Under one larger bunch of paper she saw a red knitted sock peeking out. Serena carefully pulled the paper away to discover a good-size Christmas stocking. It seemed to be hand-knitted, with the name “Henry” embroidered across the top in white and navy blue stars embellishing the foot. The yarn was scratchy and rustic. Serena wondered at the hands that had knit with such rough fiber. She enjoyed knitting but preferred the newer fiber blends like alpaca that felt like silk against her fingers. This stocking was a labor of love.
“Do you think there’s anything in it, Mom?”
“Maybe.” Probably spiders and other creepy-crawlies. She bit her lip as she reached into the Christmas stocking and felt a slight bulge in the toe.
“Let me see, Pepé.” She opened the top and saw a piece of paper that, once she pulled it out of the stocking, revealed itself to be a black-and-white photograph. It was reminiscent of a tintype in the way the sepia colors highlighted the image of a Navy sailor.
Serena flipped over the photo, looking for identification. All that was written on the back was “Charles—the man I wrote you about.” She placed the photo on a box and pulled out another. This one was of a small, happy family, the man in an Army uniform, a beautiful woman and little girl next to him, with “Graduation from Aviation Cadet Flight Training, August 1941” written on the backside.
“Can I look inside the stocking, Mom?”
“Sure, honey. But be careful—if anything bites your fingers, pull your hand out!”
Pepé giggled as only a boy can at the thought of a bug.
He thrust his hand into the stocking and it swallowed up his arm, almost to the elbow. His few remaining baby teeth shone as he smiled in triumph, pulling out his treasure.
“Mom, look!”
Pepé held up what looked like a toy airplane. “Can I have it, Mom?”
“Let me take a look at it first.” She rocked backward from her heels and sat on the floor. The ceramic tiles were hard and cold, but she remained focused on the tiny plane.
“It has some writing on it, and look who’s flying it, honey.” She angled the tiny toy so that Pepé could see Santa Claus waving from the cockpit.
“There’s a wreath on the tail, Mom.”
“And a name.” She couldn’t clearly make out the scrolled name on the side of the aircraft but it looked like “Dottie.” The ornament was light but solid, as if carved from a single piece of wood.
“What kind of plane is it, Mom?”
“I don’t know, honey, but we’ll find out, okay? As soon as we get the rest of this box put back.”
“Let me look to see if anything else is in there, Mom.” He made a point of carefully inspecting the box, removing each crumpled paper and smoothing it on the table. Just like she did.
She smiled as Pepé imitated her mannerisms. “Okay, but I think it’s empty.”
He made a show of reaching back into the stocking. Serena studied the tiny airplane in her hand. Who had carved this for Dottie? When?
“Mom, there’s more paper!”
“It’s to fill out the toe, honey.”
“No, I think...” Pepé pulled out a scrunched-up wad of paper that he unfolded.
Serena grinned. “You were right, Pepé. What is it?”
“It’s an angel, Mom.”
In his little hands was an angel woven from some kind of straw.
“Look, it’s been glued in several places. It’s old and fragile. Let’s take it in the house with us and put it in a safe place.”
“What about the airplane, Mom?”
“We’ll take that with us, too.” She shivered. “It’s getting close to dinnertime. Let’s go back into the house.”
Serena had to wonder if they were about to find out more of Dottie’s history than even Jonas and his family knew.
* * *
“SERENA, I’M NOT angry with you, mi hija. I understand that you had to make your own way. You know, I envy it. I never had that kind of freedom. You have a degree, a career. You can support Pepé as I never could have supported you.” Juanita Rodriguez spoke to her on the phone as Serena prepared dinner.
“I’m glad you’re not mad, Mama.” Serena didn’t believe for one minute that her mother was completely over Serena’s taking Pepé thousands of miles from the family, but she did hear Juanita’s love in the softly spoken words.
“When is Pepé going to Skype with me again?”
Serena laughed. “Mama, you’re going crazy with your tablet!” Serena had given Juanita a wireless tablet for her birthday this past summer, and Juanita’s first request had been to connect regularly with her grandson.
“Did you know you can read on them, too? I read my sexy novels on the apps.”
“Don’t let Red hear you say that!” Red was Serena’s stepfather and she loved him dearly. He’d treated her as his own daughter her entire life.
“I like it when she reads those books!” Red’s voice boomed in the background.
Serena groaned. “Mama, I don’t need to hear this. I’m happy for you, but let’s keep your love life out of it.”
“Can I talk to Abuela?” Pepé stood in front of her.
“There’s a young man here who’d like to speak with you, Mama.”
“Put him on, but first, mi hija, know that I send you a thousand besitos and I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you, too, Mama. And kisses to you, too. Here’s Pepé.”
Serena handed the phone to Pepé and watched as he animatedly described his school day to Juanita, leaving out no tedious detail. Gratitude filled her heart. Their life wasn’t perfect by far, but they had more than most. They had Serena’s loving upbringing and the love that Juanita had taught Serena to share.
* * *
“MOM, IT’S THIS ONE.” Pepé’s enthusiasm lightened Serena’s mood enough that she was able to ignore the handprint he left on the computer screen over the photo of a World War II aircraft.
“The P-40 Warhawk. Yes, I think you’re right, Pepé.” She scrolled through photos of the plane that almost perfectly matched the tiny wooden version of it that sat on the desk next to the computer mouse.
“I like its shark’s teeth.”
“That’s how they painted the ones that were in a special squadron called the Flying Tigers. They’re tigers’ teeth, actually.”
She should let Pepé think the plane was a shark and not a machine designed to take out the enemy with its powerful engine and deadly armament, but she owed it to him to be straightforward about historical fact.
You can’t protect him from reality.
Unfortunately, the reality of war had taken his father from him, too soon.
“When was world war, Mom? Is it the one Dad died in, with the bomb?”
Why couldn’t World War II have been the last war ever?
Sorrow tightened around her throat and she paused to take a deep breath, a practice she’d learned during many similar conversations. Pepé would hardly remember Phil as he grew older, and his grasp of war and how his dad had died was nebulous at best.
“No, honey. Daddy died in a different part of the world, in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a bomb that hurt him, but