The House Without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock

Author:Gail Rock
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497673816
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

Chapter Seven

By the time Grandma and I went to bed that night, I was sorry I had brought the tree home. I was beginning to feel guilty about Gloria Cott not having a tree—“the poor souls,” Grandma always called the Cott family. And I was sorry I had ever raised my hand in class. I shouldn’t have let anyone know that my dad wouldn’t buy a Christmas tree. There was something very bad about it, and it was going to ruin our whole Christmas.

I crawled into the old four-poster bed and huddled up between the freezing sheets. Grandma was always warm, even on the coldest nights, and I loved to sleep with her because she let me put my cold feet on her warm legs. Whenever I had to cry over something, it almost always happened at that time of the night. Being close to Grandma in bed gave me some sense of freedom and relief, and whatever had hurt me during the day usually came out then. Sometimes she could help me with my problems and sometimes not, but she always held on to me, and that made me feel I could get through it. That night I cried and cried.

“How long you goin’ to cry?” she asked softly.

“I don’t know. Maybe all night!” I said, still sobbing.

“Don’t you worry, he’ll get over it,” she said.

“He’s so mean …”

“He’s not mean,” Grandma said. “Jamie’s a good man.”

“Jamie?”

“That’s what we called him when he was a boy. He was proud then too. He always had a lot of pride.”

“What’s so great about pride?”

“It’s a way of … of thinkin’ well of yourself. You’ve got it. That’s why you hit that kid today.”

“Was that pride?”

“You were stickin’ up for me because you love me, and I’m your family. Your father insists on payin’ our way because he loves us, and we’re his family. He’s always been the kind who wouldn’t take nothin’ from nobody, even if we were starvin’. Ten, fifteen years ago, during the Depression, we had a bad time.”

“What was the Depression?”

“Wasn’t any jobs. Nobody had any money. Lots of people had to go on charity. Your father wouldn’t even take the flour or the potatoes the government was handing out free.”

“Would Dad have let you starve?”

“Of course not. But he was pretty stubborn about acceptin’ anything he hadn’t earned. Wouldn’t take charity.”

“When you take a present, like a Christmas present,” I asked, “is that charity?”

“No,” Grandma said. “That’s a whole different thing. A gift is somethin’ from someone who wants to make you happy.”

“He doesn’t love me!” I said, starting to cry again. “He just doesn’t love me!”

“Hush, now, I’m not listening to such talk! The truth is,” she said quietly, “your dad hasn’t wanted a Christmas tree in this house because it reminds him of your momma and your first Christmas with the three of you together, and it makes him feel bad.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He misses her an awful lot.”

“You mean the tree made him unhappy?”

“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s not your fault.

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