The Christmas Tags I Read Out Loud

When I came in with the last load, Misty was sitting on the couch.

She had pulled her old gray sweatshirt down over her hands the way she did when she was a girl and she was scared.

“Don’t,” she said, low enough that only I heard. “Leah. Please don’t.”

“I’m not going to say anything about anybody,” I told her. “I’m just going to hand out presents.”

Mama was in her recliner in the corner in her Christmas sweater, the white one with the red collar and the little knitted reindeer that she has worn every Christmas since I was in high school.

She had her coffee and a box of tissues on the little table beside her.

She didn’t say anything. She just nodded at me, once.

Gunner was hopping up and down on the carpet. Harley was sitting cross-legged with her hands in her lap trying to be patient.

Dakota was leaning back on his elbows like he didn’t care, which meant he cared a great deal.

There was winter light coming in the front window, that thin gray-white light you only get on a December morning in the hollers, and the colored lights on Mama’s tree looked brighter against it than they did at night.

I knelt down on the carpet in front of the tree. I had on my red flannel shirt, the one Daddy gave me the last Christmas he was alive, and my long dark hair kept falling in my face.

I picked up the first present. It was small and square. I turned the tag over so I could read it, and I read it plain, the way you’d read off a grocery list.

“This one says Gunner,” I said. “From Aunt Leah.”

I held it out to him, and Gunner took it with both hands, and being five he did not care one bit what the tag said.

He just tore into it. It was a pack of John Deere toy trucks, and he hollered like he’d won the lottery.

I picked up the next one. “Harley,” I said. “From Aunt Leah.”

Harley took it carefully. She’s the kind who saves the paper. She peeled the tape back one piece at a time, and inside was a bike helmet, purple, to match the bike from last year. She put it right on her head over her pajamas.

“Thank you, Aunt Leah,” she said, and then she looked over at her mama on the couch. Just a look. Then back at me.

“Dakota,” I said, and I held out a flat box. “From Aunt Leah.”

It was a camo hoodie. He held it up, nodded, and said, “Thanks,” the way boys his age say it. But he turned the tag over in his fingers and read it again before he put it down.

I went around like that. I didn’t hurry, and I didn’t slow down either. Every tag I read soft and even. “Gunner. From Aunt Leah.” “Harley. From Aunt Leah.” “Dakota. From Aunt Leah.”

Boots for Harley. A coloring set. A book about whitetail deer for Dakota. A puzzle for Gunner.

Each of them had a new winter coat folded into the bottom of a box, which they barely looked at, the way kids never look at coats.

I could feel Misty behind me. I didn’t turn around to look at her.