The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(88)

The young woman at the stove spoke up again. “She says you have pretty hair. The color.”

My hair? Pretty? I never imagined I’d ever hear that compliment again. Especially from a Navajo grandmother in deerskin boots.

And then, of all things, Jim’s snarling face flashed in front of me, hurling insults, threatening worse. The man might be invading my sleep or appearing like an apparition in night visions, but this felt different. This felt like an ambush.

Habit alone should’ve had me bracing for impact. For the familiar surge of panic to freeze me in my tracks.

Instead, I felt prepared. Strong.

My hands of their own volition curled into fists.

Slowly I straightened, Yuhzhee’s eyes locked steadily with mine, and behind them I sensed a message she was trying to convey. A question, awaiting an answer.

I felt ready.

“Can you tell her I said thank you?” I said.

The old woman needed no translation. She nodded and gave me another pearly, perfect smile.





Have You Ever Heard of

Little Orphan Annie?





Simon and Laurel were at the edge of the woods, cutting evergreen boughs for the mantels. I could see the two of them through the side window—Laurel pointing out the branches she preferred and Simon tackling them with a pair of loppers, then stacking them in the snow in a growing pile. It had snowed for real last evening, and Simon was wading knee-deep in powder that came up to Laurel’s hips. Now and then, if she seemed to struggle in a drift as they moved from tree to tree, Simon hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, her long toboggan cap of red and green swinging down his back as he cleared a path. I could hear her peals of laughter from here.

By morning, the snow clouds had blown off to the east, leaving behind a radiant blue sky and snow so blisteringly white it stung your eyes. Another shiny day.

Simon’s cabin was already filled with the scent of pine from the blue spruce—an eight-footer we’d cut that morning and set into a cast-iron stand in the living room—and the wild turkey that was roasting in the oven.

I was sitting in the middle of storage boxes, rummaging through lights and ornaments to decorate the tree before dinner. I pulled out tangles of green cables strung with round bulbs. I peeled tissue paper from glass ornaments—balls of every size and color, stars with long spires and tails. There were delicate bird nests, toy soldiers, carousel horses, a tiny cuckoo clock.

At the bottom of one box was a cardboard container the size of a board game, orange and yellow, stamped with a green Christmas tree. It looked well used, but still in good shape. The printing on it read, Cartoon Character Christmas Tree Lights and Made in Japan. The design was outdated, antique. On the lid were drawings of each character and its name. Some I recognized—Dick Tracy, Betty Boop, Little Orphan Annie, her dog Sandy. As for the rest, I had no idea who they were. A bald man in a black vest and red tie named Andy Gump. Another man with a feckless expression named Moon Mullins. A surly boy in a blue-brimmed hat, his arms crossed, named Kayo.

I lifted the lid. Each figurine was in its place, like eggs in a carton. The paint was bright, but so roughly done it had to have been done by hand. And not very artfully, either. These figures looked like something a child would treasure, not a grown man.

I got up and peered through the window again. Laurel was loading the cut boughs into Simon’s waiting arms, higher and higher, laughing as he pretended to buckle and stagger under the weight. She saw me watching from the window and waved, still laughing. When had I ever seen her laugh like that?

Simon spotted me then. He stopped staggering and stood up straight, dropping the branches in a heap as he waved, too. Laurel cried out in dismay and began to scold him.

I went back to the box with the cartoon character lights. I picked it up again, brushed off the lid, then placed it at the foot of the tree. They could be a family heirloom, passed down from father to son. Simon could have found them in the general store, or special-ordered them. Maybe they were a gift from a friend who appreciated vintage things, and discovered them tucked away in some old shop.

But I knew none of that was the case. I knew those cartoon lights were Simon’s. That, when he was a boy, he’d helped string Little Orphan Annie and Smitty and Kayo around his family’s tree. That it was an experience close to his heart, a warm memory he’d carried with him since.

The way today would be for me.

The stamping noise on the front porch meant they were back with the evergreens. They burst through the door, and Olin, who’d been napping on the couch, sprang up to take the boughs and carry them to the fireplace, exclaiming how fine they were, while Laurel and Simon pulled off their boots and hung their coats on pegs by the door.