The 13th Gift (11 page)

While Nick and I were sorting and organizing, Megan carried the Christmas decorations up to the family room under the ruse of getting them out of our way. By the time we went to bed, she had created a haphazard wonderland around the house. Sleighs, snowmen, Nativity scenes, and strings of white lights
sparkled from every spare inch of shelf space, except in the basement.

“As soon as you’re done with the painting, I’ll work some Christmas magic down here,” she had promised her brother before we turned in for the night.

The next morning, I’m lounging on the couch giving my muscles a break before attacking the basement once again, when Charlotte rings the doorbell and lets herself into the house. I presume she’s here to talk about the success of my Christmas shopping, or to expose my utter failure at it.

“Anybody home?”

When I hear her footsteps on the stairs, I pull a blanket over my head. My sister-in-law tugs the coverlet off.

“Gracious, Jo. Do you know what time it is?

“Noonish?”

Charlotte throws up her hands.

“It’s Christmas time, girl!”

She walks around the room, noting the thrown-together look of the Christmas decorations, and guesses my daughter has had more to do with their placement than me.

“You can’t expect Meggie to pull Christmas off all by herself.”

“I was up late working on Nick’s gift,” I say in self-defense.

“Did you buy the bike?”

“Not yet.”

“Video games?”

“No.”

“Then what did you get him?”

I share our plan to move Nick’s bedroom to the basement with Charlotte, and I tell her why we need to rush the project.

“Once Nick makes up his mind, nothing changes it,” she agrees. “He’s like his daddy that way. Rick always got a project going right before Christmas, and as I recall, you were never happy about it.”

“I’m not thrilled now, but Nick and the gift givers got the better of me.”

“Did you get another gift?”

I retrieve the five angel note cards from the kitchen and show them to her.

“If you know anything about these, please tell me. Nick said the gifts
inspired
him to help Megan haul out our holiday decorations. That’s when he got the idea to move his room. Honestly, these gifts are taking on a life of their own, and I’m not sure I like it.”

“If these little gifts help your kids heal, what’s the problem?”

I don’t have an answer for her, but she has one for me.

“Help comes in all kinds of packages, Jo. Don’t worry about who delivers it. Just accept.”

Her words are like an instruction book written in a language I am just beginning to understand. My mind tells me all the information I need to get by is right there; I want to take it all in and believe, but I’m not ready yet.

“I don’t need anyone confusing my kids. They’re confused enough already. Megan is convinced we’re experiencing some sort of Christmas miracle, and now this thing with Nick.”

“What about Ben?”

“He still doesn’t talk to me.”

“Well, at least he’s immune to their magic,” Char says, then walks over and gives me a hug. “The holidays will pass. The gifts
will stop coming, and you will figure out how to get on with your life.”

I break her hold on me.

“I’m just trying to survive the next seven days.”

Charlotte rearranges a Nativity scene on the bookshelf, pairing Mary with Joseph instead of with one of the three kings, and then turns to speak to me.

“Quit trying to be Wonder Woman,” she says. “I’m on my way to the mall. What can I do to help?”

I’m tempted to take her up on the offer.

“Nick wants a television, a computer with a ‘monster-sized monitor,’ and a new bed.”

Charlotte laughs.

“That sounds like our Nicky. I was thinking more along the lines of Legos,” she says, marching upstairs to wake Nick and Megan. “I’ll find out what they want.”

I follow Char upstairs, intending to take a shower while she talks to the kids. I’m glad for a few minutes on my own. A part of me knows she is right. What harm would it do, really, if I give in to Christmas for the sake of the kids? Is it disrespectful to Rick’s memory, or is it what he would have wanted me to do? I keep playing both scenarios over in my mind. I am so confused. Rick promised we’d grow old together. He left us, left me. But he is the one man who ever made me feel truly loved, besides my dad. I’m not sure if this longing I’ve been feeling lately to get a grip and move on is natural, or if I am somehow betraying him.

Behind the safety of the bathroom door I can hear Char talking with Nick and Megan, laughing. I sit down on the bathroom floor, and lean against the door, listening. With Char around,
I’m like a patron in a movie theater. I can be an observer, rather than a part of the action.

In our house, making a Christmas list has never been something left to the last minute. It’s a process that evolves from the first snowfall to the arrival of the newspaper sale ads on the morning of December 24. Getting the good stuff involves persistence, patience, and hours of studying store catalogues and circulars. Each time a new wish book arrived at the house, the kids would crowd around me, vying to see their favorite sections
.

“Doesn’t anyone want to sit next to me?” their dad would tease, knowing that for the moment his parental appeal couldn’t rival the slick, colored pages. Eventually, he, too, moved from the far end of the sofa to sit beside us, looking at new seasonal offerings and sale merchandise
.

The ads have been recycled this year without dog-eared edges
.

Nick assures Char he needs a fog machine, a black light, and glow-in-the-dark posters for his new room, all additions to the wish list he gave me. Megan says she wants one thing.

“A Christmas tree. It won’t be the same if we don’t get one.”

The veil of sadness that began lifting last night as Nick and I worked on the basement tries to slip back down, but this time, I push it back. This holiday season won’t be the same, whether or not we get a tree.

Ready or not, Christmas will come.

Twenty minutes later, I emerge from the bathroom showered and dressed. Charlotte is sitting in the living room waiting for me.

“What’re you doing tonight?” she asks.

“I got nothing.”

“We’re getting those kids a Christmas tree, and don’t you tell me no. I’ll pick you up at seven. Tell Nick and Meg to dress warm. Ask Ben to come along. He can carry the tree.”

My sister-in-law leaves before I can give her a reason I can’t go tonight. In truth, I’m grateful she has taken the decision out of my control. And she’s right. I don’t want to let Megan, or any of my kids, down. With her in charge of the expedition, we’ll get the tallest, fullest tree in town, and probably for less than anyone else would have paid. I wonder if I can persuade her to decorate the thing once we get it home, too.

Ben walks up from the basement just as Charlotte backs her truck out of the driveway.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

Time to tell him about the bedroom switch.

“Your brother’s been struggling since Dad died. He needs a change. We’re cleaning out the front of the basement and turning it into a room for him.”

I brace for a confrontation.

Ben sits down next to me and lays his head back on the couch. For the first time in months, he looks me in the eyes, and I see the sweet little boy who once asked Santa to bring him a sibling in his Christmas stocking.

“It’s a good idea,” he says finally—to my surprise. “I can’t imagine what it’s like sleeping up there. I don’t even like going upstairs to take a shower.”

While I sit mute, marveling at the fact my son is communicating with me and showing concern for his younger brother, he brings up another issue.

“What about Megan? Is she going to be all right sleeping upstairs alone?”

“She knows the plan, and she hasn’t complained.”

“She never does,” Ben says, and I acknowledge he is right. “Maybe she and Nick should both move downstairs for a while, just a couple of months until you feel comfortable sleeping in your room again.”

“You wouldn’t mind having both of them downstairs?”

“I’ll hate it, but I understand.”

He’s being so agreeable, I decide to push my luck.

“Does this mean you’ll help us clean out the rec room today?”

Ben grimaces but agrees. So I pose one more question.

“Char is taking us to get a tree tonight. Come along?”

My question dams the goodwill that is flowing.

“I’ll do anything for you, Mom, but not that. Leave me out of the Christmas plans.”

I feel very much the way I did on Ben’s fourth Christmas, when he was so excited about a gift he had made for me that he unwrapped the present himself. His eyes had glowed when he handed me the red scarf cut from the folds of my very best dress with kid scissors.

“I made it for you,” he had said.

What mother can resist that kind of love?

Now he offers me this new gift, the first real expression of love he’s shown since the death of his dad. But, this gift, too, cuts like the scissors on the scarf. I am worried about the anger he harbors, but relieved the angst is not directed toward me.

Yesterday, when I found the Christmas gifts he bought for his siblings, I thought maybe he had come to terms with the holidays on his own. Now, I know that he still has a way to go.

I don’t press him, though; honestly, I know how he feels, and I’m glad that I can give my son a little relief from the barrage of
Christmas that I can’t seem to escape. I shift our conversation back to the basement project.

We hear mumbling and turn to see Nick and Megan sitting on the steps.

“So we’re going to be roomies?” Ben asks his younger brother.

“I won’t get in your way,” Nick says.

“I know, ’cause I won’t let ya.”

I end their banter with one word, “Breakfast.”

I scramble a dozen eggs, and the four of us eat in the rec room surveying what needs to be done to make the space livable.

“I vote we throw out everything and start over,” Ben says.

“We could sweep all this stuff into garbage bags and put them outside for the trash guys to pick up,” Nick says. “We’d get done in no time.”

I give Nick a “get serious” look.

“Let’s put everything for Goodwill in the corner by the closet. Trash goes by the steps so we can carry it out easily,” I say. “If there is anything we want to keep, we’ve got to find a new place for it right away or it gets pitched, too.”

We spend the early afternoon sorting. My children each claim some of the items from Rick’s office, which are packaged in layers of bubble wrap. Ben saves his dad’s key to the executive washroom at Gem City, which is basically a rusty nail in an old wooden box, a gift from fellow toolmakers to Rick when he made the leap into management. Nick takes mechanical pencils and metal rulers. Megan grabs the family photo that had been on her daddy’s desk. What’s left we add to a pile of giveaways for Goodwill and a local shelter for battered women and children. We work in silence all afternoon, no music and little conversation.
All of the kids take breaks to pop bubble wrap like it’s some sort of therapy. Every time the room gets too quiet, the farting noises erupt for a while.

Everybody giggles, except me. I do not share in their lightness. It’s been a long time since I have clowned around with my kids. I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike and I will eventually get the hang of it again.

“Try it,” Nick encourages me, offering me a plastic bubble to pop. “It’s addictive.”

“How about we throw it away?”

“I think it might be against the law to waste good bubble wrap,” Nick replies, punctuating his point with a loud pop.

With all of us working, it only takes a few hours to clean out the basement. I fill buckets of soapy water to wash cobwebs off the walls and baseboards, but I leave that task to the kids.

“What color paint should I buy?”

I direct my question to Nick, but he and Ben answer together.

“Black,” they say, looking like conspirators.

“Not happening. How about white?”

Ben answers, “That’ll do.”

I make a quick trip to the hardware store for paint. When I return, everyone has changed into old clothes, and drop cloths cover the carpet.

“Let’s roll,” Nick says, dipping his paint roller into the tray.

We pelt him with paint-stir sticks and rolls of blue tape.

By six o’clock, the walls glow with a fresh coat of primer. Ben, Meg, and I stop to get cleaned up. Nick finishes the trim work alone.

I am amazed at the speed of our progress today. Even more,
it feels wonderful to have everybody working together on a common goal. I whisper a prayer of thanks to the gift givers and think maybe this is how we get through Christmas. Who needs holiday hoopla, presents, and parties? We have each other. That’s all we need.

The day has been so consolatory that I think about asking Ben one more time if he’ll join us this evening. Megan stands at the living room window watching for her aunt Char, contemplating out loud the merits of long-needled pines. When she asks Ben his opinion, he reverts to my quiet, sullen son.

Char pulls into the driveway promptly at seven p.m., just as Ben screeches out in his red Nissan.

“Where’s he going in such a hurry?” Char asks. “Isn’t he coming with us?”

I shake my head. “No. He’s not coming.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Of course I did.”

“What are we going to do with that boy?”

She’s not expecting an answer, but I give her one.

“He’s been helping with the basement. We’ve already gotten a coat of paint on the walls.”

“That’s progress,” Char concedes. “Where’s Nick?”

“I’m down here,” he hollers. “Come see.”

She finds Nick as white as the walls, covered in flecks of paint, looking as if he’s been caught in a snowstorm.

“I wanted to paint the walls black, but Mom wouldn’t let me.”

“Good call,” Char says with a smile. “Get your coat on, Nicky boy. We’re getting a tree.”

We climb into Charlotte’s truck and drive to the Cub Scout
tree lot in downtown Bellbrook. I wonder if the scoutmaster will remember me. I needn’t have worried.