I'm Down by Mishna Wolff

Author:Mishna Wolff
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Family & Relationships, Personal Memoirs, Cultural Heritage, Family Relationships
ISBN: 9780312378554
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-05-15T07:00:00+00:00

Christmas Eve, we spent with Dad, and we were to go to our mom’s for Christmas Day after presents. So Christmas morning Dad made a fire, and when we came up to the living room we found our stockings filled with candy from See’s. Dad got so happy watching us take down our stockings and fill our mouths with junk, maybe because our mom didn’t like us having sugar, or maybe because he ate half of it. But either way, he was stoked. And as he made his coffee, he called Jackie to wish her a Merry Christmas and I felt reassured in every way.

While Dad was on the phone I had a weird moment. I looked down at my stocking and imagined it filled with pot. Not literally—I wasn’t hallucinating. But I wondered how much candy one plant could buy and if anyone ever bought candy that way. And when my dad hung up the phone and returned to the living room, I cleared my mind by stuffing my mouth with caramel.

At gift-giving time I had a certain amount of apprehension—mostly because Dad had a habit of harshly judging his gifts if they weren’t good enough. This year, my sister and I had gone halvsies on a shirt from Frederick &Nelson. The shirt was on sale and not particularly nice, but it was in one of their pretty boxes with tissue paper. And this was very important, because if it wasn’t in a good box, Dad would think we had gotten the shirt at an off-price store and call us selfish.

Dad smiled as he peeled back the wrapping paper to reveal the department store box. “Let’s see what we have in here . . .” and Anora and I watched in anticipation as he lifted the shirt out of the box. But the smile slid off his face as he saw the shirt and then turned it around to see if the back side was any better. “I guess you ladies aren’t really doing a good job saving your money,” he said. And, as though physically repelled by the shirt, he stood up and went to the kitchen for another cup of coffee—and, I guessed, to decide whether his selfish daughters were present-worthy after giving him that shitty shirt. After an ungodly amount of time, he reentered the living room, sat down on the sofa with his coffee, and took a sip. Then he silently handed Anora a present.

She tore though the wrapping paper, her eyes bugging out of her head as she revealed a spanking new Cabbage Patch Kid. She squealed and jumped up and began running in circles with the box over her head.

“I can’t believe it! I’m a mother!” She jumped up on the couch. “I’m a mother!”

Dad finally smiled, letting us off the hook, and joked, “So I did okay?” And Anora ran up to him and started kissing him all over his face. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you! This is the happiest day of my life!”

I was super jealous at this point and sat on the couch sulking.

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