CHAPTER ONE
I waited up for Santa. All night without a wink of sleep. I knew Santa wouldn’t show but I had to be the good daughter Dad expected of me. Because he loved making up tales why Santa had skipped our house and I did not want to disappoint him. Even if they were kind of dumb. Like how Santa got caught in a sandstorm in the Sahara and ended up with camels to pull his sleigh. They refused to fly. Rudolph fell in love with a unicorn and ran off. The other reindeers sulked and ate too much chocolate and got too fat to fly. A reindeer’s harness got snagged on a star, and even Santa could not cut him loose.
Dad might be a simple man, he could not read or write, and he never used words more than two syllables; but he was smarter than anyone I knew in other ways, and he worked harder than most Dads. He had been a baker for 23 years. He baked perfectly shaped sourdough rolls and loaves. If you asked, he’d tell you that God breathed into the sourdough starter and made it bubble and taste exquisitely sweet and sour.
Exquisite was a hard word for Dad. But he used that word whenever he remarked about Mom. How exquisitely she tossed a salad and how perfectly the cherry tomatoes landed. How gracefully, with laughter, whether in mud or water, she rounded up our ducks whenever a coyote or fox showed up. Or how she danced through the snow on her way to church, and wherever her footprints melted the snow, tomorrow, a crocus would poke out and blossom to our delight. Our townspeople never lost the chance to watch her—wherever she was, or what she did. No matter how deep a puddle in street or on sidewalk, mud or water never splashed beyond the soles of her shoes. They did not have to say it. I saw it in their faces. In the blush of a smile, a tear, or the rush to hug someone, or anyone, they wanted to share what they saw and felt.
Dad never forgot that word any more than how much he loved Mom. Sometimes he talked to a mirror as if she looked back—a special one Mom inherited from Grandma Lacy. Morning glories, as fragile as the ones Dad grew around our porch every summer, were carved out of the frame. So delicate, I always feared if I bumped the mirror, they’d snap off. Instead they shivered as of struck by the breath of my words like they have must have now done if I could get close enough to it. But I was locked out so I leaned against their bedroom door and listened to Dad talk to the mirror.
“Our Christmas eve dance,” he said. “When I had to choose. Your buttons on your dress were buttoned wrongly. One without a hole. It took all night for me to find the courage to tell you. You kissed me on the forehead. I fell in love.”
My belly pressed harder against the doorknob.
“But you left anyway,” Dad quickly added. “Like last night.”
“Is he done yet?” Kelvin asked—words muffled by fat chews of bread. In a puffy very blue down jacket, he sat in front of our Christmas tree. “He promised me that bike.”
I whipped around.
“Kelvin, wait for him to tell his tale. Just this last time.”
“What? Santa doesn’t show up, and we get nothing for Christmas. But not this year. I see the bike.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Shit, Gracie. You know I do. But I’m too old for this crap. Let me just enjoy the bike.”
I stomped forward.
“Just today. He needs this.”
“I’ll think about it,” he blurted and spit out bits of bread. He never stopped eating the stale loaves and rolls Dad brought home. Plain, without butter, and the harder the better. I could never watch him eat. In the summer, he froze the loaves, and I left the house so I would not have to listen to him crunch and chew. For Christmas, the bakery was closed, and I had lucked out. Dad baked bread at home. The loaf Kelvin squeezed between his knees was crusty but soft inside.
“Mom’s gone, and I want him to be loved. Know we care,” I said. “Let Santa take credit for the bike. Like it’s real. Like what he really needs.”
Kelvin was thirteen, and sometimes as wise as an old priest who constantly forgot to tie his shoes. Why? Cause it didn’t matter if he tied them or not. He was my brother and wiser than me. He was a chubby kid and the best brother anyone could have. He never lied. In your face, he busted out what you needed to hear. But he was never cruel. Like other boys I knew, Kelvin never burned ants with a magnifying glass, or chased a cat up a tree with a bullhorn, or rode his skateboard over a dead squirrel already flattened.
The fire in the woodstove crackled from pine with too much pitch. We had no other woods to cut but a few straggly pines on our land. Dad could not afford to buy any hardwoods like oak or fir. The pine had to do. It burned out quickly. I stayed a little cold this winter, but only in the early morning if I tossed off that extra blanket that stunk of horse.
“I want to ride before it snows,” Kelvin said, and squirmed angrily to reposition the loaf.
I snuggled back into UGGs I had juggled off to be able to tiptoe to the door. Our bigger than normal Christmas tree blocked the picture window in the living room. I didn’t have to go outside to check if it had snowed. Through our skylight, a clear sky with no hint of it. I wouldn’t argue with Kelvin.
A gust against a crack in that window trembled the tree. Frost on needles now melting dripped on my Ugg. I jumped back.
“Just knock on his door,” Kelvin said. “I’ll thank him from there.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. He’s talking to Mom.”
“Mom. I miss her too.”
Dad wept. Words erupted loudly in a strange language as if uttered by a warrior of another world. They made no sense but to frighten me.
“You hear that? It’s not a good time,” I said.
“Fine,” Kelvin said, and strolled over to the bike. “It’s right here. Tell Dad I tackled Santa and stole it.”
He stared way too long at the bike. I waited for him to complain, and tried not to get too mad. Dad couldn’t afford to buy him the bike he wanted. Hours had been spent with Dad. With steel wool, we scrubbed away the rust. Then we painted the used freestyle bike aqua—the color that was Kelvin’s favorite—the uniform of his favorite team—the Miami Dolphins.
A steadier wind snuck through the crack and twitched tinsel on the tree. Maybe snow was close. It smelled like it.
Kelvin grabbed the bike and swung it around.
“Nice color,” he said, and grinned.
“Okay?”
“Oh, yea.”
He straddled the seat and guided it to the front door.
“If you wait, I’ll go with you. I got carrots for Jackaroo. It’s his Christmas too.”
“That hag?”
“Yea, that hag. He’s family too.”
“A horse.”
Kelvin bounced a tire against the front door.
“Well?” I posed.
He gently lay the bike down. “Got to pee. See ya outside.”
Dad’s voice rallied against the mirror as if to force Mom to reply. I rushed outside.
