The Christmas Sweater Read online

  “Besides, if God wasn’t here with both of us right now, then why would we have this beautiful night sky? Look at the clouds, Eddie. They’re full of snow. And when God squeezes them from heaven tonight, we’re going to have the kind of white Christmas your father always loved.” She smiled at me with extra love in her doe-brown eyes and added, “So, goodnight. Try to sleep, and don’t get up before daylight.” She winked. “Christmas morning doesn’t start until it’s morning.”

  She turned out the light as she left the room, and my night-light lit up brightly, reminding me that I wasn’t quite a man just yet.

  I stared out the window, determined not to fall asleep until I saw the first snowflake. The lines that my mother had gently hummed were stuck in my head. When life’s perils thick confound you, put His arms unfailing round you. She was probably right, but I still felt alone with my burdens. I was a twelve-year-old kid with no father and no money.

  As I continued gazing out the window, waiting for the storm to begin, I had no idea that soon I would need His arms more than I ever thought possible.

  The storm of my life was already forming.

  Four

  The smell of Mom’s pancakes was so wonderfully strong that it actually woke me up.

  I jumped out of bed and rushed to the window. There’s something magical about falling asleep with the ground bare and dry and waking up to it covered in a fluffy white blanket of snow.

  But the magic would have to wait for some other day, because the front yard was still covered with the same coarse, gray snow that had fallen days earlier. I looked up toward the sky. The stubborn clouds still looked like they harbored snow, but so far they’d been unwilling to part with it.

  The worst part was that I knew Mom wouldn’t sympathize with my disappointment. She was always one of those people who thought that snow was more of a hassle than anything else. She liked the idea of snow, but she hated almost everything else about it. Shoveling it was a pain, the car’s windshield took forever to defrost, and driving in even the smallest amount of snow was virtually out of the question. I used to tell her that she was a snow-Grinch until I became old enough to shovel and finally understood what she meant.

  But if Mom was a Grinch, then Dad was the mayor of Whoville. No amount of snow was ever enough. We would stay up late together waiting for a promised snowstorm to start, drinking hot chocolate and listening to the radio to see if they’d cancel school early.

  On days like that Christmas morning, when the weathermen had obviously been so wrong, I would get frustrated and ask Dad how, with all this technology, they couldn’t even figure out if it would snow or not. It was a rhetorical question, but one time he gave me an answer that I’ll never forget. “Eddie,” he said, “if I baked bread as well as those morons predict the weather, our bakery would be bankrupt and we’d never have a loaf of bread in the house.”

  I tried hard not to laugh. It took Dad a moment before he realized what he’d just said. He paused for a second, saw the smile on my face, then said, “Well, if that were the case, then we still wouldn’t have any bread, but you also wouldn’t have any nice boots to wear.” It was one of the few times I ever laughed at my bakery boots.

  On the rare occasions when the weathermen actually got it right, Dad would wake me up early in the morning, right after he’d come back from frying the doughnuts at the bakery. All he would have to say was, “Eddie, look out the window!” and I would jump out of bed and lean against the windowsill. Dad would put his hand on top of my head and the two of us would just stand there in silence watching the snow fall.

  There was one storm that I’ll never forget. It began early in the afternoon, and by evening it was snowing so hard that school had already been canceled for the next day. Mom the Grinch couldn’t believe it. How can they cancel school so early? The snow could stop at any second and then they’ll took foolish! Dad and I tried our best to ignore her. We were like a mini snow-support group, and we didn’t want her to spoil our party.

  After dark we suited up and decided to take a completely unnecessary trip to the B and H corner store, about three blocks away. We went out the side door into the garage, where Dad’s big maroon 1972 Impala station wagon with fake wood paneling sat waiting. Dad had bought the car “almost new” in 1974 and had been so proud when he’d first brought it home.

  Our Impala was the perfect car for a kid, because it was so “modern” and full of “technology.” The tailgate didn’t swing out like everyone else’s station wagon because this one was curved and electric. With just the push of a button the window magically disappeared up into the roof and the tailgate slid into the floor. It even had a third row of seats that faced backward. In retrospect, the tanklike Impala probably hadn’t been the best car to buy at the height of the oil crisis, but maybe that’s why we’d been able to afford it.

  “We’re not taking the car,” Dad exclaimed as he saw me walking toward it. Then he bent down, grabbed the metal garage door handle, and pulled it up. “We’re gonna walk.”

  As the door creaked open, it was like we were staring out at a dream world. The snow was still falling, but it was so light, so fluffy, that it hit the ground with just a whisper. The air was crisp and fresh with just the slightest hint of smoke from the wood fires keeping our neighbors warm.

  The streetlights gave everything a surreal, peaceful glow. The snow seemed to be falling much harder in the glow of the bulbs than anywhere else, but I knew it was just an illusion.

  Dad took my hand, and we walked down our short driveway toward the street. I instinctively tried to make the turn to where the sidewalk would be, but Dad pulled me straight ahead into the street. I didn’t say a word.

  We walked down the middle of the road, hand in hand, without ever seeing a car. Each time we’d pass under a streetlight I’d look up and see the yellowish glow light up the thin layer of snow on Dad’s heavy wool jacket. We both looked at each other and smiled—there was no Grinch around to spoil our fun.

  It was all so perfect. Actually, it was all too perfect—I should’ve known that it wouldn’t last.

  I felt so let down by the lack of snow that Christmas morning that I hadn’t even noticed how cold the floor was. I put on my slippers—a present from Santa last year—and headed down the stairs. For the first time ever I was not going to be dragging Mom out of bed on Christmas morning.

  My grogginess gave way to anticipation, and my heart began to race. Visions of my new bike consumed me. I knew that since I had made a promise to God to earn it, this would be the year that I would finally get exactly what I deserved. I’d waited patiently for so long, watching as every one of my friends had gotten the bike they’d asked for. Now it was my turn. Mom was right, His arms were around me, and after all I’d been through they were about to deliver the one present that could make me happy again.

  Christmas music was playing on the big Magnavox console stereo in the living room. It could hold eight different albums. When one was over, the tone arm would come up and the next album would fall onto the turntable. That morning all the albums were from the Firestone Christmas series. I think we got them one year when we bought our tires.

  As I rounded the corner into the living room, I heard Julie Andrews and my mom singing together. “They know that Santa’s on his way, he’s loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.”

  “Merry Christmas, Eddie!” I’d been spotted. Mom danced around the corner from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron and held them out as an invitation to a Christmas hug.

  “Merry Christmas, Mom,” I said as I gave her a twelve-year-old half-a-hug. I didn’t want to get pancake flour all over my pajamas, and I knew that if I let her give me a full hug it would be five minutes before I wriggled out of it.

  I broke free as quickly as I could and headed toward the tree in the corner. It glowed with a single strand of lights that were too big for the small evergreen. Popcorn strings and foil icicles connected ornaments of glass, wood, and paper. Very
few of the ornaments were store bought. Many were the result of school projects or family activities, but most had been made by Mom over the years.

  I moved my practiced gaze around the green felt skirt at the base of the tree where Mom had stitched the nativity scene. There were only a couple of gifts that hadn’t been there on Christmas Eve and only one that I didn’t immediately recognize from Operation Sneak Preview. None of them were even close to being large enough to be a bike, but I still had high hopes. I knew that Mom had enough of Grandpa in her blood to put me through the same kind of cat-and-mouse games that he did. A few years ago she’d waited until all of my presents had been opened before pointing through the back window to my last present: a brand-new sled with a big bow on top.

  With that Christmas still fresh in my head, I began to think how Mom might have hidden the bike. There were a lot of possibilities, but my guess was that she’d probably wrapped up a picture of the Huffy and stashed the actual bike in the garage. It would fit her perfectly—she could keep me guessing while not wasting any wrapping paper, something she always seemed to be preoccupied with.

  I picked up a present so that I could better see what was behind it, hoping to find one that I hadn’t yet seen so I could shake it.

  “Is that for me?” Mom sang.

  She was too quick for me. “Oh, yes, Merry Christmas.” I turned hesitantly from the gifts and handed her the present I’d paid for by picking berries at my grandfather’s farm over the summer.

  She carefully opened the clumsily wrapped package. “Gloves!” she exclaimed with a little too much enthusiasm for me to believe her. Then she got a thoughtful look on her face and said quietly, “I did need new gloves. They’re perfect, honey. Thank you.”

  I wasn’t listening, because I was too busy fishing for her other gift. I found it and handed it over. “Here’s my other present for you.”

  “Oh, my, another one?” she said as she took the small, rectangular box. Inside were a handwritten card and a bar of chocolate. “‘Merry Christmas, Mother,’” she read aloud. “‘You are as sweet as this chocolate.’” She laughed. “Eddie, did you buy this yourself?”

  “Yes,” I replied proudly. “I was thinking you could eat it or make cookies with it.”

  “Do you know what Baker’s chocolate is?”

  “It’s chocolate you can bake, isn’t it?” I replied. Mom smiled at the thought of how much I loved cookies yet obviously hadn’t listened to a word my father had said about making them.

  “Yes, dear, but it isn’t very—” She stopped and smiled as if it had absolutely been the best Christmas gift she’d ever received. “You, you are the sweetest boy—I mean, young man—who ever lived.” Then she opened the package and ate a square with her eyes squinting a bit and a grin on her face. “Best chocolate I’ve ever had.”

  She came to me and took me in her arms. It seemed like an eternity.

  “My turn?” I asked anxiously.

  “Your turn, sweetheart.”

  I first opened the presents that I had, well, already opened. I did my best to act surprised as I held each of them up to show Mom: Homemade mittens from my cousin, a baseball from an uncle I hadn’t seen in years, and a bag of candy that I was sure was the exact same striped stuff that I didn’t eat the year before. I wondered if Mom hadn’t been putting out the same bag every year since I was four.

  Finally. Only one present was left. It was a fairly large box, but very light. Please, God, I thought to myself, let it be a Polaroid or even a handwritten note or card. I couldn’t believe I was actually hoping to not open a BB gun or a set of walkie-talkies, but the Huffy was the only present on my mind. It was the only present that would make me happy.

  Mom had decorated the box with a large bow and a ribbon that looked suspiciously like the one I’d taken off my birthday gift. I tore through reindeer-and-snowflakes wrapping paper until I was left with a simple plain brown box. My heart raced as I slowly lifted off the top and pushed aside the crinkled white tissue paper.

  It was a sweater.

  “Do you like it?” Mom asked as I stared at the gift, unable to speak. She shifted on the couch and crossed her arms as she waited several seconds for an answer.

  Holding on to my last possible fragment of hope, I unfolded the sweater, hoping there was something tucked inside that would point me toward the bike. I shook it back and forth as hard as I could without being obvious, but nothing happened. That’s when I realized there wouldn’t be a bike that year—just a stupid, handmade, ugly sweater.

  “Do you like it? Do you really like it?” Mom was hoping my silence was due to my unspeakable joy.

  A stupid, handmade, ugly sweater that wasn’t a bike.

  “Sure, Mom, it’s great.” I felt like I should cry. I was entitled to cry, I thought, but it was the kind of sad that didn’t include tears. If I hadn’t worked so hard all year, if I hadn’t thought about a new bike every waking second of my life, if I hadn’t promised God I would earn it, then I might not have noticed how the color of the yarn would perfectly match the Wonder Bread polka dots on my bread-bag boots. But I had done all of those things, and I did notice.

  “I’m really sorry about the bike, honey.” Mom’s voice was too soft and tender for how I felt. “It’s just that the repairs for the roof were so much more than I expected. I know you understand. Maybe I can save up enough to get it for you next year.”

  I understood all right. I understood that we would always be the poor family and I would always be the poor kid with plastic boots and no bike.

  I stared down at the sweater and felt my body temperature rise, almost as if I’d already put it on. I didn’t know who had let me down more: Mom, for not buying me what I deserved; Dad, for not watching over me like he was supposed to; or God, for ignoring my promise. I was so disappointed with all of them that I forgot I was supposed to put the neck under my chin as if I’d been trying it on.

  “I hope it fits!” Mom said, trying to remind me to do the “chin thing.” I didn’t get the hint.

  “I’m sure it will,” I replied without enthusiasm. Mom finally came over, took the sweater from me, and held it up to my back. She pressed her fingers into my shoulders as she matched the edges to the outline of my body. “Oh sure,” she said. “At the rate you’re growing it will be just the right size by next fall!” She was way too excited about the whole thing.

  I could muster only a halfhearted reply. “Thanks, Mom, it’s great.”

  “It’s just like the expensive ones we sell at Sears,” she offered proudly, attempting to combat the obvious disappointment that had involuntarily spread across my face. “We ask almost forty dollars for a real, hand-knit wool sweater. I couldn’t afford that, of course, but I was able to come up with enough to buy the good yarn.” She stopped talking and looked at me as if embarrassed to be explaining her gift.

  “Really, it’s great. Really. I did need a sweater.” I couldn’t get past my own disappointment or look beyond myself to see what the gift meant to her.

  I thought back to the note Mom had left for me under her bed. She was right, I had “missed” my gift. Mom had been making it right in front of me every night while forcing me to watch Little House on the Prairie. (She thought Pa Ingalls was cute, and I had to suffer for it.) But now it all made sense: a stupid handmade gift made while watching a stupid show. I bet my friends who got to watch the shows they wanted, like Starsky and Hutch, also got presents they’d actually asked for.

  My disappointment over the morning snow now seemed trivial compared to how upset I was about my present. You’re an idiot, I thought to myself. You should have known. You should have seen it coming.

  Mom looked at me with eyes that were, for once, surprisingly hard to read. Was she relieved that I seemed to be so happy, or did she see right through my act? Quite honestly, at that moment, I didn’t really care, but I knew that I couldn’t keep up the charade forever. I had to escape.

  “I’m just going to run up to my bedroom and p
ut it away. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I felt a familiar, relentless burn returning to my eyes. I ran upstairs before Mom could see my tears.

  Five

  My bedroom window looked out over the street in front of our house. Before my prepubescent growth spurt, I could stand at the sill, put my elbows on it, and rest my chin on my hands.

  That Christmas morning I was just a little too tall to do that anymore, so I stood back a few inches, put my hands on the sill, and leaned forward until my forehead rested against the cold glass. It burned my skin, but I felt like I deserved the pain.

  The snow had finally started. They were big, beautiful flakes, and the thin white coating on the street meant that it had already been falling for a while now. I guess I’d been too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice.

  I was just about to turn away when I saw the little girl across the street riding a brand-new bike in her driveway. Her dad was walking alongside, as if he didn’t trust the training wheels on the slippery asphalt. My eyes began to burn again, right along with my forehead.

  I crossed over to my bed and fell on it. Luke Skywalker taunted me with the memory of a great Christmas present from the past. Images of the girl on the bike kept running through my head. I saw the wheels spin around and around as she rode it like she’d been the freest girl in the world. Free to travel two, three, maybe four houses away. Free.

  I focused on my ceiling. It was filthy. The roof leaked a little every time it rained, and water soaked the plaster, leaving splotches and lines. Nothing in my life was perfect. Other kids had new bikes, two parents, and ceilings that didn’t leak. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Eddie!” Mom cried out from the hall as my bedroom door swung open. “Have you looked outside yet? Dad’s gift to you is here…it’s a Christmas miracle! It hasn’t snowed like this since—”