My letter to Santa is taking forever. I’m pretzeled on the couch, so close to the Christmas tree I can watch the tinsel dance. One quiet puff and the shaggy silver strands flutter and twinkle. Red light, blue light, green light, yellow. Bubble lights peep through the tinsel. Dad says it’s magic that makes the liquid stuff in them fizz.
Our boxer dogs, Bailey and Lola, are curled up under the tree like well-behaved kids. They eyeball me as I rearrange my legs. My Winnie the Pooh PJs don’t fit so good anymore, and it’s hard to get comfy. I huff at a tinsel clump like it’s a candle on my birthday cake, and Mom hollers at me to cut that shit out. She’s sprawled in her recliner reading The Herald, black and white newsprint from the belly up, Hawaiian muumuu and bare, hairy legs on down. Never mind it’s snowing out and the house is freezing. Mom’s hot all the time these days. She even taped the thermostat to keep Dad from fooling with it. They had a big fight over it, something about a gas bill.
A Hawaii Five-O rerun begins. It’s Dad’s favorite show. The start’ is the best part—rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat-BOOM-bum-bum-bum-BUM-bum-bum—and a wave big as a house rolls across the TV. I’ve never seen a real ocean. Mom and Dad haven’t either. Dad said we’ll all go someday, but Mom told him Hell would freeze over first.
Bailey nuzzles my knee. Her wet nose leaves a soggy spot on my PJs. I scooch away, my purple pen hovering over the blank page. Dear Santa—Mom snaps the newspaper so hard I jump. Dad doesn’t notice. He’s kicked back in his La-Z-Boy “resting his eyes.” He says working the day-turn shift makes him sleepy. Mom says it’s the goddamn beer.
I started my letter right after Walter Cronkite said, “That’s the way it is,” and all I have is a crumpled pile of goof-ups. Bailey nudges Mom’s arm with that cold nose of hers until Mom drops the front page to pet her. “Who’s Mommy’s good girl?” Bailey, all giddy and look-at-me-now, leans into Mom’s hand for more. I rip another botched sheet from my spiral notebook and crush it into a ball. Mom warns me to hush it. Unless it’s a commercial, I’m to be seen and not heard when the TV’s on, even if nobody’s watching the stupid thing.
I open the Sear’s Christmas Catalog to a dog-eared page with a girl pulling a cake from her Easy-Bake Oven. Her tiny cake is all golden and perfect. So is the girl, and her front teeth are gone just like mine. I guess when you’re pretty, missing teeth can’t stop you from smiling. Mom loves cake, maybe more than I do, Twinkies too, and DQ Butterfinger Blizzards. Last summer, Dad called her a fat ass right in front of Grammy. Since then, we can only eat sweets when Dad’s not around. I told Mom if Santa brought the oven, I’d bake her a cake whenever she wanted.
Dear Santa—I open with a thank you for the Light Brite he left last year. You have to thank people for presents even when they’re hand-me-downs like the Barbie Aunt Darla gave me for my birthday. My wish list is second: the oven, Stretch Armstrong, and a pet rock I plan to name ‘Jennifer,’ after the neighbor girl who moved away last summer. Next, I come clean about the fit I threw at Kroger’s. I explain my side best I can and swear I’ve been a good girl ever since. Mom’s been yelling at me and Dad more than usual, but not because I’ve been bad. You just never can tell who’s peed on her Wheaties. That’s what Dad says.
His lips flutter with a snore. He flips the collar of his flannel shirt like Elvis and scrunches his shoulders to his ears like he’s trying to disappear. I quietly tear the paper out and add it to the pile. In my next try, I nix the Kroger’s bit. Santa sees and hears everything, but sometimes I have my doubts. If he missed it, why admit I wailed over a dumb KitKat? Mom promised—PROMISED!—she’d buy me one then changed her mind. But seeing how she’s always telling Dad to quit making goddamn excuses, I figure Santa probably hates excuses too.
Mom’s arms droop and the paper wilts over her face like a deflating balloon. I add Winnie the Pooh PJs to my wish list, blue ones because the Fornelli boys said pink is for sissies. Mom and Dad get me new PJs every Christmas, not Santa. But their fight yesterday was over whether to borrow more money from Grammy. Mom accused Dad of drinking his paycheck, whatever that means. Now, we’re not supposed to answer the telephone in case it’s the landlord calling.
Bailey and Lola sniff at the Wonder bread crusts piled next to Dad’s empties on the TV tray. Nosy Lola knocks a Stroh’s can off, and the dogs scatter for no good reason. They never get hollered at, not even that time Lola got into my Halloween candy. I spring up to fetch the can. Mom snaps her paper and rights it again. Dad comes to with that where-am-I? look he gets when he’s been resting his eyes. I set the can back on his tray, and they both glare at me like I was the one who knocked it over. Hawaii Five-O is still on, so I bite my tongue and tiptoe back to the couch.
My latest letter sucks like the rest. I got too greedy. Santa never brings everything on my list anyway. Lola curls up at Dad’s feet. Still half asleep he leans over to rub her back. “Good girl,” he mumbles.
I cap my pen and sigh at a lonely strand of tinsel.
R.L. Marstellar’s work has appeared in Under the Gum Tree and Midway Journal and earned Bacopa Literary Review’s 2018 prize for creative nonfiction. When she’s not writing about bad mothers, she’s likely at a Chicago dive bar open mic channeling her inner rockstar. Find her online at RLMarstellar.com.
