Note:  “Wanderers” can also be found in my book “My Best Christmas and other stories of  the season” at Amazon.com.

******

Betty arched her arm up over her head toward the top of the mural.  Ruby looked.  She took a step forward.  She noticed the three lights in the sky.  They seemed to explode with energy that drew her attention.  Each one unique.  Each one leading Ruby’s eyes somewhere. Leading her somewhere in the mural to something that she needed, something she couldn’t yet grasp. 

 “What do you see?” said Betty.

 Ruby said, “I don’t know.  They all look the same.”  She stared.  “Except that one, the one in the center. It looks like a bird. An eagle. Like on Grampa’s jacket and it looks like it’s stomping out a fire.”

“And…” said Betty.

“Oh, that one.” Ruby pointed to the one on the right.  “That one looks like it has, has…” She giggled. “A coffee pot? Yes, a pot like in the diner’s sign in the window… and, in the picture of that guy over there.”

“And…” said Betty.  “What about that one, my favorite one?”  She winked at Thomas.

“That one…?” Ruby paused and studied the radiant blob. “Spots! Spots of rainbow colors poked in the light.  Blended together, but I can still see each one!”

“Yessiree, hon.  You are getting closer,” Betty said.  “What else?”

Ruby’s eyes ranged over Betty’s art work, oblivious to the handful of customers now watching as Ruby continued unwrapping the gift in front of her. Then, there it was.  Ruby squinted, then looked away, then looked again at the lights in the sky.  She stepped back. Looked. “Oh!” she said. Her lips went from circle to upward curve, a smile.  She bounced back to the mural immersed in the growing crescendo of discovery.  She reached for the stars.  Her fingers traced the radiance from each one, separate, coming from different directions, converging into one, subtle, yet definite beam of light.  Her hands followed it, journeying down the mural to something, something she had seen but really hadn’t noticed before.

Thomas and Betty watched.  They knew Ruby was almost there.  They watched as Ruby’s eyes, led by the light, gazed at the baby, wrapped in an old work jacket with the name ‘Harry’ sewn on it.

“What’s that?” Ruby said, startled by her own voice.  On the mural, with one hand, she touched the baby’s face and then traced the baseball cap covering the baby’s feet.  “A Red Sox hat,” she whispered.  With the other hand she reached up and felt the smooth red splotch on her own hat. “Just like mine,” she whispered, awe in her voice.  

 As dawn’s morning light filtered through the low gray clouds and crept through the diner’s windows one more source of light in the mural manifested itself.  Now Ruby saw it.  Light coming from the baby in the manger, mingling with the other streams of light, yet now being the dominant light, drew Ruby’s eye once again to the baby, wrapped in Harry’s coat, with a Red Sox hat just like hers and … “Just like mine!” Ruby said. “The baby has red hair just like mine!’

The morning drizzle turned into pelting raindrops crashing into the front window.  The sidewalk puddles reflected the neon glow of “Harry’s Diner” outside.  The jingle bells on the front door announced the morning’s next visitor.

”Meira!” said Thomas, grinning ear to ear.  

Meira smiled, squeezed Ruby like she would hang on to her always and forever.  Then she leaned back, looked at her daughter and said, “You’re wearing my favorite hat!”  She laughed and knew that her story had been told.

“Mom!” Ruby rushed across the room and threw herself at her mom. Meira flipped down her rain soaked hood exposing a cascade of red.  “Mom!  Red hair! That’s you in the picture!  That’s you, isn’t it?!

As they headed to the door, granddaughter, daughter and father, Thomas turned back to Betty with a look that said everything. A tear escaped from the corner of his eye as he touched his hand to his heart and silently said, “Thank you,” to his best friend.

***

 Monday, once again in science class, Ruby leaned forward, her chin resting on her hands. Since the weekend with her grandfather, Ruby’s outlook on life had taken a turn for the better.  Even her interest in astronomy increased in spite of her misgivings about her teacher.  With her vocabulary quiz behind her, she now  tried to squeeze everything she could from Mr. King’s astronomy lecture.

He droned on, “… which is what some scholars believe to be the best explanation for the ‘star’ the magi followed.” He peeked over the half-glasses perched on the end of his nose at a now-interested Ruby Jensen. “Planets,  or wanderers if you will, joining together, leading magi to the Messiah….”

“Yep,” Ruby thought. “That’s right. That’s right.” And then for perhaps the first time ever, in that class, Ruby smiled.

Note:  “Wanderers” can also be found in my book “My Best Christmas and other stories of  the season” at Amazon.com.

*****

Later, when they got together and talked they would wonder.  Not so much wonder about how the little one found its way to that lonely nativity.  That they would never know.  Not even to wonder about what kind of desperate person would abandon such a precious child on such a wicked night.  They would realize the futility of trying to answer questions that, for them, were unanswerable.  So they would set aside their speculations and judgements, never to know the whole story.

For them, the wonder and the wondering came when they considered how they, the wanderers, all desperately needing something that night, came together at that place and that time.  All helpless in their own way.  All giving to each other a glimmer of hope that dark, dark night and for the days to come.

Ruby felt a warm presence, as if a flood of warmth was being released to thaw the frozen scene in front of her, to unlock its meaning. 

“Ruby,” She heard the storyteller call her name. “Ruby, this is your story. And my story and your grandfather’s, and Harry’s… and your mother’s.” The voice, the storyteller, was Betty…

“Do you see it, Ruby?” said Betty, quietly.  She wrapped her arm around the child. “Do you get it?”  Betty walked Ruby back away from the mural.  “Look again.” The swirls of color that played around the edges of the mural and danced with each other as if one could not exist without the other.  Once again Ruby was being drawn in for another look. The coldness of the scene warmed as they took a step forward, as a glimmer of understanding dawned in the twelve year old’s mind. 

“Do you see it?” Thomas said as he walked up to the pair. He took Betty’s hand and gave it a squeeze.  He sensed that the fog of the early morning was clearing from Ruby’s brain.  They took one step closer to the mural, then another.  Ruby’s eyes raked the painting, examining every square inch again, looking for the clue to the mystery that, it seemed to her, everyone else knew. Yet, she was still in the dark.

She probed the dark corners of the stable.  She was hooked and wanted to know what Betty and Grampa already knew. She wondered about the blurred images of the shepherds, animals and the parents of the child in the manger.  What was that about?  She looked again at the light hanging from the pole standing over the nativity scene.  Its light was dispersed shining on an old wreck of a minivan hung up on a pile of snow.  

What was artist Betty trying to show? There was something being said, but something Ruby was not seeing.  And, probably for the first time she would admit that she wanted to know more.