Aurora Magazine 2019

Silent Night

Mary Webb Burke Goss

The house was silent.

Sue Ann heaved a sigh of relief as her four year old tor - nado of a grandson napped. Blessed peace enveloped her on the couch while she sat for a moment and rested her sixty year old bones that screamed for relief. Playing soccer wasn’t so bad on a Saturday morning, but backyard football, too, just about finished her off. Lord, she was tired. Her cup of hot tea and cookies to dunk would revive her. Having her grandson was a blessing and her responsibility required pacing herself and her soul. Samuel didn’t lack for anything, though, while he waited for his parents to grow up. Her son, the dad, wrote weekly from jail, a father who preferred addictions to accepting responsibility for the boy. The mom now wrote long letters about finding herself and finding a job and finding a man and by the way here’s a birthday card and a promise of a dollar for her son. Sue Ann sipped her tea and studied the legal envelope atop her mail. She let the letters fall unopened from her hand. She began her afternoon prayers and vowed tomorrow she would sleep in. No, tomorrow she would take Samuel to Mass and hope that God’s goodness and grace would protect them all. Tomor - row she would slit the legal envelope and wade through the fine print. Today yet, she still had hope for Samuel’s birthday and clothes to pull from the dryer. --- The music rocked the windows, the laughter shook the lights as six boys played holiday games and the half dozen girls giggled. Sue Ann winched with the realization she had forgotten how much children giggled. And Samuel was the loudest. The

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