The House Without a Christmas Tree by Gail Rock

Christmas tree in this house because it reminds him of your momma and your first Christmas with the three of you together, and it makes him feel bad.”
    â€œI didn’t know that.”
    â€œHe misses her an awful lot.”
    â€œYou mean the tree made him unhappy?”
    â€œMaybe,” she said, “but it’s not your fault. Someday he’ll get over it, and things will be all right. Think you can go to sleep now?”
    I nodded my head, and Grandma hugged me close. I tried to go to sleep, but my mind wouldn’t shut off.
    I lay there for a long while and tried to remember my mother, but I couldn’t. All I knew about her were the things I found in her scrapbook and the snapshots in the family album. My father never talked about her. I tried to remember my first Christmas, but I couldn’t remember that either. I wondered if my father had gone into his bedroom and cried when he saw the tree. It scared me to think of him being so upset over something that I didn’t even know about.
    I thought more about just what charity meant and about my father and about Gloria Cott. After a while, when I heard Grandma snoring, I quietly moved away from her across the icy sheets. There were so many heavy quilts and comforters on the bed that I could hardly make my way to the edge of it. Finally I managed to worm my way out from under the covers, and when my bare feet touched the painfully cold wooden floor, I wanted to scream.
    I tiptoed to our closet and slipped into socks and pulled a sweater on over my pajama tops. Then I sneaked into the living room and carefully tipped the tree down to the floor. I thought about taking off the decorations, but I knew I had no time to waste. I found some paper and a pencil in the writing desk, wrote a note and struggled into my boots and coat. I unlocked the front door and opened it slowly. It let out a groan like the creaking door on the opening of the “Inner Sanctum” mystery show.
    I eased the tree out onto the porch, and the frozen snow crunched under my feet. I was sure Dad would wake up. His bedroom window overlooked the porch, and he always slept with the window open a bit, even in the dead of winter. I recalled every cowboy movie I had ever seen, and tried to remember how the Indians had crept silently up on the settlers. After what seemed like an hour, I had eased the tree down off the porch steps and onto the lawn, the frozen snow making explosive cracks with every step I took.
    I had never been out alone at this hour, and I was a little frightened. It was after midnight, the dead of night for Clear River, and there wasn’t a house light on or a car in sight, only the distant sound of trains and the occasional bark of a dog. There were big dogs in the neighborhood, and they ran loose. I didn’t know if they could see in the dark the way cats could. What if they mistook me for a burglar?
    I was glad it was only a block to Gloria’s house. I slowly dragged the tree down the snowy sidewalk and across the Cott’s lawn and propped it up against their rickety porch railing. Then I pulled the note I had written out of my pocket and stuck it onto the tree. It read, “To Gloria, From Santa Claus.”

Chapter Eight
    The next morning when I heard Grandma and Dad in the kitchen, I stayed in bed, afraid of another explosion when they found the tree gone. Grandma was so preoccupied with fixing breakfast that she hadn’t gone into the living room yet, and hadn’t noticed the tree was missing. Finally I heard Dad go into the living room. For a moment there was silence, then he went back into the kitchen.
    â€œWhat did you do with the tree?” he asked Grandma.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhen did you take it down?” he asked.
    â€œI didn’t take it down,” she said, and she went in to see for herself. “Oh, dear! Addie must have done it. You had her so upset. I told her it made you feel bad because it reminded