Collin slowed down only for a moment, glimpsing Jeff Gordon’s NASCAR championship #24 Lumina in a shop window. He walked toward it, entranced, and the crush of Christmas shoppers parted for him like water around a submerged rock. The people passing in front of him blocked his view. When they flowed past, the Rainbow Warrior was gone. Collin found himself in a quiet place, suddenly free from jostling bodies and tinny music and garish decoration. He gasped, staring about open-mouthed at a dusty little store, and wondered how he had come to be here.
"Are you looking for the perfect gift, sweetie?"
Collin jerked his head around. An elderly woman bent toward him. Her white hair was luminous in the dim store. Collin took a step backward.
"I’m looking for my mom," he said, because he desperately wanted her here, just as he noticed she was no longer with him.
The old woman nodded and turned away. "Of course you are," she said. She turned her head again to look at him, her brows furrowing. "No, maybe you’re not. That’s odd." She stepped behind the counter of the shop, shaking her head and tsking. "I thought he was," she muttered.
Collin hunched down against the counter, wondering if his mother would find him. He wished someone would come in and relieve the oppressive emptiness of the shop. As if summoned by his wish, a well-dressed man appeared and strode to the counter.
"Are you looking for the perfect gift, sweetie?"
The man spread his hands in desperation. "I need something for my girlfriend."
The old woman smiled. "I have just the thing," she said, beckoning for the man to lean close. Collin watched, surreptitious, fascinated. She reached beneath the counter and pulled out a sheet of folded silver paper. "Just wrap an ordinary box with this giftwrap, and when Lisa opens it, she’ll find the perfect gift."
The man stared at the silver paper, touching it almost reverently. "I’ve heard about you," he said softly, "but I didn’t think...How much?"
"One thousand dollars," the old woman said.
"One thousand—"
"Don’t you need something for your wife too?"
"Well, yes," the man said, taking out his wallet. He handed her a large wad of cash. Collin watched, amazed. Why would anyone pay so much for giftwrap?
The old woman noticed him watching. "Are you still here? Begone, boy." She waved her hand dismissively.
Suddenly Collin was sitting at a table in the food court. "There you are!" said a voice behind him. Mom. "You scared me to death! Don’t wander off again! Someone could take you away from me, in this mob." She grabbed his arm, deaf to his protests, and hauled him back into the crowd.
#
Collin kept his expression blank on Christmas morning when he opened the science kit. He said thank-you, and carried the box to his bedroom. "Such a serious child," his mother said. She said it contentedly, like another mother might say "Such a happy child." Collin sprawled on his bed and dismantled the microscope, imagining himself one of the Rainbow Warriors, Jeff Gordon’s pit crew, tearing down and rebuilding a crucial part.
The microscope was still in pieces when Collin and his parents left for the Christmas gathering at Grandma’s. Collin’s parents gushed over the gift Grandma had chosen: a Certificate of Adoption for a Right Whale.
"There are only a few hundred Northern Right Whales left in the world," Grandma informed him, smiling.
Collin smiled wanly back. What a wonderful gift for the aspiring marine biologist, for the would-be Ph.D. scientist. Collin’s parents bandied these aspirations for him around the room. Last year their talk had all been that Collin was a musical prodigy, but that evaporated when his violin teacher determined that he was tone deaf. Collin wanted to work on cars, like his dad. He’d said so once. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
The doorbell rang, and Collin tossed the kit aside and raced for the door. It had to be his Uncle Jon and Aunt Sarah; they were the only ones who had not yet arrived. Collin flung open the door, and his uncle scooped him up. "Hey! And a Merry Christmas to you," he said, shoving a brightly wrapped package into his nephew’s hands. Collin ripped away the paper. Two colorful books, both of them about cars, almost crashed to the floor.
"Thanks, Uncle Jon!" Collin said.
Jon laughed. "You’re welcome!"
"Maybe we should put those away before they get torn up," said Collin’s mother. She smiled, but her voice was tight. She reached for the books. Collin hugged them to his chest, pressing them between him and his uncle so she couldn’t take them. He knew if he gave them up, they would disappear like last year’s Matchbox classic car set, which Collin had not seen after Christmas day.
"Now, Carla," Jon said. He was smiling, but there was an edge in his voice too. "Let the boy look at his books."
"Sarah, Carla, come help me in the kitchen," Grandma said, breezing past. Mom shot a withering look at Uncle Jon before stalking away.
Jon missed the look; his attention was on Grandma. "Sarah’s going to sit in the living room and not strain herself," he said, putting one arm around his wife. "She’s pregnant, after all."
"Jon!" Sarah said, pulling away from him and fleeing to the living room. Collin’s aunt and uncle had no children; Aunt Sarah always lost her babies. That was what Grandma said. Mom said miscarried, with a scandalous hiss as if Aunt Sarah did it deliberately. Collin knew that wasn’t true. He had seen Aunt Sarah embroidering one baby’s name on a pillow. She told him it was how she remembered her babies, because she loved them even though she couldn’t keep them. He had seen tears in her eyes.
Jon set Collin down and he scampered off, bearing his precious prizes away from his mother’s grasp. He slipped into the bedroom closet and pulled the door closed. Stretched on tip-toe, he tugged the chain that turned on the closet light, then snuggled into a corner on top of a pile of old draperies.
He switched the light off again when he heard voices nearby.
"What are we doing?" Uncle Jon’s voice said.
"Getting the leaf for the table," Dad’s angry, quiet voice said. Collin tensed. "In the bedroom closet."
The closet door slid open. Collin pulled a long piece of clothing in front of him, and sat barely breathing. Jon reached in and switched on the light.
"Jon," said Dad. "Why did you get him those books? You know how Carla and I feel."
"You think Collin should have no interests but the ones you choose for him," Jon said. "Children have their own personalities, not the ones their parents pick."
"What do you know about children, Jon? How many have you had?" Jon did not answer. "Collin’s going to college. Don’t you fill his head with other ideas."
"He likes cars. There’s nothing wrong with that. You like cars, too!"
"Do you know how hard it was for me to build my shop, Jon? No bank would loan me money. I had to borrow from family, remember? And then we almost went under three times in two years. I don’t want Collin to have to struggle like that." Collin mouthed the familiar words along with his father.
"Gary, I’m just saying it won’t hurt the boy to have a hobby."
Dad was not mollified; that cold anger was still in his voice. "Collin is my boy, Jon, not yours, and you’ll respect that or you’ll not see him. Ever. Understand? Collin is not yours to raise."
There was a long silence. Collin peered around the edge of the garment in front of him. He saw Uncle Jon lean into the closet, struggling with something. Jon’s face was stony. Collin wanted to cry out, Don’t listen to him! You’re the only one who listens to me and if you listen to him I’ll lose that! But he didn’t dare reveal himself.
"You’re right, Gary. Collin’s your son." Uncle Jon said wearily. Collin bit his lip, but his heart cried out in protest.
The brothers carried the table leaf out in silence.
"Collin, come to dinner!" his mother called. Collin pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, pushing the tears back. Then he stuffed his books beneath the draperies and went to Christmas dinner.
#
When Collin’s parents returned from their annual trip to Maui in late January, Collin’s mother had decided that he was old enough to start giving Christmas presents, rather than just receiving them. To Collin’s dismay, she began depositing half of his allowance in a Christmas Club bank account. Collin clung like a miser to the rest, and dreamed about the Racing Superstars edition of #24.
He had no idea what the model would cost, so he saved every penny. It wasn’t very large; it would fit easily in his school bookbag. He just needed to be at the mall, with his bookbag, and away from his mom for five minutes. He waited until he thought he had enough money, and started looking for his chance. He thought he would get it in August, when his mom picked him up at school for a dentists’ appointment and they had lunch at the mall. But when he grabbed his bookbag getting out of the car, she noticed. "You don’t need that," she said. "Leave it here."
The day after Thanksgiving, he got his chance. "Well," Mom said, "Let’s go shopping." When he grabbed the bookbag she said, "Why do you need that?’
Collin had an answer ready. "For hiding Christmas presents in," he said, and his mother shrugged. Collin patted the wad of saved-up small bills in his coat pocket as he slipped it on. Five minutes, he would have his car, and she would never know.
After only fifteen minutes at the mall, he realized it was hopeless. His mother absolutely refused to let him out of her sight.
"Mom, how can I buy anything with you here?"
"You can buy a gift for your dad today, Collin. He can bring you back next week to buy one for me."
"That won’t work," Collin insisted.
"Why not?" Collin could tell by her tone that Mom was irritated.
"Because...because there’s just one gift, for both of you, so neither of you can be with me when I buy it."
Mom thought about that for a moment. "I’ll have your grandmother bring you. You’re too young to be in a mall alone during Christmas season."
Collin gave up, defeated. For lunch, he ordered the greasiest, unhealthiest meal on the menu at the restaurant his mother chose. She disappointed him, failing to notice his small rebellion.
"Collin, don’t chew with your mouth open," she snapped, sipping her coffee.
Collin was about to protest that he couldn’t get the food into his mouth without opening it, but his indiscretion was preempted by one of Mom’s friends. "Carla! Hello! Don’t you just hate Christmas season!"
"Mom," Collin said, seeing his chance at last, "I have to go to the restroom."
"Isn’t it a nightmare?" Mom said. "And it’s not just gifts, either! Collin had to have new underwear—even healthy children cost so much! Gary and I aren’t even sure we’ll make Maui this year."
"No!" said Mom’s friend.
"Mom—" Collin said.
"Go," Mom snapped, without looking at him. "But hurry. I’m ready to leave."
#
Collin thought he remembered passing the sports shop. They had the new #24, the Monte Carlo that had replaced last year’s Lumina. He was sure he knew where it was. He caught a glimpse of it through the crowd that jostled him on every side, but like a mirage it was gone when he got there. Instead he found himself in a drab, dusty, eerily familiar place.
"Are you looking for the perfect gift, sweetie?"
Collin jumped, startled, and turned to face the old woman. Now he remembered where he was. "I didn’t mean to come here!" he shouted, backing away from her.
"Oh, but you must have," the old woman leaned close, looking into his eyes. "I remember you," she said, "You needed a gift for your mom."
"No," Collin whispered.
"That’s it," The old woman said. "The perfect gift for your mom and dad."
"No!" Collin said again. He wanted to explain about the model car, and how he’d saved all year without even knowing how much it cost just so he’d have enough, but he was speechless in the face of the old woman’s certainty.
She bobbed her head knowingly as she turned back toward her counter. "What did you tell your mom?" she said over her shoulder. "Just one gift for both of you," she mimicked, and the voice sounded like Collin’s. The old woman turned back to him. "Did you lie to your mother?"
She has that money in her purse, Collin thought. But the words were his, and they drew him like a self-pronounced curse.
Collin shuffled after the old woman, too tormented to walk away. Is a lie still a lie if it turns out to be true? And what is it, what is the perfect gift? He raised his hands to the countertop, and leaned close to the old woman.
She pulled the folded silver giftwrap from beneath the counter. "Just wrap an ordinary box with this giftwrap, and when it’s opened, the perfect gift will be inside," she said.
Collin stared at his reflection in the silver paper, hypnotized. "I can’t afford it," he said, remembering the man the year before.
"You could buy a partial sheet," the old woman suggested.
"How much will two hundred dollars buy?" In some part of his mind, Collin was astounded to find himself offering up all of his money to this old woman for her paper.
"One fifth of a sheet, of course," said the old woman. Collin laid the money on the counter. The two hundred dollars seemed to vanish from the old woman’s hand. Then she cut the sheet.
"Could I have a box?" Collin asked.
"Well, let me see..." the old woman rummaged beneath the counter. "This might do," she said, sliding a dilapidated gift box toward him.
Collin stared at the box and the paper, wondering how this worked. He laid the paper out, experimentally, and laid the box on top. "Not that way," the old woman said. She turned the paper over, so the shiny side was down. "Now put the box on it." Collin pulled the paper over the box. It was far too big, so he started to fold it to size. "No," the old woman protested. "You’re wasting it. Here, child, let me help." She took up the scissors and cut the paper. Producing tape from the inexhaustible space beneath her counter, she helped him wrap the box.
The old woman studied the wrapped box, frowning. She shook her head and muttered as she handed Collin the extra paper. "You may want that," she said. Her hand was shaking. Collin couldn’t remember it shaking before.
He stuffed the extra paper in his coat pocket. "Now, off with you," The old woman said, putting one trembling hand to her temple. "Most irregular. Most unusual."
"Unusual how?" Collin asked, picking up the box. He shook it gently. It was no heavier.
"You have a strange idea of what constitutes the perfect gift," the old woman said, shooing him away. She disappeared through a door behind the counter, one hand still pressed to her temple.
Collin looked at his distorted reflection in the wrinkled silver paper. He tried not to imagine what the punishment might be when his parents opened an empty box on Christmas morning and found out he’d paid two hundred dollars for "magic" wrapping paper. In a way, though, it would serve them right. He couldn’t remember a Christmas when they hadn’t disappointed him. Quickly he shoved the box into his bookbag and zipped it.
He looked up, and found himself standing next to his mother. She was still talking to her friend, who had taken Collin’s chair.
"That was an awfully long trip to the bathroom," she said.
Collin, disoriented by the transition, couldn’t answer.
#
Collin was not surprised to receive The Story of the Constitution for Christmas. Politics was this year’s dream, after all. Mom had decided against science after Collin dissected a squirrel in the kitchen. So the suit did not surprise him either, although it was a bit too large.
"Room to grow," Mom said.
"Open yours," he said, struggling out of the oversize jacket. His presents were only an annual formality; his parents’ gift was the one that interested him.
His mother picked up the box from underneath the tree. "It’s heavy," she said. Collin almost sighed with relief. The box had been almost weightless every time he touched it. His mom sat on the sofa next to his dad. They helped each other tear the silver paper from the box. Smiling, they lifted the lid. The smiles disappeared.
Dad reached into the box. Mom shook her head. "What’s this? Collin, what were you thinking?"
Collin’s chest felt tight. Dad pulled a wooden picture frame from the box. A picture frame? "I thought it would be the perfect gift," Collin murmured.
"Perfect how?" Dad asked, turning the picture around. It was a portrait of Uncle Jon and Aunt Sarah.
Collin stared at it, feeling betrayed. The old woman had lied. The perfect gift, she said. Collin clenched his fists, while his parents judged him and found him wanting with their eyes.
Maybe the old woman was right, Collin thought, defiantly returning their stares. His face burned, and his throat constricted. She was right. "What did you think the perfect gift would be?" he yelled, the words erupting painfully from his throat. "It’s not what you want. The perfect gift tells you who I think you should be, and that’s the perfect gift!"
Mom looked as if she’d been struck, and Dad looked as if he’d like to strike something. "Go to your room, Collin," Dad said in his low, angry voice.
Collin stomped upstairs, weeping with rage. He slammed the door, throwing himself onto the bed. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. Collin’s sense of justice rebelled at the notion that every gift he had received had been the perfect gift after all. He refused to believe that was the way things should work. He stopped crying, wiped his face on the sheet, and sat up.
A silver glint on the floor caught his eye. The remnant of giftwrap, sticking from his coat pocket. Collin hopped off the bed and went to the closet. Buried in the back was a small Lego box. There might just be enough paper to wrap it. Collin dumped the pieces into the closet, and closed the box.
He wrapped the empty box, using school glue to stick the paper, and carried it to the bed. He shook it, and was surprised to find that it still felt empty. Just like his parents’ box, until his mom picked it up. Was there nothing, then, for him? Collin flung the box across the room. It caromed off the wall and fell to the floor with a hollow thunk, its corner dented, the paper torn to reveal the box beneath.
It seemed a quiet eternity later that the bedroom door opened. Collin was lying on the bed with his face to the wall, but he heard the hinges squeak. He didn’t move.
"Put your shoes on," Dad said, his voice still cold with anger. "It’s time to go to your grandmother’s."
Collin waited until the door closed to comply. He kicked his coat into the air and caught it without bending. He shrugged into it, pulling the hood up and tying it so that it hid his face. His gloves were on the other side of the room, on the floor next to the giftwrapped box. On impulse, Collin picked the box up and slipped it inside his coat. Then he went downstairs.
#
This year Collin’s family were the latecomers to the annual Christmas gathering. Collin trailed his parents into the house, struggling with the box that wanted to slide out from beneath his coat. Dad was waiting impatiently in the entryway when Collin came in.
"Give me your coat, Collin," he said.
Collin shook his head.
"Collin," Dad said. There was a warning note in his voice.
"I’m going back outside," Collin announced.
Dad frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "You don’t seem to have much Christmas spirit this year anyway." He turned away.
Collin went back onto the porch and sat on the step. The box dug into his ribs. He ignored it, staring at the bleak brown lawns and gray oppressive sky. It didn’t even snow, he thought. At least it could have snowed.
The door opened behind him, and closed again. Collin looked up, his view hampered by the hood. It was Uncle Jon, coming to sit beside him on the step. In his hands he held a giftwrapped package.
Jon ducked his head to look into Collin’s hood. He smiled. "Don’t you want to open your present?" he asked.
No, Collin thought. I don’t want it. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Just one more gift I won’t get to keep. But what he said was, "You first."
He unzipped his coat and handed the dented box to his uncle.
Uncle Jon raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Thank you," he said, taking the box.
"You don’t know what it is yet," Collin said.
"It’s the thought that counts," Uncle Jon said.
Right, thought Collin.
Jon tore the paper from the box without comment. A Lego toy, Collin thought. He thinks it’s a Lego toy. Maybe it is. What a stupid gift.
Jon pulled something from the box. He smiled again. "You didn’t have to do that," he said.
Collin leaned closer, curious in spite of himself.
Jon held a picture frame in his hand. Collin gasped, recognizing it. He had made it in art class at school. It was decorated with seashells and sand, in imperfect imitation of a picture frame Collin had seen in a catalog. A plaque at the bottom read The Sandersons in Collin’s careful hand.
He had given that frame to his mother.
Collin leaned closer, looking at the photograph. It was a family portrait, but not the one Collin was expecting. Uncle Jon and Aunt Sarah were at the back. Aunt Sarah was holding an infant in her lap. A small girl sat on Uncle Jon’s lap. Another girl, slightly older, sat in front of him.
His mind spun in confusion. For a moment he wondered who the children were, then he realized that he knew. He had seen their names embroidered on pillows at Aunt Sarah’s house. Clay, the infant in Aunt Sarah’s lap. Carrie, the toddler in Uncle Jon’s lap. Cathy, the older girl. Theirs were the names embroidered on Aunt Sarah’s pillows. But there were four pillows. Four babies. Where was the other? Collin looked again at the portrait. Next to Cathy sat an older boy. Collin reached out to touch the face he recognized.
But I don’t belong in that picture.
He didn’t get a chance to wonder. The door opened behind him again to laughter and squeals, and the whole family of rowdy children tumbled onto the porch. Cathy put her hands over his eyes from behind, jamming the fluffy lining from the inside of his hood into his nose and mouth. "Guess who?" she said, and he slapped her hands away.
"Stop it, Cathy," he snapped.
Jon reached to scoop Clay into his arms before the child, a toddler now, could toddle off the porch. "Cathy, don’t annoy your brother," he said.
"But he’s being such a butthead today," Cathy protested.
"Cathy!" Jon said.
"And it’s Christmas!" Cathy went on, heedless of the reprimand.
"Jon, we have to be at my mother’s house in an hour," said Aunt Sarah’s voice behind him.
"Collin needs to open his gift from Aunt Carla and Uncle Gary first," Jon replied.
"He’s being a butthead," Cathy contributed.
"Cathy, don’t use that word. It’s not polite," Sarah said.
Jon shoved a box into Collin’s hands. Collin fumbled it, almost dropping it on the concrete walk. With trembling hands he picked at the paper.
It was the Racing Superstars Rainbow Warrior, Jeff Gordon’s #24. Not the Monte Carlo, either, but the Lumina. The car that won the Winston Cup. Collin gasped.
"I thought I wasn’t getting it," he said.
"I think Santa knew your Aunt and Uncle were getting it for you," Jon said.
He means my mom and dad, Collin thought, still struggling with his world turned upside down. My mom and dad got me this. He stood up, almost knocking Cathy off her feet, and brushed past Aunt Sarah into the house. His mom and dad were sitting in the living room with his grandmother and assorted other relatives. He stopped in the hallway, looking in on the scene.
"We’ll be on the plane in a few days," his mother was saying.
"It’s always so nice to get away this time of year," his father added.
Collin took a tentative step into the room, holding the box in front of him like an offering.
"Well, hello Collin," his grandmother said.
"Do you like your present?" his father asked.
Collin nodded.
His mother and father smiled. "We thought you might," his mother said. Then she looked away, returning to her conversation with his grandmother.
"How did you know?" he choked, and his parents looked at him again.
"Your father suggested it," Collin’s dad said, and looked away again. He means Uncle Jon, Collin corrected in his mind. What’s going on?
He wanted to ask his mother, but she was paying no attention to him. I tried to tell you, he thought. You never listened to me. How come when it was me you never listened? How come you’re not listening even now?
Collin walked across the room to where his mom and dad—aunt and uncle—sat on the sofa. He threw his arms around his dad’s neck, accidentally clubbing him in the ear with the box. Gary responded with surprise, returning the hug after a moment’s hesitation.
Collin pulled away.
"You’re welcome," Gary said.
Collin stepped over to his mother and hugged her too.
"You be good," she said.
Collin tried to think of something to say. Don’t you care? Doesn’t it bother you? Do you know what’s going on? But all he said was, "Good-bye."
His mother looked at him, looked right into his eyes in a way he could never remember her doing before. Her eyes and the set of her mouth altered fleetingly, from disinterested to vaguely troubled. "Good-bye, Collin," she said. She opened her mouth again, as if to say something more, but didn’t.
Collin pulled away, clutching the gift to his chest. This gift he would keep, and keep forever. He backed away, into his Uncle Jon—Dad, he corrected—who was standing in the doorway.
Jon laid his hands on Collin’s shoulders. "We have to go to your Grandma Tryon’s now," he said, looking down at Collin.
Collin looked up into his father’s face. The perfect gift, the old lady had said.
Collin smiled, and turned to go.
Jennifer Busick has one husband, two degrees, more than a thousand books, and nothing else of consequence. She presently resides in Columbia, South Carolina, which is the second-best place on Earth.
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