Christmas Angel
by Jon McGoran
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
The old woman and the little girl knelt on the floor surrounded by a dwindling circle of ornaments, midway between the now-bare Christmas tree and the almost full wooden crate.
“I wish it could always be Christmas,” the old woman said, her hands fumbling as she slowly wrapped a glass bauble with old newspaper.
“No you don’t,” the girl said, taking the ornament from her and placing it in the crate. “Then it wouldn’t be special.”
“Yes, it would be special,” the old woman snapped. Her voice softened. “It will always be special.” She raised a palsied hand to wipe a tear from her eyes.
The little girl smiled, her fingers methodically wrapping the ornaments one by one and packing them into the wooden crate, revealing more and more of the thin layer of pine needles under the tree until only two glass figurines remained.
“I think this one is my favorite,” the little girl said, holding up a glass teddy bear dressed like an elf. Alone on the floor was the glass angel from the top of the tree.
“My mommy gave me that one,” the old lady said, her finger shaking as she pointed at the teddy bear. “Before she passed away. Before they both passed away.”
The little girl nodded, sad and wise, as she gently wrapped the ornament and slipped it into the crate. “It was a nice Christmas,” she said.
“Yes, it was, Sugar Pie,” the old woman agreed, fighting a yawn. “It always is… almost always.”
It was after eleven thirty, way past her bedtime, and she was exhausted from all the festivities, from waking up early on Christmas Eve and decorating the house from top to bottom, making sure everything was just right for Christmas morning.
It was her favorite day of year and pretty much always had been since she was a child. When she was a good little girl, Christmas had been a time of magic, of presents and treats and laughter and lights. It was the one time of the year when even her parents seemed happy.
Things changed as she got older, a lot, but her Sugar Pie made Christmas magical once again.
“Sometimes, I wish we could have Christmas with other people,” the girl said, suddenly shy.
“Oh, Sugar Pie!” the old woman said, alarmed. “Don’t you like having Christmas with your mom-mom?”
Over the years, she’d often heard people complain that Christmas never seemed the same as it used to. The old woman never felt that way. For her, Christmas always was the same, for better or for worse. Sure, she thought about changes sometimes, how things might be different and better, but she knew they couldn’t be. Mostly, she was simply grateful for the joy of waking up on Christmas morning with her little angel, the sweetest little girl you could ever imagine.
“No, it’s not that,” the little girl said. “It’s just… in the Christmas songs, they always talk about families being together and playing with other kids and stuff.” She shrugged. “It sounds nice.”
“Come here, Sugar Pie,” the old woman said, and the little girl climbed onto the old woman’s lap. Light as a feather, she was. The old woman hugged her tight, breathing the soft smell of the girl’s hair deep into her lungs, trying to hold it there. It was the same as always, faintly damp but fragrant with the sweet smell of childhood innocence.
“I know it sounds nice, Sugar Pie,” the old woman said. “But I’m all the family you’ve got. And you’re all I’ve got. Christmas comes and goes so fast. I want to spend as much time with you as I can.” She looked at the clock. “Before you know it, Christmas… Christmas will be gone.”
They both looked at the clock—11:53 now—and the little girl said, “But we still have time for a story.”
It was late… so very late. “I don’t think there’s time, Sugar Pie,” the old woman said.
The little girl’s eyes shone dark. “Tell me about the day I was born.”
“Oh, you don’t want to hear that story again. You’ve heard it a million times. And… we don’t have time for it now.”
“Tell me.”
The old woman wiped her eyes and her nose. “Okay,” she said, almost inaudibly. She took a deep breath and began, her voice flat and faltering.
“It was early Christmas morning when I woke up with the pain that let me know you were coming, so early it was still dark out. My Momma and Daddy were still asleep and would be for hours. I didn’t want to wake them, and I couldn’t ride my bike, not with you in my belly. So, I decided to walk to the hospital. It wasn’t that far, really. The streets were covered in snow, and the houses were decorated with lights that somehow seemed to grow even brighter and more magical as the sky began to pale. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, until I saw you.”
The little girl smiled but didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t have a plan, not really,” the old lady said as a tear rolled down one cheek, then the other. “I hadn’t made one. Just kept putting it off, I guess, because I didn’t know what to do. I was so caught up in hiding everything and all the secrets, lying to my teachers, Pastor Mike, Coach Travis… even Billy Burke. And most of all Momma and Daddy. I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess I’ve never known, really.”
The little girl reached over and took the old woman’s hand, the one missing the tips of three fingers. It was boney and veiny and covered in brown spots, but it was warm, especially compared to the tiny, cold fingers that squeezed it.
“As I walked, the pains started getting closer and closer, and I worried I wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time. So, I took a shortcut. Through the woods. Down by the river path. I realized maybe I had made a terrible mistake, that maybe my life was a string of terrible mistakes.”
The little girl nestled closer, her head against the old woman’s shoulder, her breath barely detectable through the old woman’s cardigan.
“Then there you were,” the old woman whispered. “Just like that, it seemed. One moment, you were inside me, a part of me. The next moment you were you. And I knew it wasn’t a mistake, because you were the best thing in the world, looking up at me with big blue eyes. Your eyes were blue then. I know I’ve told you that before. Bluer than Billy’s Burke’s. And I said to you, ‘Hello, there, Sugar Pie. Merry Christmas.’”
“What did I say?”
“Well, you were just a baby, but you looked up at me, and you laughed, and it was the most wonderful sound in the world.”
The little girl giggled, and the old woman did, too. “Yes, it sounded just like that,” she said, and she softly kissed the little girl’s head.
They snuggled quietly for a moment. Without looking up, the little girl whispered, “Then what happened?”
The old lady sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Do I have to?” she whispered back.
“Then what happened?” the little girl repeated.
“Then I held you and… and I told you I loved you.”
“Was it cold?”
“Yes, it was cold. Bitter cold. But… but I wrapped my sweater around you to keep you warm, snug as a bug in a rug, I said.”
“Then what did you do?”
“The snow by the creek, it was…. Well, you’d made quite a mess coming out, you know. I couldn’t leave it there, not on Christmas morning. What if someone saw? It would ruin their Christmas walk, ruin their whole Christmas. They’d know something… they’d think something terrible happened… I had to clean it up. So, I… I put you down… I rested you, on the ground. Just for a moment, swaddled in my sweater. And I cleaned up. I scooped up all the mess, and all the messy snow, and put it all into the river. My hands were so numb.” She held out her hand, studying her missing fingertips as she remembered. “I guess… I guess it took longer than I thought. But when I was done, the snow was all white and nice and clean again. Ready for Christmas.”
The little girl didn’t look up. She sat waiting.
The old woman glanced at the clock. 11:58. She hated when Christmas was over.
“What did you do then?” the little girl whispered, so softly the old woman wasn’t sure she had actually heard it. But she knew that’s what had been said.
The old woman let out a sob before she got herself under control. “Then I picked you up to keep walking to the hospital. So I could get you warm. You were fast asleep, like a little angel. I kissed your face, but you were cold, way too cold. And that’s when I realized you were gone. I’m so sorry.”
“Then what did you do?”
The old woman started to shake. Tears streamed down her face. “Then I put you in the river, with everything else. And I never saw you again.” The old woman dabbed at her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater.
“Until…?” the little girl said.
“…Until the next Christmas,” the old woman said, her voice raw from pain and regret and shame and sorrow.
“That’s right. Until the next Christmas. And the Christmas after that.”
The little girl squirmed around on the sofa, up onto her knees, and placed a kiss on the old woman’s cheek that the old woman couldn’t feel. Then she slid off the sofa and picked up the glass angel lying on the rug. Holding it to her chest, she climbed into the crate without disturbing any of the ornaments inside. She reached over and grabbed the edge of the lid, lifting it up and over her and down, until it was three-quarters of the way closed.
“Merry Christmas, Mom-Mom,” the little girl whispered as the lid closed over her.
“Merry Christmas, angel,” the old woman said. “I’ll see you next year.”
| EXHIBIT FOUR: Return to “The Rites of Harry Leitner“ | Proceed to the next Gallery One: Barnacles attraction, “Mama Bear“ |
| SPECIAL EXHIBIT 1: Return to “Ghosts from a Christmas Carol“ | Continue with Holiday Hurlyburly and read the next attraction, “The December Booth“ |