Even with the tree lot and her nine-to-five job, Marty managed to bake chocolate dandies, stained-glass cookies, scotch bars, butter horns, peanut butter cups, molasses joes, Sacher torte, and a buche de Noel. That’s a cake that looks like a log.
The scent of candles and baking gingerbread boys gave me terminal munchies. Winnie carried cookies in her pockets, leaving a trail of crumbs behind her like Hansel and Gretel.
The whole living room had to be changed around to fit the Christmas tree in front of the picture window. Carl made sure the tree was standing straight, and told us to have fun before he took off. Winnie dragged boxes out of the hall closet and started pulling out Christmas decorations.
“Wait until I get the camera,” Marty said, jogging down the hall.
Winnie pulled out a Nike shoe box and opened it.
“This must be Deja’s stuff,” she said, dangling a felt reindeer cutout with Deja’s school picture pasted over its face. “I think this is from kindergarten.”
What a crack-up! Deja was missing two front teeth, and her hairband pulled her hair so tight it made her ears stick out from her head.
The phone rang. Marty must have answered it back in her bedroom.
“Where’s my shoe box?” Winnie dug in the storage container. “Maybe this one.”
She pulled out a box and opened it. “This is Ginger’s stuff.”
Ginger’s stuff. I almost expected it to glow in the dark.
How would it feel to know you wouldn’t be celebrating any more Christmases?
Winnie set the box on the edge of the coffee table and started pulling out tissue paper. On the top was a felt reindeer with Ginger’s face. She had dark curly hair, and I reached up and tucked a stray hair behind my ear. How stupid could they be? Couldn’t they see she didn’t fit in this family?
For the first time it was so obvious. How could my own parents not see the difference? Between the straight blonde hair and the fact that I was never sick, no matter how many times Mom took me to the doctor, did they ever suspect the truth? Did the thought cross their minds in some quiet moment? Maybe they watched me for signs that I was really theirs; for Dad’s eyes, Mom’s smile. Some family quirk.
I remembered one time when I was watching Bugs Bunny and caught Dad looking at me over the top of his newspaper. For a split second he looked really serious—almost sad—and I yelled, “Rabbit season!”
“Duck season!” he yelled back. But it was weird. Almost fake. And his smile never made it all the way to his eyes.
I finally got it. He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking for her.
In Ginger’s reindeer picture, I saw Dad’s eyes. I felt an overwhelming urge to break every ornament in the box. To stomp on that shoe box until every trace of Ginger was crumbs.
“I had Mrs. Maginetti in kindergarten,” Winnie said, startling me. “We made a wreath with pretzels. Wait till we get to my box.”
Marty called from the back bedroom. “Winnie, wait for me. I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t get anything out.”
“O-ka-ay,” Winnie singsonged, but she kept pulling out decorations from Ginger’s box.
“She said to wait,” I said. But I really wanted to see what else was in it. I felt the delicious sting of medicine in a cut, the kind of pain you weirdly enjoy.
“This is a candy cane she made in Sunday school.” She held up the twisted red-and-white pipe cleaner candy cane, and then rummaged deeper. “Oh, I remember! Grandpa got us these on a trip.”
Tiny moccasin booties made of soft leather and beadwork dangled from a hook. On the back was stamped WILLIAMS, AZ.
“I think they’re from Arizona,” she said.
“No duh, it says so on the back,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “You better wait for your mom.”
Cyclops landed on the coffee table, scattering wads of newspaper and slinking around boxes. He nosed into tissue paper, pushing Ginger’s box to the very edge.
“Cyclops, get down!” I sneezed.
Winnie pulled out a Baby’s First Christmas ornament with Ginger’s name and birth date painted on it.
“We all have one of these. Mom painted them,” she said. Dangling it from her finger on the thin wire, it caught the light like a huge diamond.
Cyclops locked onto his target and launched. He tackled, tucked, and rolled. Pop! The ornament burst like a bubble.
Cyclops jumped up like he’d been shot, shook his paws free of glass, and darted under the couch.
Winnie sat there looking like she’d been hit with a stun gun.
Marty raced down the hall with the camera in her hand. “What happened?”
She took in the glass and the opened boxes in one glance. Then she grabbed Ginger’s box from the edge of the coffee table.
“What happened? Did something break?”
I looked at Winnie, but she just zoned. Why did I have to be the bad guy?
I said, “Winnie was … showing me an ornament and … Cyclops jumped on it and it broke.”
Her eyes got wild. “Which one? Which one was it?” Marty let the camera slip out of her grasp. Then she set the box back on the table and reached down to pickup a glass shard with part of Ginger’s name on it. “Winnie?”
Winnie buried her face in her arms and began to sob.
Marty towered over me.
“Which one, Andie?” she asked, huffing like she was hyperventilating.
“The … the shiny one. The one with Ginger’s name.”
Her face twisted and her nose flared to let in more oxygen, because it didn’t look like she was getting enough. Then she blew.
“I told you to wait for me! You had no right to get into Ginger’s box!”
“It wasn’t me! It was Winnie. I tried to stop her.”
Maybe it showed, how guilty I felt, because for a second she looked like she didn’t believe me. I’d wanted to see what was in the box in the worst way. And I’d wanted to break her stuff myself. I guess it was written all over my face.
“Winnie …” Marty closed her eyes, and her shoulders heaved. “Go. Just … go to your room.”
Winnie stumbled up, scattering tissue paper and boxes, and ran sobbing down the hall. I’d never heard Marty yell at anyone but Deja. She knelt down and started picking up the glass. She sifted the pieces in her palm with a long red nail with holly decals. Then she sat back on her heels, and her whole body sagged. Her face screwed up, and big tears rolled down her cheeks. She wailed like a wounded animal.
It’s scary, watching grown-ups cry. I mean, if they’re not in control, who is?
I was trying to think what to do, and keep myself from crying, when Carl opened the front door. He wiped his feet on the rug, and I looked up helplessly into his startled face.
“What happened?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Marty?”
I gestured at Marty. “Winnie broke an ornament.”
He looked down into the pieces in Marty’s hand, and he kind of deflated. He leaned down and rubbed her shoulders with his big hands. Then he kissed the top of her head. “Come on,” he said, helping her up.
She sniffled down the hallway into her room, and just before she closed the door, I heard her call him Daddy. Then he went down the hall to Winnie’s room and went in, blowing his nose with a big white handkerchief and closing the door behind him.
I sat in the middle of the mess with Johnny Mathis warbling in the background about being home for Christmas, feeling like the lone survivor at ground zero. I sniffled a little out there, sitting all by myself and thinking I didn’t belong here, didn’t deserve this. I wanted to call Grandma, but I couldn’t ask right then and didn’t want to take the chance of making things worse. I missed her, and I needed to talk to someone who loved me.
Eventually I got out the vacuum and picked up most of the glass, saving the piece with Ginger’s name.
Carl finally came out of Winnie’s room and sank onto the couch. He rubbed his face with his hand and exhaled. Then he patted the seat beside him, and I sat down.
“Marty’s having some trouble with the holidays. This is only the second Christmas since we lost Ginger.” His sad blue eyes absently studied the ornament box. “She’ll get through it. We all will, I guess.” He shook his head. “Last year we skipped Christmas altogether. It’ll be a hard thing.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
He considered me for a moment. “I guess you do. It can’t be easy, losing your folks so young like you did.”
He caught me off guard. I didn’t know how much of the truth he really wanted to know.
“I’m okay. It’s not so bad this year.” At least not yet.
Carl waited for me to go on, but when I didn’t, he said, “Listen, if you ever feel like you want to talk to somebody …”
I nodded.
“We all might be twenty pounds heavier by Christmas, if Marty doesn’t slow down on her baking. But I guess there are worse ways of coping.” He looked around at the mess of boxes. “Just leave this stuff where it is for now,” he said. “They’ll feel better about things later.”
I watched Andy Griffith out there by myself after he left. I tried not to laugh because it didn’t seem right, but it was hard because Barney looked so goofy in a wedding dress. Marty came out with her eyes all red and swollen and went into Winnie’s room. I guess they made up. Later, when the tree was all decorated, I didn’t argue with Marty when she asked me to be in the picture. It wasn’t that big a deal.
We went Christmas shopping before I went to my grandparents’, and Marty helped me pick out a gift for them. It took most of the money I’d saved from working at the drive-in. So when Natalie gave me a gift at school, and Winnie told me she had picked out something I’d really like, I had to scramble to come up with something cheap for them.
I wrapped a basket I’d made in school for Marty and Carl. It was kind of lopsided, but it was only my first basket and it didn’t cost me anything. For Winnie I got some hair clips, and for Natalie a journal from the Dollar Barn. Deja didn’t deserve a Christmas gift, except some coal for her stocking.
Winnie was making a graham cracker gingerbread house the day before I left for Grandma’s, using candy canes, Tootsie Rolls, Life Savers, ribbon candy, and gumdrops. She asked if I wanted to make one, so I made mine sideways into a mobile home and put Tootsie Roll steps going up to the door. I’m not sure, but I think Winnie was trying to make hers into a castle. It was a gooey mess, but I told her I liked it anyway.
Carl drove me up to Pine Run early on Sunday morning at the beginning of winter break. The tree lot didn’t open till noon, and there weren’t many trees left, and he had time. Marty loaded me up with fudge and peanut brittle to share with Grandma and Grandpa, and a gift for me to open on Christmas morning.
By the time we got to Pine Run, Carl had to turn on the truck heater. Lumps of snow piled up in the shaded banks of the highway and dark crevices between the houses, and melted snowmen drooped in people’s yards. I rolled down my window. The sky looked sooty and smelled like snow. I thought how great it would be if I got snowed in here for weeks and weeks, one storm rolling in after another.
Carl pulled into the mobile home park, inched the Dodge Ram over the speed bumps, and parked behind the Lincoln. Bilbo was half buried in snow by the For Sale sign. Grandma’s TV was so loud I could hear it when I got out, even with the house shut up tight. I jumped out and ran in without waiting for Carl.
Grandma opened the door. “Andie, sweetheart, come in before you catch cold,” she said, squeezing me hard. Then she saw Carl. “Shut the door behind you, please, Mr. McAlister.”
I heard Grandpa call, and followed the plastic carpet runner into the TV room. The room smelled gross, like rotten eggs.
“Hey, Grandpa. You feeling better?” I hugged him, tripping on a folded-up walker beside his chair. Where did that come from?
“Oh, best as could be expected,” he said so loudly he startled me. “Had a touch of the flu, and then my leg give out on me. Dr. Owen makes me use this old thing.” He nodded toward his walker like a sulky kid.
Carl followed me into the TV room and set my bags down in the corner.
“Morning, Mr. James. Merry Christmas,” he said loudly.
“Merry Christmas to you too, sir. Our Andie behaving for you?”
“Good as gold.” Carl winked at me. “I’ve got to get going. I need to get back and sell some trees. You all have a nice Christmas.”
I walked Carl to the door.
“I’ll be back New Year’s Day,” he said. He paused, then leaned in and said quietly, looking me in the eye, “You have any problems or anything comes up, call us. You got the number?”
“Yeah. We’ll be okay.”
He hesitated. Then he said, “You know, it’s probably best for you to stay here anyway. Maybe next Christmas will be a happier one at our house.”
I thought to myself that I’d never know. I’d be moved out by then.
After Carl left, I grabbed my suitcase and headed to the sewing room.
“I’ve got a present for you, Grandma,” I called. “Where does it go?”
The clock with large, easy-to-read numbers, wrapped in penguin paper, was buried in my suitcase between socks and underwear. The bow was smashed flat, but the penguins still looked jazzed.
“Just set it on the counter,” she said. “We don’t have a Christmas tree this year. It’s too much trouble for us old folks.”
“That’s okay.” I shrugged, feeling a little disappointed. “I don’t need one.”
Their only decorations were some Christmas cards Grandma had taped around the doorway. It didn’t look like Christmas there at all.
“I haven’t got around to putting up any decorations,” Grandma said. “See what you can find in your closet.”
I pulled off my sweater. It felt like a sauna, and Grandpa still had a blanket on his lap. The TV tray beside him overflowed with prescription bottles and empty cups. How could he keep them all straight?
“You keeping your grades up?” he shouted.
“Yeah, pretty good,” I answered.
He put a hand to his ear and shook his head.
“Yeah, pretty good!” I shouted.
He nodded. Geez, when did his hearing short-circuit? I saw his hearing aid mixed in with the pill bottles. Why wasn’t he wearing it?
I carefully brought out the boxes. Grandma’s Christmas decorations were ancient. Frayed garlands and fragile bulbs with the color worn clear in spots. I put the old nativity scene on the counter, but Baby Jesus wouldn’t stay in His manger. Maybe He was creeped out that His mom’s face had worn off and one of the sheep only had three legs.
I found some of the Christmas decorations from our old house on Evergreen. There was a grapevine wreath, Santa’s sleigh, and a giant reindeer that used to sit by our fireplace. It felt good to touch them again. I smoothed out the silk holly and poinsettias, and fluffed up the big plaid bows. When Grandma wasn’t looking, I buried my face in the reindeer’s bow and breathed deep. Smells can take you years away.
We were trying to untangle a knot of twinkle lights when someone knocked at the door.
“I’ll get it, Grandma,” I said. I figured it was a neighbor, and it was okay now because I was just a temporary visitor. When I opened the door, Carl stood there with a big box under his arm.
“I brought you something,” he said, wiping his feet and coming inside to stand the box upright in the corner. “I saw your grandparents didn’t have a Christmas tree, so I got you one.”
The skinny box had a picture of a Christmas tree on the side. I looked blankly at him. Carl with a fake tree? What was wrong with this picture?
By that time, Grandma had shuffled in.
“I brought Andie a small Christmas tree, if it’s all right with you. It’s pre-lit, so it shouldn’t be any trouble.”
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“I stopped by the K-Mart on my way out. You all have decorations for it?”
“Yeah, we have boxes of stuff.” I couldn’t believe he would do this for me, especially knowing how he felt about fake trees.
Grandma wasn’t saying anything, but she looked at the box like it had lice.
“Grandma, it’s okay, isn’t it?”
Her mouth puckered shut, and then relaxed. “If Andie wants it, I guess we can find a place for it.”
“Thanks, Grandma.”
I ripped open the box and dug out a bristly green stick. I smiled up at Carl.
“It looks pretty good, for a fake tree,” I said.
“Yeah, it’ll do.” He opened the door. “This time, I’m really going. Bye, punkin.” He chucked me gently under the chin, like he would do to Winnie, and he left.
I cleared a space in a corner of the living room and set up the tree. It looked pretty real, once I got the ornaments and garland on it. I made a paper-plate angel for the top.
Grandma was grumpy after that. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering her until I overheard her talking to Grandpa, which wasn’t hard. She said Carl only brought the tree because he was trying to win me over. And he called me punkin—that bothered her too. She sounded a little jealous and a lot suspicious. She said something about him wanting my insurance money, but I didn’t know anything about money. He was just being nice, wasn’t he?
I remembered the goodies Marty had packed for us, but decided not to spring them on her right away.
“Grandma, I want to bake some cookies.”
“Sure, hon. Look in the cupboards. It’s been so long since I baked, I don’t know what I’ve got anymore. Maybe we should pick up some slice-and-bake cookies when we run to the Safeway.”
The sugar cookies we baked didn’t compare to Marty’s peanut brittle and fudge, but we had fun making them together. And Grandma didn’t bad-mouth Marty’s goodies so much when I brought them out later.
It was good to be with Grandma and Grandpa, but it was quiet and a little sad. And boring. I did some cleaning for Grandma, things that hadn’t been moved or dusted in years.
On Christmas morning, Grandma asked me to read aloud from the Bible about Jesus’ birth before we opened our gifts. Grandma wiped her eyes. I could tell the story meant a lot to her. But why couldn’t a God who made those miracles happen protect my parents? He protected Mary and Joseph; why couldn’t He have warned my dad in a dream, or sent an angel to them?
I knew the answer. We just weren’t that important.
We listened to Christmas carols on the radio and watched a marathon of It’s a Wonderful Life. The weather was stormy, and Grandma kept checking the phone to make sure there was a dial tone. If the power had gone off, I think I would have cried. I just wanted the day to be over.
Winnie gave me a craft kit to make jewelry. Marty and Carl gave me a sketchbook and set of colored pencils, so I got them out and doodled, just to make the time go by. I wondered how Winnie and Natalie did in the church play. Maybe I’d call Natalie when I got back.
On New Year’s Eve I took down the tree and the decorations and put them in my closet. Just before Carl got there on New Year’s Day, I remembered to copy down Uncle Greg’s address and phone number. That’s when I realized that he’d never even called Grandpa and Grandma to wish them a Merry Christmas.