In fact, my father had not titled this short short story. I am guessing that his writing class had been instructed to begin a story, any story, with the well known, somewhat hackneyed sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night" and see where it took each senior writer. Dad was for some time part of an elder writing class sponsored by West Hollywood, California and facilitated by a lovely lady named Bea Mitz. He actually had a few of his works published in small venues.
I decided to give it a title, "A Promise Fulfilled". Here goes.
It was a dark and stormy night. The little girl pressed her face against the inner panes of her bedroom window, her eyes straining to penetrate the clouding moisture. She had heard the door slam as he stormed out of the house. The raging force of nature outside, the lightning and the claps of thunder did not hide from her anxious heart the hate-filled words they had hurled at each other in the other room. There was movement, she was sure, as her eyes strained into the teeming vastness of the raging turmoil outside. A figure was walking toward the house. He was coming back! Then, desolation and tears. It was nothing more than the protesting branches of a tree casting shadows in the intermittent flashes of lightning.
She was chilled. The fireplace was unlit. Earlier, the maid had come into her room and made those bodily movements and sounds that denote one is cold.
"Lara," she said, 'it's freezing in here. Shall I light the fireplace?"
"No, no," Lara protested, "please leave it!" It was Christmas Eve, she said. How would Santa come down a fireplace into blazing logs. And Papa had promised her a special gift. They would open it together tomorrow. Then he would take her away with him and they would be together forever and ever. . . "
The woman entered the room. "Come away from the window, Lara," she said sternly. "You can be hit with lightning." There was no concern in her eyes. She was as composed as she always was, and beautifully dressed, untouched in any way by the conflict whose din had penetrated the wrath of the storm, the sturdy oak door to her room and had pierced her heart.
"Come away," she repeated. "I've had enough nonsense for one night, and Louise," she said addressing the maid, "get her into bed before she catches her death. Get some heat into this room!" With that final admonition, she strode away.
"Come, Lara," whispered Louise, "Your mother is angry."
"She's not my mother. She's never been my mother!" Lara burst into tears. "I hate her--I hate her!"
Louise set about lighting the logs in the fireplace. "Sweetheart," she soothed. "Don't talk like that. Kris Kringle can hear long distance. And Santa doesn't have to worry about fire in the chimney. You just won't see him when he comes, and he always does. But he won't come if little girls try to stay awake to catch him."
Lara relaxed as Louise dried her eyes. Papa never lied to her and Santa had never failed her before. Her eyelids were heavy from the cares of this fateful day.
Sleep came quickly, and dreams in which there was no rain, no lightning and thunder, where the ground was pearly white with thick snow, especially on the rooftops. How else could Santa drive except with snow?
Then the storm was back and she was somehow outside in the pelting rain. Papa had her by one hand and the woman the other. They were pulling in different directions and their voices were shrill. Suddenly, she wasn't dreaming. She was awake and there was another din through her sturdy oak door.
Then suddenly, there was silence.
Lara ran to the door and opened it.
"Papa," she cried, "You came back!"
Her father was standing face to face with the woman. Two men stood stoically behind him. One of the men was in a police uniform and wore a gun around his waist.
"Well," said the woman coldly, "take her, take her now."
Lara jumped into her father's arms. He carried her briefly back inside her room.
"Look," he said, pointing to the floor in front of the fireplace.
"Look, your gift from Santa."
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