Morning fell like a sack of concrete. My head ached and I had a sick, tight sensation in my chest akin to panic. All the good feelings I’d had over the last weeks were gone. It was the last day of school before Christmas break, a half-day, and something I’d looked forward to for weeks. Now I didn’t care. I didn’t have anything to look forward to. I told myself that I wished she were gone. I don’t know if I meant it, but that’s what I told myself.
I went to the kitchen and made Grace toast with butter, and put it and a banana inside a brown paper lunch sack. I walked out without my coat. I didn’t knock, just opened the door and tossed the sack inside like I was feeding an animal at the zoo. “Here.”
Grace had been waiting. She stuck her head out the clubhouse door. “Eric, can we talk?”
“No.” I turned.
“Please, don’t go.”
I walked away.
“I’m sorry I was so mean.” She started to cry. “Please, Eric. Please, talk to me.”
I kept walking until I was nearly to the edge of the yard.
She yelled after me, “Okay, I’ll leave. You’ll never have to see me again.” She stopped, overcome with emotion. “But I have to say something to you. Please,” she sobbed. “You’re all I have.”
I stopped and turned back. “What do you want?”
Grace climbed out of the clubhouse and scrambled to her feet. It was the first time in more than a month that I’d seen her outside in the daylight. I could see how much her figure had changed.
“I’m the stupid one, not you. I hate myself. I just want to tell you I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry I said you were just a boy. You’re not. You’ve been brave and kind and good. All you’ve done is protect me and take care of me and that makes you more of a man than any man I’ve ever met.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m so sorry. I’d rather face my stepfather than hurt you again.”
I stood looking at her, her nose wet with snot, her eyes red and swollen. I exhaled, then spoke in a normal voice, “Get back inside, someone might see you.”
“I don’t care. You’re the only one in this world I care about. If I don’t have you I don’t care what happens to me anymore.”
I walked back to her. “Don’t say that.”
She shook her head. “I mean it.” Then she said in a lower voice, “I cut myself for you.”
“What?”
“I cut myself for you.” She lifted her arm to show me. There was a mass of blood dried to her forearm.
I gasped. “What happened?”
“I punished myself. I wanted you to see how bad I felt.”
“That was stupid,” I said, crouching down to gather up some snow. “Let me see that.” I rubbed the snow on her arm. It washed away the dried blood, leaving the fresh, deep cuts in her arm exposed. The wounds made me sick to my stomach. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“Yes. Now get back inside.”
“Will you kiss me?”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward and I met her halfway, pressing my lips against hers. We kissed intensely. Finally I pulled away. “We’ll make plans after school. No one’s going to find you.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.”
She got on her knees to go back inside. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said.
I walked back to the house. My mother was standing inside the door holding a bottle of maple syrup. She looked at me with a peculiar expression. “Were you talking to someone out there?”
I walked past her. “No.”
CHAPTER Twenty-nine
On the first day of Christmas my true love
gave to me…a runaway in a clubhouse.
GRACE’S DIARY
School was a waste. I don’t know why they bother to have half-days except to meet some bone-headed legislative requirement created by old fogies who haven’t been to junior high for so long that they’ve forgotten what a wedgie feels like.
In English we did a crossword puzzle with Christmas themes and in math we used a Pascal triangle to determine the exact number of items accumulated in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” (The answer is three hundred sixty-four, sadly the only thing I remember from junior high math.) I did get one thing out of it. After class was dismissed, I asked my art teacher, Miss Tioné, about van Gogh. “Is it true he cut his ear off?”
“Yes.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Well, there are a lot of different theories. Some people think he was drunk. Some say he did it to give to his beloved. Some even think another artist did it.”
I looked down. “Oh.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I just heard that sometimes people might hurt themselves when they feel bad.”
The room was vacant except for the two of us, and she sat down at the desk next to me. “A few years back I had a student who had cuts on her arm. The first time I asked her about it she said she had a mean cat. But after a few weeks I knew she was doing it to herself. I asked her why. She told me that it was her way of dealing with strong feelings.”
“Strong feelings?”
“Anger. Fear. Sorrow. Rejection.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Thank you.”
I noticed her glancing down at my arms. “Eric, is there something you’d like to talk about?”
I looked at her and we both knew there was. “No, ma’am. But thank you.”
She smiled sympathetically. “You’re welcome. Have a nice Christmas.”
“Thanks.” I smiled and walked out of the room.
After school I went straight to the Queen. Halfway through the night I raided the first-aid kit. I stole a bottle of iodine and a roll of white medical tape and gauze. When I got home I took everything to the clubhouse. I laid out the tape, then opened the bottle.
“Put your arm out,” I said to Grace.
She was embarrassed to show me the cuts again, but she obeyed. The cuts—there were six in all—were dark and scabbed, each about three to four inches in length. I poured the entire bottle of antiseptic on her arm. There was alcohol in it and I thought she might cry out in pain but she just grimaced. Grace was pretty tough. The iodine stained her forearm a yellowish brown. I wrapped the gauze around her arm and taped it on. We didn’t talk about why she had cut herself. I think that would have been more painful than the iodine.
When I finished she asked, “What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“I mean the date.”
“December eighteenth.”
“It’s just a week before Christmas.” She frowned. “It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Except for the snow.”
“That’s because you don’t have any decorations.” I thought about it. “I know, we can decorate the clubhouse. There are some Christmas lights in the garage. And I know where there’s a perfect tree. It’s way in back. No one will miss it.”
“I’ve always wanted to cut down a real Christmas tree,” Grace said.
“It’s far enough back that no one will see you. We can do it tomorrow.”
She pressed down the gauze, then looked up into my eyes. “I can’t wait.”
CHAPTER Thirty
I feel so much happier now that we’ve
decorated the clubhouse for Christmas.
There is something healing about the season.
GRACE’S DIARY
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 19
As soon as I got home from school, Joel and I foraged through the garage for Christmas decorations. We found two boxes containing three long strings of tinsel garland, some red frosted glass balls, painted pine cones, a star for the tree, a wreath, and three strands of Christmas lights, which we thought we’d probably need to get just one to work. Back then if one bulb was bad the whole strand wouldn’t light.
We also brought out a sled and about ten feet of rope to carry back our tree. We couldn’t find the handsaw unti
l Joel remembered that we’d left it in the chicken coop.
We took everything to the clubhouse. Grace squealed with delight when she saw what we’d found. We put everything inside, then the three of us started our trek to the back of our property. No one had been out back since the first snowfall so the snow was undisturbed and high, coming up to our thighs in places. We were all winded by the time we reached the tree. It looked shorter than I remembered since half of it was now buried beneath the snow.
“It’s perfect,” Grace said. “I know just where to put it.”
It took the three of us a half hour to saw through the trunk. I could have done it faster myself but everyone wanted a turn. I finally finished it up. With the final cut I shouted, “Timber,” which was more dramatic than the actual fall. We tied the tree on the sleigh and the three of us lugged it back to the clubhouse.
Our first attempts to get the tree inside failed. I hadn’t considered the problem of getting a four-foot-wide tree through a three-foot door. We considered pounding out one of the walls, then nailing it back in—a task that would have taken us several hours. Then Grace suggested that we just flip the tree around and take it in trunk first, allowing the branches to naturally fold up. It worked.
We had no tree stand so we just leaned it in the corner in the bucket Grace had been using as an ice box.
Grace turned the radio on and cycled through stations until she found one playing Christmas music. Then we set about decorating the place. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” filled the small room as we encircled the tree with the silver tinsel, then hung the ornaments.
Grace picked up the wreath. “I know where this is going,” she said. She hung it right over Betty, which was the name she’d given the Vargas girl on our pinup poster.
To our surprise one of the strands of lights actually worked. “It’s a Christmas miracle,” Grace said.
I could never tell if she was joking.
CHAPTER Thirty-one
Is it better to be lonely or afraid?
I should know by now but I don’t.
GRACE’S DIARY
MONDAY, DEC. 24
That year Christmas Eve fell on a Monday. The Queen was closed. Not because Mr. Dick wanted us to be with our families but because experience had taught him that he’d lose money that day if he stayed open.
I spent the morning Christmas shopping. I followed my mother’s suggestion and got Joel a new baseball and some baseball cards. I bought my mother some lilac-scented perfume and a pretty jewelry box and my father some of his favorite delicacies: a tin of sardines, a summer sausage, and a jar of herring in sour cream.
I had been working on a surprise for Grace for nearly three weeks. I wished that I could spend Christmas Eve with her but I knew it wasn’t possible; we always went caroling as a family. I was more anxious about pulling off Christmas Day anyway.
Every Christmas Day our parents led us on an excruciating marathon of visits. It didn’t really even matter who we visited. We’d go to old folks homes, homes of old friends, and just about anyone who claimed to be a relative. Now that we were in Utah we had a plethora of aunts and uncles to choose from. For my surprise to work, my family would have to go without me. I had a plan to make that happen.
I came home and hid all my presents in the garage. Joel had gone shopping with my mom and dad. I went out back, knocked once on the clubhouse, then crawled inside. I had caught Grace off guard. She was crying.
“What’s wrong?”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Nothing.”
I sat down next to her. “It’s got to be something. You can tell me.”
“I’m just emotional. Being pregnant…” She didn’t finish but burst into tears. I put my arms around her.
“What is it?”
She suddenly sobbed out, “I miss my mom.”
I pulled her closer. “I’m sorry.”
“I…I…” She kept sobbing. “…I don’t understand why she chose him over me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. I didn’t understand either. I just let her cry. When she began to settle down a little I said, “Tell me something.”
“What?”
“What was Christmas in Hawaii like?”
She sniffed. “Well, it’s different.”
“In what way.”
“Santa wears a swimsuit.”
“That’s not a pretty image.”
She wiped her eyes. “And he comes on a surfboard. He wears a red Aloha shirt.”
“That’s groovy. What else?”
“Since they don’t have chimneys, he leaves the gifts at the door.”
Now I wiped her cheeks. “You need to teach me how to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in Hawaiian.”
“Mele Kalikimaka.”
I tried. “Mel…vin Kawa…something.”
“It’s not that hard. Say what I say. Mele.”
“Mele.”
“Ka.”
“Ka.”
“Liki.”
“Liki.”
“Maka.”
“Maka.”
“Now all together. Mele Kalikimaka.”
“Mele…what you said.”
She laughed. I was happy to hear it. “I know what you’re doing,” she said.
“You do?”
“Yes. And it’s working.”
“Good.”
“I love you,” she said.
I kissed her forehead. “I wish I could spend tonight with you.”
“Me too. But I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me that you’ll only think of good things. I have a big surprise for you tomorrow. So promise.”
“I promise.”
“You’ll be glad.”
Then we kissed until I heard my family return.
CHAPTER Thirty-two
There was once a place in Hawaii where women went
to have babies. There were large stones that served as delivery
tables, and the babies were delivered by the high chieftesses
of Oahu. I would like to have gone there.
GRACE’S DIARY
TUESDAY, DEC. 25
Joel was always the first to wake on Christmas morning, though usually at some inhuman hour like four A.M. This led to the instigation of the “sunrise rule,” which basically meant no waking our parents before there was discernible sunlight. It was overcast that morning so Joel got away with fudging it a little.
In our home, Christmas morning was governed by ironclad tradition. Every year we started Christmas by gathering in my parents’ bedroom to read the second chapter of Luke. I don’t know how my mother remembered whose turn it was each year, or even if she really did, but she always seemed to know.
That morning it was my turn to read. In years past, fueled by the anticipation of Christmas surprises, I read as fast as humanly possible until my mother would tell me to slow down enough to be understood, or at least to auctioneer speed. This morning I was perfectly articulate. Partially because I was growing up and partially because, for the first time in my life, the words actually meant something to me.
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed…
As I thoughtfully read the words Joel looked crazed with anticipation. My father looked just as eager for me to finish but only because he wanted to go back to bed. Only my mother was smiling.
…And Joseph also went up from Galilee…unto the city of David…to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger: because there was no room for them in the inn.
I suppose that it meant more to me now that I understood a little of what Mary was going through. Grace was with child, and I took her in. The clubhouse was like a sta
ble or at least not a whole lot nicer.
“…Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
After I read the scripture, my mother led us in a family prayer, then my dad got out his windup Brownie movie camera and went out into the living room to wait for us, shouting instructions like a Hollywood movie director.
Not surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of presents that year and my parents had strategically spaced them to make it look like more. I noticed that except for the insignificant gifts that Joel and I had bought for them, they hadn’t bought gifts for each other.
Joel got a new baseball mitt and bat, which was all he really wanted, a navy blue sweater and gray pants, and the ball and baseball cards I had bought him.
I got a green argyle sweater and a pair of brown corduroy pants, two board games, Life and Mouse Trap, and a book about frontier men. Joel got me a large box of Swedish Fish.
After the last present was opened my mom and dad went back to bed while Joel and I played with our new treasures. About an hour later, my mom got up to make breakfast. I was setting up the Mouse Trap game in the living room when my mother came in and sat by me.
“I’m sorry there wasn’t much this year,” she said.
“I got plenty,” I said, trying to balance the game’s small plastic teeter-totter. “Besides, that’s not what Christmas is about.”
My mother said nothing and I looked up to see she was looking at me, pride evident in her eyes. “Eric, I don’t know everything that’s happening in your life right now. But I know this has been a hard year for you; losing our home, coming to a new school, and leaving all your friends behind. But you’ve grown up so much. I’m so proud of you. Maybe coming to Utah wasn’t such a bad thing.”
I smiled. “Maybe not.”
She smiled back at me. “Come on, let’s have some breakfast.”
Mom always made special breakfasts on Christmas: cranberry corn muffins from scratch, hash brown potatoes with cheddar cheese, fried eggs, and sausage links. We looked forward to the Christmas breakfast table almost as much as the tree.