Christmas Day dawned sunny and crisp, which should have made Mary happy. Instead, she moped through the morning, bemoaned the fact that she had no presents to open, and ignored the carolers crooning, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” outside her dorm room window. In the distance, she heard the bells of the brand-new, non-denominational, Chapel-on-the-Hill. Church never had held much appeal for her, but perhaps she should consider attending the noon service, if only to pray for her father’s safe return.

She hadn’t gotten a letter from him in weeks, and the memory of Phyllis and her mom crying inconsolably on the sidewalk played like a bad movie in her mind’s eye. You have to be okay, Daddy. You just have to be. She should call her mother and wish her a Merry Christmas, she knew. But every call ended in an argument and her mother insisting that she’d gone daft for “running away,” as she termed Mary’s departure. Maybe she had run away, but surely her mother could show more gratitude for the money Mary sent home on a regular basis. It was far more than she ever could’ve earned at Meyer’s—enough to ensure her mother’s comfort until her father returned home.

She dragged herself to the phone in the lobby and made a collect call home.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mother. It’s Mary. I-I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.” She closed her eyes and gripped the receiver tightly. She hadn’t expected to get emotional. “Mother? I miss you.”

“Merry Christmas, Mary Elizabeth.”

“Is everything okay?” You sound so frail.

“I’m lonely, I guess. My husband is away at war, and my only daughter has run off God-only-knows where, to do God-only-knows-what…”

“I’ve told you before. I’m in Tennessee, working for the war effort.” You had to ruin the moment, didn’t you? I will not feel guilty, I will not feel guilty…

“So you’ve said. Frankly, I find your evasiveness highly suspicious, young lady. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“W-what?” Mary fumbled the receiver. She put it back to her ear. “What in the world would make you ask such a thing? And what kind of girl do you think I am?”

“I don’t know. You disappear suddenly; you won’t say exactly where you are or what you’re doing; you won’t say when, if ever, you’re coming home; you abandon your mother at a time when she needs you… It’s as if you’re covering something up. What else am I supposed to think?”