The Christmas Tags I Read Out Loud

Dwayne was a good-looking boy from over toward Oceana who could fix anything with a motor, and he worked as a mechanic on underground equipment until the mine he serviced shut down.

I want to be fair to Dwayne, because Mama raised us to be fair. He was not a mean man.

He never once raised a hand to my sister or those kids. He worked hard when there was work, and when there wasn’t, he went looking for it.

But Dwayne had a way of disappearing into himself when things went bad. When the mine shut down, he got quiet.

When the bills stacked up, he got quieter. By the time he took a pipeline job up in Pennsylvania, he and Misty were barely speaking.

The divorce went through in April. The family court judge in Pineville set child support at five hundred and some dollars a month, which is not a fortune for three kids but it was something, and for April and May the money came.

Then in June it stopped. No call, no letter, no reason. Misty texted him and got nothing. She called his mother, who said Dwayne was working seven days a week and she’d tell him.

That same month the gas station where Misty ran a register cut her to twenty-two hours a week.

She was paying rent on a single-wide on a lot outside Mullens and keeping three kids in shoes on maybe a thousand dollars a month.

I saw it happening. I’d come by on a Sunday with a pan of soup beans and cornbread and find the cabinets down to ramen and a box of saltines.

I’d slip a twenty into the coffee can over her stove when she wasn’t looking.

So in September I started picking up doubles. A nursing home always needs somebody for second shift, and I said yes every time Deb, our scheduler, called.

I worked sixteen-hour days three and four times a week from September to the middle of December.

That overtime came to a little over two thousand dollars after taxes. I spent nineteen hundred of it on Christmas for Misty’s three kids.

I kept a list taped inside my kitchen cabinet and crossed things off as I bought them.

The bow and the arrow kit for Dakota. A purple bike for Harley with streamers on the handles.

The battery tractor for Gunner, the green one, because he loved anything John Deere. Winter coats and boots for all three. Pajamas. Books. A jewelry box. A dump truck.

I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just could not stand the thought of Christmas morning in that single-wide with three candy canes on the table. I’d lie in bed after a double and think about it.

On Christmas Eve I loaded everything in my car and drove it over to Misty’s. She met me at the door in her socks and cried when she saw how much there was, and I said, “Hush, it’s from me, I wanted to.”

We hid everything in her bedroom closet because the kids were already asleep. She hugged me twice at the door. I went home and slept nine hours, the first time I’d done that since August.

And the next morning at Mama’s, Dakota held up his bow and told me his daddy bought it.

That was last year. I’m telling you all of that so you understand that I didn’t wake up one morning wanting to embarrass my sister.