Originally published in Sing of the High Country 1985
The wind whistles through the spruce and pine needles as Jed shears a dwarfish fir. Even through the frost accumulating on his ears, the whistling sounds like laughs coming from deep inside the crooked bellies of the spruces and pines. And why not? No matter how many oblong branches fall to the snow, no matter how much Jed cuts at the scruffy top of the fir, the tree looks like it did a day, a week, a year ago, like anything but a Christmas tree. As he sees the branches and needles piling up around the fir, Jed wishes the tree’s dwarfish stature were its only problem. The top is too full, the bottom, full of twigs, is half-bald, and the middle of the tree resembles Santa Claus’ belly without the charm. After succeeding in making the treetop even scruffier, Jed lowers his shears.
Only when children’s laughter joins in with the whistling of the wind does Jed turn around. Jed does not drop the shears until he’s sure the crunching of feet against snow is not a trick of the wind. Thawing out his smile, Jed waits for the feet to come closer. Jed takes his seat behind a Christmas tree-shaped stand. He prepares to grab a saw from the stand, wondering if his last-minute repair job has really brought in any customers during the dwindling hours before Christmas Eve. Through the rows of scruffy pine, he hears the crunching stop and a high-pitched voice whisper It must be his first year growing trees. Jed listens as a deeper voice whispers back Looking at these pines, I bet it’ll be his last year, too. C’mon, kids. It’s time to go. The children’s laughter fades until Jed hears only the rustling of fir needles blowing in the wind.
As if Jed has not heard such words before, he rises and wanders back to his small fir. With Christmas a breath away, Jed doubts that he will hear children’s laughter in his lot again this year, no matter how much he repairs his trees. But that does not stop Jed from picking up his shears and continuing to trim the small fir. Having cut down long trees, short trees, fat trees, thin trees all season, Jed couldn’t care less about the tree he uses for his own Christmas festivities. It’s not as if there’s anyone at home who will complain about a half-bald tree or who will be disappointed if the top is not tall enough to support an angel or a star. As an older man, Jed holds no illusions about the holidays. He will spend this Christmas like he has spent every Christmas for the past thirty-five years. He will stare at a room with a bare tree and a small Nativity set so old the wise men’s gold and frankincense have turned to dust and it looks like they all chipped in to bring the poor baby Jesus the rather tasteless gift of myrrh.
Clipping the treetop, Jed wonders why he never threw out the old Nativity set. It’s not like he’s a religious man fearful of retribution from above. To him, the wood of that set is no more holy than the wood of the tree branches lying at his feet. Only when he realizes that it has taken him a moment to remember does Jed stop clipping the tree. Jed tells himself that maybe it’s the frost settling on his cheeks or the wind whipping through his hair. He tells himself that he’s tired after a day of trimming the firs so that last-minute buyers might purchase the last of his crooked trees. But Jed knows that the weariness he feels and the frost that eats at him have been there as long as he can remember. Every winter he feels numb as he fights to remember that he had a wife who loved Christmas and a daughter who built that Nativity set with her own hands.
The shears shake in Jed’s hands, providing Jed with an excuse as to why, in thirty-five years, he has never been able to trim a tree with the ease and elegance of his younger days. Jed struggles so hard to keep up with his shearing that he barely notices the returning sound of feet crunching against snow. Watching the father point out the tree’s baldness, only to be told by the mother to measure the tree or else, Jed realizes that he may be here for a while. His eyes move off of the mother and father and onto a small boy and girl running through the pines and spruces. Jed watches the boy cover his eyes and count aloud. Only seconds later, he sees the same red hair his daughter had bobbing past the spruce branches and into the firs. Jed thinks the girl must’ve gotten herself stuck in a fir until he feels her eyes watching him.
“You’re not hiding too, are you?” a small voice whispers.
“Hiding,” Jed asks, looking at the girl’s red hair. “Why would I be hiding?”
“If you’re not hiding, then you must be hiding something,” the girl says. “Why else would you stand behind that tree?”
Jed’s eyes redden until he looks from the girl’s hair to the fir. “I’m fixing up the tree,” Jed whispers. “Listen, shouldn’t you be with your parents?”
“It’s a cold day to be fixing up trees. My father says we’re getting a snowstorm.”
Jed can hear in the girl’s voice the same angelic ring that made him name his daughter Angela. “That’s my problem,” Jed says without looking up, “not yours.”
“You sure are rude for a salesman.”
“I’m just…tired.”
“You must’ve been standing by that tree all day.”
“And yesterday. And the day before.”
“That must be a good tree, then.”
Jed laughs until he notices that his eyes have fallen on the girl’s face. When Jed catches himself thinking that the girl has brown eyes not much darker than his daughter’s and skin almost as white, his laugh dies.
“You’re cutting that Christmas tree down for yourself,” the girl asks, stepping closer. “Aren’t you?”
“Maybe. What’s it to you?”
“I like Christmas trees,” the girl says, standing by the fir. “Did you know that Father Christmas cut the first trees down himself? He carried them all the way from the forest, lit them up and gave them to little boys and girls.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Not-uh! My brother Christian told me. We go to Sunday school together.”
Jed shakes his head and turns his eyes to the tree. He shears the tree until the girl’s presence feels too much like his daughter standing by a tinsel-draped tree on Christmas day. “Shouldn’t you be moving along,” Jed whispers.
“I learned in Sunday school that people used to decorate their trees with red and white flowers.”
“Why would they do that?”
“White flowers meant innocence.”
“And red?”
“I forget.”
“Thank you for sharing. Now run along before the snowstorm comes.”
“I don’t care if the storm comes. We live in the only white house on the side of the mountain. Ours is the one house that matches the color of the snow.”
“That’s nice.”
“It looks nice when you peek out the window and see the snow pushing up behind the Christmas tree.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jed says, trying to forget that this girl is standing where his daughter stood when she helped him with the trees.
Jed’s hands freeze as he pictures his daughter Angela putting her head against his arm whenever he rested from shearing the trees. When he pictures his daughter helping him carry the tree, Jed doesn’t notice that the girl has hidden under the small fir. Thinking of the white of his daughter’s smile as she put an angel on top of the tree, Jed doesn’t see the small boy stop his counting and run through the rows of trees. Jed just stands there, his hands frozen, until the small boy calls out Mister, have you seen my sister? so many times the boy’s parents walk briskly towards Jed and his fir tree.
“I’m under here, cheater,” the girl calls out.
“I didn’t cheat,” the boy yells. “Mom and dad said it’s time to go.”
“I don’t want to go,” the girl whines as her parents stop by the fir. “I want this tree.”
“We’re not getting a bald tree,” the father insists. “Now come out of there.”
“For your information, it’s such a good tree the salesman was going to take it himself!”
“You heard your father,” the mother urges. “We’re going to look somewhere else.”
“Not again,” the girl screams.
“If your puppy didn’t chew up our old tree, then maybe we’d be home on Christmas Eve instead of freezing our butts off,” the father yells.
“I don’t care! I hope the puppy craps all over the house!”
“That’s it,” the father shrieks. “Get out of there!”
“Not until you buy me this tree!”
“Come out or I’ll drag you out!”
“Alex,” the mother scolds. “Stop making a scene in front of the salesman.”
“I don’t care,” the father screams. “Either you get her out or I’ll drag her! I swear it!”
Jed watches the father get on his hands and knees and reach for his daughter. The small girl just laughs as she sees that the twiggy branches of the small, fat fir keep her father’s arm from touching her. The father thrusts his arm against the twigs until he scratches himself so many times he has to pull his arm from under the tree.
“Alex, just give her a minute to calm down. She’ll come out.”
“Good! When she comes out I’m giving her the spanking of her life,” the father yells to the tree.
Jed shakes his head as the girl makes herself comfortable under the fir. He thinks of how lucky he was that Angela never acted like the small girl or, better yet, like the small girl’s father. As he looks through the bald patches at the girl’s red hair, he remembers how his daughter crawled under the tree on Christmas day. He can smell in the needles and in the girl’s perfume the scent of his daughter on those Christmas mornings. When he realizes that the sweet smell is not his daughter, but another man’s child, Jed’s face grows red enough to match the frosty complexion of his ears. That red deepens as the mother and father act like waiting five minutes to see their daughter is a struggle beyond compare.
“Buy her the tree so we can get out of here,” the mother insists.
“No,” the father yells. “I won’t reward her for acting like a brat!”
“Buy her the tree,” the mother says, gritting her teeth, “or I’ll buy it myself.”
“Then buy it,” the father snaps back. “But I won’t let that tree in my house! I’m getting another one!”
Taking a checkbook out of her purse, the mother asks Jed how much the tree costs. Looking from the mother to the girl, Jed thinks of how this young mother won’t need the smell of fir needles to remind her of her daughter. Thinking of his own Christmas, alone, staring at a Nativity set, Jed whispers The tree’s not for sale.
“What kind of business are you running,” the father barks. “Crooked trees, bald trees and now trees you won’t even sell!”
“Get off my farm,” Jed insists, “and don’t come back.”
The father and mother stare at Jed, vacantly.
“I said leave,” Jed yells, staring, red-faced, at the small girl he has scared out from under the tree. Jed sees the girl whimpering as her father drags her from the tree. At the sight of a father with his little girl, Jed turns away. As the family gets in their blue Dodge, Jed grabs the saw from the stand and cuts down the tree. Putting the saw back, Jed wishes he decided to take the truck to the fields instead of walking. After locking the gates of the Christmas tree farm, Jed grabs the tree, picks up his shears and starts walking.
Even with the shears in hand, Jed manages to drag the fir. The dwarfish tree glides across the snow as Jed follows the glow of the porch light past the bare tobacco fields to the white house his daughter would’ve grown up in. He fights so much to get the fat middle of the fir through the doorway that he does a better job trimming the tree with the doorway than he did with the shears. Once Jed has the tree inside, he does not bother to take off his coat or his boots. He shears any fat branches until the tree fits in the living room corner. After struggling to hold up the tree and place it in the tree stand, Jed puts his shears down, sits and looks upon the tree. The tree is still awkward, still short, still balding, but to Jed the scent of the needles smells like his daughter’s hands when she decorated the tree. Thinking of all the decorations those hands made in art class, Jed gets up and, for the first time since the accident, digs through an old closet. When he finds a box of handmade bulbs, he opens the box. He takes out the brightest red bulb and is about to place it on the tree when the bulb drops and smashes against the oak floor. Gathering the plastic pieces, Jed notices that one piece reads Merry Christmas, Dad and another piece reads From Angela, age ten. Holding the pieces tight in his hands, Jed thinks of how Angela gave him the bulb the year after she made him the Nativity set. Looking over the wise men, Jed remembers how, so proud to have her Nativity set displayed for another Christmas, Angela told Jed that he was as warm as the Star of Bethlehem and as wise as the kings standing before the holy family. Seeing the bitter, worn lines of his face reflected in the shattered bulb, Jed wonders what happened to the man who had a daughter who could say such things about him.
Looking over the bald patches on the fir, Jed wonders what he thought wrestling such a tree from the hands of a small girl might get him. The more Jed pictures the girl under the tree, the more the girl reminds him of his own daughter and the more Jed thinks of what he would’ve done to any man who ruined Angela’s Christmas. I’m sure the girl’s forgotten all about the incident, Jed tells himself. That’s the way kids are. No doubt she’s found another fir. Still, staring at the bare tree, Jed can’t forget about what happened. And he knows what he’d expect a man who ruined his daughter’s Christmas to do for her.
Rising, Jed approaches the tree. He stands still for a moment, as if giving his daughter extra time to come out from under its frozen branches. When Angela does not appear, Jed wrestles the tree from its stand. The tree falls to the left, then to the right, nearly smashing the Nativity set on the mantle. Jed pulls at the tree until it clears the stand. Unable to believe he’s about to ruin his Christmas Eve over a small, balding tree, Jed grabs his shears and the Nativity set. You can come with me, Jed whispers to the Nativity set, as if, somewhere in the white of the angel wings or in the smile of the king of myrrh, he sees his daughter. I may need your help. Jed stumbles as he fights to carry the Nativity set and shears with one hand and to drag the tree with the other. Only after dropping the tree three times does Jed manage to drag the fir out of the living room and to the door. Upon seeing the snowflakes streaking the sky, Jed checks to see that his coat is buttoned, then pulls the tree through the doorway.
With each step Jed takes to the old truck, he thinks of reasons to turn around. The wind that rips across his face. The snowflakes the grow thicker and thicker. The inconvenience of driving halfway across town only to look at the faces of people who insulted his trees to his face. And what is Jed supposed to say when he looks at those people? By the way, I’m sorry I told you to get off my land before I physically remove you. Feel free to insult me anytime. Jed shakes his head as he places the tree and the shears in the back of the truck. He knows that he couldn’t care less about the insults.
Balancing the Nativity set on his lap, Jed crawls in the truck and sits behind the wheel. After placing the Nativity set snugly at his side, Jed starts the truck and puts on the headlights. Thinking of the bitter wind that ripped across his face, Jed lets the truck warm up for a minute. The rattling of the old engine reminds Jed of how many roads he has been down with this truck. Tobacco paths, Christmas tree lots, mountain passes, town roads. Every road in Red Mountain but one. As Jed remembers the small girl telling him of her house on the side of the mountain, he thinks of how close he will have to come to that road. Under no circumstances, Jed tells himself. Jed thinks of a route rougher than the paved roads, but if he remembers correctly, removed from Old Mountain Road. He puts his truck in drive and pulls away from the pasty glow of the porch light.
Watching the white snowflakes melt in the yellow headlight glare, Jed is amazed at how quickly the snow accumulates. Jed’s feet press harder against the gas pedal as he fights to stay ahead of the snow. If I can just get there in ten minutes and return the tree, Jed tells himself, I can be home in time to make myself a nice Christmas Eve ham. I might even be able to cut down another tree and eat my ham knowing that Angela can look down from heaven and recognize her home the way it looked in Christmases past.
Jed wonders how such a short trip can take so long. He hasn’t been out this way in years, but he’s sure the path is longer than he remembered. Jed wonders if the rattling in the old van was this loud the last time his ex-wife took Angela Christmas shopping. They were only going into town, Jed remembers. Heading down this way. Whether the engine blew or the tires slipped Jed can’t say. Cursing, Jed presses his foot harder against the gas and concentrates on reaching the small girl’s house as quickly as he can. When Jed follows the rays of the porch lights to a street sign that reads Old Mountain Road Extension, he slams on his breaks. As the truck circles, Jed pictures his own daughter circling in the old van the night her mother drove her shopping. Jed can picture Angela screaming, wishing that she was back at home, sipping eggnog, until she knew she’d never see home again. The thud of the truck’s hood crashing into a snowbank drowns out the memories of his daughter’s cry. Jed covers his head with his arms as he jerks towards the windshield. The Nativity set flies from the seat. Before the Nativity set reaches the windshield, Jed’s arms crash into the small set, smashing it. After jerking back into his seat, Jed curses and puts the truck in reverse. The wheels circle on the ice until Jed hears a final rattle from the engine, then nothing but wind along the snowdrifts.
This is what I get, Jed tells himself, for dragging a ragged tree into town. Jed fights with the ignition, but the engine does not take. Jed curses again until he sees the smashed Nativity set. The wise man bearing myrrh lies on the dashboard, scratched but not scarred, though the baby Jesus is nowhere to be found. Thinking of his daughter, who used to hang her figurines on the tree with such care, Jed picks up the king of myrrh and places him in his coat pocket. He steps down from the truck and looks at the tree that dangles from the truck’s side. That’s it, Jed tells himself. I’m going home. To hell with this junky truck. To hell with the small girl. To hell with Christmas.
Jed starts walking away from the truck until he notices the king bouncing up and down in his coat pocket. It’s as if the wise man, confused after the accident, figures that somebody has to take his gift and offers the myrrh to Jed. Jed stops walking the moment he remembers the sound of his daughter’s voice when she asked him about myrrh. The voice rings through his head, just as it did when his daughter sat doing Sunday school homework only weeks before her accident.
“Gold is for a king, that I get,” she said. “And frankincense is for the Messiah, the Son of God. But why myrrh? My Sunday school teacher said it has the power to heal. But she also says they used it on dead people. I know Jesus got crucified and all, but why give such a tasteless gift to a baby?”
“Well,” Jed replied, trying to remember who the wise men were, “frankincense and myrrh usually go together. They smell nice.”
“But my Sunday school teacher said,” his daughter insisted, “that myrrh always pops up in the Bible when people suffer.”
“Not always,” Jed said, as if he, like his wife, had ever read a page of the Bible.
“My Sunday school teacher also says that myrrh tastes bitter,” his daughter added. “What were the wise men trying to do, pull a fast one on Jesus?”
“I don’t think so,” Jed told his daughter. “Suffering is a part of life. I imagine that’s what makes myrrh special. It has the power to heal, to help people turn their suffering into joy.”
Looking back at the weathered tree, Jed laughs bitterly as he thinks of his answer. Didn’t the same God his daughter spoke of chop her down like that fir only two weeks later? Didn’t the same God give him a Christmas gift of myrrh, without the frankincense and gold? Sure, Jed told Laura that it wasn’t her fault, that he should’ve had the engine and tires checked. But Jed didn’t mean it. And Laura didn’t mean it when she told Jed that checking the engine and tires wouldn’t have made any difference. Jed didn’t blame Laura for divorcing him. He blamed the God who had taken his daughter and his wife in a single Christmas. He blamed the God who gave only myrrh with each passing year, until Jed took comfort only in the numbing of his feelings.
Once I deliver this tree, that’s it, Jed tells himself. That’s my one good deed in life. I won’t ever set foot on the mountain again. It’s not worth it, Jed whispers, looking in ice-covered windows at boys and girls playing around their trees. As the snow piles against his ankles, Jed finds it harder to move past the families laughing and singing by Christmas fires. He wonders what it would be like to be the grandfather he sees through a window, watching his grandchildren hang their stockings. Jed considers warning the merry family to keep their hands clasped, so that their children will not end up like his daughter, who did not know the comforting touch of her father’s hand at the hour of her passing.
Jed continues, the small fir and shears at his side. He walks down along the side of the mountain, unable to believe that sparrows still shriek in the air that held his daughter’s last breath or that children still stomp in the snow, leaving crooked snow angels where the car circled three times. Down to an unlit white house sitting alone on the mountain slope. Jed picks up his shears and uses the fattening rays from the headlights of an approaching Dodge to trim the tree along its natural slope. The fat middle, sticking out beyond all measure, becomes a set of wings ready to take flight. The scruffy top trims into a halo half-slanted towards the sky. The balding bottom becomes a robe lifting up as if in a giant wind. Jed puts his finishing touches on the tips of the branches. He wonders if his daughter can see the tree the moment the headlights from the Dodge fall on the small fir, christening the angel Jed has carved out in a light shaped like the Star of Bethlehem.
“Isn’t that gorgeous,” the mother says to the girl as the family steps out of the Dodge. “Honey, look!”
“Not as gorgeous as this tree,” the father insists as his perfect fir topples from the roof of the car. “Are you going to help me bring it in or just stare at that grump?”
“You brought me my tree!” the girl screams, running towards the old man.
“You didn’t have to do this, sir,” the mother says, taking her daughter up to the feet of the angel. “We just bought a tree somewhere else. We’re fine. Really.”
“I was just feeling sorry for the way I acted,” Jed whispers. “You see, I had a daughter too.”
“I’m going to get some decorations,” the girl screams, running towards the house. “Christian,” she calls to the little boy, “come help me.”
“Honey, usually you bring trees inside before you decorate them,” the mother calls to the girl.
“Are any of you jerks going to help?” the father calls out, breaking the branches of his perfect tree as he pulls it through the door.
“In a minute,” the mother calls back. “I’m so sorry,” the mother says to Jed. “I didn’t know that your daughter, well….I mean we heard about the accident when we built the house, but it was so long ago and all—”
“—You don’t have to apologize,” Jed whispers. “Angela would’ve liked your daughter. She would’ve liked you.”
The mother smiles. “Angela. What a lovely name. We almost named Julie that.”
The girl and the boy run back out of the house, giggling as they think of the fun of decorating a tree and playing in the snow all at the same time. Little white and red flowers sway in their hands as they slip and slide towards the snow-kissed tree. The mother watches Jed as her children each give the old man a flower.
“To show a certain someone that her teacher’s not a liar, we’re decorating our tree like the Tree of Life,” the mother explains, watching her daughter roll her eyes.
“The Tree of Life,” Jed whispers, looking over the flowers.
“The white flowers are for innocence,” the girl says, as if for the first time. “And the red flowers. They’re for—”
“—Knowledge,” Jed whispers.
“That’s it!” The girl giggles. “How did you know?”
“It just came to me,” Jed whispers, thinking of his long trip down the side of the mountain. “It took some time. But it came.”
Jed trembles as the girl’s fingers touch his, helping him place the red flower on the tree. As thoughts of Angela stir inside him, tears fill the corners of Jed’s eyes. Jed fights to stay composed as he takes out the small wise man from his pocket and hands him to the girl.
“My daughter made him,” Jed says to the girl. “You think we could hang him on this tree?”
“Sure, but why are you crying? No one cries on Christmas Eve!”
“Just give the man a minute by himself, kids,” the mother whispers, bringing her children inside.
Jed takes the small wise man and places him gently on the branches of the tree. Still alive, Jed whispers to the king of myrrh. After all we’ve been through, we’re still alive. Jed sees the small wise man swaying back and forth on the branches, a heavenly smile upon his lips, as if the old king has something more in store for Jed. Looking upon his daughter’s figurine, Jed feels something in the corners of his eyes rushing down his cheeks. Before he can stop himself, Jed cries more than he ever thought himself capable of over the wife who lives so far beyond the snowdrifts, over the little girl who lies so far under them. He feels the blood pulse in his wrists, in his ankles and arms, as the gift of falling tears brings a smile to his lips and healing to his heart. Jed touches the fir needles more gently than he would his little girl’s fingers as he watches the Tree of Life shine for his daughter in heaven, then twinkle for the little girl standing only feet away. Saying goodbye to Angela one more time, Jed hears a warm question lingering in the cold winter air.
“Would you like to come inside?” the mother asks. “You look like you’ve had a long journey. Some eggnog might do you good.”
“I’d like that,” Jed whispers, turning from the tree to the light inside. “I’d like that a lot.”