Chapter 8 – Margaret: We Need A Little Christmas
His musings of Christmases past coming to a halt, Sidney panned around the Officers' club and watched how the personnel were making merry during the Christmas of 1952. Colonel Potter was still decked out in his Santa suit, passing out hand painted Christmas cards to all his enlisted men and officers, and Charles sat at the bar engaging in discourse with a nurse as they partook of Cognac together. Klinger and Nurse Kelly danced until they found themselves under the mistletoe, where he planted a kiss on her cheek. Suddenly a strange feeling overcame Sidney, and he found himself searching the room for several people, rather than observing the festivities. He scanned the club from one corner to the other and became puzzled why Major Margaret Houlihan, Father John Francis Patrick Mulcahy, and Captains BJ Hunnicutt and Hawkeye Pierce were not among the party guests! Finding this to be extraordinarily odd, he decided to bundle up and battle the furious winds and snow so he could locate and possibly be of some help to the missing people.
Major Freedman hiked through the harsh weather and noticed a light on in Margaret's tent; and he made up his mind that her abode was his first port of call. Heeding the sign, he knocked and strained to hear her voice calling for him to enter.
"Yes?" she yelled through the closed door.
"Margaret, it's Sidney Freedman! I noticed you weren't at the party at the O club!"
The door swung open to reveal the blonde in all her absolutely exhausted glory. "You'd better come in before you catch your death out there." With that, she stepped aside and beckoned for her visitor to enter her little home.
"You look like you could use some company," the psychiatrist observed as he sat in her desk chair and she reclined on her bunk with a copy of A Christmas Carol in her hands.
"I see you like to read Dickens."
"It helps me get into the Christmas mood … something that's hard to do after losing a patient on what's supposed to be the most special day of the year," the lady major said with sadness in her normally loud and overpowering voice. "At times like this, I need reminders that it is Christmas time. Reading Dickens is the closest to a tradition I seem to have; I've been reading it this time of year since I was sixteen."
Haul
out the holly;
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again.
Fill
up the stocking,
I may be rushing things, but deck the halls
again now.
For we need a little Christmas
Right this very
minute,
Candles in the window,
Carols at the spinet.
Yes,
we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute.
It hasn't
snowed a single flurry,
But Santa, dear; we're in a hurry;
"I imagine that, as an Army brat who moved around a lot, you never really had a chance to have very many traditional holidays or attend as many Christmas parties as you wanted. Because of that, you've had to learn how to keep Christmas in any way you could during wartime and peace."
"You're right. The closest we ever came to a traditional Christmas was when we were living in Fort Ord. The rest of the time, we lived on bases all around the world and celebrated according to the culture where we lived... My father was seldom home with Mom, Lizzie, and me, so we celebrated in any way we could. When I was fifteen, my father gave me this book; he gave Lizzy a collection of Christmas records; and he gave Mom two bottles of the finest perfumes in Europe. The year after that, Daddy was overseas, and we were in California; those gifts became our Christmas traditions from then on. Lizzy plays those records; Mom only wears those perfumes between Thanksgiving and Christmas; and I read this book. It gives us some semblance of stability in the unstable world of an Army family. For some reason, this book is more important to me this year than ever before."
So
climb down the chimney;
Put up the brightest string of lights
I've ever seen.
Slice up the fruitcake;
It's time we hung some
tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For I've grown a little
leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown
a little older,
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my
shoulder,
Need a little Christmas now.
As Sidney watched Margaret turn her attention back to the pages of the novel, he noticed an expression of contentment twinkling in her green eyes. It was true that her living conditions were never perfect, nor did she have the chance to celebrate Christmas as her friends had during childhood; however, that classic piece of literature proved to be an anchor onto which she could cling and recall a cherished memory. This would certainly get her through this dismal Christmas. When he saw the chief nurse reaching for the lone piece of fudge that sat on her bedside table, Sidney knew she would be all right now.
"I can see you're enjoying your reading, Major, so I will wish you Merry Christmas." The therapist smiled at his hostess before wrapping up in his protective winter paraphernalia and opening the door.
"Sidney?" Margaret called after him before he passed through the opening.
"Yes, Margaret?" he acknowledged her hail, spinning on one booted heel and waiting for her to say what was on her mind.
"I think Captains Pierce and Hunnicutt could use a friend right now. They were both feeling pretty low after we lost our patient."
"I'll be sure to stop in on them. Merry Christmas!" With that, Sidney waved and exited the female officer's tent and headed for Post-op, where he believed one or both of the surgeons might be hiding.
