The 13th Gift (4 page)

I want to buy the bike. I intend to buy the bike, but before I make a decision, Bing Crosby is crooning the opening lines of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” and my mind erases every thought except that Rick will not be with me to assemble the bicycle on Christmas Eve. When the stock boy clears his throat to get my attention, I jump.

“I’m sick of Christmas music,” I bark at the young man, who
is not much older than my Ben. I am ashamed as soon as the words leap off my tongue, but it’s too late to take them back.

“Yeah, Christmas sucks,” he says mildly, reversing down the aisle. A couple dressed in matching holiday sweatshirts glare at me.

“Just kidding,” I mumble at them, and I flee.

I abandon my cart with the blow-up Santa, wrapping paper, tape, and the torch, and seek the privacy of the public restroom. I feel safe behind the hollow metal walls of the stall, where flushing toilets and humming hand dryers muffle the store music. But they don’t silence the memories inside my head. I lean against the door and close my eyes, willing the accusations to stop.

Looking back, I know Rick’s body tried to warn me. The tightening of his belt by two notches, the change in his complexion from olive to ashen, and his hands, especially his hands. Hands that had held mine since age nineteen, that balanced our newborns in their massive palms, built dies and decks and repaired kids’ toys. Those hands were trying to tell me something was wrong with their thin, loose skin. I just didn’t want to hear it
.

A cardiologist had tried multiple medications and procedures to coerce Rick’s rapid heartbeat into a normal rhythm. On a late September morning at Miami Valley Hospital, a technician had even stopped Rick’s heart in the hope it would restart itself at a normal pace. Rick needed surgery to replace a leaky heart valve, a birth defect that could no longer just be monitored at age forty-five. We could have scheduled the surgery immediately, but Rick wanted to postpone it
.

“Can I wait a few weeks?” he asked the doctor. “I want to time my recovery with the kids’ Christmas vacation.”

I dig a thumbnail into the palm of my hand until it bleeds.
The pain makes me feel better, slows the rapid pace of my heart. I can handle this kind of pain. I dab at the blood with a wad of toilet paper, thinking how I would freak out if one of my kids did this.

I imagine spending the rest of my life in the store bathroom. I can see the headline:
MOTHER BECOMES RESTROOM RECLUSE
.

“Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom,” a little voice whines outside my stall. “I’ve got to go
now
.”

A mop of red curls peeks under my door.

What am I doing in here?

It takes me a few minutes to summon the nerve to open the door. I exit the bathroom just behind my stall peeper and her mother. A tall man with carrot-colored hair sweeps the child up into his arms and my heart aches.

“Ready to go see Santa?” he asks.

I walk past the family with my head bowed, hoping the child doesn’t mention me to her daddy. While the family gets in line for a photo with Santa, I backtrack to the bike aisle to retrieve my shopping cart. My stalker clerk has beaten me to it. She is holding the blow-up Santa in one-hand and talking to the bicycle stock boy.

“There was something strange about that lady,” I hear her saying.

“For sure. Who doesn’t like Christmas music?”

I sneak out of the aisle. The crush of shoppers seems to be multiplying as I head toward the exit, and it’s difficult to maneuver through the crowded departments, even without a shopping cart. People are grabbing merchandise off shelves as if their lives depend on buying this gift or that.

“Won’t Cindy love this doll?”

“How about a tie for Uncle George, or maybe slippers?”

“Grandma needs a new robe.”

Their enthusiasm defeats me.

I spot the old guy, mom, and toddler in a checkout lane on my way to the door. They appear to have reconciled and are talking to each other, laughing. Both hold a copy of the video game. Their smiling faces somehow manage to annoy me even more.

Back in the car, I navigate to the nearest drive-through restaurant, order two hot fudge cakes with extra whipped cream, pull into a parking space, and devour them both in the dark. The food comforts me. It’s something I can control. I go back through the line for two double-decker cheeseburgers with extra pickle. By the time I gobble down the last bite of my fast-food feast, I am late for my rendezvous with the kids. I head out to my sister-in-law’s house with a black hole in the trunk of my car where presents should be. By the time I pull into Tom and Char’s driveway, the fudge cakes and burgers are warring in my stomach, incited by a full on attack of failure. I dread facing Charlotte.

She meets me at the door with a hopeful look.

“Did you buy a bike?”

I don’t want to lie to her, but I also don’t want to tell her the truth.

“They didn’t have the right color … checking other stores.”

The expression on Char’s face tells me she isn’t buying my excuse any more than I bought the bike, but she drops the conversation as we enter the kitchen. Nick and Meg are sitting at her table gorging on homemade peach cobbler oozing with heaping scoops of vanilla ice cream.

“Hey guys, did you get your homework done?”

“Mom, you’ve gotta try this,” Nick answers with his mouth full, and I know he hasn’t opened a book.

“I did mine twice,” Megan chimes in, and I don’t doubt it.

While the kids bundle themselves up for the car trip home and collect their backpacks along with the remaining cobbler, Char pulls me aside.

“How about tomorrow? Should we try this again?”

She’s not giving up.

“I could shop for you. Just tell me what to buy?”

The tone in her voice gives me pause: she loves my kids so much and so obviously wants them to have a good Christmas. “We’ll see,” I tell her, then feel ashamed by the joy my response gives her. I appreciate that she’s trying to help, but I don’t know if I can face another shopping disaster. Maybe
she
is the secret Santa who left the flower on the porch yesterday.

“I’ll make lasagna for dinner, and we’ll bake Christmas cookies while you shop. Meggie will love that.”

“We’ll see,” I tell her again, but with firmness in my voice signaling an end to the conversation and all possibility of a repeat performance tomorrow.

“Just think about it,” she says, and we both know I won’t.

It is after ten p.m. when we pull into the garage at home. The house is dark, and I have no idea where Ben is, as usual. Nick and Meg empty the car of backpacks and gym bags. I send them into the house via the front door so that I can secret the remains of my binging into the trash.

“I’ll be in right behind you.”

Nick grabs the house key from my hand and announces his
intent to polish off the cobbler as soon as he gets inside, but Megan lingers.

“You’re going to hide Christmas presents aren’t you?” she asks. “Did you buy one for me?”

Her innocent question fills me with regret, and I choke on my reply, feeling as if Rick and Father Christmas have their hands clenched around my throat.

“Into the house, you. You’ll find out on Christmas morning.”

She skips toward the front door and is almost bowled over when Nick comes charging back into the garage.

“We got another present,” he shouts, holding up two packages of Christmas bows.

The homemade card, heralding the Second Day of Christmas, gives no clue to the sender.

“Wonder what we’ll get tomorrow,” Nick says, with a kid’s confidence that more gifts will follow. “I hope we get the five golden rings like in the song.”

Megan’s immediate reaction is ecstasy way out of proportion to the bows themselves, which are lovely but completely ordinary.

“Momma, you can put them on our Christmas presents!”

The fudge cakes congeal in my stomach.

“We’ll probably just get the bill,” I answer, prodding them both into the house and slamming the door behind us. I try to remember if I had mentioned my evening plans to Joann while I was at the office, wondering if she had known that our house would be empty for a few hours so that she could deposit the gift.

The excitement over the arrival of a second gift and a sugar high from the cobbler and ice cream keeps them both awake long past bedtime. Nick is tented under a blanket playing a video game in his room, while Megan curls up in bed like a cat and asks me questions about her daddy.

“I miss him” has become her evening standard, instead of “good night.”

After talking for a little while, I turn off her light and go downstairs to make up my bed on the couch. It’s not long before I hear the floorboards creaking overhead. It is Megan, tiptoeing downstairs to look at the bows again.

“Who do you think is leaving the gifts?”

She opens a bag of the bows and begins to pair them up. She selects two with red and white stripes for her presents, blue for Nick, and green for Ben. I try to hide my tears, but she is a smart kid.

“Will they leave a gift tomorrow? Nick is so sure.”

Unable to answer, I shrug my shoulders.

She curls up beside me on the couch and makes x’s and o’s on my nightgown above my heart.

“Are they leaving the gifts … because of Dad, because we’re alone this Christmas?”

I respond with a harsher tone than I intend.

“Sometimes, adults don’t have all the answers, Meg, and I
can’t answer that one. I do know you’ll be yawning in math class in the morning, if you don’t get to bed.”

“I
always
yawn in math class,” she responds, not taking offense. “Besides, my science teacher says it’s a kid’s job to ask questions. I’m just doing my job.”

“And it’s my job to make sure you get plenty of rest. Now scoot.”

She gives up just after midnight when I threaten to ground her from basketball practice.

“Don’t forget the red-and-white bows are for my presents,” her parting comment.

“I won’t forget.”

I listen for a few more minutes for her sock-padded shuffle coming back down the landing, but silence at last envelops the house.

The neon glow of the toggle switch on the computer offers the only sign of life in the family room. The reflection of the pulsating beam on the package of bows casts a rainbow of dancing shadows on the wall. I think maybe it’s a sign. I wrap a quilt around me and sit down at the computer. My intent is to try online Christmas shopping, but the endeavor ends just as my shopping trip did. I’m in no mood for jolly, and the pair of dancing elves directing me to toys, bikes, and basketballs is beyond my level of holiday cheer. I hit the Escape key and bring up a blank page.

“Make a shopping list,” I order myself. The cursor blinks and fades, twenty times, sixty, one hundred, so I flip back to a search engine and type.

“Are you there, Rick?”

My fingers hover over the Enter key, and I think how embarrassing it would be if Ben should walk in on me right now. I thump on the key anyway.

An ad flashes across the monitor: “You can find everything on eBay.” Frustrated, I toss the bags of bows in the trash. The image of Megan’s hopeful smile delivers a flying forehand smash to my gut. I go to bed before I have a chance to change my mind.

T
HE
C
HRISTMAS BOWS
from our true friends rematerialize the next morning, shifting from the trash can in the laundry room onto Megan’s nightstand.

When my daughter finishes her cereal, I run my fingers through her hair, working out the tangles, a morning ritual we both enjoy. She closes her eyes and leans back into her seat, cascading her hair over the back of the chair.

“Sleepy?” I ask.

“Just thinking,” she replies.

Ben joins us. I know that I can’t let another missed curfew pass without comment. I plan my attack while he heats instant oatmeal in the microwave. I let him take a few bites before charging.

“I didn’t fall asleep until after midnight. What time did you get home?”

“Way before that,” he says. “You were in the bathroom. I went straight to bed.”

I want to believe him.

Megan rolls her eyes but doesn’t challenge her brother. Even a little bit of rebellion is out of character for her, and I fear something is brewing between them.

Ben has one very loud word for his little sister, “What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she says.

Nick wanders into the dining room playing his Game Boy. He eats dry cereal out of the box so he doesn’t miss a minute of playing time. He is unaware of the tension at the table but defuses it anyway.

“We got a second gift last night,” he tells his brother. “Two bags of bows.”

“Where are they? Did you see who left them?”

Megan flashes me what I think is a disappointed look.