The 13th Gift (10 page)

Nick pulls off my coat by the cuffs, folds it over his right arm and motions for me to take a seat.

“Your throne, madam.”

I roll my eyes with a smile as the butler act continues.

He props a pillow behind my head and then kneels before me like Prince Charming, only there are no glass slippers, just my snow boots, which he removes. A mug of tepid hot chocolate sits on the coffee table with chunks of cocoa powder floating on the surface. Next to the cup is a toasted Pop Tart, which Bella is eyeing, on my favorite holiday platter.

The dish, which Rick purchased for me several Christmases ago,
only comes out of the cupboard on holidays. The triangle-shaped platter with a Christmas tree etched on it was not expensive. It’s not even all that pretty, but it is special to me. Many a festive dinner was served on this platter—my traditional roasted turkey, ham smothered in maple syrup, and pork loin with sauerkraut. The gift of the platter had been Rick’s validation that, while I might not be a master chef, I could put together a cheery and tasty meal for our friends and family
.

Nick massages my temples.

“Sit back. Relax. Enjoy,” he says.

My son’s attentiveness heightens my tension, instead of relieving it. When the voice of Kenny Loggins singing “Danger Zone” starts playing on the stereo, I know it’s literally time to face the music.

“What’s up?”

Nick laughs, stops the massage, and helps himself to a generous bite of my Pop Tart. He hands me the envelope I saw him carrying this morning.

“I made a Christmas list.”

Inside the envelope is a four-page opus that my son has divided into categories and alphabetized. The video games, music, and bike I expect to see aren’t even listed.

“You want two gallons of wall paint for Christmas?”

“I
want
to move my bedroom,” he says. “There’s lots of space in the basement next to Ben’s. It just needs a little sprucing up.”

My gut reaction: no way this is happening. But I take a deep breath and decide to hear him out.

“Where’d this idea come from?”

“The gifts.”

I renew my commitment to identify the gift givers so that I
can delegate to them the task of cleaning out the basement and painting the room.

“I told Megan I wouldn’t help her get out the Christmas decorations,” he says. “But with all the gifts and everything, I started wanting to do it. When I turned on the basement light, I knew it was perfect for me.”

I’m not sure how to answer him yet, and decide to stall by looking through his Christmas list again. I start on page one. The sheet contains paint and related supplies, brushes, rollers, drop cloths. Nick also provides intel on the approximate cost and the cheapest place to buy each of the items.

I have seen a list like this before, not this exact one, but similar. Rick presented one to me before he started building shelves in the family room closet last December. I had begged him to delay the project until after the holidays, but as usual he used his charm to convince me otherwise. I’m not going to be such a softy with Nick
.

The second page suggests new furnishings.

“I don’t want to sleep on a waterbed anymore. It wasn’t good for Dad. It’s not good for me.”

The next page has softer supplies: sheets, a bedspread. The final page holds “vital but Christmas-optional items” that Nick acknowledges may have to wait until his birthday in April or beyond, due to the cost.

“A computer and a television?” I say, amazed at his boldness. “How about I throw in a hot tub and mini fridge.”

Nick doesn’t find my comments funny.

“I’m almost a teenager,” he says. “I can’t function in that tiny room anymore.”

Nick does have the smallest bedroom in the house, the one we
used as a nursery, when we moved to Bellbrook in 1983, just before Ben celebrated his first birthday. Back then we used the basement as an exercise room housing my stationary bike, Rick’s inversion boots, and some free weights. The room was poorly lit, had concrete walls lined with pink insulation, and the sole heating duct didn’t warm the space
.

When Nick came along, and eventually Megan, Rick and I talked about our need to finish the basement, but my husband was working fifty-five hours a week, and he wasn’t motivated to take on a major remodel. When Megan turned four and I returned to Wright State University to complete my undergraduate degree, Rick wanted a project of his own. He drew up plans for a rec room for all our children and a bedroom for our eldest so he wouldn’t have to share bunk beds with his kid brother. While I attended class, Rick put the kids to bed and then worked on the basement, hanging drywall, laying carpet, painting. When Ben finally moved downstairs, Nick suggested that he switch rooms with Megan to take ownership of the smallest bedroom
.

Less to clean was his reasoning
.

So we painted the larger bedroom cotton-candy pink and the smaller one neon lime green, colors Rick let the kids select
.

Our middle child has always been our science-and-technology geek, so his dad hand-painted the constellations on Nick’s bedroom ceiling using a template and glow-in-the-dark paint. The painstaking process had taken Rick weeks to complete, because he insisted the sky map be accurate and done to scale. Once the map was completed, father and son stargazed from the comfort of Nick’s bed until the constellations vanished into the darkened ceiling
.

“It may be the smallest room, but it’s going to be special,” Rick had said
.

I can’t imagine Nick in any other bedroom
.

My brain vaults across all the reasons why the move to the
basement isn’t a good idea for Nick, and I stick the landing on a big one.

“Have you mentioned this to your brother?”

Nick shakes his head reluctantly. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

My two younger children have mostly ceded the basement rec room to their older brother since their dad’s death, avoiding clashes with Ben and his buddies, who have claimed the space for themselves. I don’t want Nick to start a territory war, but on the other hand, the proximity of their rooms could help strengthen Nick’s relationship with his big brother. I am torn.

“After the first of the year, Nick. We can talk about it.”

True to his nature, Nick persists.

“It’s all I want for Christmas, Mom. A new room. It’s all I want.”

I hand him the platter, minus the toaster pastry.

“I get it, Nick. I’m not saying, no. I’m saying not right now.”

Nick plops the platter on the kitchen counter, and it spins like an off-balance top. We both pounce to keep it from falling, but it slips and crashes to the floor. Nick’s face is ashen as he immediately begins picking up the pieces.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

I don’t hear the apology. The words of the women in the store this morning are ricocheting around in my brain: “the family is falling apart, falling apart, falling apart.”

Their hurtful words intertwine with the message on Rick’s note: “Christmas will be special.”

The tears I’ve been hiding for two months come rushing out of me.

“Everything is broken. We’re broken.”

My outburst sends Nick fleeing to his room—his small, green, constellation-ceilinged room. I sit on the floor, picking up the pieces through blurred vision, and I cut my finger on a shard.

I sit on the floor, thinking, while I watch the blood drip from my finger onto the pieces of the plate. I woke up this morning feeling like I might be able to get through the day in one piece, yet I had let myself get derailed by the women in the grocery store. But if Megan can believe that we aren’t broken, if Nick can find a way to move forward, then I can, too. Rick had wanted this Christmas to be special, and I am the one here to make his wish come true. When the blood clots, I stand, wash my hands, and then wrap a bandage around the cut.

“Do what you can,” I tell myself.

The mess on the kitchen floor is a quick cleanup.

With new resolve, I head downstairs to assess the state of things. The rec room is littered with boxes, but there is a narrow path leading to Ben’s basement hideaway. When I flip on the light switch, his room comes alive. The television turns on and so does the fan.

Rick’s beige coat is lying on the floor next to the bed. A plastic bag from Dollar Tree sticks out of the pocket. I can’t help but look inside. There is no booze. No pot. No cigarettes. The bag holds a foam ball and a kid’s basketball hoop that attaches to the wall with suction cups and two comic books in a plastic sleeve.

“Christmas gifts for Nick and Megan?”

It’s enough to make me cut my search short. Only my guilt leaves the room with me. For months I have been suspicious of Ben’s actions, wary about his late nights, suspecting that he
may land in a scrape with the law. Now, I know where the grocery money went. Could he be our Secret Santa? Or is he buying Christmas gifts for his siblings because he knows I have not.

This has been a day for lessons, and I don’t like learning any of them, but in my heart I know I need to.

I spend an hour in the rec room looking for good reasons why Nick should not move down here, logical ones that he will accept without argument. There are bins of outgrown clothes and broken toys, bundles of old newspapers, and boxes holding the remains of Rick’s office at Gem City Engineering: pencils, pens, family photos that used to sit on his desk. All is protected under double layers of bubble wrap.

Crates of Rick’s record album collection are stacked in piles, just as he left them after he replaced our favorites with compact discs. Leo Kottke, Pink Floyd, Yes—the groups set the early years of our marriage to music. The song lists feel like old friends, and the cardboard album jackets, individual pieces of art. I start sorting through them and set several aside to share with Ben, who inherited his dad’s taste in music. This room is crowded with memories that would need a new home if Nick’s bedroom displaces them, but perhaps that wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.

The doorbell rings, giving me an excuse to escape from my contemplation.

By the time I reach the living room, Nick is running up the driveway with a gift bag in his hand.

He reenters the house excited, but hesitates when he sees me. I suspect he is gauging whether my meltdown has reached nuclear magnitude, or if I’ve cooled off. In truth, I’m somewhere
in the middle, but I smile and motion for him to have a seat beside me on the sofa.

“I didn’t recognize the car,” he says, slightly out of breath.

He pulls five angel note cards from the gift bag and hands them to me. He notices my bandaged finger.

“What happened?”

“It’s just a little cut. I’m clumsy.”

“Mom …”

“We’re good,” I tell him. “Let’s see if we can find a clue on our Fifth Day of Christmas card.”

We compare the new card to the earlier ones.

“This one’s a lot different, simpler,” Nick observes. “It doesn’t look like the same person made them.”

“You could be right,” I agree.

There are no hand-drawn holly leaves or embellishments. The card is made of green construction paper cut with pinking shears, so the edges are zigzagged.

“The date is written at the top. That’s different,” Nick says. “And the words are printed, not in cursive.”

The message on the card is similar to the others.

“Who would do this for us?” I say out loud, not really questioning Nick, but the universe.

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, might as well be the bogeyman for all we know,” he says.

Our conversation lulls, until Nick spots the stack of albums I carried up from the basement. He folds his hands as if praying, then silently mouths the word
please
. But his face is already splitting into a big grin, and I can tell he knows he’s made his case.

It feels good to see my son smile. I let the words spill out, before I have a chance to rethink them.

“We’ll have to clean, gut it completely, and paint,” I tell him, feeling the weight of Christmas pressing down on my chest. Now, though, I can at least appreciate the light in Nick’s eyes as he realizes he might get the gift that he wants.

“You won’t have to do anything,” he insists. “Leave it to me.”

We descend the basement steps, together this time.

I
WAKE WITH
aching muscles from sorting through pounds of debris in the basement the night before, but for the first time in months I feel good about all we accomplished. Nick and I had decluttered part of the rec room, taking only a short break to collect Megan from basketball practice and then to gobble some chicken wings—not most kids’ idea of a great Friday night, but my kid was up for the challenge. By midnight we had filled thirteen trash bags and four boxes of clothing to donate to charity. All told, we had cleared out about a quarter of the room.