"Knock, knock." "Whose there?"

Knock, knock. Who’s there?

“Knock, knock. Ho-ho-ho, anybody there?” Samantha stood expectantly waiting at the front door of her sister’s apartment, her arms filled with beautifully wrapped gifts. Immediately upon hearing her sister’s voice, Becki stopped dead in her tracks and flung her arm across the hallway making a sudden barricade blocking the way for her husband.

Samantha tried the cheery decorated red door again. She rearranged the gifts and goodies in her arms and slipped her right hand out from beneath the packages. Reaching through the middle of the full fragrant fresh pine wreath that hung on the door she wrapped her fingers around the gold door knocker and tried again.

“Knock, knock.” She waited and again no response. This time Samantha peeked through the door’s side beveled window trimmed with little white twinkling lights. Becki caught a moment’s glimpse of her sister’s familiar made up eyes, her jolly Santa’s hat, and the shiny ribbons on the elegantly wrapped packages.

Throwing her body back in an effort to hide herself, Becki bumped her head against the picture frame hanging on the wall. She rashly pushed up her long sleeves on her reindeer fleece pajamas to reveal her hands and turned to straighten out the picture. She felt herself automatically rolling her own eyeballs at meeting her 5 year old sister’s eyes in the old photograph of herself, her sister and their mother. “She was everywhere,” Becki grumbled internally.

“Ho, ho, ho! Santa knows you must be there,” Samantha called sweetly, “I heard the creaking upstairs and I see the light on,” she called lightly through the door.

“Don’t answer it,” Becki whispered, now face to face with her husband, holding him back by the collar of his new dark chocolate plush velour robe. “Becki, this is ridiculous,” John whispered sternly, flicking back the reindeer ears that had now fallen forward on his head. Just inches from his wife, he looked intently right into her urgent round brown eyes with lids that were smeared with painted eyelashes of a make do Rudolph. “That’s your sister out there,” John said pointing toward the front door and then feeling the weight of her stronghold, he placed his hands on hers and one by one peeled her cuffed fingers from his billowy soft collar.

“B-e-c-k-i, Merry Christmas honey” the sweet voice sang out, “Its S-a-m-a-n-t-h-a, your s-i-s. Open up, I’ve got gifts for you and Nattie and I baked John’s favorite pumpkin bread.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t just open the door,” John shot back pressing his toes into the carpet. “Because . . .,” Becki’s voice trailed off sounding as always unsure and unable to conjure up a valid reason for her behavior. “Because . . . she might ask you to spend a little time with her . . . Because she might want to share a cup of coffee with you . . .,” John barely tried after a deep breath. “Because she’ll want to chit chat over a cup of coffee, borrow my angora sweater when she’s got her own clothes, buy me a purse when I’ve got enough, or want to go shopping! It’s always something,” Becki exclaimed like a little spoiled child knowing full well how extremely selfish she sounded. There she was again fighting this powerfully odd overwhelming anger because she was feeling forced to try to explain herself and furious that she had to feel that, t-h-a-t way again.

“Your sister Samantha is a load of laughs. I don’t know why you don’t enjoy her company. And she’s always returned anything that she’s borrowed, you said so yourself. You’ve even gone so far as to give her your least favorite sweater and then take it back because it looked better on her. She even bought you a new white sweater when she stained that one you said you were going to give to the goodwill. Why would that upset you, she’s a sweetheart,” John exclaimed a little louder. Becki put her hands to his mouth to quiet him. “J-o-h-n, not so loud, she might hear you!”

“Geez, why do I have to whisper, this is my house,” John exclaimed throwing his hands up in the air. Sounding defensive now, Becki blew back like a muffled trumpet speaking between her gritted teeth, “I k-n-o-w t-h-a-t John, you don’t have to point that out to me.”

John looked at her with disbelief. “This is really not the way I want to spend Christmas morning or any other day of my life. Look at me. I’m trapped in my hallway, being hushed by my wife who looks like a reindeer. I’m wearing these huge crazy antlers with matching shorts and robe, and we are here dodging your only sister, who loves you by the way, while she stands out in the hallway with Christmas gifts and my favorite pumpkin bread while you try to figure out some sort of far fetched reason to reject her today.”

Becki nervously bit her lower lip as she watched her husband take a deep breath and close his eyes for a moment to regain his composure. She hated when he did that, but what she despised now even more, was the sudden realization that only she did that to him. John, Becki thought scornfully, was fine with everyone else.

“Explain it to me Becki. What is it between you two? We’ve been married for seven years and I’ve watched you day after day doing everything you can to keep from being nice to that woman! You think you hide it well, but believe me it shows!”

“She’s just like my mother,” Becki shouted out loud which she had not anticipated. Her hands flew up to muffle her voice that had spoken illegally about what seemed like some ill truth. She had never said or thought about such a thing before. She realized just then that Samantha reminded her so much of her mother. Even more, she wildly questioned herself, why am I so angry? Had she, she now wondered, not forgiven her mother for dying?

Becki felt sudden waves of abandonment flood her enraged heart; feelings that have been stored up for the past 10 years were now unlocked and moving undisciplined throughout her being. She turned impassioned to look at the picture hanging on the wall behind her, and affectionately ran her fingers across her mother’s face and then her sister’s and saw it, for the first time, the great resemblance her mother and sister shared. Could her sister’s looks, facial expressions, and the way she carried herself be so much like her mother, she pondered, that she subconsciously rejected her? Was there really anything wrong with their relationship, or was there something specific about Samantha herself, Becki thought, that made her feel so annoyed all the time. Could it really be me, she wondered.

She was suddenly fighting new tender compassionate feelings and Becki’s heart and eyes welled up with emotions and tears foreign to her while the anger that had become her new normal bounced around her body unsure of where to land.

“You just don’t understand John,” infuriation winning out, “you didn’t have to grow up with her.” Growing up together, Becki quickly surmised, was beautiful with her sister. “And now,” Becki continued, as if speaking through the voice of an alien or a vaguely and yet familiar stranger, “I can’t believe she’s living in the downstairs apartment. I just can’t get away from her,” she said in desperation hearing the ludicrous comments come out of her mouth.

“Frankly Becki, I’m tired of tip toeing around every time the door bell rings. You always give in anyway. I don’t know why you are prolonging the matter.” “I can’t believe you are taking her side John.” “There are no sides Becki!”

John breathed deep again, and slumped down slightly to meet the height of her eyes. “Do you know what I think?” “I don’t know if I want to know what you think,” Becki said with her arms crossed and her red nose turned up now like a spoiled child. “Well you are going to have to face the ugly truth Becki.” “And what’s that John,” she now spoke with a quivering voice. “That it’s not your sister who is the problem, it’s you!” “What!” Becki was livid and oddly relieved. First her own heart was toying with her and now her husband was the bearer of yet more insightful surprising painstaking news and shocking yet enlightening gifts of words of wisdom that she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear.

“Yeah, that’s right. You’re holding something over her head and you don’t even know what it is.” John continued, “All that woman has ever done is love you. You know I’ve watched you two together, and I know you really love her, you r-e-a-l-l-y do, but you’ve got this competitive thing going on with her. I just don’t get it Becki. Why would you deliberately reject someone who is just trying to love you!” “You’re crazy, John Palmer, I can’t believe you are saying these things to me. You’re my husband, whose side are you on anyway!” “There you go again Becki. She’s your family, your blood! This is not a competition. Now if you hate her that much, then why don’t you just tell her to get out of your life and stop with all this nonsense!”

Samantha stood there with her mouth wide open and her eyes as big and round as chestnuts. He was right, if she hated her that much why hadn’t she ever told her that before. Again, a preposterous thought and an absurd statement came from a foreign place inside. Becki had never hated anybody in her life and she could certainly not feel that way toward her only sister. How long have I been doing this to her? What must it have been making her feel like to be repeatedly snubbed, ignored, rejected, and turned down time after time Becki wondered hastily. And to think that she had been doing that to her sister all these years, while Samantha mourned her mother too.

This last realization caused a sudden pitiful contraction in her heart. Her stomach was in instant agony, her body had grown cold and clammy, her throat closed and went dry and her conscience suffered a disgraceful trauma.

Little Carolina appeared in the hallway, like an angel, looking whimsically sleepy, with fly away wispy golden curls that merrily danced around her small head. Wiping the sleep from her four year old eyes she asked curiously, “Mommy, isn’t that auntie Samantha at the door? Why don’t you let her in,” finished the innocent cherub’s voice. Carolina looked up at her mommy and daddy who were now embracing and without instruction or hesitation headed straight for the front door.

Becki automatically took a breath and intended to call out to Carolina to stop her, but John gently put his hands over Becki’s mouth and pressed lightly on her lips. “Let her in, honey. Let your sister into your heart”.

Carolina reached up and turned the door knob that was snuggled by the musical snowman doorhanger, and the holiday tune from Becki’s childhood commenced and her heart began to melt at a feverish pace as the melody sent itself through the sugar cookie filled air that still hovered from the eve before.

At the sound of the first bars of music, flashes of quick memories of her mother clouded and distracted Becki’s emotional state and abruptly aroused and bewildered her aching heart. Then the lyrics of this tender memory filled song and her mother’s delightful voice floated through Becki’s psyche, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light . . . from now on our troubles will be out of sight . . . have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the yule- tide gay . . . from now on your troubles will be miles away . . .

Streams of water drops fell down Becki’s cheeks and her eyes were glossed heavily with bitter-sweet tears that imparted the years she could never recapture.
“Merry Christmas Nattie,” Samantha cooed sweetly to her niece breaking the trance that Becki was in. “These are for you.”

Becki used her sleeve to clear her clouded eyes wanting to see her sister through an ogle that connected to a heart in need of healing. She emotionally gravitated toward that voice that was her mother’s and yet uniquely Samantha’s; drawn toward that special person that had all these years loved her unconditionally.

As John gently nudged his wife out of the hallway he offered tenderly, “She’s waiting for you to love her Becki.” Then he kissed her on top of her faded painted red nose.

Not knowing where it came from inside, Becki darted in her sister’s direction hurdling over Nattie narrowly missing the crown of her head. Nattie now sat near the decorated tree oblivious to the miracles and joys of Christmas and played excitedly and comfortably on her new poinsettia fleece blanket that lay on the hardwood floor in the midst of her bundle of gifts.
Becki hugged her sister tight, and buried her adolescent head and swollen eyes beneath her big sister’s strong chin and solid shoulder. Her body trembled with an urgent love to connect to her lineage. “It’s okay Becki, I know,” Samantha said gently, stroking her back. “We both loved her.”

. . . through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow . . . hang a shining star upon the highest bough, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now.”

Inspired by:

Luke 11:5-10

And Jesus said to them, “suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is a friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and given him whatever he needs. So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”