They May Not Mean To, But They Do(28)

“We don’t eat Christmas trees. It doesn’t die so I can live. It dies so we can decorate it.”

“We could eat it. We could chop it up and cook it after Christmas.”

“Very funny.”

Coco hated waste. It was that simple. The death of the pine tree was not the issue. She was not a fool, she was a science teacher, and she understood the importance and beauty of decomposition, how it brought new things to life. But the planting and cultivating and harvesting of what was essentially a big bauble, a bauble on which to hang other baubles—that was unconscionable.

“It provides employment,” Daniel said.

“Those Canadians who drive down every year and sell them on the street?”

“It provides enjoyment!” he said, pleased with the rhyme.

She sniffed her disapproval.

“Ruby really, really wants one.”

Then, of course, Coco said “Okay!” instantly. For Ruby, anything.

And now she made a big, happy fuss over the tree each year. She did love the smell, the look of them lined up on the sidewalk, the ritual of carrying the tree home. Once it was standing in the living room, though, and opened its fragrant branches, spreading the outdoor smell through the house, Coco had to fight off a flicker of sorrow. Like any useless bunch of carnations or daisies, the Christmas tree would shrivel and die. She cheered herself with the thought that the city now had a policy of gathering the trees up and using them for compost.

Choosing presents helped to cheer her up, too. Each potential recipient of a gift presented a puzzle to be solved. This year, she had solved two problems at once—a gift for Ruby, who was so unpredictable and in-between these days, and a more immediate use of the Christmas tree than compost.

She’d been a little unsure about the kit of science projects she’d gotten the girls. It used marshmallows, which of course they would like. It was, however, educational, and educational gifts sometimes fell flat. But when they opened their gifts on Christmas Eve, the science kit was both Ruby’s and Cora’s favorite. Cora immediately took herself off to watch marshmallow after marshmallow swell prodigiously in the microwave. And because the kit included a slingshot, Ruby, in her new Tom Sawyer phase, was delighted. The rubber tubing, the patch of leather, the plastic Y-shaped stick did the trick. She had been lobbying for a frog for Christmas, but without any real conviction.

“Best of all,” Coco said, handing her another package, “you can make a new, stronger slingshot from the Christmas tree!” It was a whittling knife.

“This is the best Christmas we ever had,” Coco told Daniel that night. The tree had been put to use, Cora went to bed wearing every wearable gift and clutching a new stuffed dog and a bag of marshmallows, and Ruby went to bed clutching her knife.

“I hope Ruby doesn’t cut a finger off in her sleep,” Daniel said.

“It’s a jackknife. It’s all folded up. Would you say that if she were a boy?”

“No. Then I’d be sure there would be cut-off fingers. Don’t let my mother see the knife.”

“Didn’t you have a jackknife when you were a kid?”

“They said I could have a BB gun when I was twenty-one.”

“Typical.”

“I had a compass.”

*

It was too difficult to load Aaron into a taxi this year to go down to Daniel and Coco’s, so the family gathered for Christmas Day at the apartment uptown instead.

“Grandpa, look. I made a slingshot. And I’m whittling a new wooden handle for it, too. A slingshot uses kinetic energy.”

“That’s a dangerous weapon,” Aaron said, handling the stick. “My father would have murdered me if he knew I had a Christmas tree.”

“It only shoots marshmallows.”

“We always had a tree,” Molly said. “Grandpa Bergman didn’t mind.”

“Like hell.”

Ben had been sitting on the floor playing with the Spirograph he’d gotten the girls. Now he examined Ruby’s knife. He put it in his pocket.

“Thank you, Ruby. I’ve always wanted a pocketknife.”

She chased him around the apartment and Cora chased her. Joy watched them fondly. But the noise was pounding in her ears, the laughing and happy screaming. Wrapping paper flew around them, ribbons trailed from the girls’ shoes, stuck to the soles by tape. Cheerful children, she said to herself. A blessing. She repeated it silently several times to chase away the other things she was thinking, which were, Shut the hell up, Stop it, Why must you be so noisy, You are not on the street, You are driving me crazy.

Ben’s father, Doug, came with his wife, Lisa, a sweet youngish person with long, lank hair and a nervous laugh. Who would not laugh nervously, Joy thought, thrown into the bosom of your husband’s ex-wife’s family? She greeted the woman with as much warmth as she could muster. It wasn’t Lisa’s fault that Molly had left Doug, it wasn’t Lisa’s fault that modern mores compelled all these exes to gather together and exchange gifts, it wasn’t Lisa’s fault that Joy missed Doug and held Lisa responsible, even though it was not her fault, it was Molly’s, but of course Molly had the right to be happy, of course she did.

Molly threw her arms around Doug when she saw him. I love you, Doug Harkavy, she thought. I will always love you, you are Ben’s father and there was a time when we planned our future and our future died yet here we are, and I will always treasure those days and I’m so glad I’m no longer married to you and I bet you’re glad you’re no longer married to me.