Eleven Keys Under the Christmas Tree

The boxes were all the same size, about as big as a deck of cards, and every one of them was wrapped in the same shiny red paper with a gold stick-on bow.

There were eleven of them. I counted twice, standing by the stairs with a paper plate of ham balls in my hand, because something about the way they were lined up under the tree made my stomach go tight.

It was Christmas Eve in our new house. Well, it was our house on paper. On Christmas Eve, with thirty-one Halvorsens in the front room, it did not feel like it belonged to me at all.

Curt Halvorsen, my fiancee’s father, stood up from the recliner that used to be his dad’s and clapped his hands twice. The room went quiet the way rooms always went quiet for Curt.

“Before we do the kids’ presents,” he said, “I’ve got one more thing. Deanna and I talked about this a long time, and we think it’s the right way to start the new chapter.”

He bent down with a grunt, picked up the first red box, and read the tag. “Rick and Lori.” He handed it across the coffee table to his younger brother, who looked as puzzled as I felt.

Then he kept going. His sister Nancy and her husband, Jim. His other sister, Kim. Cousin Beth. Cousin Steve and his wife. On and on, a name on every tag, until all eleven boxes were gone.

Jordyn leaned toward him while people were still tearing paper. “Dad,” she said quietly, “what about Grandma? Doesn’t Grandma get one?”

“Mom doesn’t drive anymore, honey,” Curt said, patting her shoulder. “She won’t need one.” Then he turned back to the room, already smiling, and the moment was gone for everybody but us.

Rick got his open first. He held up a brass key on a plain ring and turned it in the lamplight like he did not know what it was.

Then he looked at the front door, and then he looked at me.

“It’s a key to the house,” Curt said. He said it warmly, like a man giving out something precious, and I believe he thought he was. “Holidays stay right here. Nothing changes. This is still everybody’s home.”

Somebody said, “Oh, Curt.” Somebody else started clapping, and the rest of them followed, the way people do at a wedding when they are not sure what else to do with their hands.

Jordyn was sitting on the arm of the couch beside me. She took my hand, and she squeezed it so hard that the little diamond I had given her in August bit into my knuckle.

I did not say a word. I set my plate of ham balls down on the stairs, smiled at Rick because he was smiling at me, and counted the keys again in my head. Eleven keys to a door I had paid for.