The Unboxing

It was such a tiny thing, the box. The drone that dropped it off wasn’t much bigger, it looked like it could barely hold the envelope that came with it. The only reason George saw it was because of the large white envelope that was settled on his ‘Come in, We’re Dead’ welcome mat. One of the many leftover holiday decorations that he didn’t bother to change. What was the point, after all? The magic was gone.

He picked up the dainty box with his index finger and thumb, peering at it with one eye open and the other closed, trying to make out the tiniest letters he had ever seen, complete with a tiny stamp, only to realize that he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Confound it. Taking the envelope in his other hand, he did not need his glasses to make out his name, George Herbert Henry Smith III, written in large black letters, with his address and a lovely holiday stamp.

Frowning scraggly brows, the wrinkles well used to such an expression on his face, George tried to think of who would send him a package using every syllable of his legal name. Especially one so tiny it could only hold a thimble, perhaps, or an eraser, maybe. Had he ordered a watch battery and forgotten?

It took him several rooms and about ten minutes to find his glasses. A bittersweet moment, Dorothy would have known where they were in two. She always did. She’d also have told him to change the doormat to something like “Don’t come in unless you want to be stuffed!”, and then “Are you Happy yet?” with the infamous grumpy cat glaring at visitors under a Christmas hat by the lights of a Hanukkah Menorah and a Kwanzaa Kinara. He missed her sense of humor and the way she loved people. To say she lit up a room was an understatement.

It had been one year, two months and five days since he had held her hand and kissed her cheek last. Time had smoothed the edges of his grief, but there were moments that the prick of it cut just as deep as it had that first day. He stood there, glasses, box and envelope in hand for a good five minutes before the wave of almost physical pain passed. The first time he had felt it, he thought he was having a heart attack. But no, it was just profound, intense grief. Palpable, bitter, a wave that always left his knees weak and his pulse frail.

He sat down in his favorite chair and slid his glasses onto his nose, setting the tiny box down on the end table and studying the envelope. No return address, just a name, Christopher K Smith. Curious.

George picked up the letter opener that Dorothy had given him for Christmas a few years back. They both laughed at the time. Santa was stuck, upside down in a chimney, with only his boots showing. The silver and mother of pearl carving led down into a typical letter opening blade. Not too sharp, just sharp enough. He’d given her a little pair of diamond earrings that were in a box that looked like it was a piece of coal. The holidays used to be their favorite time of year. Without her, they just felt bitter and lonely.

He slid the envelope open and dragged a card out of it. Not a typical holiday card, no. One of those new special kinds with lights and sounds. Requiring a thicker envelope and extravagant postage. He opened it and it played some happy little tune he barely heard as the tin colored warmth of tiny LED lights tried to fight the dim morning sun in his family room.

The name of such a room had been ironic for a year. Dottie had been the glue of their family. Now the room was resplendent in sunlit rays of dust and the out of place music from the card was both a disturbance and yet quickly swallowed by the hallowed feel of her untouched library of books she had planned to read one day. He had tried to box them up three times, but each time he would find one they had either bought together, or that he had found for her and it had just been easier to put them back on their shelves.

The card had a typical holiday greeting. “To you and yours, Have a wonderful Holiday Season!” Generic in tone, just like the ones Dorothy would have picked. But there was also a handwritten note. “Does not open til Christmas. Love Dottie.” And it was her writing. He almost dropped the card. Was this a cruel joke? He turned it over, then looked in the envelope, looked at the back of the card, the front of the card, opened it again and it started the song over again. This time he heard it. “Let it Snow” They used to dance to that song on Christmas Eve.

He closed the card after letting the song finish, determining that nothing else was in the envelope. Does not open til Christmas. It was three days until Christmas, but the wording was strange. He picked up the tiny box but even with his glasses he could barely see the writing on it. He got up from his chair and rummaged around the room until he found his magnifying glass. Turning on the brightest light in the house he stared down at it. His full name, how did that even fit? Address, a tiny little stamp. It was as if it went through a post office for dollhouses. It was hard to tell, but he thought it was her handwriting too. By this time, George’s pulse was pounding.

He had to open it. He couldn’t wait until Christmas. Had she sent it last year? Maybe it had been lost. He felt tears on his cheeks, making the writing blur. Taking his handkerchief out of his pocket he wiped his eyes, rubbed his nose and then stuffed it back before he grabbed his letter opener. But he couldn’t find a way to open the box. He tried many ways to open it, starting with gentle, delicate things like razor blades, carving tools, and tweezers. But he couldn’t even pry the tiny stamp off the little box.

That night, he left the box on the table beside his chair and dreamed of Dorothy and the last Christmas they had together. He woke the next morning with the taste of her Christmas Ham in his mouth. He tried for almost thirty minutes to go back to sleep, or at least to dream a bit longer, but he wasn’t one of those born with that ability, so he got up with a sigh to make his own breakfast.

Coffee, toast, two eggs and bacon. He brought it to his chair and ate, staring at the box he couldn’t open. It looked as lonely as he felt. He finished eating and cleaned up after himself. He didn’t do that everyday, but with Dottie’s box staring at him, he felt like he needed to show her that he was taking care of himself. He then took her card out and set it up behind the box, propping it open just enough that the song played out to the end. Now the box wasn’t lonely anymore. The lights from the card twinkled as if he had decorated the room just a little. Now and then, if he looked at just the right angle, he could see her handwriting, and it wrenched at his heart, but at the same time, it felt as if she had come down from heaven with a kiss just for him.

He thought about trying to open the box again several times, but rejected each idea because he didn’t want to accidentally smash or drill a hole through whatever she had given him. Perhaps being in the post office for a year had cemented whatever glue or tape she had used. Or maybe it was a joke gift, not even meant to be opened. But it felt like having her nearby, so he picked up the book she hadn’t finished reading and he read out loud in his chair, like he had in the hospital for those last few weeks. He read until his voice was hoarse, and then he took down one of the puzzles they were supposed to do together and cleared space to work on it just in front of his chair.

He put on one of their favorite Christmas movies and eventually he fell asleep in his chair.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. He made breakfast and added peppermint to his coffee. He hated mint coffee but that was the way she had liked it and it soothed his hoarse throat. When he went out to his Family room, he stopped and stared for several moments. The room was no longer dusty. A year’s worth of dust, gone. It was clean and tidy as it had been when Dorothy had time and energy, long before both of them had slowed down. Morning light streamed in and warmed the room, which smelled fresh like pine and cinnamon. He didn’t see a Christmas tree, but he could smell one.

He walked over to his chair and looked around. Everything was as he left it, but the puzzle he’d been working on was almost finished. Much farther along than he’d been the day before. He should feel frightened. Violated. Obviously someone had been in his home. But all he felt was as if Dorothy had walked up and hugged him. Again it was bittersweet. He wouldn’t have traded that for anything in the world. He had missed her so much. But it still pricked deep. He even imagined he could smell the perfume she had loved since their honeymoon, a confection of honeysuckle, sandalwood and roses, somehow mixed to be delicate.

He sat down in his chair and breathed her in until the scent was gone. He suddenly realized half the day was gone and made himself lunch. Returning to his chair, he finished the puzzle, before running his hand over the pieces. It was one she had loved. Colorful, a fantasy print that was full of strange creatures and laughter. They had done it together before, but at that time it had a missing piece. Now, it was whole. He touched the place the missing one had been and studied the face of a little fairy. If her eyes were a different color, she would almost look like his Dottie.

The afternoon ticked by with an abominable slow rhythm. The impending evening to be followed by a Christmas morning was the worst kind of bittersweet. He wanted to know what was in the box, but would it finally open? How? Had it truly come from his Dottie? Or was he simply missing her to such a degree that he was hallucinating a fantastical magic comfort? In the end he decided it didn’t matter. Dottie had always been worth any kind of insanity.

He made himself an early dinner of cold sliced ham sandwiches, adding a bit of cranberry jelly so they would taste of the holiday, just like his late night snacks after the feasts Dottie would make. Of course, that was when the whole family would come over to spend Christmas with them. He didn’t have the heart for it this year. He missed the grandkids of course. And their own, but he didn’t know how to put his own pain away long enough to face theirs. He told himself tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next year. Next, next, next.

The days took forever but the year had passed lickety split. For the first time in a year, he wished, at least for a moment, that they were there. He could almost see them around the table with Dottie’s plate of ham proudly in the center. Cranberry from the can on its matching holiday plate. There was laughter and warmth. Music. The house would be filled all day with the lovely smells of the feast. They knew how lucky they were. Oh, it wasn’t as if they never argued. There had been a few slammed doors. But Dottie believed that family should not go to bed angry and she had tried to live up to that. He had tried to follow her example. One by one, so did their kids.

George rinsed out his glass and the few utensils he had used and put them in the dishwasher. It was early evening but he didn’t want to stay up. He also wasn’t tired enough to sleep so he went back to his chair in the family room and put his feet up. He had to search for a few minutes, digging around but he finally found the remote digging into the side of his hip. Dottie had preferred he keep it in the holder she had for it, but somehow it always gravitated to the seat cushion of his chair. When they still had cable and a VCR, he once had three remotes hidden in various depths of the cushion of his chair and she had teased him saying he could get a job as a chicken, since he liked to sit on objects so much. He said no, he made a better duck because he could do the voice. And then made her laugh with the Donald Duck voice.

Thinking about those moments, he turned on a Mickey Christmas movie just for the nostalgia of it and fell asleep halfway through.

He woke up to the sound of his card, once more playing “Let it Snow” right beside him on the end table. The little box that had his address and name on it now looked like a tiny little present, complete with a bow on it. He picked it up and stared at it, before it fell open in his hand to reveal his wedding ring. That was the moment that he heard them and saw her.

She was holding the box. His box. His ring. She was crying. “Thank you Chris, a world without Santa is unthinkable, but me without George? It’s been a year, two months and eight days.”

“We all miss him, Dottie” Chris said, a tender kind of sadness in his eyes as he covered her hand and the ring with his own. “He was a good man, a great father, and a brilliant smith. The accident could have taken more lives if he hadn’t acted so quickly, and I know all those weeks in the hospital, you were a comfort at his side. We will all be here for you, anything you need, anytime, anywhere.”

Everything suddenly clicked and it felt as if the world not only spun, but shifted. His family room was filled with Smiths of various ages and relations. Their dining room had breakfast waiting. There were gifts opened and still wrapped in the most beautiful of patterns and bows. A tree trimmed with the oldest of delicate glass ornaments mixed with soft twinkling led lights, because those would not catch the real tree on fire. But the tree was not one that would die and dry out, no. It would be planted again outside after its week of glory inside the house. That was part of the magic of the Smiths.

Everyone thought it was elves that helped Santa and his sleigh, but no. How could one man go around the world in one night giving presents and magic to children? He can’t. But an army of many can. An army that knows the magic of metal. And how to keep a secret.

And George?

With this ring, I thee wed, in death will not part, in magic to honor thee, with magic to wed thee, from this moment forth, our love steadfast, from top of mount to bottom of sea. Miss Dorothy McGee, will you agree, with all of my faults, will you take on my name, will you have me?

George watched as Dottie took the ring out of the box, followed by a delicate silver chain. Christopher helped settle it around her neck and the ring rested close against her chest. George felt peace descend on him as her scent and the sound of her heartbeat thumped against his bones.

The world shifted again as Dottie’s heart pulsed peace into his mind. George remembered. He recognized Chris now, and his wife Carol. The Smith’s were too large to have a head of family, the branches of their family tree was more like a forest. But Chris was one of the ‘leads’, just as George had been. A keeper of the old ways. A teacher and one that held the knowledge. He would pass the traditions on to George’s apprentice so their branch would not wither.

“Thus the mantle passes, as fire, the first magic, using wood and air as fuel, mixed with stone to create metal, the second magic. As Smiths, we honor this. George Henry Herbert Smith III, sleep well, until we join you in the hall of Smiths, to feast and keep the Yuletide hearth burning.”

George felt warm again for the first time in a year, two months and eight days. Warm, loved and peaceful. Perhaps not entirely happy, but such is life. And death.

One of his grandchildren stood up from behind his chair, carefully picked up his card and held it up.

“Grandma, Can we play it again, so Grandpa can sing with us?”

Dottie smiled, leaning down as she kissed her cheek before she opened the card and set it back on the end table.

“I think he’d like that, little dove”

He closed his eyes and fell asleep to the scent of Dottie’s perfume and the sound of the Smith’s singing “Let it Snow”.