December at Reny’s
She couldn’t tell if the sun was rising or setting, just behind the mountain ridge, only as bright as a beginning or an end. A few snowy pines left no shadows on the tinsel ground and one tree in the center glowed with candied lights. A cardinal sat disinterested in a birch tree, unable to fly away, and a deer, nearer than anything else, stared at her. She stopped her cart.
She wasn’t shopping for Christmas cards but they were placed in the way of more essential items like hydrogen peroxide and oatmeal. Dozens of 5x8 boxes arranged an assortment of painted wintry scenes. A sticker on each read, “16 cards and 16 matching red envelopes for only $2.99” -- less than the price of one card at the stores in town on Main Street. Her eye caught the picture of a town’s square where pairs of people crossed the footbridge hung with a wreath, children dressed a snowman, and the same deer from before stood across from two mallards floating in the stream, big victorian houses and a few cottages all faced themselves towards the church in the middle whose windows were so brightly lit and warm against the cold, pale air there looked to be a fire set inside of it. The steeple held a luminary clock in the sky, like the one she hears chime every hour from her bedroom. This was the busiest card, the least focused, it was too far away to see anything up close, providing nothing but context for the other cards which she thought were probably set in the same town.
Christmas songs played on the stereo speakers, the ones that had never been replaced by anything new. Her wool coat got hot and she put her gloves in a ball in her pocket that hadn’t been dirtied with dollar bills and change. She looked still at the patchwork of cards, there was enough time to send them this year if she wanted to. Although she usually didn’t because, for the most part, she couldn’t see the use in it and didn’t care for receiving them either. It was a favor, she told herself, to save people from more paperwork they’d feel bad about throwing away and annoyed at keeping.
There were some holiday cards she didn’t mind receiving -- collages of pictures from the families she didn’t see anymore, of children she’d strolled in carriages and read books to who were now becoming teenagers, posing with their parents who’d decided to stay together after all. Their uninterrupted tans were more noticeable to her now than they had been, reminding her of California’s relentless demand on everything it touched to keep its color. Unlike here, she thought, where everything died once a year but the evergreens, and spring came back each time afterwards with its cheeks blushing, offering what couldn’t be refused.
She knew the family updates printed on the back were written dryly, without her in mind -- where they traveled, which sports teams qualified for the championships. She knew they were meant for the masses but she preferred the distant quality of the communication, even if some of the families were part of her own, even if she saw the fix of a child’s eyes was changing, moving toward something it didn’t know how to look at, and there was nothing she could do about it.
White Christmas started playing above her, softening her brow. Maybe she could send cards this Christmas. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to try closing the enormous margin she let fall between her and everything else. Surely there was a story to tell or a thing to say, though she didn’t know what it was yet. She saw a box on the lower shelf and kneeled toward it. A litter of golden retrievers and its mother slept soundly on a brick red couch with khaki piping. The puppies' faces drooped off the edges, imitating their mom whose winter coat laid out flat like a blanket over the faded upholstery. One of the puppies was nestled under the Christmas tree among a pile of presents and a rocking chair with a bow on it. Off-white linen curtains hung in the background, pulled away from the frosted windows.
She’d been there too long, staring intensely at the drawing. Her eyes sat back in their head, delicately crossing and uncrossing themselves, through each dimension of time, searching for a path or wormhole that could lead her away from where she had been, to this old overstuffed couch and the untroubled sleep of sinless dogs. But she couldn’t find it, there wasn’t one. Other shoppers stepped around her, picking out wrapping paper and gift bags on the other side of the aisle, planning to stop in town to pick out Christmas cards that weren’t so dated and cheap.
