The 13th Gift (5 page)

“The Christmas bows are in my bedroom,” she says. “Mom doesn’t want them.”

The boys speak simultaneously, “Why not?”

I walk out of the room in search of my purse to avoid answering the question. Megan responds loud enough for me to hear.

“She’s getting a cold.”

“Another one?” Nick asks.

I pull ten dollars from my wallet and hand it to Ben, moving the conversation away from the gifts and onto dinner plans for the evening. I have a late meeting to cover for the newspaper and won’t be home in time to cook. The honor falls to him.

“Can you go to the grocery after school? We need milk and butter.”

I wait for Ben to erupt, but he just pockets the cash.

“There’s a box of macaroni and cheese on the counter.”

Megan gives Nick a pleading look, and I’m not sure what it means, but her brother’s attention is tethered to Super Mario.

“I can walk to Dot’s Market after school,” she volunteers. “I’ll get the groceries.”

“How about,
no
,” Ben says.

Since the market is more than a mile away, I agree with my son.

“Why don’t you take your sister with you,” I suggest.

The look on Ben’s face is far from filial. My mom radar starts beeping when Megan melts back into her chair and closes her eyes again, but I attribute the mood to her late bedtime and my trashing of the bows.

I know what’s going on. Instead of fanning her joyous spirit, I am stomping it out. I want to make amends, maybe take her to a movie this weekend.

“How about we—” The arrival of Ben’s school bus outside the house ends the conversation and sends everyone scrambling. Nick’s and Meg’s buses are never far behind. As Ben walks out the door, I ask him to spend time with his sister this evening.

“She’s ten. She doesn’t need a babysitter,” he says.

Though she isn’t her usual chatty self, Megan gives me a long hug before she walks out to wait for her bus. The hug is reassuring and makes me feel a little better about the bows.

All three kids make it to the stop before their buses leave without them. I congratulate myself with a Diet Coke and hope the caffeine will inspire me to whittle away at the heap of dirty clothes in the laundry room. While throwing used dryer sheets
into the trash, I discover Megan didn’t rescue all the bows this morning. The ones made of red-and-white striped ribbon—the two she selected for herself—lie in the bottom of the bin. My heart melts, and I know with certainty that I am the worst mother in the world.

“She’s losing Christmas.”

Instead of piddling around home until noon getting the Smith house in shape for Christmas as planned, I arrive at the office just after ten. I tell myself this is where I need to be right now. I am building a career to support my family, but that is only partly true. I spend more time in the office than at home. It’s just easier.

By the time I get back home, it is around seven p.m. I walk in the door regretting having gone into work so early. The extra hours at the office resulted in an additional story to write. I am tired. My feet hurt. Nick and Megan are sitting at the table with bowls of mac ’n’ cheese before them. Ben is not around, but his car is in the driveway, and I am encouraged to see that food is on the table.

“Smells yummy.”

The kids look at each other and freeze. I get no hello, or “how was your day?” The sense of relief I experienced walking through the door evaporates. I dump my coat and purse on the couch and sit down with Nick and Megan. Upon closer examination, the concoction in front of them looks like steaming bowls of cellulite. Nick’s dinner is smothered in Frank’s Red Hot
sauce. Megan’s is garnished with more dill pickles than a McDonald’s uses in a day.

“It’s not horrible,” Nick says feebly.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Basement.”

In the kitchen I find the source of the cellulite. An empty jar of mayonnaise sits on the counter. There is no butter or milk in the refrigerator. I stomp off to talk to my eldest.

I had promised Ben at his father’s funeral that I would not allow this death to force him into adulthood. I think that was the last time my son really listened to me. I try talking to him, but he is so angry—with me, his dad, life. His rage fuels mine, and we both explode with hurtful words and creep away exhausted by the effort. I don’t fear my son, but I fear what we will say to each other at moments when the truth of our family’s loss hits us broadside. When I hug him, he shirks me off. When I tread gently, he ignores me. When I yell, he yells back. I fear lightning will strike. Contemplating when it will happen or where keeps me on high alert and on edge.

I can still hear the kids talking upstairs, and their conversation confirms there is a problem.

“I hate this,” Megan says to Nick.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Not just the food, everything. We used to talk at dinner, about school and sports and stuff. I miss Mom’s roast beef sandwiches, and chicken and noodles.”

“Tacos with black olives,” Nick adds to the list.

Family meals used to be special. The television got turned off. Telephone calls went unanswered. Each of us shared the best of our day
and the worst. Now dinners consist of cold-meat sandwiches, salads, hamburgers from a bag, and apparently mac ’n’ cheese made out of mayo. There is very little conversation without Rick to lead it
.

“Tell me about your day, princess.” Nick gives his best impression of their dad. “How about you twirl some macaroni on that fork for me.”

Of Italian descent, their father had given his fine-art-of-eating-pasta demonstration every time spaghetti appeared on the menu. Megan’s utensil scrapes against her bowl, and I imagine my children attempting to spin the mac ’n’ cheese around it, even though the elbow noodles aren’t twirling material.

“No cutting spaghetti noodles in our house,” Nick continues his dad impersonation.

The sound of Megan’s laughter weighs me down, and I pause. I want to go upstairs and share these memories with my children. I want to march downstairs and get Ben to fess up about the dinner, but my body is stone. I can’t move. I just lie down on the couch and listen.

“I don’t want to forget Daddy’s way of twirling spaghetti on a fork,” Megan says softly.

Her comment quiets Nick. The two remain silent for the rest of the meal, which doesn’t take long. The garbage disposal runs a long time and I suspect neither of them ate much. The aroma of pulverizing dill pickles wafts all the way to the family room.

“It’s your turn to do dishes,” Nick’s parting comment, before his footsteps thump up the stairs to his room.

“Why is it always my turn?” his sister calls after him.

A few minutes later, Megan is kneeling on the floor in front
of the couch and prying open my right eyelid. She is holding the poinsettia.

“You asleep?”

“Not anymore.”

“Our flower is sick.”

“It just needs water. Get a measuring cup from the cupboard. Give it a quarter cup.”

She talks to the plant as she walks back to the kitchen.

“You’re going to be just fine,” she says. Then, “Please live, little flower.”

With dinner chores and homework done, Megan joins me in the family room, settling into a beanbag chair to watch television. Keeping my eyes closed, I pretend to sleep. I don’t want to answer any more Christmas questions tonight, but my little chatterbox has clearly made her mental list and is checking it twice.

“Do you work late tomorrow?” she asks.

“Argh.”

My groan sounds more like a huff, and I am sure Megan feels like one of the Three Little Pigs facing the Big Bad Wolf. Her home is made of straw and sticks.

“I’m sorry, Momma. I’ll be quiet.”

Quiet. That’s what I long for, but I can’t ignore the hurt look on her face.

“What’s up?”

“I was just wondering … about getting a tree?”

I definitely saw that one coming, and I have a response prepared.

“Made any progress on your bedroom?”

Hurricane Megan has been blowing with gale force this week, depositing school clothes, sports equipment, candy wrappers, and water bottles in every nook of her room, except where they belong.

I have used her messy room and the overall disheveled condition of the house as an excuse to put off all kinds of things, and the latest is the purchase of a Christmas tree.

“If only I could get my stupid brothers to help,” she says. “Can’t you make them?”

“I have asked them, just like I asked you.”

The conversation doesn’t inspire Megan to get busy, but it does quiet her.

She channel surfs, finding news about a car accident, a robbery, and a standoff with police, instead of the holiday show or cartoon I know she prefers. When her movements morph from restless to quiet, I glance over. Though the overhead light hums, the darkness outside has crept indoors with the sunset casting shadows in corners. The late night and early rising have caught up with my Megan. Her chest slowly rises and falls in time with her slumbering breath, but her hands are clasped over her eyes. I roll into the couch, doing the same thing.

But before I can drift off, I hear the crash of shattering glass in the kitchen, and I’m pretty certain the mayonnaise jar now rests in pieces in the bottom of the recycling bin. Ben is destroying the evidence.

I have to talk to him.

When he comes downstairs a few minutes later, neither of us says a word. We are gunslingers standing twenty paces apart. We don’t draw our weapons because Megan is asleep on the floor, but Ben knows that I know he never went to the grocery.

Megan’s gentle snores divert our attention. Our showdown will come, but not tonight.

“Can’t spend time with her if she’s asleep,” Ben says, covering his kid sister with a blanket.

The bravado of his words doesn’t camouflage the gentleness of his actions as he tucks the blanket around his sister’s toes. Ben turns off the light and the television as I request. But the door to the basement bangs behind him as he goes downstairs, and the sound jolts Megan from sleep. She is confused.

“Daddy?” she calls out.

I have heard her sleepy voice whisper his name many times in the early morning hours, as her daddy left for work. Megan’s bedroom was always his last stop before heading out the door. Prone to kicking off her blankets at night, Rick never left home without tucking in his princess. Though sentimental and sweet, his actions often woke Megan. She would skitter to the window and wave good-bye as he backed out of the driveway. Of course, the wave was followed by a trip into my bed and an early wake-up for me. When I asked Rick to be quieter in the morning, he refused
.

“Seeing her at the window waving reminds me why I go to work every day.”

Megan sits up, and I can see from her expression that reality is returning.

Daddy’s truck is not pulling out of the driveway.

My mind shouts, “Momma is here. I love you,” but the words change as they spill from my lips.

“Hey, sleepy head,” I say, flabbergasted at my own speech. “How about using some of that Christmas spirit to clean your bedroom.”

Megan stares at me for a moment and then heads upstairs.
The room closes in around me without her. Family photos—my grandmother, mom, all the matriarchs of my family—glare down at me from the walls.

A family room is no place to be alone.

After a very few minutes, I follow Meg upstairs.

She sits with her back to the open door surrounded by sheets of construction paper. I see Ben’s name printed on one with artwork cut from a CD cover glued in the center. A hand-drawn angel flies across the sheet bearing my name. Nick’s holds a newspaper Nintendo ad. Each is embellished with a bow.

Christmas presents.

Megan is gathering up her art and hiding the homemade cards behind her bed before she begins organizing her stuffed animal collection.

“I just wanted to hug her,” Megan confides to a plush puppy, before launching it into her toy chest.

“Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I don’t understand,” she speaks this time to a photo of her dad gazing down at his newborn daughter. “How can I help, if Mom won’t talk to me?”

A teacher had told Megan the family would heal, that we would all feel better, that “it just takes time.” The thought seems to comfort Megan, but I don’t know if I believe it. The mood in the house is getting worse as the holidays approach.

I lean back against the hall wall, ashamed to be listening, but I don’t walk away.

“It’s the gifts, I know nobody else wants them,” Megan continues. “I’m the only one who wants Christmas.”

When I hear her open a window, I think it time to intervene, until she starts talking to our true friends.

“Thank you, but please stop,” she says, and I can picture her leaning on her windowsill facing the dark night. “You are making Momma sad.”

I back down the hallway avoiding the floorboards that creak.