with perfect clarity.
    “It’s okay now, Amy, come on in.”
    “I’m not going in there! I’m not taking my child into a burning house!”
    “The fire’s out.”
    “I’m not taking a chance. What if a spark got up in the ceiling? Everything could go at once!”
    “Amy—”
    “When the fire department says it’s safe, I’ll go in.”
    “Then take Jehoshaphat and sit in the car. You’ll freeze out here.”
    Sirens sounded in the distance. Then, closer. The wails pierced the Christmas Eve air as they screeched to a stop at Polly’s house. Moments later, Polly heard men speaking with her son and then two firemen stomped into the living room, garbed in rubber coats, boots, and gear.
    Behind them came Amy, David, and the baby. Amy stood in the doorway, refusing to enter the room, which was just as well, because the room was crowded. Somehow the firemen were twice as big as normal persons. Roy Orbison waddled around, wagging his tail and sniffing the firemen’s interesting ankles.
    They checked the walls, ceiling, and hearth. They stomped upstairs and down again.
    The older one, with grizzled hair, had kind eyes. “This happens more often than you’d think,” he assured Polly. “Christmas candles, dry greenery, there you are.”
    The younger fireman said to Polly, “I notice you have smoke alarms upstairs and down. Didn’t they go off?”
    Polly cringed. “I took the batteries out this week. I was doing a lot of cooking, and they’re so sensitive, they were going off all the time and driving me crazy.”
    Behind him, Amy’s mouth crimped disapprovingly.
    “Yeah, that happens a lot,” the older fireman said. “You’d better connect them.”
    By the time the firemen left, all the smoke had dissipated. Polly longed to pour half a bottle of rum into a cup of eggnog and chug it down.
    But instead she rallied. “Sit down, now, please. We can still have Christmas Eve,” she told David and Amy. “The presents and stockings are okay. And I’ve made some delicious—”
    “I think we’d better go home,” Amy said. “The smoke gave me a headache, and heaven knows what it did to little Jehoshaphat’s lungs.”
    “But the smoke’s gone!” Polly protested, waving her arms.
    “Yes, and it’s freezing in here,” Amy pointed out.
    “It will warm up soon,” Polly promised. “I’ll make you some tea. I’ve got so many different kinds—”
    With a sigh, Amy acquiesced.
    The next hour dragged by. With the patience of Mother Teresa tending to the ill, Amy accepted Polly’s Christmas gifts and allowed her son to touch his. The entire time, Amy darted frightened little glances at her husband, making it clear she was terrified that the house was about to spontaneously combust. She did not allow Polly’s grandson to taste any cookies—too much sugar— or to drink any of the juice Polly had bought. Instead, she pulled a juice bottle from her woven bag.
    Amy and David’s gift to Polly was a set of woven reed place mats that Polly had seen on the sale table of the Andersons’ little store over the summer. But Amy did