Steven Reis
Christmas Eve, 2021
(Christmas Eve. For more than two decades I’ve managed to write a story on Christmas Eve to be read aloud to my family on Christmas morning. And, for years, I’ve shared that same story with friends. What started as a response to my mother-in-law’s request to share a “talent” on Christmas Eve has now become a family tradition. Please share the tradition with me and with my family. Have a Merry Christmas!)
Shzuu-shzo. Shzuu-shzo. Shzuu-shzo.
The rhythmic sound came from the small shop behind the house. It was late - well past midnight. Henry’s pocket watch was on a bedside table in their bedroom. A stream of yellow light lit the dead, brown grass outside the single window of the workshop.
Shzuu-shzo. Shzuu-shzo. Shzuu-shzo.
He’d been at it since the children went to bed. The project was one he thought about while working on a bridge construction over one of the creeks running through Austin. Working under New Deal financing had been a boon to his small business, but it took him away from home often. His wife repeatedly told him that the children asked her when he would be home again. This particular stay would last only through the holidays. Then he’d be off again for another week. Or more.
Shzuu-shzo. Shzuu-shzo. The rhythm stopped.
He looked down at his heavily calloused right hand. Hammering and turning large bolts with a three-foot wrench were nothing to these hands, he thought to himself. But this little hand saw was already wearing a small blister in the web between his index finger and thumb. A small bandage adorned the thumb of his left hand. A large splinter snagged him earlier in the night. He’d left a spot of blood on the wood. He was in a rush. The project had to be completed before morning.
He examined the rectangle of thin wood and fitted it in place on the bottom of the nearly finished box. Damn. The fit wasn’t perfect. But what could he expect? He built bridges and roads, not little knick-knack holders. Well. It would have to do.
He pulled out a tin can holding thin nails and began attaching this final piece.
*****
“Daddy, listen!” The lithe pre-teenage girl sat proudly upright on a piano bench and placed long fingers on worn keys of an old, much-used piano.
He stopped mid-stride and turned to see her beaming face. He was distracted. He’d only been home for a couple of days and it seemed there was a never-ending list of things Moll wanted done before he was back on the road.
“What is it,” he asked his middle daughter, “did you learn something new?”
“Mommy taught me this,” she responded brightly. “And I learned it so much more quickly than either Faye or Becky.”
Her fingers glided across the keyboard in front of her. Neither of them paid attention to several out-of-tune keys. She proudly played her new song - one he didn’t recognize - then stopped and looked up at his ruddy, unshaven face expectantly.
He didn’t disappoint. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
“That was beautiful, Sissy,” he smiled; his deep baritone voice rumbled in his chest as his rough hand stroked her hair.
If it was possible, her back straightened even more as she accepted the compliment and loving touch. Her face beamed and she turned back to the piano to begin another song as he took a handful of steps through the living room into their small kitchen.
His wife was there with the younger daughters. One had a bandage on a skinned right knee. The other was dressed as though ready for church. Their youngest girl liked to dress up each day; her older sister would rather run outside to play. They were at the table where mother was showing them how to do some kind of stitch work. He didn’t really know what it was called or what they were making but he stopped and admired their work as he gave his wife a gentle touch on the shoulder.
“I’m headed out to the shop,” he said as he opened the back screen door and stepped out onto the porch.
*****
The house was empty. Quiet. She was alone.
The stairs were dusty. They’d been unused for nearly a year. Although sold, the closing failed when financing fell through for the young couple trying to buy an old house in which to raise a family.
And so, she was back in the home she’d left months ago. She climbed up into the second story. The room on the right had been hers many years ago. Now empty, the walls echoed her breathing. The air was still and musty. Window air conditioning units had been silent since the funeral.
Two separate doors led into an even more disused attic. No lights illuminated her way as she stooped to avoid sharp nails holding century old shingles to the roof. Her small flashlight beam pierced dust-filled darkness as she dragged old cardboard boxes from attic corners into the sunlit sitting room.
She muttered to herself as boxes scraped across the linoleum flooring. No one heard as she gave voice to thoughts about parents who raised a family in this home. This upstairs area had been a refuge for her and her siblings as they’d passed through carefree childhood into teenage angst and eventually into naive young adulthood. Now, only memories moved here. Old, abandoned posters remained on the walls. Rusting thumbtacks held paper mostly in place with an occasional corner folding down. She noticed the wallpaper had mildewed and should be replaced.
Then her eyes lost focus and her heart seemed to fill her chest as memories tinged with sadness tumbled through her.
She turned and went back through the short attic doorway into the past.
*****
He had assembled scraps of wood in the shop several weeks earlier. Small crates had held bananas and other fruit before he bought them to begin a new purpose. The grocer charged him only pennies for the unneeded wood. A next door neighbor cut several letters for him using a woodworking saw. Henry had seen a photo in a catalog and imagined he could make the item himself rather than spend the dollars listed next to the photo.
He nursed the emerging blister on one hand and his throbbing thumb. He stepped back and looked at the unpainted box. He still had several hours of work to do. He wondered whether he should have just mail ordered this thing.
He rummaged through a cabinet for a small pasteboard box housing red thumbtacks. Mollie had given him leftover scraps of material from a dress she’d made for the girls. He turned back to the table on which he’d been working.
*****
For an hour, she’d pushed and pulled aging cardboard boxes from one place to another. She would sometimes take a few minutes to go through the containers. Old Christmas ornaments. Pieces of scrap cloth. Old clothing. Everything smelled lightly of mothballs and cedar. These were things which had been saved but forgotten.
She turned suddenly at a sound in the semi-darkness behind her.
She held her breath and listened.
Crik. Crik. Crik.
Silence.
Then tika-tika-tika-tika as small feet scampered across wooden floors hidden in the dark corners she could not see.
“Squirrels,” she said aloud.
Her husband told her he believed squirrels were getting into the attic through rotting sections of wood around the roof. Pecan trees surrounding the house provided food and the accessible attic provided a home for the small, grey rodents.
She could almost hear her husband saying aloud, “I hate squirrels - tree rats.”
She decided not to tell him that she knew there really WERE squirrels in the attic. She liked them when they were chasing one another through trees outside. Maybe she didn’t like them quite as much as they shared this attic with her.
She cast her hearing back into the darkness. She heard nothing.
Relieved, she ducked down and moved once more - this time into more distant years than before.
*****
The tips of his fingers were sore from pressing thumbtacks through folded cloth and into the interior of the box. The pleats were uneven - he should probably have asked Mollie to help him. But she was soundly asleep. She had tucked the boys into bed after kissing each of the five girls goodnight. Her day of baking and preparing for the gathering at noon exhausted her. He was always surprised at her seemingly unending energy. And patience. Patient not just with a houseful of children; but with him as well. He didn’t deserve her. Her father often reminded him of that in the early years.
The older girls were good helpers around the house and even started taking small jobs to help family finances. Things were tough these days. And getting tougher. They would probably be moving soon. Maybe East Texas? He hadn’t yet decided.
He stood back and examined his work. The inside of the box looked nearly like the interior photos in the Sears catalog. The only thing left was paint and the lettering. He pulled down the small can of leftover red primer and a brush.
This had taken longer than he’d estimated. He was tired and his eyes heavy. It was nearly dawn. He could hear the roosters next door beginning to announce daylight. There was a chill in the air that slipped through cracks in the shop walls.
*****
“What is that?” she asked herself as she duck-walked beneath the nails above her. She stooped lower than necessary - she’d already bumped the top of head against one of those sharp points - it had drawn a drop of blood and made her wonder if she should get a tetanus shot.
She moved toward the last item hidden away from view for years. Even as a child playing in this attic, she’d never been this far back nor seen what was hidden here.
*****
He wiped most of the red paint from his hands with an old rag he found on the dirt floor of the shop. He glanced around for the three letters his friend had cut and painted black. Pulling several tiny nails from the tin can, he affixed the initials onto the still damp wooden lid.
“Z.L.W.”
A few taps of the small hammer
See The Box, Page 6
and he was finished. He stepped back just as he heard footsteps and the opening of the shop door. He turned to see Sissy outlined in the early morning light.
“What are you doing, daddy?” the youngster inquired. She held a mug of steaming liquid in her right hand.
“Mommy sent this for you,” she said, offering him the brown ceramic. He took it from her, his callouses protecting him from the heat within.
That Mollie. Up making breakfast already. He sniffed the air and sensed the odor of bacon and warming bread. He knew she always made cream cheese rolls for this day.
She’d known he never made it to bed and had sent him coffee. Black. He sipped the bitter liquid before he answered Sissy’s question.
“Merry Christmas, sweetie,” he said as he stepped back and gestured toward the box that still smelled of paint.
Zelma (“Sissy” to friends and family) looked at the handmade wooden knick knack box; then rushed to Henry, wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders. She was oblivious to the coffee he spilled onto the ground. So was he.
“Merry Christmas, daddy!” she exclaimed, as she stayed in the warm hug of her burley father, “Merry Christmas.”
*****
As she reached into the corner of the attic, she pulled out a wooden box. It was about the size of a large shoebox. It was covered in dust. Apparently for years. She used an old sweater from one of the cardboard boxes to wipe it off. Three initials - her mother’s - were on the lid.
She’d never seen this before.
She opened it. A musty odor of years gone by floated out. The lining of the box appeared moth eaten and was beginning to deteriorate. A small silverfish crawled out and into the cracks in the floor.
Inside were bits of material, a couple of cross-stitched pieces of cloth, several rolls of crochet thread and something called a “Weave-It” weaving square. Yarn still wound through the pins of the old weaver.
After looking through the simple contents, she closed the lid and looked again at the initials.
“Z.L.W.”
Zelma Lorraine Winder. Her mother’s maiden name. Mother had never spoken of this box. And, although Donna had spent her life in this home, she’d never seen it before. She wondered.
*****
Years passed.
Sissy became more proficient at piano and earned a degree in East Texas after Henry moved his family there. She married an older student who swept her off her feet to Orange where he started a restaurant with his brothers. He opened up a photography business. He sold candy and newspapers to dock workers. In time, he moved to a small town on the Gulf Coast, bought a business and moved into an old two-story house.
The box moved with Sissy. It held cross-stitching that her mother, Mollie, taught her how to do. Over the years, it hid and then relinquished keepsakes and greeting cards. Small jewelry and photos. It followed her to college and into marriage. It was tucked in the top of closet in the first house she and her young husband rented. It was boxed along with other forgotten items. When she came to the house where she would spend her life, it moved into the attic. It crept quietly into a corner with forgotten memories of things Sissy couldn’t throw away.
Memories faded. Stories were left untold. Love slumbered in dark recesses.
Waiting.
*****
She wondered about that box. For a moment.
But, like so many unresolved stories, it was placed back into the attic. Again. Safe. Tucked away. Forgotten.
Until the story could be told.
*****
The love remained where Henry put it. Waiting like so many other faded memories and whispered tales. Waiting to be brought back into light. Waiting to be rekindled. Patiently waiting, it drifted through years to a granddaughter, to distant generations, and into the hearts of strangers through a story now told.
“Merry Christmas, sweetie.” Those words were captured within the wood. Remained. And are shared.
“Merry Christmas.”