The Crooked Tree

Stars twinkled as the red pickup skidded into the gravel parking lot of Papa Noel’s Christmas Tree Emporium.  John McDaniel stomped the emergency brake and stepped out of the truck. He looked at the picked-over selection of trees and his face betrayed his total disgust. It was Christmas Eve and McDaniel’s heart just wasn’t into it. In fact, it wasn’t much into anything any more.

He walked through the dried-out, overpriced trees until he found the very worst one he could find.  There, in the very back of the lot, was a six-foot Scotch pine.  It had to be the most crooked tree McDaniel had ever seen. “Perfect,” he thought, “just like everything else in my life.”  It was so crooked that it reminded him of the Scoliosis exams they had to go through in Middle School. This tree would get the embarrassing back brace for sure.

McDaniel wouldn’t be there at all if he had not been nagged.  In fact, what wasn’t he nagged about?  The tree was the perfect metaphor for his marriage.  Bent. Dried out. And dying.

He paid Papa Noel $25 (he refused to pay full price) and he and the teenager sales assistant threw the tree into the back of his truck.  Needles rammed into his arms like he was being humped by a porcupine.  If they had jabbed into his heart, it would’ve been appropriate.

He tipped the kid, buckled his seat belt and slammed the truck into gear. Back to Hell, he thought. Merry #$%# Christmas. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Blue Christmas played on the truck’s stereo.  “Yeah Elvis, you’d have a Blue Christmas if you were married to my wife.”  His taillights faded as he headed back to his unhappy home.

Of course, the tree was a disaster and was met with immediate scorn. His wife, Laura, simply hated it.  “What a pathetic tree. Can’t you do anything right?”  McDaniel cringed.  He thought of Charlie Brown Christmas. Laura would be Lucy and he would be the Blockhead. “I knew you’d hate it.  You hate everything I do.”

A trail of needles went from the truck to living room. They wrestled the tree up into the stand and sat it up in the corner of the front room.  This was their 20th tree together and by far their worst.

He carried the box of ornaments from the attic and dropped it at Laura’s feet.  “Here.” Breaking glass caused her eyebrows to knit down to her nose. “Good job.” she said sarcastically.  They were the last two words said for the next three hours.

A white box full of blue balls sat on the back of the couch. “Blue balls,” he thought. “How appropriate.”  It wasn’t exactly like he and Laura were cuddle buddies these days. He began to hang them on the tree’s twisted branches.

Up next were the ornaments from their trips. There was the sailboat ornament from their honeymoon to the Bahamas. That was so much fun.  He remembered her smile. Her laughter. Her in her bikini.  Then there was the state ornaments from all the places they had lived.  Their first home in Missouri. And then Oregon and then Mississippi.  He remembered when it was just them against the world.  “So many memories,” he thought.

He then picked up the ornament of the baby boots.  He clutched it next to his heart and felt his eyes begin to water.  They had lost the baby seven years into their marriage and honestly, she had not been the same since. They had not been the same since.  More than the baby had died that day.

He wiped the tear from his eye and picked up another ornament.

It was her fifth grade picture on a glass ball.  “Man, she was a cute little kid,” he thought.  The smile. The innocence. Looking forward to a good life.  She deserved better than what he had been giving her.

There were the shoes from when they ran the marathon together. The ornaments from their college.  The ones painted by her grandmother.  The ribbons from his parent’s first Christmas together. And then the angel from their Christmas together.  All shared memories. Their memories.

Piece by piece, ornament by ornament, they pieced their life together on that crooked tree.  It was the canvas for the picture they had painted together. They plugged in the lights and stepped back.  Silently they reflected on all they had been through and all they had.

Like the tree, their marriage wasn’t perfect. It was bent. And dried out. But with all the ornaments on it, it wasn’t dying; it was beautiful.  It was their tree.  Their memories. Their life.  They stood there and looked at the tree and at the lights reflected in each other’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said to him. “Merry Christmas to you, too,” he said back.

And on that warm and foggy Christmas eve, a crooked tree and a broken marriage became beautiful. It was their 20th tree and their most beautiful.