The 13th Gift Page 5

  She extends the roll toward me and then pulls it back.

  “I just need a little bit,” she says. “I have presents for you guys and they need wrapping right away. Besides, I don’t need to take in the chocolates until tomorrow.”

  “Don’t use it all,” I say, but she is already out the door.

  Nick and I look at each other and sigh.

  “There is no escaping this Christmas,” he says to me in a voice so world-weary that it makes me wrap my arm around his shoulder.

  Megan’s antics have lightened Nick’s mood for a moment, but I know the well of his sorrow runs pretty damn deep. For him, the approach of Christmas and the mysterious gifts have become a battering ram. The poinsettia, the bows, the gift wrap—each is pounding at his protective walls.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Seconds creep by and Nick doesn’t answer; he’s staring at me. I don’t want to be the adult in the room, the parent, the mom, but I know it’s my job, so I ask him again.

  “Are you okay?”

  He answers, “No.”

  And his walls fall down.

  “I saw everything that morning,” he says. “My bedroom door was open. I saw you shake Dad, pound on his chest. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t stop.”

  I had thought Nick’s insistence on closing his door was just a natural rite of passage, or that he didn’t want me to catch him playing video games after bedtime. This revelation is a smack-down.

  “I feel like I’m stuck, Mom. Stuck in the loop of a roller coaster. I’m spinning and spinning, always stopping in the same spot … the morning Dad died,” Nick says. “Most nights I can’t sleep. When I do, I dream you are crying, and Dad’s feet are sticking out from under the covers.”

  I can’t think. I can’t speak. I am back in that morning, just like Nick, until his next words lurch me forward to the present.

  “I could have saved him.”

  Nick’s statement bites at the numbness surrounding my heart, leaving a prickly sort of pins-and-needles pain. Awakening at last to my child’s deep heartache, I grab Nick’s chin and force him to look at me.

  “You are not to blame.”

  Nick swats away my hand and lies down.

  “He told me about the surgery. He said not to worry. He lied to me, Mom.”

  It’s an unfair accusation and Nick needs to understand that.

  “He was trying to protect you.”

  Nick tells me he imagines that conversation with his dad ending differently, with him insisting that his father not delay the surgery.

  “I should have told him it didn’t matter if he was home during the holidays. We could have spent time together every day after school. He might still be alive if I had,” Nick says. “I would give anything for a do-over, anything.”

  Across the room on a shelf, Nick’s alarm clock buzzes. Instead of getting up and turning it off, he launches a pillow toward the noise, knocking the clock to the floor. It keeps buzzing.

  Ben walks past the room on the way to the shower and hollers, “Can’t one of you turn that off?”

  I begin the day wearier than when I went to bed, and I have the feeling my son does, too. I have to be at work by nine. I have to rescue my son from an out-of-control roller coaster. I offer Nick the same solution that I’ve been using to help myself.

  “How about you camp out in the family room with me tonight?”

  We might be avoiding this floor of the house, but at least it will bring us closer together.

  “I’ll blow up the air mattress,” he replies.

  “Letters to Santa? You want a story about a third-grade writing assignment? I have a dozen better ideas.”

  “Lighten up, Jo. Kids and Christmas sell newspapers,” my editor says. “People want to read about more than school budgets this time of year.”

  I argue with him, but he is set on the premise, describing how teachers keep students focused on learning amid seasonal distractions. According to my kids, teachers have already closed books, cleared desks, and given in to holiday hoopla.

  “Most schools close for winter break tomorrow.”

  “Great. That gives you all day today to write the story,” he says.

  My persuasion skills evidently need work. My editor is already adding the feature article to the budget for tomorrow’s edition. No getting out of it.

  I call a dozen schools and begrudgingly begin writing about ways teachers channel holiday cheer into English and math lessons. I can’t help but hope for a bank robbery, or a sudden snowstorm, to preempt the article.

  During my lunch hour, I keep a promise to myself and begin my search for the identity of the gift givers. I decide to draw up a list of suspects, but find I don’t actually have anyone to put on it.

  My coworker Joann had been my prime candidate the day the poinsettia arrived. But she flew home to Philadelphia for the holidays the day before, meaning that she wasn’t even in Ohio when the gift wrap arrived at the house last night. I consider whether she might have brought on an accomplice to finish the tasks, but that sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to keep a holiday secret.

  I decide to call Megan’s Girl Scout leader, Maribeth. She and the other moms in Megan’s Scout troop cooked meals for our family three times a week for more than a month after Rick died. Creamy casseroles of chicken and broccoli, pots of chili and homemade stews showed up on our doorstep every couple of days. Unlike these mysterious Christmas gifts, the meals always came with a card signed with a real name. Maribeth had helped coordinate the effort, so perhaps she has decided to organize a holiday-gift delivery for us, too. She knows my work schedule better than most, and her family lives close, so dropping off the gifts without detection would be less complicated for her than someone who doesn’t know us as well. She shuttles our daughters to Scout meetings and basketball practices. She has been a lifesaver when I get stuck at the office and Megan needs a ride.

  After Maribeth and I exchange pleasantries, I get right down to business.

  “There’s something else I want to talk with you about, a mystery actually.”

  “You’ve got my attention.”

  “We’ve been getting gifts, Maribeth, Christmasy presents that someone has been leaving at the house the last few nights. We don’t know who they’re from.”

  I tell her about the homemade cards and describe each gift. If she is responsible for them, her reaction doesn’t give it away.

  “Meg mentioned the poinsettia at Girl Scouts. Who do you think it’s from?”

  “I thought maybe you.”

  She laughs.

  “Guess again. Wasn’t me, but I like the idea!”

  “Have you heard anything, any talk maybe at school?”

  “If someone from Bellbrook is behind this, they’re keeping it quiet. I haven’t heard anything, except from Meg and now you.”

  I hear a crash over the telephone line. I think it’s her dog.

  “Gotta go. Let me know if you find out who’s sending them. What a fun thought!”

  My research is cut short by a return call from a principal whose students are collecting canned goods and cash for needy families.

  “We’re trying to teach kids to look at giving instead of just receiving,” she tells me. “One of our students felt so good about giving that she donated a piggy bank full of pennies she has been saving.”

  “Did you ask the families if they want your help?” I ask the principal.

  I immediately regret the question.

  I know the proverb, better to give than receive, but I wonder how often the receiver feels like my family—bamboozled by unwanted acts of kindness. We’re just supposed to be grateful. I’m supposed to be grateful.

  “Excuse me?”

  I end the interview quickly and think about cutting her quotes out of the story, but I leave a few lines. For the first time, since October 8, I want to finish my work and get home. I want to be there if another gift arrives.

  I make a fi
nal call before leaving the office. Charlotte picks up the receiver after the first ring and starts talking immediately.

  “Did you get the bike? How about a tree? Have you started decorating the house?”

  The answer is negative on all questions, so I ignore them.

  “We got another anonymous gift. It came when I wasn’t home, and Meg heard them come up to the front door. I’m worried.”

  “I can’t imagine they mean you harm.”

  “Everyone’s upset. Nick is having nightmares.”

  Charlotte pauses, and then says gently, “It’s not the gifts they’re upset about, Jo.”

  I can’t argue with that.

  Hoping to make up for last night’s meal, I stop at the grocery on the way home. Four teenagers wielding trumpets, a trombone, and a clarinet stand in front of the store playing “O Christmas Tree,” while another hits shoppers up for donations. A poster board leaning against a stack of rock salt indicates they’re collecting funds for a local family in need. The poster is embellished with hand-drawn sprigs of holly, similar to the one on our first anonymous note. I recognize the band members as classmates of Ben’s, but I don’t know them personally. I dig through my change purse for a donation, wondering if the offering will be used to buy additional secret gifts for my family.

  I drop a few coins and what I worry might actually be two Tums into the slot at the top of the collection bucket and walk into the store.

  I draw out my shopping experience in the hopes the teens will be finished with their good deed by the time I’m done. I’m relieved to see they are gone when I exit, but I can’t catch a break today. There are Cub Scouts circling the parking lot like little blue vultures.

  “Have you bought a Christmas tree yet, lady?”

  I want to tell the kid it’s none of his business, but his scoutmaster is watching. So I hand the boy a five dollar donation, load my groceries into the trunk of the car, and drive home.

  When I arrive, the garage door is open, the overhead light is on, and our Christmas tree stand is sitting in my parking space. I let the car idle in the driveway thinking I should go move the tree stand. No doubt Megan is responsible for its strategic placement.

  I shift the car into gear, put my foot on the gas, and I run over the metal tree stand, back up, and drive over it again.

  Nick was right. I can’t escape Christmas, but I can roll right past it with a V-6 engine and a good set of tires.

  The emotional high I get from my act of defiance fades as I begin thinking how to explain the homicide of the tree stand to Megan. Like everything else, I add it to my list of problems to figure out. I don’t even bother to hide the evidence this time. I leave the smashed stand on the garage floor under the car.

  My daughter is over the moon when I walk into the house carrying four bags of groceries, and she insists on helping me cook dinner.

  “Did you remember the stuff for my school party?”

  “Already got it,” I say, thinking of the candy I bought last night for her teacher.

  “Where are your brothers?”

  “Ben said to tell you he’s at Robert’s and to remind you he stayed home last night. Nick is watching TV.”

  Before we start cooking, I go downstairs to check on Nick. His air mattress is out of the box, inflated, and occupied.

  “He’s been lying there since we got home from school,” Megan tattles. “I’ve been trying to get him to go through Christmas decorations with me.”

  I put my foot on the edge of his mattress, creating a ripple of airwaves.

  “Ready for bed?”

  I gather several blankets from the laundry room and toss them to my son.

  “It’s you and me tonight, kiddo.”

  Dinner preparations are delayed by a telephone call from my boss. The copy desk has a question about my school story. In the middle of our conversation, I hear what sounds like two elephants racing up the family room stairs.

  Our Christmas culprits must have left another gift.

  Nick and Megan are tussling over the doorstep deposit, a package of four holiday gift boxes. Megan lets go of the bag without warning, and Nick flies backward onto the air mattress. The plug pops. Nick reacts with a wrestling move. He grabs Megan around the knees and she goes down. Both of them are laughing as the mattress flattens.

  “Did either of you see them?”

  “Almost,” Meg says.

  The kids explain that when they heard a car coming toward the house, they raced to the door to see if they could catch our true friends in the act. The fray on the stairwell delayed them.

  “I found the present,” Nick says.

  “But I reached the door first. I let you open it,” Megan reminds him. “Remember what you promised.”

  Nick makes a face at his sister, and I get the feeling he made a promise I am not going to like.

  “What’s up?”

  “He’s going to get all the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the closet in the basement for me,” she says.

  “Nick?”

  He avoids answering and instead admires the artwork on the newly arrived card. The message, again, follows “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol. Most of the writing is in red crayon, except for the words gift boxes, which are in blue. The first letter in each phrase is boxed on all the lines but one.

  n the Fourth Day

  f Christmas

  our true friends give

  to you

  our Gift Boxes

  hree Rolls of Gift Wrap

  wo Bags of Bows

  ne Poinsettia

  our All of you.

  “Look at this, Mom. They used f-o-u-r instead of f-o-r in the last line. That’s different from the other cards.”

  “Well, there are four of us.”

  “Maybe it’s a clue,” Nick says. “And why are these letters boxed?”

  Nick grabs paper and a pencil from his backpack and copies out each of the boxed letters: O-O-Y-F-T-T-O-F.

  “That’s not one of my spelling words,” Meg says.

  We try reversing the letters: F-O-T-T-F-Y-O-O.

  “Hopeless,” she says. “Maybe the boxes are for decoration.”

  Nick isn’t giving up.

  “What if there are clues on all the cards that we have to piece together.”

  I think he might be onto something.

  “I have the first note. I’m not sure about days two and three.”

  “We’ll save them from now on and check them every night,” he says. “I’ll figure this out.”

  A half hour ago he was ready for bed; now he’s heading downstairs with his sister to unleash Christmas on the house. I’m relieved he’s feeling energized by the mystery.

  I go upstairs to change out of my work clothes and then check my e-mail. By the time I return to the kitchen, Megan has abandoned her brother, who says he doesn’t need her help until the boxes are out of the closet.

  “He didn’t want me down there. Besides, I promised to help make dinner.”

  She lines up the contents of the grocery bags on the kitchen counter, which include the ingredients for my chicken and noodles, tacos with black olives, and spaghetti.

  “How did you know?”

  Panic replaces her smile when she realizes I overheard her discussion with Nick last night, then defiance.

  “I’m not sorry for what I said.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” I give her a hug, and then I ask, “What do you want for dinner?”

  I expect spaghetti to be her choice, but she surprises me.

  “Tacos with black olives.”

  We brown a pound of hamburger, add the taco seasoning, and let it simmer. She opens a can of olives while I chop tomatoes and lettuce.

  The aroma brings Nick out of the basement.

  “Tacos, my favorite.”

  Megan looks at me with a smug smile.

  “Again, my work is done here,” she says.

  Nick nips a spoonful of hot taco meat from the pan and then of
fers to help set the table. This is a first. I wonder if something about our conversation this morning has left him feeling more generous.

  The beams from Ben’s headlights flash across the living room as he pulls into the driveway, and we add a fourth plate to the table. Ben walks in wearing his dad’s old work coat—faded, frayed, and way too big. The arms of the coat hang over his knuckles, and the garment could easily wrap around him twice. He’s clutching the jacket closed, and I’m pretty certain he’s hiding something underneath.

  “Hungry?” I ask, hoping he will take off the jacket and reveal a textbook or notebook hiding in the interior pocket. He goes directly downstairs.

  “Gotta wash my hands first.”

  Ben returns to the kitchen a few minutes later, minus the coat.

  “What have you been up to?” I ask.

  “Hanging out at Robert’s. Nothing fun. We had math homework.”

  At that moment I decide to do something I swore I would never do to one of my kids. After Ben leaves for school tomorrow, I’m going to search his bedroom. I hate the idea of violating my son’s privacy, but he hardly talks to me. Now, he’s sneaking things into the house. I am afraid for him.

  During dinner, Megan goes into detail for Ben about the arrival of the fourth gift, and Nick shares his theory about the card clues. Remembering the young musicians at the store, I ask Ben if he has many friends in the high school marching band.

  “Brett plays clarinet. Why?”

  I mention the band members I saw at the grocery store but don’t divulge my suspicion that they could be involved with the gifts. If they are doing this for Ben, maybe they think it will help him. Maybe it will bring the old Ben back, the boy who loved being part of this family and who loved me.

  While my mind is wandering, Megan is making plans for the gift boxes.

  “I think we should each get one to put under the tree for each other.”

  Nick has no interest, but Ben—to my shock—walks off with one.

  Nick lingers to help me with the kitchen cleanup. When he rolls up his sleeves and washes the dishes, I know that something is afoot, but I decide not to worry about it tonight. For the second day in a row, the kids and I have dined together. This evening I even prepared a home-cooked meal. The house is far from clean, but it’s also not a mess, and I have a plan to deal with Ben. As I lie down to sleep later that night, with Nick slumbering on an air mattress a few feet away, I feel hopeful this fog of grief we’ve been lost in is lifting just a little.