Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Purple Rain"

The first week of December, I found myself helping Ms. Harlow and Arjun decorate the house for Christmas. Let me tell you, Ms. Harlow was a Christmas fanatic, and the house looked like Santa's workshop pretty soon. Garland and lights were hanging in doorways, Christmas candles made the house smell like pine trees and peppermint, and a giant wreath hung on not only the front door, but on the back door as well. Actually, there were wreaths all over the house. Heck, this lady even had the leg lamp from The Christmas Story, sitting in her front room window no less.

There were also multiple Christmas trees. They were mostly small ones here and there, but there was one medium sized one in one of the back rooms, and a very large one in the front room. We tackled that big boy last. First we wrapped a large rope of silver garland around it. Then, while Arjun was busy untangling icicle lights for the roof, Ms. Harlow and I pulled ornaments from boxes.

As we hung the ornaments, I found a few of them to be familiar from when I used to hang around here as a kid during Christmas. Actually, there were a few Christmas mornings I spent with Arjun and his mother instead of with my own family.

I smiled as I pulled an ornament of a small teddy bear out of the box. It had been Arjun's favorite as a kid, and I used to tease him about it. Smirking, I held it up so Arjun could see it from the doorway, where he was cursing at the tangled lights. "It's your old buddy, Arjun," I said in a mocking tone.

Arjun looked up, then gave me a look. "Rand, don't start." Yet, when he turned back to the lights, I swore I saw a smile on his face.

I hung the bear on the tree and went to grab another one.

"Oh!" Ms. Harlow held up a mobile ornament. "This was the ornament you got for your first Christmas, Arjun!"

Arjun smiled at his mother, then dropped the lights to come take the ornament. "Ah, perhaps I should be the one to hang it?" He put it on one of the front branches. "Perfection." He and his mother laughed and gave each other a hug, then returned to what they were doing before.

As a kid, I was always jealous of Arjun. No, he never knew his own dad, but at least he had a mother who cared about him. Watching them now, I felt some of that old jealousy come back. I remembered when we were kids, when I once hid in the bathroom with Arjun when guests were over and we were pretending to be spies. He confessed then that he was jealous of me because I had a mom and a dad. I just told him not to be, because having both parents didn't mean life was great. Both of my parents were alcoholics and complete deadbeats. I was lucky my father cared enough about me to actually spend time with me, but of course that went away after he died.

Arjun never knew who his father was. Apparently he checked out of the scene when he found out Arjun was going to be born, since he and Ms. Harlow were only teenagers at the time and unmarried. But he had a mom who loved him more than anything, who was an actual mother to him. I never got to have that. Really, I didn't know if there was any justification to either of us being jealous of each other. Probably not.

Another laugh from Ms. Harlow made me snap out of my thoughts. She was holding up an ornament that had clearly been crafted by a toddler. "This is what you came home from preschool with one day," she explained as she placed the handmade ornament on the tree. I couldn't even tell what it was, honestly.

"Oh, right. The 'Thingie'," Arjun said. He didn't even have to look away from the lights to know which one it was.

"'Thingie'?" I laughed.

"It's a clump of glitter, glue, and paper that I thought was the greatest masterpiece since the Mona Lisa," Arjun said. He shot me a mock glare. "Show some respect, Riggs."

"Ah," I said, nodding. "Excuse my ignorance." We shared a smirk, then I reached into the box and pulled out the last ornament I expected to see. My heart sank when I saw it, and I felt heat rise to my face.

It was another handcrafted ornament, one that I made myself at school. It had a popsicle frame, and a photo of me and my parents had been glued onto it. I had only been seven at the time. My father was grinning at the camera, and his arm was around my shoulders. It never hit me until then that I looked a lot like him.

My mother was kissing my dad's cheek, looking happy for once. Her blonde hair was still beautiful, and she still looked healthy. There was not even a hint of what she would later turn out to look like; stringy hair, and a thin, boney body. It made me sick to think about it.

"How did this get here?" I asked. My voice sounded muffled to my own ears.

Ms. Harlow glanced at the ornament. "Ah, you brought that over here one Christmas you spent with us, I believe. It was the first Christmas after your father passed away, and you wanted that to hang on our tree instead of yours." She bit her lip. "You...don't have to hang it if you don't want to."

I stared at the ornament, debating. No, my childhood wasn't the happiest, and I didn't have the world's most perfect family. My dad died from the amount of drinking he did, and my mom ditched me. But there was some part of me that wanted to remember them. Sighing, I turned to hang the ornament on the tree. At least it was their smiling faces I was looking at.

As I studied the photo, I think something inside of me broke.

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Thank you for reading!

Listen to "Purple Rain" by Prince!

Peace ✌️~ A.J.