My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

Russell turned the piece in his hand, seeing how the light played into the angles. “My grandmother used to make these things … not sure if you’d call them sculptures or what, out of wood and sea grass. On Saint Vincent. Ever heard of it?”

“It’s an island in the Caribbean, right?” Sophie said.

“Yeah. It’s where my mom’s from. She came to the States for college, met my dad, and never went back. I used to go spend summers on the island with my grandmother. In this little house, painted in island colors, my grandma said, and there were always cousins running around, chickens and goats, too.”

Russell was smiling at the memory. Sophie smiled along with him.

“Then my father started sending me to camp during the summers: tennis camp, sailing camp, golf camp. We only go to Saint Vincent for vacation now, every year for Christmas. Last few years, we’ve stayed at a fancy resort, like tourists. And people treat us different. Like tourists. Even my own people.” He set down the sculpture, his expression wistful and yearning. “Except for my grandmother.”

Sophie closed her eyes. She could picture his grandmother, a beautiful lined face, hands tough with years of solid work, a stern manner that masked a deep ferocious love. After a bit, the image of his grandmother merged with Luba, who she pictured last year, broom in hand, swatting the smoke alarm after it went haywire from all the latke frying. Instead of pushing the memory away, she let it wash over. She was surprised to find that it didn’t burn. She could hold on to it. Then she opened her eyes. “Is your grandmother still alive?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Russell smiled.

“Are you going to see her?” It suddenly felt very important to her that he was.

“Flying down Sunday,” he said. “Looking forward to it.” He paused. “And dreading it. You know? Holiday stuff.”

“It’ll be okay,” she told him, but the words ricocheted back to her. It’ll be okay. That’s what people had been telling Sophie for a while now. After Luba died. It would be okay; time heals. After she started college. It would be okay; leaving home is an adjustment. Sophie hadn’t believed it. You can’t undo loss. You can’t unmake a mistake.

But now she was wondering if a garden of memories might not grow over the hole of losing Luba. And if college wasn’t a little like that first swim every summer—no matter how much Sophie looked forward to it, she still had to get used to the chilly water. Maybe anywhere Sophie had gone this year would’ve felt like a Bumfuckville.

Because this Bumfuckville had diners dropped from Oz. It had wingmen who had her back in poetry class. It had people like Cheryl, who, come to think of it, was pretty big-citily sarcastic herself. And it had guys like Russell.

What if the mistake wasn’t coming here, but being blind to any of that?

What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. But it felt different now. If she’d made a mistake, there was time to fix it. And more than that, she was looking forward to fixing it.

*   *   *

They unplugged all the Christmas lights and laid the candles out in a vaguely menorah-like shape on the ground. Sophie found Luba’s menorah and put it out, too. They lit the candles. Where there was darkness, now, a warm glow of light.

“Normally you’d say a prayer in Hebrew,” Sophie said. “But I kind of think we’re doing our own thing, right? So I’m going to offer my thanks to that dumb caroling concert tonight.”

“Okay then,” Russell said. “I offer mine to reindeer sweaters.”

Sophie chuckled. “To cars with butt warmers.”

“And butts in butt warmers.”

“To hash browns,” Sophie said.

“Don’t forget pie.”

“Pie with cheese.”

Russell pulled Sophie into his lap. He was tall and she could sit in the fold of his legs, her own legs crossed under her.

“To perfect fits,” Russell murmured.

“And imperfect fits,” Sophie said.

Sophie reached up to touch Russell’s lips, and he grasped her fingers, kissing them, one by one: thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky, and back again.

“To Ned Flanders,” Russell said.

“Oh, yes, a thousand times to Ned Flanders. We should devote the holiday to him,” Sophie said.

Russell lifted up her hair and kissed her on the bony ridge of her neck. She shivered. “To the Rolling Stones,” he murmured. At that moment, not even Mick Jagger could’ve sounded sexier.

“And not always getting what you want,” Sophie said.

“But sometimes getting what you need,” Russell said.

She kissed his lips then. They tasted of apples and cheese, of the revelation of things you never imagined going so well together. She tasted meting ice cream, too, melting defenses, herself melting into Russell.

She kissed him, not knowing if the kiss would go on for a minute, an hour, the whole night. She kissed him not knowing what would happen next semester, next year. But at the moment, none of that seemed to matter. The kiss was what mattered. Not just the kiss, but what the kiss said. What it unlocked. What the night unlocked. What they had unlocked.

Tomorrow would be different. Sophie understood this.

There really was no such thing as a minor miracle.

The whole mess started when I lit the church on fire.

To be precise, I didn’t strike a match, and it wasn’t the church proper, but the barn beside it. The one that Main Street Methodist used to store all the equipment for the annual Christmas pageant. Well, the barn they used to use.

Put this on your list of things to know: the combination of tinsel, baby angel wings, and manger hay burns like weed at a Miley Cyrus concert.

My questionable reputation was established in the first grade. Vaughn Hatcher, the boy who covered the class rabbit with paste and a liberal coat of glitter and set him loose in the faculty lounge. It turns out, teachers think of glitter as the herpes of the craft world—impossible to contain or exterminate. Hippity Hop was sent to a petting zoo, and I was sent to the principal’s office. But it was too late. I’d already experienced the hijinks that could ensue when my creativity was put to good use. I was hooked.

I was the guy who taught the other kids how to egg houses, roll yards, and glue mailboxes shut. And the older I got, the more elaborate my pranks became. In middle school, I filled the clinic with Styrofoam peanuts. Last year, my junior year of high school, I decorated the town Christmas tree with neon thong underwear.