A dead leaf falls from the old apple tree and crunches against dried-up soil as my needle swivels its way through fabric. The steady squeaking of my wicker rocking chair is a metronome and my sewing is a slave to its beat. With years of quilt-making under my belt, I hardly need to watch my hands as they work thread into cotton— a skill that has come in handy since my bony fingers have shriveled up to a dismaying extent. I prefer to direct my line of vision to something less morbid, such as my farm’s decaying landscape with overgrown tangles of long-gone crops and sparse animals losing their fur and feathers.
After adding a final touch of ribbon to my project, I hold the finished product out in front of me, extending fragile arms as flurries begin to fall. The completed sack is made from hundreds of stitched squares – some red and some green – and it’s the perfect size for Amelia’s gift. I am filled with a rare sense of pride as I examine my other creations: a cherry-red bodysuit made of thick fleece and a pointed hat to match, both accented with fluffy white detailing. Yet, as I step into the suit, I am disgruntled to discover that my gaunt frame is swimming in it. I tug gently at the midsection. Perhaps, with a little bit of effort, I can fill it out by tonight.
I misplaced my reading glasses ages ago, so deciphering the fine print on the cookie dough packaging is a bust. Thankfully, improvisation is my dearest friend. I plop the sweet-smelling contents onto an ungreased baking sheet; the cooking spray is starting to smell like rotten eggs, so I opt against it. I can’t read the directions on how exactly to split up the rectangle of dough, so I decide to keep it in one full piece for simplicity’s sake. I set my rusty oven to an eyeballed 500 degrees and toss in the treat. A flickering digital clock on the counter reads 4:30 PM, and I resolve to check on the cookies in an hour.
In the meantime, I gorge on whatever loose ends I can find— ideally those that are carb-filled. I munch on dry macaroni seasoned with garlic powder, chew around the black mold on multigrain bread, and gnaw on the last of the dirty potatoes harvested ages ago. I eat voraciously, leaving as little space as possible for dessert. Clutching my bloated belly through the wooly red suit, I feel more driven than ever.
After a while, I glance at the clock and my heartbeat stutters: 4:30 PM. I could have sworn I changed those batteries when they started oozing mint green chunks.
The disastrous state of the cookies reaches my nose before it reaches my eyes; it’s the all-too-familiar stink of hot toasting ash. When I open the oven door, I am greeted with a massive cloud of onyx that makes my eyes water and my airways scream. It’s nostalgic, and in some way, comforting. The kitchen walls used to be doused in this odor before I ditched cigarettes, back when chain-smoking, wine, and saltine crackers counted for my three meals of the day. I don’t think Amelia minded the smell, except for the handful of times her one friend came over to play.
“What died in here?” her friend would ask, to which Amelia would glare at me with a reddened face. She was in elementary school at the time, but I often wonder if she was already plotting what she would do at 17.
I peel the toasted black brick from the pan and it miraculously comes off in one piece. Gripping it with both hands, I chomp into the charred dough with no hesitation; I’ll do whatever it takes to nail this portly character. When I reach the end of the burnt mass, I scrape the overflowed bits from the bottom of the oven and inhale those as well. My mother always scolded me against being wasteful, and mothers know best— or so the saying goes.
Now brimming with an ungodly concoction of food, I creak open the door to Amelia’s childhood bedroom, reminding myself not to knock this time as I tend to do on instinct. The bed is unmade and there is a sour hint of aging vomit in the air, which was never cleaned from the rug. Most of her items are precisely how she left them, including dollar-store makeup uncapped and mid-use on her vanity, all expired by a desolate decade.
As a pre-teen, Amelia would complain that she couldn’t afford name-brand cosmetics because her piggy bank would find itself empty each morning after she’d made a deposit. I used to convince her it was an evil money fairy that smuggled her savings as she slept. I assume she put the pieces together eventually that I had been lusting for any change I could find to cover my liquor, but she never had the guts to stop me, just as I never had the guts to stop myself.
The thick layer of dust accumulating on her trinkets and sports trophies makes my nose perpetually itch, but I can’t get myself to clean them; Amelia forbade me from touching her belongings ever since I pried open her diary, snooping for the feelings she’d never share with me. Now eyeing myself in her heart-shaped mirror, I realize that my icy hair is far too long and my beard is nonexistent, so I’ll have to do some crafting to achieve my goal.
Even with the bluntness of Amelia’s safety scissors, it isn’t a challenge to cut through wads of my brittle, thinning hair. I chop the strands right against my scalp and the fragments fall leisurely onto my suit’s soft shoulders. When one lock hits the carpet, I can’t avoid staring at the large burgundy splatter by my black-booted feet. I lean down and take a sniff to confirm what I already know: pinot noir still looms within the fibers, teasing the self-control I have battled to obtain.
It’s the scent of stumbling into this very bedroom on a past Christmas Eve and the scent of “What the fuck, Mom?!” as I throw up on my teenage daughter’s only nice dress. She told me then in a wailing cry that she hadn’t enjoyed a single Christmas since the last one she spent with her father.
He had gifted her a pig plush back on her 7th Christmas, which she affectionately nicknamed “Pinky”. Pinky had soft peachy fur and endearing button eyes, and Amelia adored it so thoroughly for so long that it turned a tired pink-gray. I resented how she hugged her father that Christmas morning because it reminded me of the way they danced together at our wedding, with her tiny feet planted on his leather shoes for elevation. With him, laughter would bubble from her lips in a way that I could never prompt; the genuine kind that would send me sneaking off into the bathroom with a handle of vodka hidden beneath my shirt.
“You can’t even say Dad’s name, can you?” Amelia asked on that abominable Christmas Eve, wiping spatters of my vomit from her face. In a heated response, I chucked my fifth glass of wine against her bedroom wall, spattering Pinky with blood-red stains in the process.
“Why would I bother?” I slurred out in a garbled syllable, feigning defense when I knew in my shame-drunk heart she was right.
Amelia’s face reddened with that same old embarrassment of her own mother as her eyes searched for anything to love within mine. I grappled for some magic word to make her stay, but we both knew I was always best at saying nothing at all. She grabbed her now-ruined Pinky and slammed her bedroom door on the way out— a certain thud unique to Amelia that I’d never hear again.
Cheap school glue isn’t exactly ideal for sticking snippets of my hair to my chin, but it gets the point across well enough. I compulsively stroke the curls pasted across my jaw as I approach the closet of someone who was once my husband. I kneel down before a hefty metal safe located between his loafers and tennis shoes, and anxiously click each letter into place on the padlock, spelling out P-I-N-K-Y.
The lock pops open in my hands and the metallic noise makes me jump, prompting a few white tufts to fall from my face. I cautiously retrieve a handful of items from the safe, including his long-expired driver’s license, his favorite gold watch – the face of which is shattered and covered in dried blood – and, of course, his death certificate, which I have refused to read since the crash. My paranoia convinces me that it could somehow feature a note from him – an “I told you so” of sorts – but I don’t need to hear from my ex-husband that drunk driving is moronic— my ex-daughter never let me forget it.
I reach deeper into the safe’s ominous void and pull out a small ovular case. I know I am supposed to be despondent as I dig through my dead husband’s things, but I can’t prevent a budding smile as I snap open the case to find his thin, squarish spectacles. Once I slip them onto my face, I feel anything but mournful, as I am finally, completely, someone else.
It was only a few days ago that we finally crossed paths. There I was, routinely perched on a bench at her favorite park, and there she was, my used-to-be baby, pushing a carriage for a baby of her own. Her stomach was round and filled out like a massive ball of yarn, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a girl or boy she was crafting in there, and whose needle had done the poking.
One in the oven and one in the world; I realized that her stress levels must be off the charts. I knew then that she could certainly use a mother’s knowing guidance, and that there was no way she could refuse once I’d tell her I’ve traded booze for remorse. Plus, I myself would benefit from two tiny duplicates of Amelia goofing around at their old Grandma’s house, livening up its kidless gloom.
I would have approached Amelia then, but the mental list of questions and catch-up stories was growing at an overwhelming rate, so I decided I needed some time to prepare. Not to mention, I wasn’t in the most appealing get-up: my slippers were coffee-stained and I had skimped on the makeup that morning. So, naturally, I followed her home from an undetectable distance, took note of her address, and vowed to return a hero.
I am far less mindful when I chuck my husband’s possessions back into his safe, as I am now itching to get out the door. While throwing in some miscellaneous documents, a yellowed photograph escapes. It depicts my husband holding a young, beaming Amelia, and standing proudly in front of his thriving farmland. I peer out my bedroom window and compare. The trees were so much greener, the crops so much fuller, and the animals... they were alive and they were plentiful.
But I evade getting discouraged once my eyes land on my farm’s most prized feature: a wonderfully fat pig grazing in its pen with a soft peachy coat and endearing button eyes. It feasts indefinitely on stolen canned corn and soybeans, stuffing itself until it’s nearly bursting at the seams. Wrapped around its hooves are failed drafts of knitted socks for a newborn, now muddied and well-loved. This redesigned Pinky is the one thing in my life that I have given proper care to, and Amelia will be so grateful that I was such a dedicated Mommy in her honor.
I adjust the red hat on my hodgepodge pixie cut and take one more look in the mirror before I make my exit. With my expectant quilted sack in one hand and a butcher knife in the other, I’m ready to give my daughter the most delightful Christmas surprise.
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