Santa gave bad people a lump of coal. He didn’t drop them down abandoned mine shafts.
“What are you looking for?” Ronnie asked as Karen stepped up to the closet Mom and Rick now shared.
“You’ll see.”
But Karen wasn’t sure he would. What if there was nothing to see? Could Cousin Rick have changed Mom that much?
She pushed aside one of the closet’s sliding doors and got her answer.
“Come here,” she said.
She turned to her brother and grinned.
Ronnie moved into the room slowly, cautiously, as if the floor was littered with land mines instead of dirty laundry. But then he saw what had put the smile on his sister’s face, and he ran the rest of the way to the closet, plowing through heaps of wrinkled clothes as he went.
“The Death Star! The Death Star! The Death Star!”
Ronnie reached out for the box, ready to tear the heavy cardboard apart with his bare hands to get at the treasure pictured in color on the side: a Star Wars Death Star Playset, the very thing he’d asked Santa for in the letter Mom helped him write two weeks before.
Ronnie stopped.
The very thing... and here it was in Mom’s closet next to a Nerf football and a Shaun Cassidy album and a Nancy Drew book and a bunch of plastic-wrapped socks and underwear.
Two tubes of brightly colored wrapping paper were propped up in the corner.
Karen watched her brother’s face as he put it all together. Wonderment gave way to puzzlement gave way to disappointment.
And then finally: contentment.
No, there was no Santa Claus. But yes, there would be a Christmas... because their mother still loved them.
Ronnie dropped to his knees before the Death Star, looking as reverent and awestruck as a shepherd in the manger.
“Last year, it was all under the bed.” Karen knelt next to her brother and picked up the Shaun Cassidy LP — obviously a gift for her, even though it was Leif Garrett she truly loved. “I found it by accident. Mom was getting rid of Dad’s clothes and junk, and I... I guess I was looking for something I could keep.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Karen shrugged. “You were too little. And you were still all sad about Dad.”
“I’m still all sad about Dad.”
Ronnie leaned in closer to the Death Star and started picking at the packing tape that sealed it in its box.
“Hey!” his sister barked, making him flinch. “You can’t open it, dummy! We’re not even supposed to be in here.”
“But I wanna play with it,” Ronnie whined.
“You can play with it after Christmas,” Karen said, unconsciously imitating the flat tone and clipped diction of an exasperated adult. “And don’t forget to look surprised when you unwrap it.”
“But—”
“Do you want Rick to know we’ve been in here?”
“But—”
“Cuz he’ll figure it out.”
“But—”
“And then he’ll do it, I swear. What he said he would.”
Ronnie nodded glumly... then reached out for the box again.
“But I wanna play with it.”
Karen sighed. Fear didn’t always work with Ronnie, and logic was no help whatsoever. What she needed now was a distraction.
“Hey, you know what?” she said. “I bet there’s more presents in here. Maybe even something cooler than your Star Wars thing.”
Ronnie looked at her sceptically, for what could be cooler than a Death Star Playset? But he said, “Really?”
“Sure.” Karen pointed into the darkness that swallowed the rest of the closet. “Back in there. Get out of the way and we can look.”
“Well...” Ronnie slowly dragged himself away from the toys. “All right.”
Karen stood and pulled the sliding doors toward her, revealing the other half of the closet — Cousin Rick’s half, to judge by the leisure suits hanging there. Not that Karen had ever seen Rick in a suit. He favored loose, broad-collared polyester shirts and tight white slacks. He used to be some kind of salesman, Mom had explained once, but now he’d “gone freelance,” so he could dress however he wanted. Later, the kids asked him what his job was, but he just grinned and said, “Your Uncle Ricky’s a desperado.” He said it like it was a joke, but Karen and Ronnie didn’t get it. When they didn’t crack a smile, Rick told them to buzz off and mind their own beeswax.
Karen didn’t think there’d be any presents mixed in with his stuff. But she made a show of looking anyway, sliding aside suits and digging through the tasseled loafers and stinky sneakers heaped up on the floor. Another minute or so and she’d contrive some reason for them to get out of there. Maybe a false alarm of the “Do you hear footsteps?” variety. Anything to get her brother away from the Death Star before he could open it up — and totally give them away.
“Hey,” Ronnie said. “What’s that?”
He pointed at a dingy Purdue University sweatshirt at the back of the closet. Unlike the rest of the clothes spread around on the floor, it didn’t look like it had been dropped and forgotten the second it was stripped off. It was actually spread out with something resembling care.
Just below the Purdue logo — a barrel-chested, mean-eyed man gripping a sledgehammer — the sweatshirt bulged as if straining to cover a big pot belly.
There was something under there. Something hidden in a half-assed way that seemed oh so very Rick.
“Go on,” Ronnie said. “Look.”
The little man on the sweatshirt glared at Karen hatefully. He had more muscles than Rick, that was for sure, but the look of surly contempt on his cartoon face — that was the same.
It should’ve served as a warning, a reminder that they hadn’t actually “messed with” any of Rick’s stuff yet. That it wasn’t too late. Karen knew that.
And still she flipped the little man off and whipped the sweatshirt aside.
Underneath was a box with the word “Florsheim” printed on the lid.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s just shoes,” Karen said.
The disappointment in her own voice surprised her. What had she been hoping to find? A Malibu Barbie? A pony?
It was Christmas, and Rick had bought new shoes... for himself. Of course.
Karen lifted off the lid.
“Hey!” Ronnie said, leaning in to peek around her. “He did get us something for Christmas!”
There were no shoes in the box. Instead, it held a loafy-looking package about the size and shape of a large fruitcake.
Ronnie poked it with a single finger.
“Kinda squishy,” he said. “Cruddy wrapping.”
Rather than the usual festive red, green, silver, or gold, the package was swaddled in coarse brown paper that looked suspiciously like a cut-up grocery bag. The jagged edges and clumsily folded flaps were fastened down with long strips of masking tape.
Karen didn’t know what was in the package, but she knew enough to be scared.
This was what Rick didn’t want them messing with. A squishy secret wrapped in plain brown paper. A grown-up thing, forbidden and frightening.
It was time to go.
Ronnie started picking at the tape on the package.
“Stop it!” Karen snapped. “It’s not for us!”
Her brother kept working at one corner with a fingernail. A sliver of tape began to peel off.
“Hey! I said stop it!”
“I’m just gonna peek. Rick’ll never notice.”
“Yes, he will!”
“No, he won’t.”
Karen grabbed the package and jerked it out of the box. She meant to shove Ronnie away, fix the tape, put things back together again.
But her brother had already worked enough tape loose to pinch it firmly, and when Karen snatched up the package, he held tight.
A long strip ripped off. The package opened.
And then it was snowing.