And one for Jeremy: Peppermint patty. Candy cane.
Jeremy felt a weight within him. Not so much a burden, just the heaviness of his thoughts taking up space inside of him. Sort of a happy space. His hands resisted the urge to flutter at his side. Even though Ben’s gift to him would be purchased with his own money, Jeremy so looked forward to having something to unwrap on Christmas morning, something someone had chosen for him.
Jeremy shopped for hours, finding the items from Violet and Ben’s lists, as well of some gifts he planned to wrap himself. He bought lights, ornaments, tinsel, garlands, a wreath, a mini Santa Claus. He bought all the things that most people have stored underneath their stairs, in a big plastic bin labelled, CHRISTMAS, the knickknacks that normally take years to accumulate bit by bit. It would take another trip, on another day, but Jeremy would now also need to buy the plastic bin he could store everything in for the rest of the year. He would keep it in his own closet upstairs though, as a reminder that it was there, waiting for the next jolly holiday season.
Christmas songs played on every radio station he flipped through. He settled for O Little Star of Bethlehem. Its eerie resonance always struck a chord, and he found it comforting somehow; that there was depth and sorrow to the holidays, too. Next was a new-fangled carol sung by a modern artist. Enough time has passed by now, Jeremy thought, that all the good possibilities for Christmas songs have been used up. There is no need to keep writing new ones. He shook off his judgments and tried to hum along to the new song with the same old sentiment. Tiny snowflakes fell on the windshield of his car but he didn’t use his wipers to clear them, choosing instead to let them build up one by one as they formed an ever-melting quilt along the glass.
He quickly rerouted to a grocery store. After all, Christmas is only partially about the decorations, and more about the food. Jeremy roamed the aisles, eyeing shortbread and candy canes and eggnog. The rich yolky liquid had made him sick as a boy, but he knew it would taste differently now. On a whim, he also bought a jar of nutmeg to sprinkle on top.
When he arrived back home, he rode the gravel curves up to the glowing house and fought the sense of dread he always felt when returning up the drive. Please still be there.
He saw Violet in the kitchen and found that he could breathe again. No sign of Ben, who was probably off playing somewhere. Maybe Violet was baking Christmas goodies. He felt the urge to stay there for hours, to sit in the driveway and observe the home he had created for himself and for them.
Weren’t they as much of a family as anyone else? They might hate him sometimes, but didn’t hate go hand in hand with love? He took a mental picture. The house, the light snowflakes softening the scene. His car full of goodies like a real life Santa Claus. A warm home waiting for him.
Everyone deserves this, he thought to himself. A family to come home to. A little weight dropped off of his shoulders. Ben was right; he had felt a little like the Grinch earlier. But he felt like he was on his way to making things right.
Turning the key and pulling it out of the ignition, Jeremy got out of his car and grabbed the first load. He found all the gifts and snuck them inside before Violet or Ben even heard a thing.
“Hey!” he called out when he had safely hidden the parcels. “Who wants to help me bring in some Christmas supplies?”
Ben’s approaching thumps resounded immediately. Violet came around the corner a little more slowly, peeking past Jeremy out the window, to the car. Ben and Violet threw on their boots and jackets, another of Jeremy’s former gifts.
All three loaded their bodies with boxes and bags. Dumping the goods in the front hall, Ben began to pluck through them.
“Cool!” he called out when he got to the small Santa, promptly pulling it from the bag and setting it out on the front porch. It was about half the height of Ben, and much too small to represent the entirety of the porch with its presence, but neither Violet nor Jeremy wanted to move it from Ben’s desired site. Besides, who else would ever see it?
Violet pictured the house covered top to bottom in lights, flashing red and green strobes across the sky. Would a car see it from the road? Perhaps some nosy holiday hunters would turn up the drive to get a better look at the lights. She was hit with an urge to decorate furiously and excessively.
“Can I put the lights up outside?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Jeremy said, misinterpreting her enthusiasm. “But maybe you should wait until tomorrow. It’s starting to get a little dark and I wouldn’t want you to fall on the ladder.”
Violet resisted the urge to tell him that she was just as likely to lose her balance in the daytime, but held her tongue because he was probably right. “Well, what about a tree? Think we could go pick one?”
“Cool!” Ben shouted again, and Jeremy couldn’t resist.
“Definitely,” he said. “Just let me get a flashlight so we can make sure we’re not getting a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.” Although those had always been his favourite.
With a flashlight, an axe and mittens, they crunched their way into the woods in search of a tree.
“This one!” Ben said to every evergreen they came across.
Violet laughed. “Ben, think a little more critically about this. We want one that we’ll be able to hang lots of ornaments and lights on. That last one? Come on.”
Ben wasn’t concerned by her constructive criticism, and he scampered on ahead until he was out of their sight. He didn’t leave their ears for long, though – excited exclamations soon rang through the trees and back to them.
“Guys! I found it!” Jeremy noted the plurality. It was a small victory. He beamed behind the glow of his flashlight.
When they caught up, there was indeed a fine tree before them. Arms reaching in every direction, pine needles coating them like fur.
“Violet, what do you think?” Jeremy asked.
“I think we found our Christmas tree,” she said, more quietly than she had planned.
“Alright then. Ben, wanna hold the flashlight?”
Ben quickly accepted his new responsibility and took the big light into his little hands.
“Stand back, guys.” Jeremy swung his axe at the trunk, as low to the ground as he could. He took small steps in circles around the tree, slowly chipping away from all angles. Violet began to shiver, and the light of the flashlight wavered in Ben’s frigid hands.
“Okay, here goes!” Jeremy finally announced when he saw the tree start to lean in one direction more than any other.
“TIMBERRRRRRRRR!” Ben roared suddenly, surprising Violet and Jeremy. They looked over at him, alarmed at first, then started to laugh. It was probably the only time Ben had, or ever would have again, the perfect opportunity to yell such a thing.
They dragged the newly fallen tree back through the woods. Violet soaked in the whispering sound of the needles sweeping the thin layer of snow coating the ground.
That night, to any onlooker, would have seemed a delight. The house quickly filled with the sound of Christmas music; the smell of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg; the bright, colourful lights of Christmas strings. A transformation took place. The tree stood proudly in a corner where a rocking chair had been. Balls and bells dangled from its branches; lights twinkled and traced lines around its figure.
Jeremy even went back outside to get some wood to spark up a flame in the fireplace. Soon, the crackle and smell of scorching wood added to the stimulation of their senses.
The next day, Christmas Eve, Ben sliced up some carrots and put out cookies and milk.
Sorting through the parcels, Jeremy made a drop off in each of the three bedrooms – Violet’s gifts for Ben; Ben’s gifts for Violet and Jeremy; Jeremy’s gifts for Ben and Violet. Later, they retreated to their rooms. Each could hear the crinkling of the others’ wrapping as they cut and taped and tied. Each came up with a different way to label their gifts. Ben wrote right on the package in big, bold letters with a permanent marker. Violet folded bits of wrapping paper in half to creat
e a tag. Jeremy used full-sized Christmas cards, envelopes and all, for each parcel. He didn’t have anyone else to send them to, and had bought a whole package.
When Jeremy finished wrapping, he snuck his boxes downstairs to the tree. Ben had already done the same. He stood looking down at the gifts, glowing green and red in the tree’s light. There were four crumpled items for Violet, two for him. It didn’t matter that he knew exactly what lay beneath the paper. Didn’t matter at all.
He heard feet on the stairs and turned to look. Violet, balancing her gifts in her clumsy but able arms, walked carefully down each step.
“Hi,” she said. “You’re not supposed to see me put these under there.”
“Oh, oops,” Jeremy said, unaware of the protocol. “I’ll get out of your way.” He turned to walk up the stairs. “Goodnight, Violet. See you in the morning.”
“Goodnight,” she said. A few seconds later she added, “Jeremy? Thanks.”
He was halfway up the stairs by then. He paused and felt that happy, heavy feeling again and willed his arms to stay still. Turning slowly, he didn’t know what else to say except, “You’re welcome.”
There weren’t many times when Jeremy felt like he was doing the right thing lately. But something inside told him that this, the holiday season he had created for them, was something he had done right.
He went to bed with a smile on his face. So did Ben. Violet did not. Instead, she looked out her window at the moon. The man within it looked right back, and she wondered what he was trying to say to her.
You’re doing a good thing, staying strong for your brother while you’re in this place.
How dare you still be there.
She remembered when she was little and her grandfather would hold her in his arms underneath the sky. He would look to the moon and say, I look at the moon, I look at you. I look at the moon, I look at you. I’d rather look at the moon.
She hadn’t understood that it was a joke made at her expense, she just threw her little chin up in the air and giggled, because he had inevitably begun tickling her.
Her mind strayed to a place she didn’t often let it. She thought about what everyone else in the world was doing at that moment. Her grandparents had gone to church that night, she was sure of it. What about her mother, had she gone too? Had she prayed to someone, anyone who might be listening, to find her daughter and son and bring them home? Did she have a Christmas tree up, did she buy them gifts just in case? Violet wasn’t sure whether she would prefer the house to be undecorated and miserable like a place of mourning, or for her mother to find it within her to celebrate. There was probably a man there, perhaps some champagne, some chocolate.
Violet visualized their home. She mapped the walls and made a mental note of how many photos of herself and Ben were hung. One of Ben, one of her, one of the two of them together. She wondered if her mother walked by them every day and cried. Did she put them next to her bed like a shrine, vowing not to truly sleep until she found them? Or were they turned around, taken off the walls, hidden away in the closet? Maybe the men she brought over had no idea that a Violet or a Ben existed at all.
She hated herself for even thinking it. Holly must be missing them, remembering every little bit of them constantly so that the details wouldn’t fade. But Violet couldn’t ignore the termite that had been chewing away at the back of her brain for months.
Why hadn’t she found them? She should have fought long enough, hard enough to find them. They weren’t needles and the house a haystack. They were alone for miles. Any search of the region would lead to a visit of this very house, wouldn’t it? Violet didn’t know how search parties worked, but she would’ve given theirs a failing grade.
She puffed her cheeks and held her breath. Those sorts of thoughts wouldn’t get her anywhere. She tried to remember the good in her mother, to forget that she was adopted and the awful notion that Holly’s hurt could be lessened by this fact.
Years ago, when Violet was old enough to start wondering about it all, she’d asked Holly how the two of their lives had collided.
“Why me?” she’d asked, eyes wide, when she was about six years old.
“Why you,” Holly repeated with a smile. “Well, because you were the baby I was given. I didn’t really get to choose you, you weren’t like a robot that I got to pick how many fingers and toes you came out with.”
Violet giggled as Holly tickled her fingers and toes in demonstration of how she’d come with just the right amount.
Holly paused before continuing. “But I think that even if I did get to choose, I would’ve ended up with the same Violet. You would have those ocean grey eyes that you don’t know how to use just yet, but someday you will. You’d have your golden blonde hair that shines in the sun. You’d be kind and friendly and know how to make people smile. Those are all things I would’ve picked, but you came out just right without me picking any of them.”
Looking down at her hands, Violet felt a little better. Her next question was harder though.
“If I came out so good, why didn’t my real mommy want me?”
“Oh, Violet,” Holly said with furrowed brows and long eyes, the saddest face she had ever allowed in front of her daughter. She didn’t say anything more, her eyes just welled up as she hugged the curious little thing in her lap.
Violet remembered confusion, not knowing if she’d said something wrong or why her all-knowing mother didn’t have an answer. She was old enough to know that Holly was her real mother, and that maternity had nothing to do with biology. She wasn’t quite old enough to realize, however, that her questions might burrow themselves painfully into Holly’s heart. Both of them had been unwanted enough to have ended up together.
They made great companions; they were good at reading each other and gauging their needs. Violet quickly learned it was simpler to leave out the fact that she was adopted. People had too many questions paired with too many pitying looks, and Violet was tired of the explanations to everyone who thought it was their business.
It didn’t stop Violet from asking questions herself, however, and she was thankful for Holly’s openheartedness. Schoolyard friends were jealous of the questions she got away with, as well as the answers she received and shared the next day at school. Children huddled around as if her words were currency.
“What is sex?” she’d asked one day after seeing a movie where it was all the actors could talk about. Violet had an inkling. One of her friends from school named Stacy had an older brother, and she heard stories about him and the strange noises that came out of his room. Stacy had tried to explain something about a sock that boys put on their bodies to protect the girls.
“Sex!” her mom had replied with her eyebrows up as high as they would go. “Sex, already.” This was said quietly, more as a note to herself. Violet was, after all, only eight. Wasn’t Holly supposed to have a little more time before this conversation? She had no book handy, no useless pamphlet with diagrams that weren’t quite raunchy or accurate enough. Remembering back to her own endlessly inadequate sexual education, Holly realized she was glad to use her words instead.
“Well, sex is what happens when two people put their bodies together for a certain purpose.” It was the best she could come up with on the spot.
“What purpose?” Violet responded, ever the inquisitor.
“That depends,” Holly said slowly, sloshing through uncharted waters and not knowing how deep she was willing to go. “Sometimes so that they can make a baby together. Sometimes just for fun.”
“So what happens?” Violet said, a little confused but excited that she hadn’t been shut down with a non-answer like Stacy who had tried with her mother.
“Well, men and women both have different parts that fit together if you put them just right. And there’s a way to do it so that it can feel really nice, like a massage or a hot bath.” Pause. “But it’s not something that’s fun to do with just anyone. It won’t feel good if it’s not with the right person.” The
last thing she wanted was a call home tomorrow from a teacher telling her that Violet had been trying to fit her body together with a little boy in class.
Violet sat quietly with this for a minute. “And how do you know if it’s the right person?” she asked.
“You don’t,” she said more honestly that she ever imagined she would be in a conversation like this. “You don’t always know. But you can try really hard to find out in advance. You can make sure that the person likes you, even with all the silly stuff you do.” Holly poked Violet on the nose. “And you can see if you feel comfy being around them, and if it doesn’t scare you to be alone with them. Oh my god,” she added hastily, “and you don’t even have to start thinking about this for a long, long time. You won’t be ready for awhile yet.”
“How will I know I’m ready?”
Holly got up from the couch where they were stationed. Violet was worried she’d scared her off just as they were getting to the good stuff. To her relief, Holly only went to grab a wine glass.
“I need some help to answer that one,” she said as she poured herself a glass from the open bottle in the fridge.
Violet smiled as she remembered the conversation and how long ago it had been. It had paved the way for Violet to ask her mom anything.
Contrary to some whispering parents’ opinions, those talks didn’t lead Violet on an endless quest to dominate men and make her body fit with theirs. The words did not magically transform her into a fiendish slut. Slut, a word so much like sludge; bottom of the barrel residue. A word sometimes used to describe her mother, and it made Violet squirm when she heard it whispered. Her mom wasn’t like that. Violet and Holly carried this justification with them like a weapon, slung on their hips and ready to be drawn for battle.
Remembering what a team they’d been made Violet ache.
Enough, she thought. Tomorrow was Christmas morning. She didn’t need to worry about it right then. In that moment, she felt deplorable. She forced her eyes to close. The light of the moon still burned on her retinas. With deep breaths as slow as she was able to bring them in and out, her heart rate began to slow and she tried to concentrate on nothing but her own breathing. She would fall asleep. She wouldn’t be kept up tonight. She wouldn’t…
Once, We Were Stolen Page 17