The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith Read Free Book Online

pull up.
    “At first I thought it might be a neighbor or one of Ben’s friends,” she reports excitedly, as we devour cheeseburgers on the family room couch. “I was kneeling low and peeking over the sill to see what they would do next.”
    She didn’t follow through with her plan to stop the gift giving; she didn’t even race to the door to confront them. Instead, she snuck over to the door, crouching low, trying to hide, and wishing we hadn’t left so many lights on downstairs so that she could get a better look at our Christmas elves.
    She didn’t open the door until after the purr of the car engine moved up the street. She found three rolls of Christmas wrapping paper on the porch, along with the usual note.
    On the third day of Christmas
    Your true friends give to you
,
    three rolls of gift wrap for all of you
.
    “I had my ear to the door,” Megan says, building suspense. “I could hear the rustle of a package, footsteps. My hand was on the doorknob.”
    “Why didn’t you open it?” Nick asks.
    “Why didn’t you talk to them?” Ben wants to know.
    Megan surprises us when she announces that she did.
    “I whispered Merry Christmas,” she says. “And, thank you.”
    Nick thinks it a good idea she didn’t open the door.
    “Might stop if we spoil their fun. Maybe they’ll bring us real presents on Christmas, a new television or bikes.”
    “These are real presents,” Megan insists.
    “Maybe we should start getting ready for bedtime,” I declare.
    The boys take off, but my daughter stays. Bella plops down next to Megan and rubs a wet nose against her hand, an invitation to scratch her neck. The child obliges, giving comfort to the one creature in the house that allows her to do so.
    “Christmas is harder than it used to be,” she tells the dog.
    I couldn’t agree more, but keep my opinion to myself. I remind Megan not to open the door if she doesn’t know who is standing on the other side of it. I don’t like the idea of strangers skulking around the house when I’m not home, although I am begrudgingly grateful that I don’t have to make an extra stop to get Christmas wrapping paper now for Megan’s teacher’s gift.
    “They’re not strangers,” Megan says. “They’re our true friends.”
    Identifying the culprits moves to the top of my Christmas list.

C HAPTER F OUR
The Fourth Day of Christmas
    I RISE EARLY to wrap the chocolates for Megan’s teacher before waking the kids, but the task turns into a scavenger hunt. I search the family room and the kitchen for the wrapping paper that Megan reported receiving, finding only one depleted cardboard roll in a trash bag outside my daughter’s bedroom door. I am tiptoeing across Megan’s room to check her favorite stowaway spot behind the bed when a frustrated growl startles us both. Megan opens her eyes, smiles at me, and drifts back to sleep, while I track the source of the disturbance.
    Nick stands at his bedroom door, kicking at a pile of dirty laundry that prevents him from closing it. I wish I could blame the mess on Meg, but the fault is mine. I had wedged the door open with the clothes after he fell asleep. Nick and I have been playing tug-of-war with that door every night for more than amonth. Nick had closed his bedroom door before going to bed. Later, when I no longer heard the jingle of his video-game music, I had reopened it. It’s a habit with me these days. I fear the kids will need me and I won’t hear them.
    “Why won’t you keep the door closed?” Nick demands.
    His voice trembles, and his eyes blaze with a level of anger I have never seen in my typically even-tempered son.
    “I’m twelve years old. I need privacy.”
    “I do respect your privacy, Nick, but you don’t need privacy while you’re sleeping.”
    I wrap an arm around my son’s shoulders and walk him back to bed. In the darkened room, I don’t see the roll of gift wrap he left on the floor, and I trip over it. Nick picks it up and begins bouncing the