Rudy calls, from California, on his way up, but still two days out. “You might be on tree duty on your own. Maybe Elmo’d help.”
“She’s in Idaho.”
“Uh-oh.”
He and Marnie had always gone with Rudy for the tree, but Taz bundles up Midge and heads out. Even before he gets close, he can smell the warming fire they always made, taste the hot chocolate, Rudy’s bracing schnapps additive, smell Marnie’s first cut into the trunk, down on her knees in the snow, nearly swallowed by the low branches, these huge grand firs, big around as the whole living room. Three times he starts out, and three times he turns around, just can’t go without her.
He ends up at a lot, in town, Marn saying, No way. Saying, Really? Saying, You’re just going to buy it? Her first tree? He feels the breath of each word against his ear.
He sneaks it in at midnight, as if Marnie might not notice that way. He winds the light strings that still work until after two. Replaces the fuse with a blinker. Midge sleeping through another night. Her very own Christmas gift.
But, once the lights are on, he can’t not go in and get her. He hesitates, watching her sleep, then eases his hands in under her and slips her out of the crib without waking her, his own Christmas miracle, and then sits with her in the swivel rocker he’d found out by the curb, just down the block from the last job. He rocks and turns till dawn and when she wakes, she doesn’t cry. She hardly moves. He thinks he can hear her blink. The ceiling fan spins forgotten. She can’t take her eyes off the winking lights. Like a campfire in the living room, only maybe better.
The ornament boxes are scattered in the dungeon of a basement, but he doesn’t know if he needs anything more than the lights.
Lauren knocks. Early. He wonders if she’d be bunking here. Then he remembers her insisting on the motel, saying she’d never interrupt his life that way again. Her words.
He looks around once more. Stands, Midge in his lap, wrapped in her blankie. He feels her twist as he moves, her gaze locked to the lights while he walks to the door.
When he opens it, they look at each other, their breaths making clouds in the cold, snow coming down in the big flakes he’d always loved, slow-drifting tongue-catchers. Taz says, “Merry Christmas,” and Lauren doesn’t take her eyes off Midge. Taz twists a little, and Midge turns, at last, from the lights, the blast of cold, maybe, drawing her attention. Though she smiles, she leans in tighter to Taz, something he hopes Lauren misses.
She’s loaded down with packages and, of course, groceries, but still she reaches, and Taz says, “Come in, come in. Before you freeze in place out there.”
Taz follows her into the house, closes the door shut behind them, has to push on it, knows he should pop the hinges, run a plane over the top corner. Something to do while she’s here.
He trades Midge for a grocery bag weighing a ton, and Lauren takes her in like oxygen. Hugs her. Smells her. Breathes deep.
Midge squirms and Taz retreats for the kitchen, sorting and shelving, giving them time. When he does step back out, Lauren is in his chair, his very position, Midge in her lap, unblinking gaze locked in on the tree lights.
Lauren smiles, says, “Nice tree. Very minimalist.”
“Yeah,” Taz says. “I’m getting kind of a late start.”
She brushes her hand across the top of Midge’s head. “I don’t think she minds,” she says.
“I think she’s missed you,” he says, nodding toward the bag of presents.
“She doesn’t even remember who I am. So, I’ll spoil her, win her that way.”
“What grandmas do, right?”
“For generations now,” she answers, and he watches them both go quiet, staring into the glow of the lights.