Summary:  A Christmas continuation of The Art Universe

Rating:  G   2,280 words

My Story Index

Broken Sugar Bowl

Broken Sugar Bowl

Ben Cartwright enjoyed little more than having all his family come together for supper at the Ponderosa on an early advent evening, particularly now that Adam and his own little family lived in their own house, half-way between the Ponderosa and Virginia City.

It was at times as these that it struck him how blessed he was, just sitting contently at the coffee table after an excellent meal, holding his three-months-old granddaughter in his arms and happily ignoring he had long ago succeeded rocking her to sleep, listening to his sons’ easy banter about who was to eat the last ginger cookie (or ginger biscuit as Juliet insisted as she’d baked them), and watching his daughter-in-law and grandson Henry making paper snowflakes.

According to his parents, making snowflakes was Henry’s favourite pastime lately, right after snowball fighting. The boy unfolded his latest creation, carefully and under close scrutiny of his mother, stitched a white twine through one of its delicate points and then, while humming One-Horse Open Sleigh, let it dangle from his finger, moving it across the coffee table. It went over the now empty tray of biscuits, flew circles around each coffee cup, pretended to dip into the cream jug, and finally descended onto the sugar bowl.

Henry fastened the twine on the acorn adorning the lid, faltered, and then fingered the bowl.

“It’s broken,” he eventually said. “Here. It was glued together, but it’s broken.”

Ben smiled. “I know.”

“But why don’t you use a whole one?”

“Because, young man, it’s a family tradition to use it during Christmas time.” Carefully, so as not to wake the baby, Ben leaned forward and picked the bowl up. Tenderly, he followed the crack that had split the bowl in half with his finger. “It was your Uncle Hoss’s mother’s. It’s the only keepsake we have of her.”

Chewing on the inside of his mouth, Henry considered this for a moment, then went to stand next to Ben and pointed a finger at the crack. “How comes it’s broken?”

“Because sometimes accidents happen.” Ben put the bowl back on the table and ruffled Henry’s hair. “It happened long ago, when your father was still a child, and Hoss was even younger than you are now. To this day I still don’t know how exactly the bowl broke, but it isn’t important anyway. What is important is what happened after that.”

Henry, ever eager to hear stories from his father’s past, managed to wriggle himself into the chair next to his grandfather and looked up at him expectantly. “And what happened?”

“As I said, it happened a long time ago, almost the same time of year as now. We had settled down on the Ponderosa only months before and were living in a small cabin I built where this house now stands. Hoss was only three, and while I was away setting traps or hunting, Adam looked after him. Winter was meagre time, though, for trappers. We mostly lived from what I managed to hunt. One day, I had a particularly hard time finding any game, but the air smelled like a blizzard was on its way, and I needed to stock up our provisions in case we got snowed in. So I stayed out until the waning daylight made hunting impossible. When I finally got home, it was uncommonly quiet in the cabin….”

The broken sugar bowl was the first thing Ben saw when he entered the cabin. Inger’s sugar bowl. Broken. It sat in the middle of the table where it wasn’t supposed to, and it was broken. Someone had glued it back together, but the crack was unmissable. It split the bowl in two, was uneven where shards were missing.

Ben felt his temper rising. Had he not expressly forbidden Adam to use the bowl? Had he not made clear how precious their little belongings were to them? How important it was to keep everything in good condition? How dear that bowl was to him? To Hoss?

And then the door to the bedroom the boys shared opened and Adam tiptoed out of the room, carefully closing the door behind him.

“What have you done?”

Adam jumped at Ben’s address, but as he turned he smiled tentatively. “Pa! I didn’t hear you. I put Hoss to bed, he just fell asleep.”

“This early?”

Adam’s smile fell. “He’d been crying a lot. I guess it tired him out.”

“Crying a lot?” Ben snorted. “Yes, I suppose I know why he cried.” He made a gesture towards the table. “That sugar bowl is the only thing he’s left of his mother.”

“I tried to put it back together,” Adam said. “But I had only flour to cook glue; I don’t think it’ll keep long. Perhaps we can try it again with something better.”

That calmness. That utter lack of…remorse. Ben could barely keep himself from shaking the boy. “Something better would have been not to break the bowl in the first place. Why did you take it out anyway? I told you not to use it, haven’t I? There are two things, Adam, two things you’re not allowed to fiddle around with: the music box and this sugar bowl.”

“But, Pa—”

“What else do you do when I’m not here? Do you obey the rules at all? Or are you just doing as you please?”

“But, Pa, I didn’t disobey—”

“But you did!” He was barely controlling his anger, just enough to keep his voice down so he wouldn’t wake Hoss, but he growled now, low but threatening, and it felt good. “Like back then when you made Inger give you the music box. You thought you were clever, you thought I would not find out, and then you…you…you broke it! Broke the last thing we have left of her, stealing your brother his only heirloom…”

Adam stared at him, stricken, his mouth half open as if there were a reply on his tongue he was afraid to let out. But still, there was more shock than regret in the boy’s face, and that fuelled Ben’s anger to a point even in his rage he knew was unreasonable—and unjust.

He took a few deliberate breaths, clenched his fists and opened them a couple of times. Then he was able to speak more calmly. “We are going to have a necessary talk about this in the barn, first thing tomorrow morning. This breach of trust will not go unpunished. Do you hear me?”

The shocked look just fell off Adam’s face as it became unreadable. Ben knew that expression. It was deceitful, as it implied blankness but in fact meant Adam was thinking, assessing, making quick decisions.

“I said, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tomorrow morning, then.”

With that, Ben left the cabin. It was dark outside, but there was an oil lamp in the barn, and that was light enough to chop wood.

And chop wood he did.

He chopped wood until there was not a single tree pit left. And with every log he put on the wood pile, he felt a little calmer, a little less angry.

He remained deeply disappointed. The sugar bowl… of all the things Adam could have broken, why had it to be that sugar bowl? It had been Inger’s pride; she’d brought the china with her from Sweden and had insisted on taking it to the West. It was her memory of home, and was supposed to be the base of their future household.

From the whole set, only the sugar bowl had survived the travel West, rocky roads, Indian attacks, broken wheels, rock falls, and thieves. It was almost bizarre that the two things he’d left of his wives were two very delicate, fragile porcelain objects.

One of which his son had just broken, apparently without any remorse.

But he would take care of that tomorrow. Without fury, but in a way that perhaps would teach Adam what he had done. Until then, his son would have time to consider his misdeeds.

Ben paused after that part of the story, and glanced at Adam. His son’s face was as unreadable as it had been back then when he was a boy, and briefly, Ben wondered if it had been right to relate this particular story to his grandson.

Said grandson chose this very moment to put his oar in. “Papa does the same.”

“Pardon?”

“Chop wood. When he’s angry. He goes out then and chops wood. I’m not to approach him then until he comes to his senses again, says Mama.”

“Ah, yes.” Ben bit his lips not to smile too broadly.

Joe, who obviously felt less restraint, guffawed. Hoss reached over and ruffled Henry’s hair. Adam chuckled quietly and said, “Do you now?” while he darted a pointed look at his wife, who just raised an eyebrow and threw him a beaming smile back.

“And Mama,” Henry added, obviously warming up to the subject—and the attention, “Mama kicks at things.”

“Henry!” Juliet’s eyebrow rose dangerously, though dropped down just as quickly as Henry bestowed her with his own brand of beaming.

He was wise enough, though, not to dwell further on the subject. Instead he turned to his grandfather, “Did you chop wood all night, Grandpa?”

“No,” Ben said, happy to take up the thread again, “I did go to bed eventually. Although I didn’t sleep much. Nor did your father apparently.”

In fact, Adam looked almost peaked when he sat down at breakfast. Composed, as usual, and resigned to his fate, but still not like a miscreant, more like a martyr. Unreasonable.

Ben felt new anger rising.

Hoss’s face still bore marks of heavy crying, which didn’t make things better. Neither did the fact that the boy refused to eat his porridge or drink his milk. No amount of coaxing brought a single oat into the child’s mouth.

“Aren’t you feeling well?” Ben finally asked.

At that, Hoss broke into tears. “Hoss bad,” he choked out.

“No,” said Adam. “Come on, I get you back to bed.”

“Hoss bad!”

Adam stood and tried to take the wailing child up. “It’s all right, you’re just tired.”

“Hoss—“

“I’m gonna read you a story, all right?”

“Hoss break—”

“Shh, be still, I’m—”

“What in tarnation is going on here?” Ben plucked Hoss from Adam’s arms, and sat down with the boy on his lap. “What is going on?” he replied much gentler. “Why do you think you’re bad?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Adam said hurriedly. “He’s just…”

“Let your brother answer. Now, Hoss?”

“Hoss break bowl.”

“You broke the sugar bowl?”

A nod.

“How?”

“Hoss play.”

“He didn’t mean to, Pa.”

“Adam.”

“Sorry, Pa.”

Ben sighed. He wiped his palm over his face, then rested his head on his fist for a moment. “No, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” He shook his head. “But why didn’t you tell me you didn’t do it?”

“I tried at first, but you wouldn’t listen.”

It was true. He’d been so angry, and he hadn’t listened. But still…

“You could have told me this morning.”

Adam looked down. He said nothing.

“You could have told me this morning.”

Again, nothing.

“Adam…”

“Don’t tan Hoss, please, Pa?”

And suddenly everything fell into place.

“Adam, I won’t…of course I won’t punish Hoss. He didn’t do it on purpose, did he?”

“I wouldn’t break something on purpose either.” It came in a very small voice, barely audible, and it broke Ben’s heart.

Of course, Adam wouldn’t do that. Of course, even if Adam had broken the bowl, it would have been an accident.

“I’m sorry, Adam. I shouldn’t have… I know you’re responsible and reliable. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you the way I did. I was…I had a long, hard day, and a very unsuccessful one to boot. Then I came home, and the sugar bowl… It’s all we have left to remember Inger, and I…”

“But we don’t need the bowl to remember Ma. We got Hoss, don’t we?”

“And he was right,” Ben said, reaching for his coffee cup. He took a sip, more to buy time to compose himself than out of necessity. “How could we forget Inger when we had Hoss who reminded us of her every single moment? So I decided to dispose of the bowl.”

“But you didn’t do it,” Henry chimed in.

“Oh, I did.”

“But how comes the bowl is here?”

Ben smiled. “Two weeks later,” he said, “on Christmas morning the sugar bowl suddenly was back, standing on the table adorned with a red ribbon and a small fir bough tied to it. Someone,” he gave Adam a pointed look, “someone rescued it from the litter and properly glued it back together the way it is now. Ever since then we put it on the table at Christmas time.”

Henry nodded. “Because it still reminds you of Hoss’s mama, right?”

“Of Hoss’s mama, and of more, Henry. Much more.”

Ben dared another look at Adam, not sure what he expected: the unfathomable expression again or even distress. But he found neither of it on his son’s face. Instead, there was contentment, the twinkle of a half smile in the corner of Adam’s mouth, and he finally realised that he’d been forgiven a long time ago.

Henry picked the snowflake up and sent it on its way around the table again. Through the window Ben saw snow gently falling, the fireplace crackled, baby Florence snuggled even deeper into his embrace, and Hop Sing came from the kitchen bearing a tray with fresh coffee and more biscuits.

Life was good.

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Click here for the 2018 Advent Calendar – Day 11 – Morning Star aka Stealing Christmas by Belle