New Short Story: Helen’s First Christmas

Helen was in no hurry to get up. No one was making her after all. Keith had the kids this year and she had the day off work. 

She lay on her back and pulled the comforter up all the way over her head and listened to the empty house. She felt her breath move over her face, trapped beneath the covers. It was warm and a little sour.

The ceiling fan above turned slowly, setting in motion the short pull chain which ticked against the fixture in time with the blades. Helen listened to the chain and felt a vague resentment.

Theirs was a big house and, as of three months ago, she was its only full-time resident. From her swaddled position beneath the covers she pictured their home — her home when the paperwork went through next month — as a dollhouse. Or maybe a blueprint. She imagined it from above. All the empty rooms, and she alone in bed like a forgotten toy.

Listless, and because she had nothing to do, she walked through the front door in her mind, looked into the kitchen on the right (they redid the cabinets last year, what a waste) then turned and went left up the stairs. The master bedroom was through the door at the end of the hall. She moved through the corridor in her mind and through the bedroom door and saw her bed with its thick white comforter and the human-shaped lump beneath the covers.

Suddenly she threw off the covers and sat up and looked toward the door. No. It was closed.

“Ugh,” she heard herself say, then, “Weird”. The sound of her voice dropped onto the hardwood floor and disappeared abruptly. Helen took a deep breath.

She was not the first in her circle to check the box marked irreconcilable differences and in time she knew she would probably adapt to the like-it-or-not freedoms of single parenting (the gym membership, the weekend brunches). But right now she missed her babies, and even, in a messed up way, her ex. 

She missed being a family.

There was a click and a whoosh as the central air unit kicked on.

Suddenly, Helen felt like crying. Then she felt like throwing up. Then she felt like laughing, which seemed like the best choice so she did that. She listened to the sound of her laughter and could not deny there was a bitter tinge to it. The strained chuckle of the recently divorced.

This time last year they were already downstairs, all four of them. The five-year-old Henry quickly turning their living room into a smashed piñata of wrapping paper and action figures while Helen took pictures on her phone and Keith searched the kitchen drawers for the right sized batteries. Helen thought of the tree winking at them from under its shawl of white lights, the smell of hot cider and coffee, the Charlie Brown piano music playing the songs from her cartoon childhood. She thought of how the youngest — her daughter Eden — shrieked every time she opened a gift, whether it was an Elsa doll or a six-pack of ankle socks. The way Eden’s shining dark eyes looked from the gift to her mama, searching Helen's face for the secret meaning of each present. Oh that little girl.

Now Helen did cry. Big silent tears fell out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks in long streaks that found the corners of her mouth and gathered in a salty film on her lower lip. She pitched forward on the bed and buried her face in the covers. She wept for several minutes the way you can only when you are alone in your house and no one is there to see you or say something foolishly encouraging.

Time passed. It was hard to say how much. It wasn’t like she had exactly stopped crying, just the physical expression of it had run its course. Her neck hurt.

Now she was trying to decide what to do next. Her mind went over the options and landed on Netflix.

She was about to reach for the laptop under her bed when she heard the faint sound of a creaking sigh of thin metal turning on a hinge. Which of course meant the lid on the mailbox on the porch. Which meant someone had just put something in it.

Helen paused. Then she sat up and listened. There were no further sounds.

She was still upset, but now she was a little curious too, so she wrapped a robe around her plump body and went through the dark hallway and down the stairs to the front door.

Upon opening the door she was surprised at two things. One was, it had snowed. Not a lot, just a few inches, but enough to cover the grass on the lawn and the mulch in the landscaping. Enough to qualify for a white Christmas.

Helen squinted her eyes against the light, forgetting why she had come outside. It wasn’t perfect — the street was already riven with jagged tracks of grey slush, and water could be heard dripping through the rain gutters above. But still, it was nice. A little nice. Two younger boys were building a snowman in the yard across the street. Helen knew them.

The other surprise was the clear indication of one set of large footprints coming across her driveway and up the steps onto her porch, leaving the way they had come.

Helen leaned out over the porch rail and looked down the street in both directions. Nothing.

She turned and tipped open the lid on the mailbox. It made the same creaking sigh she had heard from her room.

She stood on her tiptoes and peered inside. She couldn’t see anything so she stuck her hand in and fished around.

At first the mailbox seemed empty but then her fingers touched a small envelope, pressed up against the side. She pulled it out and looked.

The words Merry Christmas, You! were written in small, neat handwriting on the brown recycled paper.

She furrowed her brow. “Who’s You?” she asked the envelope.

She looked across the street. “Derek! Kyle!” Helen shouted at the boys, pulling her robe tightly around her shoulders. “Did you see who came to my house just now?”

The boys looked at each other.

“Yeah!” the one in the Broncos cap finally said.

“Well?” Helen asked, “Who?”

“Some lady!” said the other one.

“What did she look like?” Helen shouted back. 

The one in the Broncos cap said, “We don’t know! Adults all look the same!”

"Skinny!" offered the other.

Helen gave them a dark look. Broncos Cap shrugged, then turned toward his snowman building. The other boy watched her as she took the envelop inside and slammed the door.

She leaned against the shut front door. The envelope wasn’t sealed so the card was easy to remove. Helen’s eyes narrowed.

Its outside face showed a picture of a cartoon car at a gas pump. The car was yellow and was drawn to have human eyes and teeth. Its face was smiling — beaming really — and the caption said, “Season’s Greetings from CHEVRON!” The car was wearing a Santa hat on its roof.

Helen flipped it open. The handwriting was small, neat. Hi Helen, sorry about the lame card, we ran out of tasteful ones. I'm writing to let you know that Christmas miracles do exist, and that if you're going to binge watch your way through the holiday, maybe try “The Marvelous Miss Maisel”. Please remember that your children love you and that's not going to change. Also, I am permitted to let you know good things are coming your way. You are doing the right thing. Sincerely, Gwen. Oh, I am your guardian angel. Once in a while we're allowed to reach out. Bye.

Helen opened and shut the card several times, looking at the yellow cartoon and the small neat handwriting. Then she pulled open the front door and looked outside. The boys were still at the snowman.

She closed the door and went into the kitchen with her card and its strange message. She set it down on the counter and stood at the sink and looked out across the living room. 

The Christmas tree was there, unlit. She looked at it for a long time. Then she walked over and pushed the plug into the outlet. 

The lights took turns shining, the dark room making the glow feel brighter. Pink. White. Green. A few wrapped presents clustered beneath the boughs, waiting for the children’s inevitable return.

Helen thought of Eden and her questioning dark eyes. And she thought of Henry and his bold laugh and messy red hair. And she thought of the year ahead, its uncertainty, its promise of change.

A lot of people wish they could start over. But they can’t. For a million reasons. 

But I can.

While the coffee brewed Helen went upstairs and put on some warm clothes and the lavender Wellies she bought on a whim last year and had never worn.

She sat in the idling car, waiting for the garage door to finish lifting itself overhead. She sipped coffee and pictured the parking lot at the high school. It was a mile away. Less than that. It would be empty of course. Empty and covered with a slick coat of the wettest snow ever flung from the sky.

The garage door open, Helen put it in drive and rolled a little too fast out into the deserted street. The snowman kids were gone. 

She heard herself laugh. 

The car moved uncertainly over the road. She rolled down the window. 

While the known world nodded its way through another cardboard and legos holiday, Helen practiced the move in her head. Crank the wheel and yank the parking brake. 

And just see what happens.

___

Merry Christmas to everyone, starting over or not. korby