David Heiller
The missing shoes
convinced me that Christmas is here. The missing wedding ring was the first
clue, but the shoes convinced me.
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| David and the kids at the kitchen table. |
The wedding ring disappeared
on Monday morning. I had showed the kids at breakfast how shiny the ring was. It
had been polished a few days earlier. Noah looked at the ring, then Μalika looked at the
ring. Then the ring was gone.
I first noticed it at work. I reached for
my finger to feel the ring. It’s a habit I have when I talk to pretty women (like
my wife). It was gone.
All day my finger felt naked.
We called the school, and asked if she had taken it to school. She hadn’t. We believed her, sort of.
She knows the value of that ring to me. She wouldn’t give it away, or trade it for
some Skittles, not on purpose at least. But drug addicts know the dangers of drugs,
and still take them. That’s the way my daughter can be with shiny gold things.
When we got home, we looked
all over the house for it. Mollie said she remembered putting it on the dining room
table. That’s the table that you can’t see the top of, because it is covered with
Christmas ornaments and candles and wise men.
My stomach started fluttering. The ring
is handmade. There’s
only one other like it, and my wife wears it.
Then Cindy went to turn on
the radio, and there was the ring, and suddenly everyone was forgiven, including
the person who probably left it there—me.
As for my shoes, they still
haven’t turned up. I took them off somewhere on Monday night, and Tuesday morning
they were gone. They might be on the dining room table too, and we might find them
after Christmas.
Meanwhile I’m wearing a black
shiny pair that I last wore on my wedding day in 1980. They are too tight.
That happens when you have babies, I hear.
Christmas is a beautiful time
of year. It’s also
a time when people forget where they put their wedding rings and shoes.
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| Malika could turning all things, live or pretend, into her friends. |
It’s a time when
eight-year-old girls forget about their Barbies and play with Mary and Joseph
and the three wise men instead. I didn’t know
they could carry on such interesting conversations. They were mostly silent
when I was a kid. Not to my daughter.
It’s a time to walk
through the woods looking for that perfect tree, and finding it along with a
few other treasures, like the paw prints of a wolf, and a pileated woodpecker
that laughs and flies away
like a tiny jet.
If you are eight, it’s a
time to wear the skirt that is supposed to go underneath the Christmas tree. The
skirt looked good on Mollie. Happy Petersen of Askov made it, and it made
Mollie happy. It fit her too. She looked like she stepped out of a Jan Brett
children’s book when she wore it. I didn’t think she would give it up, but like
the ring, I was wrong. Cindy put it under the tree on Monday night. It looks
good there too.
 |
| David and Red at the Askov American office. |
Christmas is also a time
to count your blessings. Red Hansen is doing that these days. He had double
bypass heart surgery on November 12, and if you wonder why Askov seemed a bit
lonely recently, it’s because Red hasn’t been roaming the streets.
He finally got the okay to
drive last Friday, so he stopped in the office for a visit on Monday. He said
he’s feeling better. Then he mentioned that he has a new valve in his heart
that came from a pig. Apparently the heart of a pig is similar to the heart of
a human, which explains a lot about humans.
Red was glad he got the
pig valve, instead of the other kind that sends a ball through a wire cage. The
other kind is like a check valve, he said. It sounds more like Chutes and
Ladder to me. It makes a steady clicking sound, he said, and Red worried that
this might have thrown off his rhythm with his accordion.
I allowed as maybe you can
get them to change their beat. Yeah Doc,
I’d like
a heart
valve in three-quarter time, please. I’m a waltz man.
Red also wondered how old
the pig was that graciously donated its valve. What if it was an old codger,
and had only another year to go? Red worries about things like that, with his
tongue in his cheek.
Think
about it. And let me know if you find a pair of brown shoes.
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