It’s Christmas—Monday morning—and the elephant keens and whines outside. There’s no way you can get away from the racket.
Grandma Violet is making French toast for breakfast. Mike sleeps on the recliner; Trullia’s snoozing on the sofa. They both snore. I’m sitting on the floor, trying to block out the noise of elephant with the TV.
The elephant just keeps going with her sad sounds.
Birds chirp outside and the sky is bright, but inside it’s dim and quiet and thick with grief. No joy to the world in here. More like, Let’s open this stuff and get it over with so we can all go back to being sad and alone.
I open the first one, crumple the wrapping paper, and shove it into the trash bag Grandma brought into the living room.
“A set of watercolors!” I say. “Awesome. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Grandma says. “Here’s another one from me.”
She hands me a big package.
I pull off the snowman paper. It’s brushes, an easel, and canvases.
“Cool,” I say. “Now I can paint, here in Florida.”
Trullia hands me a gift. I open it. A coloring book and Crayola crayons.
“Look, it’s all wildflowers!” she says, as if I can’t see that. “It’s like you and me, Lily. Wildflowers. That’s us.”
“Why’d you get her a little-kid coloring book?” Mike asks. “She’s too big for that.”
“Nobody’s too old for coloring!” Trullia says. “My therapist recommends it! It’s great stress relief.”
Mike just shakes his head.
She hands me another one, wrapped in paper that says Happy Birthday. I open it: pink flip-flops with sparkly sequins and a flowery dress.
“You’ll be a teenager next year, and we need to get you looking stylish,” Trullia says. “Plus, you need something decent to wear for the funeral.”
I look at her. Trullia’s eyes are red, smeared with sleep and mascara.
“Thank you,” I say. These might be my first-ever gifts from my mother, at least as far back as I can remember.
“And last, but not least, one from me,” says Mike. He hands me a package wrapped in newspaper. I open it. It’s a Rainbow Loom, to make rubber band bracelets.
“Now you can make a bracelet for everybody in Gibtown!” Mike says.
“Thank you,” I say, even though I have no desire to make rubber band bracelets.
“Nice to make Christmas fun for a kid,” Mike says. “I never had that. Nobody ever cared enough.”
“That’s sad,” I say, but then he changes the subject.
“Open it up,” he says. “Check it out.”
Grandma and Trullia ooh and aah over the Rainbow Loom. They are all acting in that fake perky way that adults put on whenever they’re actually super sad. It’s as if the outside totally clashes with the inside, like trying to match plaid with stripes. It kind of hurts my eyes to look at them, so false and full of pretend life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. At least I’m polite. My dad taught me right.
We are sitting down to a noon Christmas dinner, all four of us squished around the tiny table in the teeny kitchen. There’s ham and peas and Stovetop stuffing and potato rolls. Nobody said grace. Nobody’s talking, just eating. Grandma’s eyes are puffy, and Trullia still hasn’t washed the smudged makeup from her face. Mike is sweating, beads of perspiration snaking down his cheeks.
“You two should think about getting rid of that elephant,” Mike says out of the blue.
Grandma Violet raises her eyes from her plate to Mike’s face, and they cut sharp like a knife.
“Don’t even say that, not even as a joke,” she snaps. “Bill would never have gone for that.”
“Well, what if it keeps acting up and hurts somebody? What if you can’t afford to keep it, to feed it, now that the act can’t happen?”
“Maybe it’ll just have to be the Amazing Queenie Grace and Her Best Friend, Violet,” Grandma says. She spoons peas into her mouth, swallowing what she really wants to say.
“Mom, you know that you and Queenie Grace will never click like Dad did with her,” says Trullia, looking up with her shadowed eyes.
“How about the Amazing Queenie Grace and Her Best Friend, Mike?” asks Mike. He wipes his forehead with his paper napkin.
“Pfffft. Queenie Grace doesn’t even like you,” Trullia says.
“Probably likes me more than it likes you,” retorts Mike.
“Stop bickering, you two!” says Grandma Violet. “Set an example for Lily here. And no more discussion about Queenie Grace, please, not until later. It’s just too overwhelming right now.”
“I feel so bad for Queenie Grace,” Trullia says. “I know exactly how she feels. She feels empty. And confused. And mad. And sad. All wrapped up in one big fat package.”
Grandma nods.
“You don’t have to be human to feel grief,” she says.
Trullia pushes away from the table. Still in her chair, she pulls back the little white curtain to peer out the kitchen window.
“Where the heck is Queenie Grace, anyway?” she says. “She’s not out there!”
Trullia lets the curtain fall back, presses both hands to her head.
“She’s got to be out there!” Mike says, dropping his fork. “I chained her tight to the tree!”
Mike and Trullia both stand, pushing each other to be the first at the living room window. They remind me of two toddlers in a crowded day care, both of them brats.
My grandmother hops up and runs outside, her long hair flying behind.
“She’s not out here,” she hollers from the little porch. Grandma shades her eyes, looks left and right, frantic.
“Queenie Grace!” she yells, like calling a dog. “Queenie Grace!” The yippy little poodles next door are yapping their heads off.
“Where could she be?” shrieks Trullia.
“I have no idea,” my grandma shouts from the porch, and she’s a silhouette against the blinding bright blue Florida sky. “Who knows? As far as an elephant can run.”
“No way!” says Trullia. “This can’t be happening!”
“Call 911,” says my grandma. “We need to find her. What if she runs out on the road?”
My grandma dashes into the yard, and Trullia and Mike both turn and bump into each other, like on a funny TV show. These three are all in a tizzy about the runaway elephant, and so they don’t even notice me as I run outside.
I just sprint past Grandma, veer to the left, and dash fast past the home of creepy Charlie the fire-eating weirdo. My Converse sneakers slap the black pavement, forward, forward. I can obviously run much faster than those three old people, who are freaking out so loud I can still hear them.
I’m going to find that elephant.