by Fran Kimmel
By August, her bedroom had fairy lights and castle wallpaper, and it became Hannah’s and Mandy’s favourite place. The cat would sit on her windowsill for hours, staring out at the big world. The house slowly filled with pieces of them, curtains her mother had sewn and Hannah’s paintings on the walls. She got to pluck fat red tomatoes from the tangled vines out back and bite into them like apples. She got a bedtime snack every night. Neapolitan ice cream with extra pink or homemade yogourt-and-orange-juice Popsicles. Nigel cooked steaks on the barbecue. On sunny evenings, he would carry a big tray outside, plastic plates and salt and pepper shakers, knives and forks wrapped in napkins. The three of them arranged their wobbly lawn chairs in a triangle under the shade of the aspen tree, plates on their laps. Her mother would sip her glass of wine; Nigel gulping coffee, cup after cup. They made up new lyrics for the tunes in their heads, nonsense really—Hannah saw a wasp a coming, way in the middle of the air—and sometimes Nigel would add a few words to the mix, sheepish and out of tune, and she and her mother would laugh so hard their stomachs hurt.
Then her mother crumpled. Just like that. They had been to town for groceries, the two of them, her mother complaining of a headache, dizziness, the light too bright in the fruits and vegetables aisle. When they got back to the house, Hannah had her arms wrapped around the toilet paper rolls; her mother headed into the kitchen balancing all the other bags. One minute she was upright, the next she was bent double, broken egg shells and watery yolk snaking slimy in a trail across the kitchen floor.
Hannah screamed when her mother fell down and screamed again when she wouldn’t get up. Nigel tore down the stairs. He wedged his arms under her mother’s limp body, got her up off the floor, and ran with her out the door. He laid her out on the back seat and pushed Hannah aside. He said something before he slammed his door, but she was wailing so loud she couldn’t hear what. I want to come too, she bawled, but he’d already driven off in a pile of dust.
He took her mother away and never brought her back. She had a balloon in her brain, he’d told Hannah, like a berry hanging on a stem, but when she asked what kind of berry and how it had burst, he would not speak of it again. Hannah begged to go to her, read her name on the stone, sing to her the way she had at least a dozen times at the graves of the old people from Sunnybrook, when she and her mother wore their best dresses and Sunday shoes and sang “Amazing Grace” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and her mother would say, Gently you go, rest sweetly now.
But he said he had her burnt up, as if she was done with her body. He said she was ashes that he didn’t ask to keep. Hannah didn’t believe him, but she had no way to find her again.
Nigel searched for a family member he could send her to, even though they both knew there was no one. After that he tried to be good, and she did too. But it didn’t last long. He’d take a drink from the bottle and say, You look nice today, Hannah. Are you excited to see your new school? We’ll do a concert another night. Another drink. We don’t need to talk about heaven anymore. Not now, Hannah. You ask too many questions. Turn that music down please. Turn that music down. Turn that goddamn music off. Until there was no more music in her ears, her throat rusted shut, their rooms as silent as a church with no people. When Nigel’s own mother died, he packed them up, the bottle between his legs, and drove them away.
Hannah listened now for the noises of the family outside her door. She could hear murmuring and the crinkle of a newspaper. She had so many questions and still no answers. What if she had lugged in the heavy grocery bags by herself and let her mother carry the toilet paper instead? What if she’d kept her mouth shut for once and let her mother catch her breath? Mostly she wanted to know how her mother could just give up like that—give her up—without even a goodbye.
Maybe she had been caught by surprise. Maybe the ugly berry inside her disguised its warning signals, like snow around a chimney, so soft and white, until the next thing you know, the roof comes crashing down. Maybe juice from the ugly thing leaked from her body into his body and bubbled rotten under his skin, until there was nothing left of him but the ugly thing. Maybe some of it had dripped into her own body too. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t look at her. Maybe that’s why he got so mean.
She wished she could make these thoughts go away, but they tumbled about inside her like rags in a dryer. She wished she had someone to talk to, especially her question about the grocery bags. Someone like Ellie. She’d forgotten the little things: a housecoat wrapped tight, the fruity smell of lipstick, sitting on the floor folding clothes. When she thought about Ellie now, concentrating on the shape of her, it felt like a drink of water, the easiness of it, soothing her throat, filling her up.
Eight
Eric took a call from Constable King in the early afternoon. Wilson, out of his stupor, had managed to keep down a few bites of toast. King said Wilson looked rough, a swollen eye and a cut above his lip, but nothing that needed stitches and less than he deserved. “He doesn’t want a lawyer, doesn’t want to press charges. He said he doesn’t want the girl either. I thought you would want to know, Sergeant Nyland.”
Eric hung up the phone and tried to push Wilson out of his head. He had his family to focus on. He went back into the living room, got down on his knees, and finished tightening the last of the screws into the frozen tree now standing in the corner. He glanced at his wife through the branches; her face was flushed with exertion as she slid the ancient steamer trunk by its leather handle across the floor. She’d been planning this for days—the decorating party, all of them together, a row of matching cups along the counter for hot chocolate afterward.
“Do we all have to be here?” Daniel asked, little beads of sweat on his forehead, wet splashes under his armpits. He had complained he was on his last round with the weights when they’d called him up from the basement.
Eric was willing to handcuff Daniel to a branch if that’s what it took. “Look, we already—”
But Ellie interjected, seemingly unfazed. “You did the chopping, Danny. You’re the VIP.”
She undid the leather straps, letting the lid fall backward. Sammy stepped to the trunk, peered in, and flapped his arms.
“Remember these, Sammy?” She pulled out shoeboxes filled with decorations, reams of shiny tinsel. Sammy reached in and collected tiny tin soldiers in his fists. Daniel flopped on the couch, scattering pillows to the floor.
Eric crawled backward away from the tree and got himself upright. He cocked his head to the side. “Does it look crooked to you?” he asked of no one in particular.
“Where’s my chair?” Walter yelled, banging his cane on the floor.
“It is crooked,” Eric said.
“Yup,” Daniel added from the couch.
The tree tilted noticeably to the left. Eric’s mother would have clucked and hemmed and shooed them all away before wrestling it straight as a ruler with her iron fists. He needed to get this right—Ellie had been counting on this for so long, the tree no longer just a tree, but layers upon layers of all that had come between them.
“It’s perfect,” Ellie said. “Perfect the way it is.”
“Who stole my chair?” Walter yelled. “What’s that tree doing in the living room? Where’s my goddamn chair?”
Sammy repeated the tirade word for word, the exact same frenzied pitch, yelling as loud as Walter.
Eric pointed to the far side of the room. “It’s right there, Walter. By the window. Your puzzle too.” Who moved my goddamn pen? Where’s my goddamn mug? Eric grew up with these angry demands. It was as if his father believed he lived alone all those years, as if his were the only handprints to touch these walls.
“It’s my house,” Walter mumbled. He leaned heavily on his cane in front of the couch, eyes glazed, like there were swallows in his head, wings fluttering all at once.
“Help your grandpa to his chair, Danny,” Ellie said.
Daniel slid off th
e couch and took Walter’s arm. “It’s Christmas, Grandpa. Remember? Ho. Ho. Ho. You and Grandma used to put your tree right there too.”
“Ho. Ho. Ho,” Sammy repeated. He had taken the tin soldiers from the shoebox, his hands too small to hold them all. They kept falling to the floor. He bent to pick one up, another dropped.
Daniel got Walter into his chair and then flopped back on the couch.
The dog sneezed twice, loud and wet, and when Eric looked over to the hallway, there was Hannah—Thorn at her feet. How long had she been standing there?
“Come help us decorate,” Eric said, waving her over. “What do you think, Hannah? Does it look too slanty to you?”
“Not another one,” Walter shouted, squinting at the shape in the hallway. “Goddamned trees everywhere.”
“That’s not a tree, Grandpa.” Daniel pushed the puzzle table close to Walter’s chest. “It’s Hannah.” Then he called back over his shoulder, “How far did you get on Dungeon Hunter?”
Hannah shrugged without looking up, the dog settling back down over her socks.
“Did you get through the first door?” Daniel sprawled back down on the couch. “The one in the vault?”
When Hannah didn’t answer, Eric studied her more closely. Her braid had come loose, stringy strands sticking out everywhere. Why was she being so quiet, standing off on her own like that? He looked at Ellie. Her forehead was creased; her feet already taking her to the girl.
“Come on then,” Ellie said, her palm on Hannah’s back, guiding her toward the shoeboxes scattered across the floor. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Hannah knelt in front of the shoeboxes, too close to Sammy, practically rubbing shoulders. Sammy jumped backward, flapped his arms, and scurried all the way to the corner of the room. He dropped a few of his tin soldiers along the way, not stopping to pick them up.
Don’t do this, Sammy, not now. Eric wished he could grasp his son’s hand, pull him back to the middle. His heart was likely racing, the beginnings of a stomach ache. Sammy hadn’t warmed up to Hannah, not one degree, since that fiasco at the breakfast table. He’d managed to avoid her since by hightailing it to his bedroom every time she left hers. Help him discover the root of his fears, that’s what the therapist said. Identify the perceived threat, challenge it with evidence. While it had worked with balloons, grasshoppers, even shave-plate snowblowers, it would not be that simple with this unannounced girl.
Hannah had plopped down, legs crossed, eyes huge, surveying the boxes. In front of her were glittery reindeer as thin as paper, white feather owls with black button eyes, tiny plaid skates, clay candy canes and frosted cupcakes, hearts and stars. Snowflakes. Bells. It was her first spark since she got here—any idiot could see that she was dying to dress this tree.
Eric smiled at her childlike delight, so different from her usual wariness. He turned to Ellie, but she was watching her youngest son, now backed into a corner on the far side of the room.
Eric put his hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “He’ll come around in a minute,” he whispered. She kneaded her lip and said nothing. He had to get these lights up before it all went to hell. “Give me a hand here, will you, Dan?”
Daniel made a production of drawn-out yawns and stretches before getting off the couch and sauntering over.
“We’ll start at the top.” Eric handed Daniel one end of the coiled mess of lights.
“It looked bigger when it was beside the others,” Daniel said, threading the coloured lights through the tips of the branches.
“What looked bigger?” Ellie asked, her eyes still on Sammy as she woodenly unwound tinsel, silver strands jumping with static.
“The tree,” Daniel said. “There were some little guys right beside it, buried in snow.”
“It’s a pretty good size,” Eric said. “Look at that trunk.”
“All I could think of was one more, one more, one more and it’s gotta come down.”
Eric reached across for the next loop of lights. “It was a whole lot of thwacking. You did good.”
“I’m waiting for the debauchery,” Walter announced from his chair.
All of them looked over, except Eric, who pretended not to hear.
Ellie said, “Haven’t a clue what you mean, Dad.”
“Neither do I,” Walter said, a tremble in his voice.
Daniel shouted to his brother. “Sammy chose a good one. Didn’t ya, Sammy? You brushed the whole forest clean with the snow brush. You’re an excellent brusher. We should call you Brusher Crusher.”
Ellie laughed, so he said it again, “Brusher Crusher,” his voice a growl. He made a scary face, eyes squeezed together, teeth like a shark. But Sammy wouldn’t look up, just kept banging his soldiers together. Hannah’s eyes followed Daniel’s and landed on Sammy.
“You okay?” Eric asked Hannah. The oomph had gone out of her.
She didn’t look up, shoulders sagging, and stated quietly, as if to herself, “Sammy wants me to go away.”
“He’ll come around,” Eric said, wishing he could fix this for the pair of them—for Ellie.
“He thinks I’m going to hurt him,” Hannah whispered. “And I’m not!”
“Of course you’re not.” Eric looked to Ellie for support, but she was rearranging light strings on the other side of the tree. “Sammy just needs a few minutes to warm up. That’s all. And this tree needs all the help it can get. You like the decorations?”
Hannah smiled. Eric squatted on the floor beside Daniel, who was weaving the last of the lights along the topside of the low branch.
“That’s the end of it,” Daniel said.
“Good. Plug ’er in then.” Eric stood, clasping his hands.
Daniel jammed the plug into the wall socket, not five inches of cord to spare. The tree lit up, splashes of colour glowing bright. Walter covered his ears, as if waiting for a fireworks boom, but then he looked down at his puzzle, found the right piece, and got back to work.
Daniel came around to face Eric, high-fiving like he’d just run a touchdown. Ellie stood back to take a look at the tree, Eric right beside her, letting their arms touch.
“What do you say?” he whispered close to her ear. What would he have done if the lights hadn’t worked? Better not to think about that.
“It’s beautiful, Eric.” Ellie looked across the room at Sammy, his eyes staring back from the safety of his corner, captivated by the lights. She gave a dramatic wave. Sammy refused to budge.
“This is my fault,” she said just loud enough for Eric to hear. “I pushed her practically on top of him.”
In Ellie’s world, it came back to the mother, always. The small decisions and indecisions. She’d blame herself for the clouds in the sky if she thought they stole light from her children. He squeezed her arm while she stared across the room.
“See any burnt-out bulbs?” he asked, to keep things moving along.
“There’s one.” Daniel pointed to a light up high.
“And one down there,” Hannah piped up.
“Just two gone. Not bad,” Daniel said.
“Hannah, reach into the trunk there,” Eric said.
She crawled to the trunk and poked her head in.
“See the plastic box? Down at the bottom there. Get out a couple of bulbs, will you?”
Hannah dug through painted toilet-paper rolls with Santa hats before she found the right box, popped off the plastic top, pulled out purple and red and held them up.
Eric took them from her. He unscrewed the dark bulbs and replaced them with the new ones. They lit up instantly.
“Danny, you get to pick the first decoration,” Ellie said. Half the tree was now doused in tinsel. “You’ve earned it.”
Daniel rifled through the boxes, until he found the mouse with its little grey ears and long shoelace tail. Years ago, in some other house, Eric remem
bered him taking that mouse off a Christmas branch, hiding him in his pocket, and feeding him crumbles of cheese.
“Mr. Mouse,” Daniel said, running it up Hannah’s arm, laughing when she shivered.
“A mouse in the house,” Eric added. He’d said those exact same words a long time ago.
Daniel placed the mouse on a thick set of needles close to the top.
Ellie edged toward him and said, “I’ll be checking your pockets this time.” He shoved her shoulder with more force than he planned. She started to tumble but he grabbed the sleeve of her blouse, pulled her back upright.
“How are those weights working out?” Eric said, and the three of them laughed.
Hannah had lined up five stained-glass angels in a row along the floor.
“Well, let’s go then,” Eric called out, waving to Sammy. “Get over here, slugger. This tree’s not going to decorate itself. You too, Hannah.”
Hannah jumped to her feet, angels in her hands. She and Daniel stepped around Eric, tripping over each other, shoulder to shoulder, vying for the same branches, for reindeers and icicles and clusters of bells.
Eric was astonished at how easy they were, nattering nonstop, neither giving an inch, as if they’d spent every Christmas together. Daniel liked having Hannah close by—that much was obvious—making it a competition, bossing her around. And she was no pushover, giving it right back, ordering him to choose a different branch, urging him to think of the whole tree, not just his one little section.
Daniel poked his head out from the side facing the wall. “Bring over a couple of big ones,” he yelled. “Got a hole over here.”
“Who made you God?” Eric clapped his arm good-naturedly.
“You chop it, you own it,” Daniel said.
Hannah picked out a hodgepodge of puffy sewn hearts and red felt stockings with green rims around the top. She passed them to Daniel. “Want any of these?”
He took the handful. “These are butt ugly, but they’ll do.”
She got down on the floor again, her eye on the cowboy-boot box filled with glitter snowflakes.