12 comments/ 6347 views/ 4 favorites The Last Minute Gift By: mynameisben Dahlia looked on with mounting dread as the first snowflakes of the evening drifted down from the heavens. As she peered through the frozen pane a worrisome frown drew in her cheeks and bunched wrinkles into her forehead, adding years to a face that was so much younger. There was a small piece of her that wanted the snow, but it lay sleeping in her memory. Bang! The neighbor's door whooshed open. Eric and Monica hurdled out into the roar of December cold. Outstretched arms and toothless bright smiles stabbed at the night. They were laughter and youth and vessels for joy. And they were on a mission to catch ... magic! "Catch a snowflake on your tongue," Monica yelled to her brother, "and Santa will grant your special wish!" "Really?" Eric asked with wonder, his eyes as wide as a five-year-old's ever can be. Then he stretched out his tongue so far it made him gag. Moonlight peeked through the clouds for only a moment, stirring sparkle into the deep blue ocean of Dahlia's eyes and thawing a memory that, perhaps, was never more than just a dream. Thirty years sailed back through the depths of her eyes, and a video inside her head began to play. She was five years old now, bundled in layers with mittens and boots. She squealed like a pixie, racing to catch up with Eric and Monica. Her boots punched holes deep into the frost, yet that hardly seemed to slow her down. "I want to play, too!" Dahlia screamed. "I want to catch magic!" But with each step she took, she sank deeper and deeper into the powdery snow until, eventually, the shrill of her voice was snuffed out and her body covered up by a blanket of white. And then she was gone. Dahlia gazed at her own reflection in the window, at the crow's feet that were just beginning to highlight the corners of her eyes, and wondered whether she had ever been five. Damn it, this house is so quiet! Then she turned and started the long climb upstairs to her grandmother's room. With each step she took, she felt as if she were sinking a little bit deeper into a smothering eternity of frost. * * * "Oh, you're awake!" Dahlia said, making a conscious effort not to follow it up with, "thank God." She loved her Grammy Rose. She loved her with all her heart and for as far back as she could remember, which stretched almost to the time she was three. Rose was forever grateful her Dolly had no memory of the horrible accident that had taken both her parents lives so long ago, and nearly both of theirs as well. Waking Grammy was the singular chore in life Dahlia dreaded most. There was always so much gunk to be cleared from her throat. And lately, blood. The medication she was on helped enormously. But day after passing day, Grammy Rose grew steadily worse. There were times when Dahlia swore the sessions with the aspirator went on for hours, though in reality, it never took her more than a few minutes to clear away the slugs of mucous from her throat and lungs. Suppression of tears was rapidly overtaking the aspirator as the chore Dahlia hated the most. There were times, afterward, when she had to press both hands tight to her mouth and race down the stairs to conceal her sobs. Grammy never heard her granddaughter crying. But she always knew. "As long as you're awake," Dahlia said, "is there anything you'd like me to get you while I'm out? It's almost Christmas, you know." It's almost Christmas. The words echoed like a mausoleum inside Dahlia's head. She silently cursed herself for waiting so long this year. She'd never been one to give last minute gifts. It wasn't that long ago, she recalled, her Saturdays were spent running to the mall, weeks before Christmas, seeking out the perfect gift for the only one on her list. Shopping was so much easier back then. Grammy was more mobile and had many more interests. There was no Great Recession to stretch her workweek into Saturdays with no increase in pay. Excuses. Tonight she would be running to the mall for a different reason. Like footsteps in the snow, Dahlia thought, as she looked at the white bed sheet pulled close to Grammy's chin. She was on a mission to catch ... something. But she had no idea what it could be. "Christmas comes every year," Grammy said in a voice that matched her withered frame. "Yes, I know, Grammy. You're wearing the bobbin lace nightgown I bought you last year. The year before that, I got you the rabbit fur slippers that you love so much. Year before that, I got you ..." Rose cleared her throat to speak. Dahlia fell silent. "I cherish every gift you ever gave me, Dolly. Honestly, I do. I treasure every trinket, every smile. Each day you share with me is a gift from God. But you work so hard for your money, dear. So hard. Please don't waste any more of it on a dying old woman. You know what they say. You can't take it with you." Dahlia had been so brave to this point, but Rose had never spoken of her own death until now. Words she had long dreaded to hear had finally crossed the frail woman's lips, and no amount of denial could ever make them unsaid. A mighty dam had held invincible until now, but it finally ruptured. In the reality of the moment, it never stood a chance. Tears flooded from Dahlia's eyes. She cried openly in front of her Grammy Rose, like a little girl whose mother and father were about to be taken from her once again. Only this time, it was happening with slow, debilitating cruelty. This time, the underdeveloped memory of childhood would not be there to blanket the pain. "Get me a Christmas tree." "Huh?" The words were so unexpected. Dahlia was startled. "Do you remember when you were a little girl? You were a baby, really. You couldn't have been more than three years old. It was your first Christmas after the ... after that time." Dahlia's tears halted abruptly. Rose never spoke of events near the time of the tragedy, which happened less than a week before Dahlia's third birthday. She had always been mindful to snap off conversation whenever she caught herself talking about "that time." But tonight, Dahlia sensed, was a night of miracles. She shuddered to silence and sharpened her ears to catch her Grammy's every word. "I brought home a Christmas tree from Carlton's that year. I put it up on a pedestal in front of the large bay window that overlooks the pines. As far as its size, it wasn't anything special. It only stood three foot high, if that. But it towered over you. It was a silver tree, with aluminum limbs and tinsel for needles, and frosted all white with make-believe snow." "Oh, yes! I remember that tree!" A memory that might have gone lost forever suddenly flashed through Dahlia as if she'd been struck by lightning. "And it rotated!" "Yes, ma'am. It had a motorized base. Spun the whole tree around, once every minute. I kept the motor shrouded in a glittered white blanket. As far as you could tell, that little silver tree ran on pure magic." "I remember there were a thousand twinkling lights. Purple and pink and coral. And shiny globes of silver and gold ornaments with bright red ribbons tied on top." "You do remember. Only there was hardly room on that little silver tree for a thousand lights." Rose laughed. It was the first time in months Dahlia had heard the melody of her grandmother's laugh. "The way your face lit up when you saw that magic silver tree for the first time. You stared at it for over an hour. I will never forget that day. The miracle of Christmas was written all over your face. It is the fondest Christmas memory I have." Dahlia started crying again. She wasn't quite sure why. "We haven't had a Christmas tree in this house in years, Dolly. I know you're too old to believe in Santa Claus, but I'd like to share a Christmas tree with you one last time before I go. Any old tree will do. Please do this for me." Then after a pause, and she winked when she said it, "Besides, you never got me what I really wanted." "Oh, hush! You know that I would if the right man came along." A smile tore loose from Dahlia's heart and escaped as a laugh. This was so Grammy Rose -- nagging her for family to the last of her days. She squeezed her hand gently, not knowing what else she could say. Dahlia glanced up at the clock. How did it get to be so late! It was the last shopping day before Christmas, and the stores would be closing in only a couple of hours. * * * The snow was coming down much harder now. What would normally have been a ten minute drive into town took nearly three times that long. Dahlia found a parking space away from the drifts and nearly skid her rattling Corolla to a stop. She looked around her at the hundreds of cars half buried in snow. It was beyond her imagination how so many people could be out on a night like this, braving these elements. But life goes on. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We sold out our entire stock of Christmas trees days ago." The sales associate wore the red and gold smock of Ditman's Furnishings. His plastic nametag read, "I'm Dave, here to help You!" He was as polite and helpful as he could be under the circumstances. One of Dave's previous customers had been interrupting their conversation with "I'm still waiting" every thirty seconds, complete with syncopated foot tapping. Meanwhile, not ten feet away, another pair of shoppers was nearly coming to blows over who snatched the last Fluffy Watkins doll off the shelf first. Dahlia stole a glance at the salesman's wristwatch. Oh, no! Time was running short. Panic settled in the pit of her stomach and started spreading its icy fingers outward. "Is there any place else you know that might still have Christmas trees?" She ransacked her memory for what her grandmother had said earlier, while helium-voiced chipmunks sang Christmas Don't Be Late through the store's speaker system. "What about Carlton's?" The salesman gave her a quizzical look. "You mean Carlton's Home and Garden?" "Yes. That Carlton's. Do you think they might have anything left?" "I don't know where you've been, but Carlton's went out of business some 15 years ago." Dahlia stared wordlessly at him, with the look of a child who's just been told Santa Claus is dead. "I'm still waiting," Mrs. Busybody chimed in again, tugging now at the poor salesman's smock. Dave dug deep and pretended to ignore the diminutive woman's claw tugging at his smock. "Look, I'd really like to help you. But at 8:45 pm on December 23rd ... well, nobody waits that late to go shopping for a Christmas tree." The intensity in Dave's slate grey eyes drew Dahlia's attention. He combed his hand through a thicket of wavy black hair as he thought to himself. She was aware he was genuinely trying to help her much sooner than she heard the words he was actually speaking. "And tomorrow's Sunday, too," he muttered half to himself. "Nothing will be open then." "Eight forty-five! Oh, my god!" Dahlia's face went so white the salesman feared she might fall over in a faint. Something ripped. A plume of stuffing and pink fuzz shot into the air from where Fluffy Watkins had formerly been the center of an insane tug-of-war. The man clutching the larger fragment fell backward into the women's section. He toppled a display rack, which then buried him in an avalanche of lacey braziers while Alvin, in a piercing warble, pined for a hula-hoop. Dave tuned all of it out. But when Mrs. Busybody pinged "I'm still waiting!" one last time, the strain of it all was more than patience could bear. With the tempered clarity of a cold blooded killer, he looked down on the woman and said, "Shut the hell up, you obnoxious, selfish old crone. Can't you see I'm with another customer?" Now he had two women blanched white as ghosts on his hands. He ignored, once again, the chaos around him and focused his attention back to Dahlia. "Morgan's is still open for another hour. They might have something, if you're willing to settle for an artificial tree." "Yes!" Color returned to Dahlia's face. "I mean, that's really what I wanted all along. Can you tell me how to get there?" Dave was rather surprised that anyone could get so excited over an artificial Christmas tree. He scribbled directions on the inside of a shoebox lid as fast as he could and then handed it over to Dahlia. It was so out of character for her, she may well have fainted after all if she had time to think about what she did next. She thanked the very kind salesman as she took the lid and then kissed him firmly on the cheek. And then for good measure, she planted another one on him, full on the lips. Dahlia was speeding through the exit when a roundish man in his late 50s approached here-to-help-you Dave. Mrs. Busybody smirked with satisfaction from behind his protective girth. "I need to have a word with you, Mr. Clarkson. Can you please step into my office?" * * * 'Twas the night when angels, like drunken sailors, did sing. The car would not start! Dahlia wished sex upon her car as she hammered her fists against the steering wheel. She turned the key once more. It made the sound Flipper the dolphin makes when he wants to be noticed, but that was as close as her frozen four-banger engine came to turning over. Again, sex was wished upon the car, as well as upon Toyota of America, the weather, and every living thing that creepeth within fifty feet of her worthless, sex bewished car. One passerby dared to look in on her, his breath close enough to reflect in long streamers of fog off her window. Dahlia grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes to slits. She lowered the glass, ready to give this jerk the full, unfiltered bandwidth of her rage. "Do you need a lift somewhere?" a familiar voice drifted in over the lip of her window. Dahlia was confused. "Who ... who are you?" His face was hidden by the bulky fur-lined hood that he wore. And it didn't help matters, either, that he no longer wore the red and gold smock of Ditman's Furnishings. "You know, even if you do manage to start your car, you're never going to make it anywhere in this blizzard." Silence beamed outward at the figure through the open window. "It's me. Dave." He pulled back the parka hood to reveal his face. And then, with equal measures of pride and sarcasm, he concluded, "here to help You." Snowflakes clung to his exposed shock of black hair as if drawn by a magnet. It gave the illusion of accelerated aging -- ten years with every blink of her eyes. Dahlia was not thinking clearly. She remained silent, and a little bit scared, wondering what this odd sort of stranger could possibly want. Dave pointed to the smear of red on his left cheek. "This is your lipstick, I presume?" Dahlia blushed. She was so terrible with names! But she never forgot a kiss. "I have a four-wheel drive customized Tundra with 400 horsepower and oversized, steel studded snow tires. It can take you anywhere you want to go, even in this weather. How about it?" "What about your job?" Dahlia asked sheepishly. "Shouldn't you be inside working?" "I just got fired." "What?! I mean, what for? Who gets fired two days before Christmas?" She had completely forgotten about his momentary loss of cool in front of Mrs. Busybody. More likely than not, his outburst never even registered in her mind. "It doesn't matter. It was a temp job. They wouldn't have kept me on past New Years, anyway." Everything is temporary, Dave tried once more to convince himself. He decided it was best for now not to bore a stranded motorist with irrelevant details, like the fact that he'd been working at Ditman's for the past seven years. Or that he was recently divorced. "Come on out of there. Morgan's will be closing in forty minutes." That snapped her back. Dahlia clambered out of her car as fast as she could. The snow was pummeling down now, much harder than she could ever remember. Hand in hand, the pair shuffled and skid across the slippery black ice of the parking lot to Dave's four-wheel drive. "Stick out your tongue," Dahlia said, as they stopped at his car. "What? What for?" "Catch a snowflake on your tongue," Dahlia sang, spreading her arms and cocking back her head, "and Santa will grant your special wish." In less than a heartbeat a snowflake settled and melted on her outstretched tongue. "And how do you know that?" "Because I just got mine!" she winked. Dahlia smiled into Dave's eyes. And then she planted another kiss on his lips. It was a long and lingering kiss that made both of them forget, for the moment, all about the cold. * * * "I've been in my share of snowstorms," Dave swore, "but I have never seen anything like this. I've got my floodlights on, and I can't see more than two feet in front of me." "Are we lost?" Dahlia's voice betrayed her growing fear. "I haven't seen a road sign in miles." "I haven't seen the road in miles," Dave laughed. "Maybe I should stop and see if there's any pavement beneath these big ol' tires." Dave had a manner about him that put Dahlia's mind straight at ease. She had sensed it the moment they met in Ditman's, and she felt it now, once again. She smiled in his direction. And then, unconsciously, she leaned in a little closer to him, as if she drew strength from sheer proximity to a man who could laugh in the midst of a deadly snowstorm. Using the line of trees as his guide, Dave did his best to keep the big truck on solid ground. But the wind was picking up now, and even the trees at the side of the road were quickly being swallowed in the ubiquity of white. "There's a light!" Dahlia pointed excitedly at a red-orange glow in the distance. Dave wheeled his 400 hp monster straight for the light, seeming now to care not at all whether he was on a road or not. "I don't believe it," Dave muttered to himself. But Dahlia heard him anyway. "You don't believe what?" Dave shut off the engine. The answer came in unison as they both read it off the weather beaten sign rimmed in flickering neon light."Carlton's Home and Garden. Open till 10. Tonight only." "There must have been more than one," Dahlia said. "Yeah. I guess so," Dave answered, knowing full well that old man Carlton held true to his oath that he would sooner die than franchise out. Dave climbed out of his car like he was stepping into a dream. "Let's go on inside," he said. "As long as we're here." * * * "May that I help you?" the overly pretentious Mr. Bennington inquired as Dahlia paused to examine the aluminum Christmas tree that shimmered beside the sales clerk's checkout station. "This tree is perfect," Dahlia proclaimed. It wasn't perfect, of course. It showed bare spots, and some of its limbs had been bent from customers' kids fawning over it for weeks. But at this late hour Dahlia was willing to settle for almost anything. "No, it is not" the salesman contradicted hastily, his nostrils on full display to the ceiling. "This Christmas tree is a display model, and it is not for sale." "Then would you be so kind as to pull one just like it from stock," Dave interjected, his impatience as thinly veiled as the other salesman's arrogance. If he didn't know getting a Christmas tree was so important to Dahlia he might have laughed at the incongruity of such a condescending man dressed in a curly-toed green elf costume. "I am so sorry, Sir. But we haven't any more of them in stock. Not of this model, nor any other Christmas tree. We are completely sold out." "Okay, fine. Then you can sell us the display model. It won't be getting you any more sales this year anyway," Dahlia argued quite logically. Dave scratched his head, wondering exactly what Dahlia meant by us. "I am most sorry, Madame. But that is not how we do business here at Carlton's." What planet is this guy living on? Dave wondered to himself. They were in a Home and Garden in god-knows-where, Minnesota, not in some frivolous specialty store on Rodeo Drive. He glanced around him. The hardwood flooring was badly scuffed. The walls looked as if they hadn't seen paint in ages. In all the store he could not identify a single item that was more recent than 1985. And where were all the customers? The Last Minute Gift The long months of Grammy Rose's illness had trained Dahlia well at withholding her tears. She did her best to draw upon that training when next she spoke. "Please," she said to Bennington, looking him straight in the eye. "I must have this Christmas tree. My grandmother is terribly ill, and ..." What she knew she had to say next forced her to stop. Her eyes were beginning to moisten. She steeled her eyes and steadied her voice before she went on. "I am so afraid this will be her last Christmas to spend with me. And I know having a Christmas tree this year -- especially a tree like this one -- it would mean everything to her." The sincerity in her voice and in her eyes cut Bennington to the bone. "I'll give you three hundred dollars for the tree." She reached into her purse and withdrew a matching, plasticized cardboard wallet. She plucked the stack of bills that were nestled inside. Without counting, she extended her arm and offered the salesman everything that she had. Dave never knew Dahlia's strength at holding back tears. And this was all new to him. He turned his back to the scene and buried his face in his hand. The snooty salesman buckled. "Downstairs." His voice wavered ever so slightly. "In the basement, I believe, are a few unsold Christmas wreaths. You can fashion some of those and a bare tree frame into a Christmas tree. The wreaths are two for five dollars. I have a frame that is a return item. You can have it for free." "Thank you! Oh, thank you so much!" She shook the salesman's hand vigorously, stopping just short of planting a kiss on his cheek, too. Bennington waved her off. "You must hurry, now. The store closes for the season in fifteen minutes." Dave barely had time to compose himself when Dahlia jerked his hand for him to follow her downstairs. "Wait a minute." Dave stopped. "Where is this returned Christmas tree frame?" Then, turning to Dahlia, "Don't you want to see it first? I mean, what if it's damaged?" "Never mind that!" the salesman dismissed with a snap of his fingers. "You'll never have time to find the wreaths before closing if you wait on me to drag the tree frame out of storage first. Now go. Rush!" Dave and Dahlia had scarcely bounded down the stairs when the salesman snatched the display model from beside his checkout station. "My work here is never done. Never done!" Bennington said to himself, as he stripped the little tree, limb by limb, down to its bare frame. * * * Dahlia found a shopping cart. Dave pushed it, aisle by aisle, past the herds of wicker reindeer. He navigated it through the jungle of Christmas lights that hung in tangled vines from pinewood shelves. Ornaments lay mismatched in a sea of torn open boxes that stretched as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance, a glimmer of purple caught Dahlia's eye. "Dave! Over there." Dahlia pointed excitedly. "There are my lights!" Dave pushed the cart to where he was directed and then stopped. Dahlia quickly loaded box after box of twinkle lights into the cart. "Look at the detail that has gone into these lights!" Dahlia exclaimed. "Each bulb is nestled into a uniquely styled reflective base. When they twinkle, it makes the whole set look like a varietal bouquet of blossoming flowers. These are exactly like the ones I had as a child. The purples and the pinks! Why, they haven't made lights like this in ..." "In over thirty years," a resonant voice chuckled behind her. They both whirled around, surprised to discover someone else had been down in the basement with them. "And on the shelf to your left, you will find they come in a lovely shade of coral, too." "Do you work here?" Dave asked as a matter of reflex, and then he nearly slapped himself for being so dumb. The man was round and jolly. He was dressed in bright red trousers with matching fur flocked coat. He sported a lengthy, full beard as white as the driven snow. And, as if it were really necessary, his costume included a plastic nametag that bore the name, "Nicholas." "Oh, no, no, no," he boomed. "I come here to play!" And with a theatrical sweep of his arm, a waist-high tabletop revealed its charm. An eight-car train chugged on cleverly lain track, complete with tunnels and billowing smokestack. "Oh, you are good," Dave applauded. "I can't even see the line in your beard." "Of course, I am good," Nicholas said as matter-of-factly as if he'd just been informed the sun rises at dawn. "You've been a very good boy this year yourself, Dave. And you, too, Dahlia." He winked. They froze for a moment, both of them trying to remember when it was, exactly, they had called each other by name. Neither of them could recall, but they shrugged it off and decided to play along with his holiday game. "I work here, too," Nicholas admitted at last. "Can I help you find anything else? There are some very lovely ornaments over on the next aisle. Gold and silver globes, with bright red ribbons tied on top." Dahlia's mouth hung open like it did when she was three, when Grammy Rose had said, "You can open them now, Dolly," and a magical silver tree dazzled before her wondering eyes. "I don't believe this is happening," she whispered to herself. When she went over to the next aisle, the ornaments were exactly as the uncanny salesman had described them. As far as she could tell, they were the very same ornaments that hung from the tree of her childhood. Dahlia stared down at her distorted reflection in the mirrored ornaments, lost in a trance. "We are looking for Christmas wreaths," Dave said at last. "Can you help us find them?" "Helping is what I do best!" Nicholas answered merrily. "But I'll have to go look in the back room for them. If they are anywhere in this store, that's where they'd be. Please wait right here." And then salesman Nick disappeared into an alcove to go fetch the wreaths. "Are you okay, Dahlia? You look like you saw a ghost." "I'm pretty sure," Dahlia said, "I just did." * * * Rose had just seen a ghost, too. It came, as it always had come, in the darkness of her dreams. It was a glorious, late autumn day. The aspens and maples wore their full palette of fire, blazing against the evergreen pines beneath a crystal blue sky. A twin-layer chocolate cake lay cooling on the kitchen window sill, fresh from the oven. It was Dahlia's third birthday, and she would soon be there. Rose was so proud of George, her one and only child. But he was special for more than just that. George had just been promoted. He was assigned to a project manager position at a company where he'd only been working for five years. That made today a double celebration. But it would be bittersweet, she knew. George's new assignment meant that his lovely wife Emily, to whom Rose had grown quite close, would be moving away to California, too. In the four years that she knew her, Emily had become more than just a close friend. She was fast becoming the daughter Rose always had prayed for but never had. And, of course, her precious little Dolly would be leaving her, too. Her entire family -- her entire life -- was about to pack up and leave her behind. Rose checked the film in her Kodak for the fourth time that day as the hour grew near. A dozen rolls more, lined up like soldiers, were at the ready on her living room table. The fancy huge Cadillac George was so proud to own had a distinctive horn, which carried quite a distance over a lonely country road. Rose, her camera aswing on the strap on her neck, was practically out the front door the moment it sounded. George blew the horn once more when his car rounded the final curve in the road that passed in front of the house he grew up in. Rose was already waiting at the unpaved shoulder. She was lining up a picture before the car had even rolled to a stop. Emily and Dahlia both had their arms out the windows, waving and smiling. "Look, Grammy! Look!" Dahlia screamed, as a rainbow of colors flashed from the pinwheel she waved out the window. "I got for my birf day!" Rose hastily aimed the camera for one picture more. And then she yelled something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. "Wait! Don't get out of the car just yet," she had said. By the grace of God, Dahlia had pulled her tiny arm back inside the car before the oncoming lumber truck swerved across the center of the road. It slammed into the Cadillac with such force as it passed, the car spun around twice and burst into flames. George died instantly from the impact. Emily wasn't nearly so lucky. The lumber rig driver kept right on rolling. He was never seen again. Although Rose forever blamed herself, she was actually a hero that day. She made all the local papers. Rose ran to the burning car before she could even imagine what was happening. With the impossible strength adrenaline can provide, she reached into the flames and pulled Emily's unconscious body free of the fiery wreckage. And then she rescued Dahlia. When the ambulance and fire trucks finally arrived, a smoking metal frame that was all that remained of the car. They found Rose unconscious some thirty feet clear. Her tattered clothing reeked of gasoline smoke, and her face bore the blisters of unthinkable heat. She held Dahlia tight in the wrap of her fire-scorched arms, still protecting her from the flames. Rose shook awake from her dream. But just as she had done every night for thirty-two years, she didn't cry out nor shed one single tear. Like a smothering blanket of snow, she held every last bit of it in. * * * It was five minutes to closing. The store had gone quiet. Salesman Nick emerged from the back room, empty handed. Dave looked quickly to his watch, and then he raised his voice. "And just what is this? You made us a promise, Nicholas. Where are the Christmas wreaths?" "Oh, there never were any wreaths" Nicholas answered coyly. "I said 'if' they were anywhere in the store. Remember? But there are none. We haven't carried Christmas wreathes in this store in years." Dahlia's hopeful look crumbled like a broken dream. Dave stared speechless at a lying, unshaven fat man. They were the victims of a bizarre prank, Dave thought, and they had just been played for suckers. In the silence followed, Dave leaned into Nicholas and said in a collected tone, "Let me tell you something, Nicholas. As one salesman to another. I know that if I ever tried to pull a stunt like yours, my butt would get --" He never finished the thought. It died in his throat when the reality of having no job to return to finally slammed home. He turned to kick the metal shopping cart in frustration and nearly fell over when, to his surprise, his foot swung only through open air. The cart Dahlia had loaded, with just the right trimmings, had mysteriously disappeared. "Now, now. Allow me to finish." Nicholas showed them his palms in an overt gesture of peace. "There are no wreathes," he continued, "but your Christmas tree is waiting for you upstairs. Bennington is putting the finishing touches on it right now. And we are certain you will be very pleased." Dahlia was so overcome she bent deep at the knees and thrust herself into the air. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she squealed when she landed. She stamped her feet in a frenzy of motion and clutched fists of air, seemingly desperate to burn off the excess of her excitement before it blew her apart. Her face lit up like ... well, like a Christmas tree. And tears. Unstoppable tears of joy rolled down her cheeks until, at last, she was finally able to speak. "Thank you, Nicholas! I knew you would come through. I knew it!" "You're welcome," Nicholas said to Dahlia alone. Dave had already wandered off, on a mission to find their missing cart. "But you'd better run along now. Bennington is a funny old elf. He'll lock the place up and throw you out in the snow if you're five seconds late." "Thank you so much, again." She shot a quick glance over in Dave's direction. "That makes two very sweet and caring salesmen I've met tonight." "I've done all that I can, and a little bit more. But now I must go" Nicholas said, neglecting to thank her for likening him to a good salesman. "I have a very busy day ahead of me." And with that, Nicholas turned on his heel and hurried towards the back room. Step by step, as his boots receded towards the shadows, Dahlia got that feeling again, of sinking into the snow. "I want to play, too!" a memory reverberated deep in her soul. "I want to catch magic!" "Santa?" a trembling voice reached out across the decades to touch him. Nicholas halted and spun, helpless to mis-heed the voice of a child. "Will Grammy be okay?" Nicholas let out a long and heavy sigh. "I can't change destiny, Dolly. But I assure you, Grammy Rose will be just fine." Dahlia laughed and cried in the same stuttered breath. "Thank you. I know now that she will be." She ran up to give him a great big teddy bear hug. But Nicholas had already vanished. He disappeared as mysteriously as the shopping cart had gone moments before. It was one minute to ten, and Dave was still staring down the long aisles in search of their vanished cart. "Never mind the stupid cart!" Dahlia screamed at him. "We have only a minute to run upstairs and get our tree!" * * * Dahlia slept nearly the entire way back, utterly spent from the ordeal she'd been through. And for that, Dave was grateful. It took every ounce of his attention to deliver them safely through the worst of the blizzard. Though often tempted, he couldn't bring himself to wake her until he'd found his way back to the vacated parking lot of Ditman's Furnishings. Even then, he was reluctant to do so. She looked so beautiful in her feminine slumber. He scanned the whitened lot in search of her car. Now that the crisis of time had passed, he had a half-baked notion he could be hero once more by jump starting her car. It was a disorienting search. The storm had obliterated virtually every landmark. At last, he located an oversized lump in the flat expanse of snow, a frosty tomb where, he realized then, her Corolla must be. Dave shook his head and silently mouthed the word wow. He nudged Dahlia awake. "Hey there, sleeping beauty. I'm going to need some directions if you're going to get home tonight." Dahlia blinked awake and smiled up at him, only somewhat embarrassed when she realized she had been sleeping on his shoulder. "That was some dog and pony show those two jokers put on back there, huh?" Dave was the type who liked to get to the bottom of things. He wanted to know what that trickster salesman had said to her while he was off looking for the missing shopping cart. He never did find it. Who would have made off with it, only to load its contents into his truck? Why all the sneaking around? Dave had been burning to ask her these and a slew of other questions ever since they left Carlton's. If that even was Carlton's. He had thought to return there another time, under more clement conditions. But he knew there was little chance he would ever find that place again. They had stumbled there blind, and it was miracle enough he'd found his way back. Had he not thought to use the local AM station as a beacon and drive in the direction of increasing signal strength, they may have frozen to death out there in the Minnesota wilderness. He was beginning to doubt that Carlton's had ever been. Perhaps, on hypothermia's edge, he had imagined the whole thing. "Honestly, Dave." Dahlia pouted. "I can't imagine why a grown man such as yourself cannot accept the simple and logical explanation that we were assisted tonight by Santa Claus and his elfin Christmas tree craftsman, Bennington." She gave him so serious a look when she said it, her face nearly split in two when she could sustain it no more. She erupted into a girlish fit of giggles. "Ho, ho, ho" Dave laughed derisively, to which Dahlia held her sides and laughed all the harder. Dave rolled his eyes. It was late. He knew he'd have to return to this another time. It was long after midnight when the powerful Tundra ground to a stop in front of Dahlia's house. The snowfall had abated to a gentle dusting. Dave ran to the back of his truck and hoisted a silvery Christmas tree up on his shoulder. Lariats of pink and coral lights looped around his neck and across his chest. Tucked under an arm was a motor and gear assembly. Dahlia's arms were laden with as many boxes as she could carry. A glittered white blanket draped over her shoulder. Like thieves in the night, they crept silently into the living room and set up the tree. * * * The following morning was the worst one yet. Grammy Rose's lungs had filled with so much fluid overnight, Dahlia had to fight off the urge to turn the old woman upside down and shake her. Dave waited patiently downstairs. His back was sore from having slept only three hours on Bram Stoker's old sofa. But thoughts of his own aches and pains wilted to nothingness when his ears absorbed the moans of an old, old woman and those of a machine slurping and sucking death from her lungs for the very last time. "Why must I close my eyes, Dolly?" Grammy Rose asked, as Dahlia led her down the stairs. "I can barely see with them open, anyhow." "Because I have a surprise for you. You'll see." But Grammy was in no mind for games. She peeked. "A man!" Rose exclaimed with shocking volume for a woman so recently rescued from drowning in her own phlegm. "Hi, I'm Dave," he blushed and waved. He felt "here to help You!" rising in his throat but managed to swallow it down like a dry-mouthed pill. "That's not the surprise," Dahlia corrected. "Now close your eyes, Grammy." She placed a hand over Grammy Rose's eyes this time, steadying her shoulder with her other. "The hell he's not!" Grammy insisted. Dave laughed in the background. Dahlia maneuvered her crazy old grandmother in front of the tree and then lowered her hand. "Okay. Now you can open them." Grammy Rose's eyes grew wide and her mouth hung open. They had placed the tree up on a pedestal, in front of the large bay window that overlooks the pines. The frosted silver tree dazzled and danced. Silver and gold mirrored globes adorned with bright red ribbons on top rotated slowly before her. Grammy's face went blank as stone. From within her stone, Rose peered out at 1978 once more. Everything about the tree was exactly the same. The purple and pink and coral lights. The rotating base. The glittered white blanket that shrouded the motor ... not a single detail was missing. Rose had asked for a Christmas tree to stir a sweet memory of Dolly, from when she was only a child, so innocent and sweet that she could be swept away in the wonder of magic. But Rose could never have imagined this. The roles, now, had been reversed. It was she who was swept away by the power of Christmas magic, and Dahlia who witnessed unbridled joy burning bright within the eyes of a rediscovered child. Tears rolled down from ancient wells Dahlia was certain had dried up a long time ago. She held tighter to her Grammy Rose, but she did not say a word. Together they embraced, as silence wept across a vast sea of time. Finally, Dahlia could stand the silence no more. "Well, Grammy?" she asked, breaking the spell. "Do you like the Christmas tree we got you?" Grammy Rose looked over and smiled like a three-year-old girl at the other half of we. Then she turned back to Dahlia. "Next to you, sweet Dolly," she said at last, "Next to you, it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." * * * Grammy never made it to Christmas Day. She died quietly in her sleep during the night of Christmas Eve. When Dave and Dahlia found her in the morning she had her bobbin lace nightgown on and rabbit fur slippers on her feet. She was still smiling. An embrittled family scrapbook lay open in her lap. Dahlia stooped to examine the book and wondered why she had never seen it before. But Grammy had known. The scrapbook was filled with memories that were too close to "that time." As Dahlia would later discover, it was a precious, last minute gift. It contained letters and newspaper clippings, along with hundreds of photos of George and Emily and of herself as a baby in their arms. The Last Minute Gift The scrapbook lay open to the memory Rose had chosen to take with her on her journey: a faded picture of a little girl in pigtails and flannel jammies, dancing in front of a magic, silver tree. Beside the photograph, in a child's scribble, in pencil that was barely readable, were written these words: Thank you, Santa. For the bestest Kristmas ever. Grammy could not possibly have been able to read those words last night. But no matter. The words were engraved in her soul and seared indelibly into her memory from a thousand readings prior. And beneath Dolly's words, in the bold ink of an adult hand, was this: Thank you, Santa. For the bestest daughter a grandmother could ever have. - The End - -- mynameisben Christmas, 2010