The 13th Gift Page 15

  I wash and Megan dries our assortment of Christmas plates, platters, and bowls, then we stack them on the sideboard.

  We arrange trays of homemade fudge and cookies on the plates, covering them with plastic wrap to keep them fresh. In between tasks, Megan checks the porch. The sun has only just risen, and I expect our gift givers may still be in bed.

  “Give them time,” I tell her. “You don’t want them to catch you in pajamas. Go get dressed.”

  Megan is halfway up the stairs, when she reaches over the banister and flips the switch on a string of tiny lights wrapped around the railing and a swag of fresh pine, a last minute purchase.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Christmas would wait a couple of days,” she says. “Do you suppose they feel the same way?”

  “Well, we didn’t make it easy for them, always watching from the windows. They’re probably looking forward to a rest.”

  Nick wakes when the aromas wafting from the kitchen seep under his bedroom door.

  “Must eat turkey,” he says, pretending to sleepwalk.

  “Not for another four hours,” I tell him. “Just popped it in the oven.”

  “Wake me up when it’s ready,” he says, but my boy doesn’t go back to bed. Instead, he stands on the steps, closes his eyes, and savors the scents of our Christmas. Megan and I do the same, just as our friend in the military had described.

  I had wondered which holiday memories my kids would carry into adulthood. Now I know at least one that they will. Nick breaks the magic of the quiet moment.

  “Smells pretty good, but it doesn’t beat presents.”

  The mention of presents sends both him and Megan racing to the front door.

  No visitors yet, but the door hinges are getting a good workout. It’s the sixth time we’ve checked the porch this morning, and it’s not even eight o’clock.

  Nick sits down at the dining room table, surveying the progress Megan and I have been making on our Christmas Eve celebration. He decides to help. Though he casts off my request to place silverware in the caddy on the table, he does retrieve the potato chips from the cupboard. Figuring his intent, like his sister’s, is to eat junk food for breakfast, I stop him before he rips open the bags.

  “Keep them sealed until after our company arrives,” I say. “Otherwise they’ll be gone before anyone gets here.”

  He calls me Scrooge but eats the cereal I place before him. Megan takes a break and sits down with her brother. They are conjuring images of our gift givers.

  “Has to be somebody with ninja skills,” Nick says. “Nobody can escape unseen as often as they did without superhuman strength and speed.”

  The doorbell rings at 8:01. I spot the truck from the furniture store in the driveway and order Nick upstairs to take a shower. His special-delivery bedroom has arrived.

  My eldest hears the doorbell and hurries up the steps from the basement still buttoning his shirt. The store manager is alone on the truck, so I volunteer Ben to help him.

  While the guys maneuver the queen-sized box spring down the stairwell and around my new pine swag, I sneak around the side of the house and leave a package on the seat of the delivery truck. I’m back in the house before they notice my absence.

  “You happy now?” the store manager asks before departing.

  I hand him a plate of our homemade Christmas cookies, and he’s munching one as he steps up into the cab of the truck. A few minutes later, he’s ringing the doorbell again, a Millennium Barbie under his arm.

  The tag on the box says, “Merry Christmas, from a friend.”

  I open the door just a smidgen and shoo him back to the truck.

  “Get your work done and go home,” I say.

  “Thank you.” He smiles. “I’m sorry I thought you were crazy.”

  The mantel clock chimes four p.m., and the turkey sits on top of the stove drying out. The plastic wrap is off the cookies, and one bag of chips has already been consumed.

  I have never been more prepared for Christmas. All we need are guests.

  “So this is how it feels to have a party and no one comes,” Nick says.

  It’s time for accolades, toasts, and congratulations on a job well done, and we have no one to give them to. Our true friends have been hard at work for eleven days. Surely, they’ll show up for the paycheck, a thank-you.

  “It’s early yet,” I say with an eye on the window. “Baci will be here at six p.m., and Uncle Tom, Aunt Char, Uncle Ron, Aunt Lori … all of your cousins. It’s going to be great. Everyone will meet them.”

  By five o’clock, Ben is pacing the house, and his brother is continually banging the front door. We take turns in the shower, so there is always a set of eyes on the porch.

  As twilight begins cloaking our little town, we flip on the tree lights, set the oven on warm, and we wait.

  Ben seeks me out in the kitchen, where Nick and Megan won’t hear us.

  “They’ve done so much for us. Why stop now?”

  I take hold of his hand, and we join his siblings, seated on the floor by the tree. This is a conversation I want to have with all of them.

  I start at the beginning, with our first gift.

  “I was so angry over the loss of your dad. When the poinsettia arrived, I wanted to throw it away. I couldn’t face buying a tree or decorating. I wanted to hide my head under a blanket. Our true friends wouldn’t let me.”

  Megan is able to better articulate what I’m trying to say.

  “You don’t get so many colds, anymore. And I got this beautiful tree. I’m grateful to the gift givers.”

  “We don’t need them so much anymore, not like we did in the beginning. We have each other. We’re going to be okay.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that,” Nick says. “I was worried for a while.”

  Megan breaks the circle and runs up to her room, and Ben hurries down to the basement. They return with gifts.

  “Don’t you want us to wait until tomorrow to open these,” I ask.

  Ben and Megan look at each other and answer, “Nope.”

  Megan distributes her carefully wrapped homemade artwork, and we hang them on the tree, until after the holidays. Ben gives Nick the comic books and his sister the game. They are wrapped in newspaper comics.

  “The basketball hoop, uh, cost about the same as a pound of butter and a gallon of milk,” Ben admits.

  Megan lunges at her brother and gives him a bear hug.

  I think Nick is embarrassed because he has no gifts to give. He grabs three bags of chips off the dining room table and tosses one to each of us.

  “Said it yourself, Mom. Small gifts can make a difference,” he says.

  Ben gives me an enlarged photo of our family, all five of us. When he sees my eyes glistening, he sets it on the mantel and asks everyone to pose in front of the tree for a new one.

  “Next year’s present,” he says. “I’m thinking ahead.”

  Everyone jumps when the doorbells rings. For the first time today, there were no eyes on the door.

  With a hand on the doorknob, I whisper instructions.

  “I’ll open the door on a count of three, then everyone shout ‘Merry Christmas.’ One … two … three.”

  The plan works perfectly.

  My eighty-year-old mother, their Baci, is so startled she jumps backward. My nieces Andrea and Melissa luckily prevent her from falling.

  “What a welcome!” Baci says. “Merry Christmas to all of you.”

  The arrival of relatives and the horde of presents they carry momentarily distracts everyone. By the time my sister Lori along with her sons Nicholas and Tony arrive, the house is humming with conversation and laughter. Megan, Nick, and Ben fill our family in on what’s been going on with our mysterious gifts, explaining that we are sure tonight will be the night that all will be revealed. Everyone wants to be part of our Secret Santa experience, and they all have questions.

  Baci demands to see the gifts and mourns the fact that there are
no more mice.

  “What time do the gifts usually arrive?” ask their cousins Jim and Mike, who set up a lookout on the side of the house with Ben.

  When Tom pulls his truck into the driveway, a dozen sets of eyes are watching him from the window.

  “Are we late?” Charlotte asks. “What’s going on?”

  I give her an update.

  “They’ll be here,” Charlotte says confidently, and I wonder again whether she knows more than she has been letting on.

  With so many of us on the lookout, I move away from the window to tidy the snack table. I wipe up spills, pick up crumbs, nibble on veggies and cookies. I delay dinner, because I don’t want to be caught in the middle of a meal when our true friends arrive. I want them to sit down with us.

  Just before eight o’clock, Baci decides it’s time to eat.

  “The first star came out an hour ago,” she says. “It’s tradition. I need food.”

  We gather around the dining room table laden with homemade Polish sausage, my cabbage rolls, traditional ham and turkey, plus all the trimmings.

  Baci instructs everyone to join hands, and she leads us in a very quick prayer of thanks for our feast.

  “It would have been longer if we’d eaten an hour ago,” Lori whispers. “She must really be hungry.”

  I silently ask God to bless all of our family, including those who are not here to share this meal with us. I give thanks for small gifts and true friends.

  Later, after consuming multiple plates of meat, salads, and casseroles, two mini cheesecakes, a piece of fudge, and a generous serving of her aunt Mary’s peanut butter pie, Megan skedaddles over to my seat and plops on my lap.

  She whispers in my ear, giggling.

  “Do you suppose our gift giver could be someone sitting here at the table?”

  Scanning the room I see only faces of people who love us, and I realize how lucky we are to be surrounded by family.

  “They’re all gift givers,” I tell her. “We can be, too.”

  I wrap my hands around my daughter, and she lays her head on my shoulder, the scent of peanut butter pie sweetening her breath. I savor the moment surrounded by family, delicious food, and festive decorations, and wonder if Rick sees what I see.

  “Rest easy my love,” I tell him silently. “All is well.”

  Just after ten, Ben announces, “a butt load of cars just pulled up across the street!” and we all crowd around the front door. Sure enough, a few cars are parking along our block.

  “This is it,” I say.

  Megan jumps up and down beside me. The whole family gathers on either side of the tree. The lights of the car nearest our house turn off, and we wait for the driver to step out. I am holding my breath as the car door opens. Nick shines a flashlight out the picture window for a first glimpse at our guests.

  Rick’s eldest brother, David; his wife, Dorothy; and their five children are walking across the yard toward the house. From the other cars, Dorothy’s mother, sister, and her family emerge. A collective sigh of disappointment from our group of nearly twenty rings across the room—it is not some mysterious stranger. We laugh at our own reaction. Everyone except Ben, Nick, Megan, and I go back to eating.

  We usually spend Christmas Day with David’s family, so I wasn’t expecting to see them tonight. We will have dinner with them tomorrow.

  “This can’t be a coincidence,” I say.

  The kids clearly have the same idea. Megan rushes her aunt as she walks in the door. “We love our gifts,” Megan says.

  Dorothy laughs. “I haven’t given them to you yet. David, get the presents out of the car.”

  “Then, it wasn’t you?” I ask.

  My sister-in-law gives me a puzzled look. I recount our tale of true friends.

  “It wasn’t us, but I wish it had been,” she says. “We just thought tonight would be hard for you. That’s why we’re here.”

  How wrong I had been to think we were alone that year. We are surrounded by love, and I am grateful to everyone who reached out to us. The house is positively bursting. Young cousins open presents and speculate about what they will find under the tree in the morning. I serve drinks, make sandwiches, and load plates with slices of pumpkin pie. I quiz all of our late arrivals about the twelve days, but I’m so busy making sure everyone is fed and comfortable that I’m hardly worried about it. I love being in hostess mode, to see the food I prepared be enjoyed, to have the house filled with love, to feel part of a family.

  It is nearly midnight when the last of our guests say good night, and things have slowed down enough for me to realize that our gift givers never materialized.

  “Just be thankful for their effort,” Charlotte says, before leaving. “Your true friends obviously wanted you to have a Merry Christmas, and you are.”

  Ben, Nick, and Megan open one gift each before going to bed—new pajamas—a tradition in our family since they were toddlers. Megan curls up on the couch and closes her eyes, but she refuses to go to bed.

  “Maybe the gift givers will come tomorrow,” she says.

  I answer, “Hope so.”

  “Well, they remind me of Santa Claus. Maybe this is just something we’re supposed to believe in, like a miracle.”

  I don’t think she’s far from the truth.

  “This is how legends begin,” I say.

  I plant a kiss on her cheek and point her in the direction of her bed.

  “It’s cool having our own family legend,” Nick says, following her up the stairs. “Somebody ought to write a book about it.”

  Uncle Tom and his computer-literate son, Tommy, return an hour later to assemble the computer system and a new desk. Ben helps them while I busy myself wrapping presents. I lay out the holiday paper, scissors, and tape on the living room floor where I can still keep an eye on the window. I remember Megan sitting by her wide-open window, asking our true friends to stop bringing the gifts that she feared were painful for me even though they meant so much to her—it was just a few nights earlier, but already it feels like so long ago. Now, I crack open the window just a sliver so I will hear any activity on the porch.

  I wrap a basketball for my daughter, the boots, videos, and lots of blue jeans and sweaters. I shove Nick’s television into an extra-large trash bag and tie bows around it. Ben’s car stereo fits snugly into a gift bag. Because she loves to sing so much, I had gone back to the electronics store and bought the karaoke machine for Megan.

  “Get some rest,” Tom says, surveying the avalanche of presents threatening to crash down on Nick’s electric train, which is still chugging around the tree.

  Sometime after four thirty a.m., I fall asleep sitting upright on the living room couch, still hoping that our anonymous elves will appear.

  Chimes from the bells of St. Francis Church drift in through the open window, waking me on a beautiful Christmas morning. The sun I have longed to see for weeks shines today, and the world outside my window is painted with a thin coating of snow.

  I am tired and don’t want to move off the couch, but I have to look. Wrapping an afghan around my nightgown, I step outside.

  There are no footprints in the snow, no twelfth gift waiting.

  The disappointment is striking, a blow.

  I return to the house, close the window, and curl back onto the couch.

  Is it selfish of me to want more?

  Our true friends gave us kindness, unsolicited, but desperately needed. Their gifts were a sign that even our shattered home could be put back together—with community, with family, and with love. They had given us back Christmas, and each other. Our true friends had broken the hold grief had on us and gave us an extraordinary experience during a holiday season that otherwise would have been bleak. They had given us our own Christmas legend, as Nick had called it, a modern-day miracle. That’s a lot to accomplish in twelve days. Was this precious lesson the twelfth gift?

  I throw off my blanket, slip into my robe, and turn on the tree lights. Two weeks ago I cou
ldn’t face the holidays; now I can’t wait for the kids to wake up. At last, I understand the message our gift givers sent. I just needed time to figure it out.

  I flip on the oven, light a burner on the stove, and plug in the waffle iron in one fluid motion, then grab eggs, ham, and a tube of cinnamon rolls from the fridge. Bella begs to go outside, so I oblige while reading the directions on the back of a box of Belgian waffle mix.

  I glance out the kitchen window when our dog starts howling, generally a sign Bella wants back in the house, or there’s a full moon. She is sitting on the back deck next to something, but her body is partially blocking my view.

  I run out the door in my bathrobe and slippers. An artificial pine, less than a foot tall, sits on the deck. The tree is trimmed in brass bells. I don’t bother to count the ornaments as I carry the little tree inside. I know there are twelve.

  I remove the pine-scented candle from the table and make this little tree our new centerpiece. My hands tremble as I open the card.

  On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

  Your true friends give to you …

  Twelve Brass Bells

  Eleven Christmas Mice

  Ten Dancing Santas

  Nine Candles

  Eight Cookie Cutters

  Seven Golden Apples

  Six Holiday Cups

  Five Angel Note Cards

  Four Gift Boxes

  Three Rolls of Gift Wrap

  Two Bags of Bows

  And

  One Poinsettia

  For All Of You.

  I find another message on the back.

  “We hope in some way we have made your Christmas a little easier. Someone did this for us once. You are in our thoughts and prayers.”

  The note was signed “Your friends.”

  I sit down at the table weak with realization. Throughout these last few months, our pain had been paramount. I had imagined our gift givers as generous people, but ones who were happy and whole, strangers to loss.

  How silly of me.

  They knew the power of the twelve gifts because they had endured the same pain. Their compassion for us had grown from a deep knowledge of the sweetness and sorrow of the season, when joy and grief intertwine.