Anna's Taboo Christmas Gift

She looked at her phone and checked her calendar. "Finals are over the Friday before Christmas. If you take Christmas week off I can come up on Saturday and we can do what we need to do. And then we can celebrate Christmas without all this depressing crap hanging over our heads."

Her brother nodded. "That sounds like a plan. That will give us a solid eight or nine days to clean the old place out."

He rose, stuffing as many of the dirty dishes and utensils into the dishwasher as he could. Then he turned, a sly smile on his face. "How about some dessert?"

Dessert? Anna pricked up her ears. She was so full, but a little more couldn't hurt, could it? It was only one day a year, and she'd been careful about her weight.

"So what would you like? I've got pumpkin pie and blackberry."

Her mouth watered. "Why not both?"

Chapter 3

It was six o'clock on Friday night, and the holiday party was in full swing.

Not that WrightFax Lending and Mortgage threw a great big holiday bash, like some larger companies, Jimmy thought. They weren't big enough for that. And Oscar Wright, founder, CEO, and benevolent dictator of the company, thought that the money his employees worked hard to bring in could be better spent on salaries and bonuses than a huge party that everyone would forget about inside of a week. It was an attitude that the people who worked for WrightFax heartily shared.

So instead of renting a hotel ballroom somewhere in the Gold Coast and having catered prime rib, the party was held in their offices close to the Chicago loop, and the food was mostly supplied by the employees themselves, who all brought in a dish to share. Dress was business casual at best, and the ugly sweater contest had drawn some truly eye-watering examples. Some people ate at the tables in the conference rooms. Others wandered from area to area, ducking in and out of conversations and grazing at the buffet like a herd of well-fed buffalo.

Jimmy was one of the latter. He held a plate piled high with finger foods in one hand, a beer in the other, and leaned against a wall, content to let the conversation wash over him. But his mind was a thousand miles away, sorting through a list of things he and Anna should do over the coming week at the house.

It hadn't surprised him that his sister didn't want to sell their childhood home or rent it out. Hell, he felt the same way himself. In a very real way, it was a tangible, physical reminder of their parents' lives. Though he knew his parents had lived in a couple of apartments before they bought the place in Lombard, Jimmy literally could not remember living anywhere else before he left home for college. Their father had made enough money at his job that their mother could be a full-time housewife. So she was always there, a warm, steady presence, as quick to dish out an order to do his homework as she was a handful of cookies. And their father had doted on his wife and two children, grumbling as he had ferried them to after-school activities in a way that was belied by his obvious devotion to all of them.

Honestly, cleaning out the house, whether it be to rent it out or sell it or even to get it ready for some other purpose, seemed like a far more final reminder of the end of their parents' lives than any funeral could ever be.

"Mitchell."

He startled, and covered it with a smile and a nod. "Meena. How's it going?"

"Nothing that a good man couldn't take care of," she said with a direct look. Jimmy flushed and glanced away. "I hear you're going to be out all next week?"

"Yeah. My sister and I have to clean out our folks' place." He popped the last bite of a chicken wrap into his mouth and chewed. "And I've got to burn the rest of my vacation time before the end of the year, anyway. So I'm taking next week off."

"Your parents, right." Meena nodded sympathetically, putting her hand on his arm. The Indian woman was very attractive, in a fleshy, overpadded sort of way. Right now she was wearing jeans and a cream-colored sweater that accented her dark skin and lush curves. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah, I guess." He looked down at his feet. "I was talking to an old girlfriend of mine a few weeks ago. She lost her father last year. Cancer. And she thought that I had it easier, since I didn't have to watch my parents die, a little piece at a time, over months. And I thought she had it easier. Since at least she had a chance to tell her father goodbye. And I didn't."

Meena nodded understanding, though it was obvious her mind was elsewhere. "You know, Jimmy. There's an old tradition around here."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She leaned close, and he felt the swell of her breast against his arm. "Every year, someone does something really naughty at the holiday party." Her breath was faintly tinged with wine. "Something they regret later, but seems like a really good idea at the time. Like getting so wasted they pass out at the bus stop. How about it? Want to go to the supply room and make a mistake together?"

Jimmy was trying to find a graceful way to turn the other woman down when he was rescued by the most unlikely person imaginable. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," a nasal voice said. Jimmy let out a clandestine sigh of relief. "This is a work function, Meena. That sort of talk is damn close to sexual harassment."

"Fred." Meena looked down her nose at the older man. "You're such a buzzkill. Take a good long look, Jimmy. This is what happens when you start to think of humans as resources."

The short HR manager snorted and took another drink of his beer. "And you're what happens when your libido takes the place of good sense. Jimmy."

"Um. Yeah?"

"Just wanted to make sure you handed off all your projects before you took next week off. The holidays are crazy enough without people not knowing who's in charge of what. We had some snafus last year."

"Yeah." Jimmy nodded, though it wasn't his fault that a disgruntled ex-manager had approved overlapping vacation time right before she quit. "Olivia has everything she should need while I'm sorting out things with my sister."

"Your sister, yeah." A gleam came into Fred's eyes. One Jimmy was pretty sure he didn't like. "I've seen her picture in your cubicle. She's the one who looks like a taller, hotter Taylor Swift, right?"

"Oh, sweet Jesus," Meena moaned, putting the lie to her Hindu heritage. "I did not just hear that. You're, like, fifty, Fred. And she's barely out of high school."

The older man looked up into Jimmy's glaring eyes, and then hastily away. "Yeah. Right. Sorry." He smiled weakly. "I didn't mean anything. No offense, right?"

"Fred," Meena grated out, her voice hard. "Just go away."

"So here's an interesting question," Jimmy sighed as Fred scuttled off. "Who do I file a complaint to when the person I'm complaining about is the fucking HR manager?"

"Oh, screw him. He's not worth worrying about. Did you ever meet his wife? Then you'd know why he's such a creep. Bitter, snaggle-toothed nag who only smiles when something awful happens to someone else."

"Doesn't surprise me." Jimmy tipped up his bottle to take a last swallow of beer. It burned pleasantly, going down to his stomach. He was tempted to grab another. But his head was swimming a bit, which told him it was time to leave. "I'm off for home," he said instead. By the time his train dropped him off, he would be safely sober. "I've got a long weekend coming up."

"You sure?" Meena's voice was low, but her look was frank. "I meant what I said before. You're a hell of a good-looking guy, Jimmy. Especially for a programmer." Her lips curled invitingly. "I could do better than the supply closet. We could go back to my place."

"I'm flattered," he said honestly. "But I'm sure."

Jimmy pulled up to his house early the next morning. In the wan December sunlight, the house looked strangely abandoned and forlorn. Unlike the rest of the houses on the block, the driveway and sidewalk were unshoveled. Snow lay in an undisturbed swathe along the driveway from the garage down to the street, and from the front door down to the sidewalk. The sidewalk itself was bracketed on both sides by shoveled neighbors, stopping neatly at the property lines.

I have to do something about that. Jimmy scowled. My parents lived here for over twenty years. You would think one of the neighbors would have the decency to shovel the front walk. How many times did Dad shovel someone else's sidewalk, just because he could? He didn't ask for money for it. He just liked to help people out.

Luckily, the snow shovel was still in the garage. Inside of half an hour, he had both the driveway and the walks cleared off. The blacktop of the driveway, freshly repaved over the summer, gleamed like polished glass.

He was just tapping the last of the snow off the blade when he heard the rumble of an approaching motor. He turned, smiling, as Anna's car pulled into the driveway. Through the windshield, she could almost have been their mother, returning from a trip to the grocery store.

"Jimmy!" She flew out of the car, catching him up in a hug. "Merry Christmas!"

"Not for another week yet," he corrected, holding her at arm's length. Her golden hair shone in the sun, and her eyes were sparkling with good cheer.

She made a face at his correction. "It's Christmas-time," she said. "That should count for something. How long have you been here?" she asked, in one of her flea-hopping changes of subject.

"Not long. I haven't even been inside yet."

"Brrr." Anna looked around the entranceway as he closed the front door behind them. "It's freezing in here."

"I've kept the heat down," Jimmy explained. "Just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing up. No use paying for what we're not using."

"Well, turn it up, will you?" She huddled deeper into her coat. "We don't need to reenact Christmas at Valley Forge."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted sarcastically and strode over to the thermostat. In seconds, the reliable old furnace in the basement groaned, and warm air began to rush up through the heating vents.

"So how was the drive up?"

Anna made a face. "Well, it's central Illinois. And it's December. It's flat and cold, but it's also boring."

He laughed, familiar with the mind-numbing tedium of driving through Illinois in the winter. "What do you want to do first?"

"I think we should decorate," Anna declared, unzipping her coat. She walked around the living area, pulling curtains back. Sunlight poured into the house, pushing back the gloom. "I can get all of the Christmas stuff up out of the basement. And if you get a tree, we can set up and decorate it right here in the living room, just like we used to."

"In the living room?" he asked, pulling a puzzled face.

"Well, yeah. Where else should we put it?"

"I was thinking the garage."

"The garage?" Anna looked at him as if he was missing a few key brain lobes. "Why the garage?"

"Well, then it will be a lot easier to take down once Christmas is over," Jimmy deadpanned. "We don't even have to decorate it. And when we're done. we can just open the garage door on Sunday morning and pitch it out to the sidewalk."

He looked up and into the distance. "Just imagine, Anna. You can wake up on Christmas morning and go out to the garage, look up at the tree, pretend it's covered with lights and decorations. And if I get you a present-"

"If you get me a present?" Anna demanded.

"Right. Then you can open it up and it'll be just like Christmas was when you were a little girl."

Anna eyed him levelly as he broke into snickers. "Coal. Coal in your stocking, Jimmy. Nothing but coal. Great big heaps of coal."

"Hey. Back in the day, kids would have been grateful to get coal as a present. You know. What with all the starvation and scurvy and whatnot. You couldn't eat it, but a least it would keep you warm."

She pointed at the door. "Tree. Now."

He picked up his keys. "What kind do you want?"

"The biggest one we can fit in the house," she shouted, as he closed the door behind him. He could hear her faintly as he walked to his car. "If this is going to be our last Christmas at home, we're going to send it out in style!"

That doofus, Anna thought with a smile as she dug through boxes in the basement. He thinks he's so funny.

Though the thought of her sitting forlornly on the cold cement in the garage, staring at a bare pine tree, did make her chuckle, just a little.

She spied a box that looked familiar, pushed aside a bundle of camping equipment, and pulled it out into the brighter light. Christmas stuff was written neatly on the top of the box in black sharpie. A box right next to it proved to hold the elusive Christmas ornaments. She blew the dust off the top of the boxes and hauled them upstairs, where the furnace had finally driven back some of the clammy chill. It wasn't warm by any stretch of the imagination, but at least when she took off her coat she wasn't risking frostbite.

She opened the first box and closed her eyes, trying to remember the way the house looked the previous Christmas, the last one when her parents had been alive.

The problem, she thought, as she began to hang things up and set things out, was although it looked like Christmas outside, and the calendar said that Christmas was only seven days away, it didn't feel like Christmas. Not deep down inside in her heart, where it counted. She remembered coming home from school as a little girl, or back from playing over at a friend's house. And the sound of Christmas music and the smell of fresh-baked cookies would hit her as soon as she opened the door.

The thought made her blink her eyes in nostalgia. Well, I can take care of one. And Jimmy can help me take care of the other. It only took moments to plug the stereo in, and not much more than that to put a handful of disks into the CD changer. Merry music began to echo through the house, and by the time Jimmy got home with a pine tree strapped to the top of his car, she had prepared a shopping list.

"What's this?" he said, peering at the paper.

In answer, she opened the door of the fridge. It was as bare and empty as Scrooge's heart. "Were you planning on eating delivery for the next week?"

Jimmy raised his hands in surrender. "All right. That makes sense. But this is an awful lot of food for just the two of us."

"It's Christmas," she pointed out. "And I'm going to be here until school starts up again. That's three weeks. And if there's leftovers, I can take them home with me. And so can you." She made shooing motions with her fingers. "Go."

"You're starting to remind me a lot of Mom." Her brother heaved a long-suffering sigh. "You could have made this a lot easier, Anna, if you had thought of it a few days ago."

She stuck her tongue out at him as the door closed again, and continued decorating. Every item seemed to make things come into closer sync - the calendar and the season matching what her eyes saw and her ears heard. A broad red ribbon was stretched over the doorway that led from the living room to the family room, hung with old Christmas cards, some of them more than twenty years old. Some were from her grandparents, now all sadly gone. Others had been cards she or Jimmy had made for her parents, or that Carl and Lindsey Mitchell had given to each other. One, faded and yellowed with age, was the letter that Santa had given to Jimmy, announcing her own impending arrival.

Other items swiftly followed. The incredibly tacky but much beloved collection of Disney holiday statuettes was arranged on the mantle over the fireplace, and Anna wondered if she could find this years' edition online somewhere to keep the streak going. She arranged a set of fat white candles on the dining room table, interspersed with sprigs of plastic holly. A set of throw pillows, decorated with snowmen and reindeer, found a place on the couch, and the tiny Charlie Brown Christmas tree, wrapped in a blue felt blanket and with one red ornament dangling from a drooping branch, was placed on a side table. And, last of all, the two Christmas stockings were hung by the fireplace. Jimmy's as always on the left; hers on the right.

There. Now it looks like Christmas here.

Jimmy was back inside of an hour, lugging a series of bulging plastic bags. "I swear, this neighborhood." He shook his head. "I haven't lived here in three years and the lady at the checkout line recognized me right away. She asked how you were doing, by the way."

Anna smiled and began to help her brother unpack. Some of the food went into the fridge. Some of it stayed out. "I found Mom's recipe box," she said. "What kind of cookies do you want to make?"

"I'll let you do it," Jimmy said. He shrugged out of his coat and flexed his arms. "I have big, important, manly things to do."

"Like what?"

"Like setting up the tree." He peered into the box of decorations. "Oh, good. The stand is in here. That will help."

"Just make sure you put down the skirt, too," she called after him as he disappeared into the living room. "I don't want to have to vacuum up a bunch of stupid pine needles."

She hummed to herself, enjoying the music as she mixed the first batch of cookies. Luckily, all of her mother's baking materials were still where she had left them. As a series of dark mutters and low-voiced swearing emerged from the living room, she slid the first tray of double-chocolate-chip cookies into the oven. While those cooked, she found her mother's largest dutch oven and began putting together the ingredients for her mother's favorite beef stew recipe. Lindsey Mitchell had been a woman with decided opinions when it came to meals. And one of them was that big, hearty meals like stew, gumbo, jambalaya, chili, and spaghetti were best served on cold winter nights.

"Smells good." Jimmy came wandering into the kitchen. "Making stew?"

"For supper," she nodded, swatting his hand aside as he reached for the bowl of cookie dough. "Stop that. It's got raw eggs and you'll end up barfing your socks up."

Denied, he settled for some carrots. "So how were finals?"

"Not as hard as everyone made them think they were going to be," she said. "I swear, I crammed for my psych exam all weekend long. I think I re-read the entire book. And then it was so easy. I could have saved myself the trouble and gotten a couple of hours more sleep."

Jimmy grinned. "So I should expect straight A's and a spot on the Dean's List when your grades come in?"

"Maybe." She smiled in shy pride. Her brother had always been the one teachers called "the smart one," while she was "the pretty one," though she was no dummy. Too many educators, she had thought privately, thought that if a girl had nice pair of tits it meant she couldn't have brains, either. Making the Dean's List during her first semester at Bradley would be a feather in her cap, even if she was still in the general studies curriculum. Jimmy had graduated cum laude from the University of Illinois, with a degree in computer science. To be honest, she felt her brother was wasting his time working for a penny-ante outfit like WrightFax, but he seemed to be happy there. At least he wasn't like some of the computer geeks she knew down in Peoria. Half of them where so pale and pasty they looked like vampires who would catch fire if they were exposed to sunlight. And the other half spent so much time eating junk food and playing video games they started to resemble the couches they sat on. All stuffing and no muscle.

"Well, the tree's up," Jimmy said. "Finally." He made a face. "Though it took forever to get it to stand up straight. I thought I was going to have to run a couple of guy-wires to the walls. And maybe brace it, too."