christmas 2011

Christmas Morning comes. The boy had decided to give Lindsey Amanda’s old stuffed dog with the pink bowtie. Amanda would’ve wanted her to have it. He places the stuffed animal into a box and wraps it in newspaper. He moves the coffee table away from the door and steps inside. Lindsey is snuggled in her sheets, sleeping. A smile creases his lips. He kneels beside the bed and takes her shoulder. He shakes it gently. She rolls over and the sheets fall away and he falls backwards as the color drains from his face, for her own face is a deep purple, the bloodshot eyes bulging from tunneled sockets, her mouth open in a silent scream, and her pale fingers are stricken with rigor mortis as they clutch the blankets tight.

Christmas Day is cold. The snow continues to fall. They silently pry her fingers from the blankets and wrap her in them. Her eyes refuse to shut, forever engulfing the cruel world in which she died. The man doesn’t say a word to Mark, who fights off tears. They carry her outside and down the street, and they put her on a sled beside a large hill bare of trees, and they push the sled down the snow-covered slope until it crashes into the old industrial canal covered with ice. They watch without emotion as the ice cracks and the sled disappears underneath with its stiff cargo.  They go back to the house and drink coffee, staring silently at the wooden table, saying nothing, hearing only the sound of their own breaths, the beatings of their own hearts, and the broken symphonies of the wind shrieking outside.

The boy goes upstairs to gather the gift he never go to give. He bends down to pick it up and sees something under the bed. He crawls underneath and pulls out two small boxes. He opens them up. Inside one is a drawing of three stick figures: a man, a boy, and a little girl, each one smiling. And in the other is a coffee cup that reads “Price Hill Chili: The Best In Cincinnati!” He tosses them back under the bed and leaves the room, shutting the door. He never got to give her his present, and she never got to give them theirs.