IT’S A CHARLIE Brown Christmas tree. But we ain’t complaining—we decorating. Gem got a sewing needle in her hand. She threads it, knots the ends together. Then sticks the needle through pieces of popcorn till she got a whole row, maybe forty pieces, strung together. She call it popcorn garland. It’s my job to hang it on the tree. I already done two rows. Only one more to go.
I’m at the tree when Rosalie bumps my hips with hers, laughs, and hangs more bulbs. They small as quarters, red, green, and silver. Them our colors this year. At least that’s what Gem say. We got silver tinsel on the tree; silver garland taped on the wood around the front door. Branches full of pine needles is on the mantel with fake candles in between. Roxanne gave all us girls the same exact reindeer socks—Rudolph with a little bell on his nose.
Katrina the only one in here not working. She in the middle of the room on her belly facing the television. She look up at the tree and smiles, then gets back to her show. This the fourth time today she watched Home Alone. The first two times the family watched it together. Not Daddy. He out of town on business. We work every day, weekends plus holidays. Today is Christmas and we off for once.
Kate’s under the card table on her knees plugging in Christmas tree lights. They blink and play music—“Jingle Bells.” Roxanne walk in singing. Nobody joins in. She a whole choir by herself, singing sweet and soft, making me miss home. I go stand at the front door so they don’t see me crying.
Daddy don’t allow it, but we got Carolina to let us leave the front door open. I wipe steam off the storm door with my sleeve. See the snow piled on the ground and trees, making outside look like a Christmas card. All day long, the sky’s been dropping snow. When the wind blow, seem like we stuck in a snow globe.
Folding my arms, I think about Cricket. If she’s with my sister, she got so many toys she won’t know which ones to play with first. Is you walking now? I ask her in my head. Crawling? Teething? I sniff. Clear my throat. Hope the other girls don’t hear. But Roxanne got cat ears, I say all the time. Here she come standing beside me. Putting her arm around me. Next thing I know, Gem is on the other side doing the same thing. It don’t take long before there’s two rows of us, side by side, staring out, quiet as snow. “What you miss?” I ask.
“I miss my mom and dad,” Rosalie whispers. “We baked gingerbread cookies the night before Christmas every year till— Never mind.”
“The church across the street from us brung us Christmas presents every year.” They gave her a talking doll once, Roxanne says. “She upstairs under my bed.” For the first time since I been here, she look sad enough to cry.
Kianna’s brother burned their house down, but not on purpose. Her mother and two sisters was in there. Her and her dad went to a homeless shelter. One day she woke up, and he was gone. She never found out what happened to her brother. Daddy found her near the shelter the next day, crying.
I close my eyes and see myself in my own bed under my own blankets with Mom, Dad, and JuJu downstairs wrapping presents. “What that girl say in that movie with the bear and lion in it?” I ask. “Ain’t no place like home,” Kate, me, and Rosalie say together.
“This is home.” Gem stabs the popcorn with the needle. “My present at Christmas at my house was a stepmother who beat me and a mother on meth. I ran, left. And I’m never going back. So, quit talking about how nice things was before because if it was—y’all wouldn’t be here.”
Carolina’s heels always let us know when she coming. By the time she in the family room, we back to decorating right along with Gem—at least pretending to. She dressed in all red down to her shoes, wearing an apron that used to be her mother’s. “I need help with the pies.”
She point to me and Roxanne, so we right behind her when she get to the kitchen. Pans and flour, brown eggs, sugar, fruit, lard, butter, and spices, fill up the whole table. Carolina gonna bake sweet potato pies, apple pies, and one blueberry pie even though she don’t like blueberry and none of us either. Her mother made it every year, now so do she. She cooked the collards early this morning. Gem and Kate helped her stuff the turkey that’s in one of the ovens. Rosalie made the cranberry punch too sweet. Kianna and me made three-cheese macaroni and cheese yesterday before work. Katrina ain’t do nothing at all.
I dig my hand in the flour and spray Roxanne’s face. She pays me back. Carolina yells that we got no time to be playing around, acting like kids. But before we know it, Gem, Kate, and everyone else come in here. We make the biggest mess. Flour in our hair, on the floor—everywhere. It’s Christmas, so maybe that’s why Carolina hands us brooms and mops, but don’t get mad or cuss.
At dinner, she asks me to say grace. The table is full. Everything is hot and smells good. The only thing missing is Daddy. He in LA, stuck at the airport now, trying to get home to us. I pray for him first. Ask God to bring him home safe to us. Maleeka would say I’m nuts. But he ain’t beat me lately. Him and Carolina feed us and give us clothes—so they not all the way bad. I pray for the girls here next. We like sisters. Better than sisters ’cause they would cut or kill somebody for me. Gem is right, I guess. There are worse houses to be in, worse daddies to have. I know that for sure now. So, I close my eyes and thank God I got it as good as I do.
Licking sweet potato pie from between her fingers, Kate opens the gift Rosalie gave her. Wrapped up or not, we can tell it’s a cup. Jumping up and down, Kate act like it’s filled with money. She give Rosalie a big, long hug. “Just what I wanted.” It got her real name on it—Katie. Only her real family ever calls her that, she say.
“Merry Christmas.” Roxanne hands me my present.
“Oh,” I say once I open it.
She cleans Daddy’s room sometimes. Says she saw the coloring book and crayons in the trash. “I knew they were yours so—”
“I … used … to color but I don’t no more … so thanks … anyhow. But I don’t want nothing from back then.”