After the Woods

by Kim Savage

  “It’s not for you, Mother. It’s for Shane.” She tapes an oversized gold bow to the middle of the tie box, a tie being an excellent guess if it was for anyone but Shane Cuthbert. “What did you get Father Carl? I thought priests weren’t supposed to want anything.”

  “This isn’t for Father Carl, it’s for Crystal,” she says.

  “Who’s Crystal?” I say, stupidly. The only place I ever sound stupid is in this house, mainly because I have such a hard time following their insides and references. Though Liv is forever in opposition to Deborah, they are always on the same plane, like two comets racing to earth on the same path, scorching each other on the way down. I’m so caught up in this image that I don’t realize they are both laughing at me.

  “Crystal is my new little sister,” Liv says with a wicked smile.

  I nearly choke. “One of Leland’s children?” I look at Deborah in horror. Or is she pregnant?

  “Little sister, like Big Brothers Big Sisters. My community service hours for confirmation. She’s darling,” Liv says.

  “We got a good one. She’s a stunning girl,” Deborah says.

  “Crystal is eleven. Eleven is cute, not ‘stunning.’” Liv bites off the word.

  “I had to get her something. It’s a lava lamp. Silver and purple, with glitter inside. She’ll love it. It’s the gaudiest thing, but she loves anything sparkly, little magpie that she is. I ought to make an inventory of my jewelry drawer at some point,” Deborah says.

  “So what did you get Carl?” Liv asks sharply.

  Deborah looks at Liv with an icy glare, hands holding ribbon above the gift. “I believe you meant to say Father Carl. I got him a Lenox figurine of two hands joined in prayer. It’s lovely; someone was selling it at a steep discount on eBay. That’s why it’s not in its original packaging,” she says to me, as though I was wondering. “White bisque porcelain. I just think a little luxury in his life can’t be a sin, not if the gift goes beyond the recipient. He can place it on his mantle in the rectory lobby, where everyone can enjoy it.”

  “That sounds nice,” I say.

  Liv grunts softly.

  “I might as well reveal what I got you, Olivia. You’re not a little girl who needs surprises. It’s an SPF long-sleeve shirt and pants. It will help protect your skin from the sun on our vacation,” Deborah says.

  I force myself to listen.

  “Once the sun damages your derma, there’s no turning back. More than one esthetician has told me that my skin is in such great shape because I wore foundation for so many years and it shielded my skin from the sun. You know, most girls would start acting excited right about now if their mother was whisking them away from miserable, gray New England,” Deborah says, adding as an afterthought: “Oh, and I got you those colored pencils. The Swiss ones from the Dick Blick art store.”

  Liv’s hands freeze, a curlicue of tape dangling off one finger. “The Caran D’Ache Supracolor Soft Aquarelle Pencils? In the hinge-lid wooden box?”

  “I asked the guy. I suppose so.” Deborah sniffs. “This place smells like a hospital. The cleaners must have used their own supplies. Cheap and harsh.” She bustles away in search of one of Leland’s candles.

  “So tell me about your vacation.” I try hard to say it casually, but it comes out sounding pointed.

  The childlike smile that formed when Deborah mentioned the pencils fades. “It’s what Deborah wants,” Liv says.

  It sounds simple. A simple vacation to someplace warm, for a month. What’s the big deal? I smile, too. “So what did you get Shane?”

  “A new knife.”

  I drop Father’s Carl’s present on the table. It lands hard and rattles, like those two hands might no longer be joined. Liv carries Shane’s gift—Shane’s knife—with its incongruous, gorgeous fat bow into the dark parlor, setting it under the lopped-off top quarter of a skinny Christmas tree. I set the broken gift aside and follow.

  The tree takes up too much room in a space already jammed with three chairs and a coffee table, on which sits a crèche stuffed with straw and porcelain figurines. I can’t imagine where Deborah and Liv will sit on Christmas morning to open presents without their knees bonking. Then I remember: they won’t be in this country. Two very old stockings are hung from weighted pewter angels that could be weapons in your standard murder mystery. The stockings are unnamed, which makes sense if there are only two people in the house, but makes my job harder if I’m going to give Liv the present I plan to surprise her with. Yvonne’s sketch is rolled and tied with ribbon in the inside pocket of the puffy vest I will not take off, and my note, telling Liv everything I know—

  You used him.

  You used me.

  You sacrificed me.

  Merry Early Christmas.

  —is under the ribbon too. But I need to make sure it lands in the right stocking.

  The doorbell rings.

  Liv kneels in front of the crèche and lifts ceramic Baby Jesus from his cradle. Winking Christmas tree bulbs cast her in a wash of light, then shadow.

  “Do you think it was a good idea to get Shane a knife?” I ask, one eye on the hall. Deborah throws open the door and steps back to let Father Carl enter. He hands Deborah the door handle.

  “You heard Deborah’s theory on presents. It was an excellent idea to give Shane a knife.”

  “How is a knife enjoyed by all? Liv, he’s not”—how do I say this without admitting I’ve overheard things?—“the most stable person. You used to know this.”

  “Are we going to discuss questions of judgment? Good then.” She turns Baby Jesus over in her hand. “Then let’s start with sitting down for an interview with Paula Papademetriou.”

  I drop my head.

  “I didn’t think so,” Liv says, setting Baby Jesus down with a ceramic tick. “I can’t believe she got me those colored pencils. They’re perfectly hexagonal. Presharpened. Most unbelievably, I actually wanted them.”

  Deborah takes the handle from Father Carl without looking at it, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. As Deborah climbs the stairs with his coat, Father Carl’s eyes go to the cords dangling from the spot overhead where there was once a light fixture.

  “I saw circles and Xs on your body. Drawn with a marker. Why did you draw circles and Xs on your skin?” I ask heatedly.

  “You’ve got a renovation going on, I see,” Father Carl booms.

  “Oh, that’s been on hold for a while!” Deborah yells down. “This house is a bear. Too many diversions lately!”

  Liv’s shoulders raise and her spine grows taut, like someone has lifted slack strings above her head. “Deborah says stick-style Victorians were high-concept houses. You can read the outside from the inside: eaves and trusses on the inside make shadows and voids on the outside. The sticks are decoration, meant to symbolize where the joints and posts are,” she says.

  “We’re talking about you, not high-concept houses,” I hiss.

  “The builders capitalized on the best resources of the era. If you live in a day and age when modern tools can make something more beautiful, it’s a sin not to use them,” Liv says.

  The room is so cold, I think I see my breath.

  “And she won’t spare any expense.” Liv turns and waves to Father Carl. “Father Carl! Come see. What should we do about Baby Jesus? He’s not supposed to make an appearance until Christmas Day.”

  “Well, look there.” Father Carl comes in, squatting in front of the manger. “Very pretty. And God won’t hold it against you, Olivia, if Baby Jesus makes a premature arrival. Though I know some people like to keep him hidden until the day he was born.”

  “I think that’s an excellent tradition,” she says.

  Father Carl turns to me. “You’re Julia. It’s very nice to meet you, Julia.”

  I give him a stiff, upright wrist wave, close to the belly. “Hi.”

  “Olivia has told me so much about you,” he says.

  Liv stays kneeling, staring into the manger, and says, �
��An excellent tradition, keeping him hidden. Because no one ever talks about the heartache that he caused. All those other babies who died on his behalf.”

  Father Carl’s eyebrows rise into triangle tips. “Other babies?”

  “Julia doesn’t know what we’re talking about,” Liv says. “Her mother is an atheist.”

  I start to correct her, then stop.

  “King Herod learned he’d been outwitted by the three wise men and ordered all boys in Bethlehem under the age of two to be slaughtered,” she continues.

  “Be right down, Father!” Deborah calls from far away.

  Father Carl pats his belly. “Well, that’s the biblical story, yes. I believe modern historians put the number at about twelve.” He spins on his heels to me. “Bethlehem was a very small town, you see.”

  “King Herod was obsessed with his legacy. He built a lot of things, like fortresses, aqueducts, and theaters. Splashy, visible projects. Like the Temple of Jerusalem,” Liv says.

  “You’ve certainly been keeping up with your Bible studies, Olivia.” He glances back to the center stairwell where Deborah disappeared.

  “But he was also paranoid and bloodthirsty. Especially toward the end of his reign, as he was getting older. He even thought the plots against him were hatched by his own family. He killed one of his wives, Mariamne, and three of his sons: Alexander, Aristobulus, and Antipater. What kind of monster does that to his own family members?”

  “Maybe we should eat,” I say.

  “The thing is, no one would be sad when he died, and he knew that. That’s why as he was dying, he rounded up the leading men of Israel and threw them in the Hippodrome, ordering they be killed when he died so more people would mourn. A totally immoral monster, wouldn’t you say?”

  Deborah rushes down the stairs with something in her arms.

  “It’s no surprise that Caesar Augustus said, ‘It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son,’” Liv says.

  Father Carl forces a laugh.

  Liv forces a laugh back. “Funny, right? The joke, of course, is that since Herod was a Jew, he wouldn’t eat pork, so the pig would be safe.”

  Deborah bustles toward Father Carl with a square box wrapped haphazardly in tissue with a pink grosgrain ribbon I recognize from a pillow on her bed. She gives me a sharp look that tells me she heard the sound of broken parts inside Father Carl’s gift, and if she didn’t have to be on her best behavior, I’d be toast. “And you’re all in the parlor. Perfect! And you’ve already been talking to the girls, so your counseling is done. Are you hungry, Carl? Because if you can wait, I’d love for you to open a small gift I got you.”

  Father Carl gushes, noting he didn’t bring anything, doesn’t need anything, for he has all he needs in God’s love, but she insists, and does he like art supplies? Everyone likes a nice set of watercolor pencils, especially ones from Switzerland, the brand is well respected if you’re into that sort of thing.

  Father Carl collapses into one chair, and Deborah sits stiffly in the one opposite. I sit in the third, and no one seems to notice that Liv hasn’t moved from the floor, staring at the stupid manger scene that isn’t really pretty but is actually kind of shabby. The smell of Leland’s candles is overpowering, a mix of candy apple and wintergreen that hurts my teeth. The Christmas tree winks on and off in a sickening strobe effect. I can’t understand why Liv doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t even give Deborah a dirty look for giving her present away, so I give Deborah my dirtiest look for her. Can’t anyone see Liv’s eyes are filled with tears? But since I’m the one who broke Father Carl’s praying hands, maybe it’s my fault.

  Father Carl rips at the soft tissue paper. “These pencils are lovely! I guess I’ll have to take up drawing.”

  “I need to call Shane,” Liv says softly.

  “What’s so important that you have to call Shane right now?” I say, wishing she’d stay, because the minute she leaves, I will slip her gift in her stocking, and she will know, and nothing will ever be the same. Right in this moment, we are in a snow globe that’s about to shatter, a moment in time that we can never go back to.

  “I need to arrange when to give him his gift.” She trips lightly up the stairs.

  Deborah throws up her hands. “Dinner’s nearly done. Come, everyone! I’ve even made figgy pudding.”

  I am left alone with the flashing tree. The lights have halos. I’m looking through tears, I realize, blinking them back. There isn’t much time. I stand and walk over to the ornamental fireplace, patting my vest. Liv needs to know I know what she did. I risked my life to save her. And she risked my life to … what?

  Which stocking? Eeenie-meanie-miney-mo. The one I land on feels wrong. I try again.

  Not because you’re dirty.

  Not because you’re clean.

  Just because you kissed a boy behind a magazine.

  Out goes Y-O-U.

  I slip the stocking off the angel’s trumpet hook. It’s heavy. Inside is a box of Crest whitening strips, a cold eye pack, oil-control blotting papers, and a large jar of vitamins called Time Machine with “age-defying, plant-based properties that support cell health.” All stuff I’ve seen among Deborah’s things she uses and owns, just more of it. I stuff the items back in the same order and slip it back on the hook.

  Stocking Two is as empty as the other is full, but for a long envelope. Please make this be a really good gift certificate, I think. Clothes or the Apple store or anything, really. Liv may be immoral, but she’s a kid whose fake-Christmas present just got given away, and she deserves something.

  Laughter from the other room. I slip the envelope from the stocking and face the wall. Peeking may be a violation of Liv’s privacy, but she violated us.

  The gift certificate is not a gift certificate but a tricolor brochure for something called Makeover Travel. It’s written in stilted English, with porny photos of boobs and butts and perfectly caved stomachs and straight noses. It explains that “surgery holidays” in Bolivia are less expensive because there are no taxes and the exchange rate is favorable, where something called the “Latin Touch” means you get to recover in a “post-operative paradise” for as many weeks as you like. It talks about combining various plastic surgeries at once—a cost-effective alternative! Where else can you “go on holiday and you become the souvenir”? I feel nauseated as I tick down the menu of implants (chin, cheek, butt), lifts (face, breast, thigh, butt), reductions (chin, female breast, male breast), and ominous-sounding plasties (blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, labiaplasty).

  Plastic surgery in Bolivia?

  From the dining room comes the clinking of forks and the slosh of poured wine. Another doorbell, and Liv’s fast steps on the stairs. I tuck my present for Liv back into my vest pocket, and meet her as she swings around the newel-post, lighter, her mood shifted to suit our new visitor, Crystal, who has arrived in a cab that Liv runs out to pay. Deborah doesn’t move from Father Carl, which leaves me as host and greeter until Liv returns.

  I walk over to Crystal. “Hi. I’m Julia.”

  Crystal is a gorgeous child: perfect skin, bright black eyes, cheekbones to die for. Tall and limber already, her figure is filling out in ways that peg her a stone-cold fox in a year’s time. Dread blooms inside my chest.

  “Hi,” Crystal says, shy. Afraid of me.

  Deborah yells from the dining room, and Crystal runs toward her voice. Liv comes behind me.

  “Crystal’s mom sends her in a cab?” I say.

  “Crystal’s mom is a meth addict. She and her two little brothers live with her grandmother, who’s on dialysis. We send her in a cab.”

  “She’s afraid of me, but she likes Deborah,” I say.

  Liv snorts. “She thinks my mother is a benevolent goddess. And that we live in a yellow-pink-and-green palace.”

  “Really?” I say, though I’m not surprised. Deborah has that effect on people who don’t know her well, that lethal combo of faded looks and faux-folksy warmth she projects on newbies. Cry
stal will learn soon enough.

  “And it’s mutual. Deborah dotes on her. Sometimes I don’t know if she got her for me or for her,” Liv says airily.

  “I think it’s cool that you’re doing this,” I say.

  “It wasn’t my idea. Deborah tweaked and polished my application so hard she could see her reflection in it,” she says, hooking her elbow through mine, and we walk into the dining room. Steps away, she stops. Crystal is seated at Deborah’s right, looking awkward and stiff, like she’s supposed to be having fun but isn’t. When she sees Liv, her face relaxes and she lights up. Liv turns fast and drags me close. “Listen, if something ever happened, if, say, I had to leave for a while, just to clear my head, would you do something for me?”

  “Where are you planning on going?” I say, startled.

  “It’s an important question. Would you take care of Crystal?”

  “I can’t be her Big Sister. Isn’t there a whole vetting process? I see a therapist regularly, I probably wouldn’t pass muster.”

  “I don’t mean be her Big Sister. I mean make sure the arrangement ends. She shouldn’t start spending time with my mother.”

  “It’s Big Sister, not Big Mother,” I say. “That’s not how it works.”

  “It’s looser than you think. Just promise me,” Liv says.

  She drops my wrist. Crystal gives a tiny wave. Father Carl tries mightily to engage Crystal, but she only has eyes for Livvy, as she calls her.

  “Just promise me,” Liv demands.

  “I promise. God!” I rub my wrist.

  When she faces me, her eyes are wet. “Thank you.”

  It is the only time she’s ever said it.

  Liv sits on Crystal’s other side and transforms back into a teenager, a cool teenager Crystal adores already. Liv and Crystal have each other; Father Carl and Deborah have each other. I am alone but for my knowledge, which I wear like a hair shirt. I sit across from the clove-spiked ham, silent. It’s as though I’m not there at all. There are two tall windows in the dining room, and I find myself gazing out of them throughout the night, drinking in the velvet darkness like sanity. With each sip of wine and forkful of ham, Deborah grows softer and Father Carl grows more moist and red. She flirts with and cajoles Father Carl, skilled at using her womanliness. Liv pushes salad around her plate and makes jokes at the expense of Paula Papademetriou, whom Deborah predicts won’t be showing her face around the Shiverton Chamber of Commerce luncheons or the charity circuit or the athletic fields or the country club for that matter for a good long while, given the Pantanos’ long reach in this town, never mind the MacDougalls, who are darn near salt-of-the-earth-style royalty. Crystal laughs at things she doesn’t understand.