End of Days

Thanksgiving was so delicious Veronica wished they could eat turkey basted with maple syrup and ancho pepper every day. She loved pouring her mother’s gravy over everything. Mary’s stuffing with apples and sausages was the best thing in the world. And why was pumpkin pie something people only had at Thanksgiving? The whole family and a few close friends feasted till their stomachs burst.

The following Saturday Veronica and her mother left early. They went to their favorite café on Lexington, had hot chocolate and croissants, window-shopped along Madison, and walked to Second Avenue to choose their Christmas tree from the same man who drove in from Vermont every year. This was their tradition.

A particularly scrawny tree called to them. It was a tree that was the underdog, a tree no one else would want. Taking turns, they dragged it home. By the time they reached Fifth Avenue, their hands were raw and covered in sticky sap. It was a perfect day except for the weather. Buying a Christmas tree in unseasonably warm sixty-seven-degree weather was not right. It should have been cold with at least a threat of snow.

“I can’t believe we had hot chocolate this morning!” Mrs. Morgan said. “I’m ready for iced tea now.”

“Or ice cream,” Veronica said, wiping sweat from her face.

“Ice cream! Maybe we’ll make egg creams when we get home. Hey, do you remember where I put the decorations last year?” her mother asked.

“The front closet?” Veronica guessed.

“Gosh, I hope not.” No one liked to go in the front closet, lest something fall on them. “I think maybe they’re in the back of the linen closet. Mary took out the stand yesterday, bless her.”

Charlie saw them coming down the block and ran to their aid. He picked up the tree and swung it over his shoulder.

“This is some tree,” he said, smiling. “Where is the rest of it?”

“You’ll see,” Mrs. Morgan said. “With a little attention, this tree will look wonderful.”

She brought the stand out to the living room and she and Veronica were busy struggling with the screws when Mr. Morgan walked in.

“What in the name of, Marion! Why? Why?”

“Marvin, please don’t start,” his wife said.

“What the hell is a nice Jewish family doing with a bloody Christmas tree? I don’t understand!”

“Because it smells good,” Mrs. Morgan replied. “And it’s pretty. Okay, Veronica, tighten your screw.”

Veronica did, and each turn filled the living room with more scent from their aromatic pine tree. When the trunk was secured they filled the bottom of the stand with water and stood back to admire their sweet, pathetic tree.

Cadbury approved by curling up underneath it.

“Daddy,” Veronica said. “What’s wrong with celebrating what makes you happy, regardless of what religion you are? Isn’t it like eating Sephardic charosis at Passover? We aren’t Sephardic, right? Plus, didn’t you tell the Lubavitchers on the street yesterday you weren’t Jewish? Because if you’re not Jewish, then who cares if we have a tree? And even if we are, who cares?”

Mrs. Morgan laughed. “You realize, Marvin, that you make absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

“Well, neither do you. With the shivas and the Christmas trees and the challah and the Christmas cookies.”

“I make sense to myself,” Mrs. Morgan said.

Logically Veronica understood what her father was saying. But her mother was the one who made sense.

*   *   *

The December wind whipped through the trees so fiercely that Veronica wondered if there would be any leaves left on the branches by the time she and Cadbury got back from their afternoon walk. Although walk was a stretch. Lately Cadbury refused to move after his leash was on and Veronica had to carry him in and out of the elevator.

“He’s on strike, huh?” Charlie said. He had on his winter uniform, which included gold shoulder tassels. Veronica wondered if he liked it. It sure was fancy. She offered Cadbury a slow-baked sweet potato chip, hoping to lure him out of the elevator. Mary had invented that particular treat on one of the many days she’d forgotten she didn’t like dogs.

“Where is his other half?” Charlie said.

“Florida until April, remember? Fitzy always goes right before the holidays,” Veronica said.

“Right you are. Right you are. Maybe you need to get your fellow on the first flight. Looks like he misses his lady. Let me get the door for you, my dear,” Charlie said.

A burst of cool air rushed at her and Veronica wondered what it was like being Charlie. Having a job that made you stay in your coat all day long, inside. Veronica imagined she would be uncomfortable, but it never seemed to bother him.

Poor Cadbury shivered. She was a negligent owner. Fitzy had a coat, a sweater, and sometimes Mrs. Ferguson even put Fitzy in little shoes. Fitzy probably had a new coat just for Miami. A monogrammed windbreaker.

“I am ordering you a coat, Cadbury. Something very fashionable. Maybe with toggles.” The thought of him in a toggle coat made her happy. “Fitzy will be jealous when she comes back.”

The wind went right through her open hoodie, so she pulled both sides together in an attempt to keep it closed. Cadbury had chewed out the zipper. She should have worn a real coat, but the cold weather had come out of nowhere and she refused to dress for it.

The leaves blew high and in flurries and she felt like she was in a snow globe. Soon the air would smell like fireplaces and pine needles and toasted marshmallows, like real winter. Veronica didn’t mind winter. The only thing she couldn’t manage was how early it got dark. Night at four o’clock in the afternoon always felt like the beginning of the end.

“Why are you being so poky?” Veronica asked her dog. Cadbury replied by sighing loudly.

“Are you crabby about daylight saving time too? I don’t blame you but the slower you walk, the longer it will take us to get to the park and the less daylight we’ll have.”

Her argument did not convince Cadbury. He was practically nailed to the sidewalk.

Veronica reminded herself of what Mrs. Harrison said yesterday, that moods are formed in the mind. If that was true, she’d better form a new mood before she got mad at Cadbury. They weren’t really in a hurry. She’d already finished her homework. The leaves crunched under Veronica’s feet.

She thought of the chestnut poem from the first week at Randolf. Where did things begin and end? Leaves fell and became part of the ground they landed on. The ground nourished another tree, which produced nuts, which were then eaten by a bird or a squirrel who would poop and fertilize another tree and so on and so forth.

Nature, Veronica concluded for about the hundredth time since getting Cadbury, was helpful to all living things. Maybe that’s why I used to rub my fingers up and down my green carpet so much. I just needed a little patch of Central Park. She wrapped the soft lining of her sweatshirt gently around her finger as if she could protect it from all the years of rug burn.

“Look!” Veronica said. She picked up what was obviously the world’s best stick. But when she threw it, Cadbury lay down.

“Did you forget how it’s done? Here, let me show you. Watch.”

Cadbury tried to get comfortable in the leaves as Veronica fetched the stick herself. She returned with it, but Cadbury just looked at her.

“You’re not going to play with me?” she asked.

When it was clear that he wasn’t, Veronica played fetch by herself. She ran back and forth until she collapsed next to Cadbury.

For years Mary had told Veronica she would make another friend besides Cricket Cohen and Veronica hadn’t believed her. But that was because the friend Veronica had tried to imagine was human, not canine. She gently covered her new friend Cadbury with a blanket of leaves. She lay next to him, staring up at the sky with its last little bit of daylight.