Twice, when it was her turn to get behind the wheel in driver’s ed., Jody drove past the farmstand, but it was boarded up for the winter and she couldn’t see the Giant’s house from the road. Both times she got yelled at for speeding, and now Mr. Davis, the driver’s ed. teacher, always says “Stay alive at fifty-five” directly to her when the class begins.
Lots of the kids Jody knows have already applied to colleges; on Saturdays they study for SATs. On Saturdays Jody walks to the market, orders, then waits around until she can get a ride home with the delivery boy. Sometimes she goes to Garland’s house in the afternoon and they watch movies on the VCR or lie on Garland’s bed and smoke cigarettes. It is amazingly easy for Jody to keep secrets while listening to Garland pour out her heart. This trait makes Jody feel awful about herself; she is allowing Garland to think they are best friends when Garland doesn’t even really know her. Garland does things by the book. She knows she’s going to work for her father after high school; she will probably marry Rob Norris, if she can get him to talk to her. If a giant was bringing her weird presents in the middle of the night, she’d call the police and have him arrested. Or she’d tell her father who, because he owns a hardware store, would probably set the largest steel trap he could find.
Jody has been invited home for Christmas by both parents and she doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t want to hear her mother complain about her father. She doesn’t want her father to give her a too-expensive bracelet just because he feels bad that he never sees her. She knows from her brothers that her father is involved with someone and Jody especially doesn’t want her father to have to tell his girlfriend to get all her stuff out of his apartment so that Jody won’t happen upon red nail polish in his bathroom or a silver belt hanging in the closet next to his ties. She writes letters to her parents during social studies and tells them she can’t possibly leave her grandmother alone at this time of year. There’s some truth in this. Jody has found a box of Christmas ornaments in the attic. There are blue glass balls and a silver angel. She lugs the cardboard box downstairs.
“These are all dusty,” Elizabeth Renny says when Jody places an ornament in her hand. She remembers buying them, when Laura was ten or eleven, at a Woolworth’s in Hyannis.
“I’ll dust them,” Jody says.
Jody rips a worn T-shirt in half and sits cross-legged on the floor. The cats, certain that she has unearthed a box of new toys for them, have to be pushed aside. Jody has bought what she thinks is the perfect gift for her grandmother: a sack of safflower seeds. She’s caught her grandmother mournfully watching the few birds who gather this winter to eat her bread and seeds. The cardinals, always so easy to spot against snow and ice, have not returned, and Garland’s father has promised Jody that cardinals can never resist safflower seeds. Presents from Jody’s family have already arrived: a wool sweater and silk shirt from her mother, a gold bangle bracelet from her father, plastic earrings in the shape of goldfish from her brothers. She knows she should have waited to open her presents until Christmas. Now she will have nothing. Her grandmother certainly can’t get to a store and Jody has seen her trying to read mail-order catalogues. But each time she tosses them aside, annoyed that she can’t read the small print.
Elizabeth Renny has not celebrated Christmas for several years. She does not consider getting a fruitcake and a scarf from her daughter once a year cause for celebration. Now she begins to sing “White Christmas” in a high, wavering voice. Jody puts down the Christmas ornament she’s polishing, listens, then applauds.
“I used to think I could sing,” Elizabeth Renny says.
“Sing something else,” Jody says.
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth Renny says. “I only make a fool out of myself once a night.”
She picks up a glass ball and holds it up to the light. Her reflection wavers and looks liquid. She could swear it was only moments ago that she was the same age as Jody. She and her sister Maureen, who has been dead for eighteen years—longer than Jody has been alive—always hung up red stockings the night before Christmas. In the morning they would find little gifts that brought them a ridiculous amount of pleasure: ribbons, dried fruit, bottles of ink, tortoiseshell combs for their hair. Elizabeth Renny has wrapped two of these combs, both of which are edged with silver filigree, in white tissue paper. Though they are a far cry from the purple plastic things Jody uses, the combs are to be Jody’s Christmas present.
Elizabeth Renny used to wear her hair long. Before she began to go blind, her reflection sometimes scared her. As a child she had been terrified of old ladies; she would hang on her mother’s skirt when an old aunt came to visit. Now she realizes that she herself looks ten times worse than her aunt ever did. She wonders if the little boy next door imagines she’s a witch. She cannot remember if she ever called her aunt a witch to her face, or if she just thought it so hard it seemed as though she’d said it aloud. Tonight, her reflection is almost beautiful, it shifts in the light, turning silver and then deep blue.
THAT night the tree is dropped off in the yard. The two men who pull up in a battered truck are landscapers who sell Christmas trees each winter and who promised Jody they would deliver. Well, deliver they have, right on the lawn, but they will not carry the tree up the porch steps. Simon and Andre are in the shed, gathering hidden presents to take inside and wrap, when the truck pulls away.
This Christmas they have something to celebrate. Since Simon’s examination at Children’s Hospital he’s grown two inches and has moved up a clothing size. Under their tree there are four pairs of new overalls, a snowsuit, and two sweaters—one patterned with reindeer, the other with black cats. Vonny and Andre can’t bring themselves to deny him anything these days, and Simon is often surprised by their leniency. Before Andre can stop him, Simon has run next door, waving and calling to Jody. Andre wishes he had grabbed hold of his son before he made his getaway.
Jody is wearing jeans, a heavy green sweater, and high boots. She and Simon gaze at the tree, admiring it. Only a few days ago, in a store in Edgartown, Andre picked up a silver chain, planning to get it for Vonny. Attached to the chain was a small bell. When he lifted the chain the bell’s chime was distant, a sound you’d have to be very close to hear. As soon as Andre realized the necklace was the perfect present for Jody, he quickly put it down and bought Vonny a pair of blue enameled earrings he knows will look great when she wears her hair up.
“Hey, Simon,” Andre calls across the yard. He will do almost anything not to have to go over there. “Hey, Jody,” he calls as an afterthought.
Jody looks up and waves without enthusiasm.
“This tree is bigger than ours,” Simon tells her.
“It didn’t look this big when I picked it out,” Jody says.
Jody grips the tree by its trunk and tugs. Branches scrape along the ground, but the body of the tree doesn’t budge.
“Maybe the Giant can help you with it,” Simon says.
Jody stares at him.
“I think I might be getting a Care Bear for Christmas,” Simon announces.
“What giant?” Jody asks him.
“I don’t know,” Simon says.
They stare at the tree; though their breath turns smoky in the cold, there’s no chance that this will be a white Christmas.
“Giants are never around when you need them,” Jody says.
Simon nods. “They’re afraid of people.”
“Let’s go, Simon,” Andre calls. They plan to stash their presents in the kitchen cabinets while Vonny wraps presents on the sun porch. Andre has spent the past few days running deliveries for Vonny—during the week before Christmas she sells more pottery than she does the whole rest of the year. He made excuses for her to the shop owners who asked why they no longer saw her: she was working overtime to complete her orders, she had a sore throat, a headache, she was leaving on vacation. This year Vonny was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to go into a store to do any Christmas shopping. Andre had to wait for her outside each sho
p, parked right in front in case she needed him. He timed her; she could not last more than six minutes in any of the stores before she had to run back out to the truck. He’s not supposed to know what she bought him, but when she came out of the shoe store the box she had was so big it could only contain a pair of boots.
“My dad can help you,” Simon tells Jody.
“That’s okay,” Jody says. “I’ll manage.”
“Dad!” Simon yells. He flaps his arms up and down when he yells, as if winding himself up.
Andre puts his hands in his pockets and walks across the lawn.
“You sure must like Christmas trees,” he says to Jody, careful to look not at her but at the tree.
“This can’t be the one I picked out,” Jody says. It’s amazing how she can make her voice sound absolutely flat.
“Come on, assistant,” Andre says to Simon. Andre directs Simon to the top of the tree and tells him to hold the branches so he’ll think he’s helping. Then Andre lifts the tree and drags it up the steps.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jody tells him.
“I know,” Andre says. “But I’m already doing it.”
Jody grabs some long branches and helps guide the tree through the door. It will be a mess, Jody can see that already; she’ll be sweeping pine needles off the floor all evening. Elizabeth Renny calls out for them all to be careful not to strain their backs. Then she gets her pocketbook and fumbles in her change purse.
“Let me pay you something,” she says to Andre, handing him a five-dollar bill.
Andre backs away from her and shakes his head no. If Simon hadn’t run over he would have let Elizabeth Renny herself struggle with the tree just so he could avoid Jody.
“Then let the boy have it,” Elizabeth Renny says when Andre refuses her money. “He helped.”
Simon takes the money without hesitation.
“Thank you,” Andre says to him meaningfully.
“Thank you,” Simon tells Mrs. Renny.
Simon runs out the door before anyone can decide that the money should be returned. Elizabeth Renny is not certain why, but she feels unwanted in her own kitchen. She can feel something pass between Jody and Andre and yet she takes a coat off the hook and follows Simon out onto the porch. She pulls the storm door closed behind her, and in giving them a moment alone, she becomes a co-conspirator.
“What are you going to buy?” Mrs. Renny asks Simon. “A dump truck?”
“Nope,” Simon says, balancing on the last icy step. “A bed for my rabbit.”
Inside the kitchen, Andre and Jody’s hands burn from pine needles.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Andre says.
“That’s okay,” Jody says, without the slightest idea of what she means.
“It’s not,” Andre says. “If I was a different person,” he begins, then stops himself. It is meaningless to say, or even think such things.
Jody can tell he’s nervous. He keeps looking over at her grandmother, who is just on the other side of the door, keeping Simon busy.
“I’ve been planning to go over and tell her all about it,” Jody says now.
Andre doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t move an inch, yet she can tell he’s panicked.
“But I decided against it,” Jody says, deciding as she speaks.
“Well, good,” Andre says. He’s broken into a sweat.
“Dad,” Simon calls from the porch. Elizabeth Renny turns to them, an apologetic look on her face. You can keep a boy like Simon engrossed in conversation for just so long on the night before Christmas.
“Merry Christmas,” Andre says to Jody.
He can picture the silver chain around her neck, hear the way the bell would echo as she leaned to pull on her boots or as she turned on her side in bed. He feels off balance and as Elizabeth Renny comes inside he gives her a quick, totally unexpected hug before he pushes the door open. Then he stomps down the steps, swoops Simon up, and runs across the lawn. Simon lets his head swing back and he screams with delight. Clouds cover the moon as Simon bounces up and down in his father’s arms. Inside, they march in place until all the ice on their boots flies off and scatters. Nelson beats his tail on the floor to greet them. Simon unzips his jacket, tosses it on a chair, then runs into the living room to find his mother.
“Don’t look!” Vonny cries.
From the doorway, Andre can see Vonny stuffing wrapped presents under the couch. Simon stands nearby, hands covering his eyes. The rabbit is curled up on one of Andre’s old sweaters on the coffee table; one ear twitches in her sleep.
“I saw!” Simon chortles, hands still over his eyes. “I saw a Care Bear!”
Vonny looks up at Andre and smiles. After Simon has gone to bed, Andre will have to go out and search whatever stores are still open. They had hoped he would forget about Care Bears, but since there will be plenty of times in his life when he will be disappointed, they might as well get him what he wants.
THE Giant does not know how other people fall in love. Do they experience insomnia? Loss of appetite? Do they hear ringing in their ears? The Giant falls asleep easily in his large wooden bed, for breakfast he has cereal and toast, he can hear a single drop of water leaking from the kitchen faucet when he is clear across the house. His life has not altered: he takes care of the chickens, cleans his house, paints his miniatures. The only difference is, once a week, very late at night, he walks three miles with a basket of eggs and doesn’t return until the sun comes up. The walk there, though sometimes so cold he has to wear two pairs of gloves, is always beautiful. The road shimmers with ice; the bark of oak trees turns to rough silver. But the walk back is terrible, endless and dark. When he comes home, the Giant collapses and sleeps until noon.
The Giant cannot stop thinking about love. Though he barely remembers his father, he knows what passed for love between his mother and her boyfriends. The desire he saw seemed brutal and mean, but whenever he overheard his mother talking with other women he wondered if he had missed something completely. She described her romances as if she were a swooning girl, she showed off the gifts her boyfriends brought, offering her neighbors chocolates from boxes tied with ribbons, gently taking a pair of cheap earrings out of a cardboard box, flaunting them as though they were gold.
The Giant studied his mother carefully when she dressed to go out on a date or to a bar to look for somebody new. She applied her makeup slowly. She changed her clothes three or four times until she got it right. Often, as she was leaving, she yelled at him to make himself scarce in case she brought somebody home. But the way she looked as she stood at the door, ready to go out, mesmerized the Giant and he could not move. Something delirious shone out from her; the night was filled with mysterious and endless possibilities. The Giant has never imagined any such possibilities for himself. Who would want him for a lover? Who would not run from him? Even when he’s alone, he cannot delude himself into thinking he is like everyone else. Chairs are too small for him. China breaks in his hands.
The Giant knows that his grandfather loved him, but that gives him little comfort. His grandfather liked defective things. If a table was broken it was all the more a treasure, a sweater without a patch was an unnatural object, what good were planets when there was such a thing as a falling star? The Giant realizes he was lucky to be loved as a child. He knows what it’s like to be afraid of thunder and have someone’s hand to hold. What he does not know about is passion, although he is beginning to think passion has less to do with uncontrollable urges than with hope. When the blue light of dusk appears the Giant feels what may be desire. Wanting to be with the girl with the gray eyes makes him feel both stronger and weaker than he is.
He has told himself that he takes the eggs to Jody’s house without any expectations, but that is not exactly the truth. He is fairly certain that the elation he feels when he walks into her yard is not something normal people feel. He has begun to do stupid things. He forgets the coffeepot on the stove and returns to find it sputtering, the coffee boil
ed down to a rubbery black coating at the bottom of the pot. He goes out to the farmstand in broad daylight to repair some loose boards and allows himself to be seen by several motorists, some of whom, he is sure, will be back to gawk with a carload of disbelieving friends.
On Christmas Eve the Giant goes out to the henhouses at dusk, his throat thick from the blue light. The temperature is dropping, and, because the earth is still warm, fog rises in unexpected places, spilling out from beneath the henhouses, encircling ferns. The Giant feeds his chickens and on the way out of the henhouse finds an egg he overlooked that morning. He takes the egg from the straw and puts it in his sweater pocket. Inside the house he lights a fire, then places the egg on the table and gets his paints. He takes a pin and makes a tiny hole in the shell, then raises it to his mouth and sucks out the raw egg. He uses acrylics, and paints carefully with the finest brushes he has. He holds a magnifying glass above the egg and he stops working only once, when his fingers cramp and he has to put down his paintbrush and open and close his fist several times.
When he is finished, the Giant is so hot that he doesn’t bother to wear a coat and he doesn’t feel the cold as he walks to Jody’s house. It has taken him longer than he’d planned to paint the egg, and it’s nearly dawn when he gets there. He goes to the back porch, which is covered with pine needles. Then he does something so stupid he can’t believe it: he puts his hand on the doorknob. When he shifts his hand to the right, the doorknob turns. He quickly pulls his hand away, but the door opens. The Giant holds his breath, ducks, then goes inside. His pulse is so wild he can’t believe the noise doesn’t wake anyone. He puts the egg on a white saucer left on the kitchen table. The egg rolls back and forth, then is still. The Giant has painted the scene of their first meeting. Tiny chickens peck at the dust as a girl holding a basket of eggs flees, her hair streaming out behind her. In a chair near the henhouses, the Giant has painted himself. He wears a white shirt, as he did on that day, but in his painting his heart is visible, and he clasps his hand to it, as though wounded.
Illumination Night: A Novel Page 13