Home Is Where the Christmas Trees Are

By CJane Elliott

After the tragic death of his sister, Jan, Dex Crawford leaves his life in Portland to take care of his twelve-year-old niece, Rowan. He gets a job as a physical therapist and tries to be a good guardian to Rowan, but they’re both grieving. The Christmas holidays hit Dex especially hard this year. He’d always left it to Jan to make the season merry, and now it’s up to him. Two weeks before Christmas, Dex has yet to even put up a Christmas tree.

Things go from bad to worse when Rowan’s clarinet is stolen right before the school holiday concert. Dex’s life begins to turn around when he accompanies Rowan to school to talk to her band teacher, Ed Alcott. Handsome and kind, Ed likes kids, music, and holiday decorations. Dex comes to think of him as his very own Christmas elf. Ed brings with him everything that’s been missing in Dex’s life: the possibility of love, home, and celebration… and Christmas trees.

“Y
OU
’
RE
DOING
great, Mrs. Alcott,” Dex said as he packed his therapy bag. “I think it’s time to discharge you from Home Health.”

“Oh dear. But I’ll miss you.” Mrs. Alcott gave him her sweet smile. “You’ve taken such good care of me. Why, I was telling Eddie just the other night what wonders you’ve done!”

Dex hoisted the bag over his shoulder. “You’re the one who’s done the hard work. That hip is as good as new. Keep at those exercises I gave you, okay?”

“Of course. But wait! Before you go, let me get you a plate of my gingerbread cookies. I always make too many of them for the holidays.” She walked around the corner into the kitchen area of her small apartment.

Dex almost said no, remembering the warning on professional boundaries the social worker liked to drill into the rest of the home health staff. He didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Alcott’s feelings, though, and he wouldn’t be seeing her after today. Dex felt pretty attached to Mrs. Alcott. He was going to miss being her physical therapist.

As she clattered dishes in the kitchen, he took one last look around her cozy apartment. A profusion of green plants, art, books, and knickknacks filled the space. She had traveled widely and brought back artifacts from all over. A piano took up most of one wall, and a double bass stood in a corner. The bass had a new adornment: a strand of Christmas lights, twinkling merrily at him.

“I like your Christmas lights,” he called.

“What?” Mrs. Alcott came back into view, a covered paper plate in her hand. “Oh yes, I like to make things festive this time of year.” She handed him the cookies.

“Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Is that going to be your tree?”

Mrs. Alcott laughed. “No, Eddie is bringing me a small tree tomorrow and helping me decorate. Do you have your tree up?”

“No.” He wondered if he should have gotten a tree for him and Rowan. But Rowan was going to her grandmother’s for Christmas break, and Dex had never been a big holiday person. It had been Jan, his sister and Rowan’s mom, who had gone all out for Christmas, always having the gaudily trimmed tree, the stockings hanging over the hearth, and a million lights inside and out. She took after their mother, who’d loved decorating for the different holidays. Both of them dead now.

“Do you have a family? I hope so, because you’re a wonderful young man.”

“Uh, it’s just my niece and me. And she’s going to spend Christmas with her grandmother in Washington, DC. So I don’t think I’m going to bother with a tree.” Dex edged toward the door, aware that he was beginning to disclose too much to this sweet elderly lady who had taken such a shine to him.
Come on, bozo, she’s not your mother.

Mrs. Alcott followed him, talking away in her cheerful voice. “Well, I love Christmas trees, so I’ve always had one. Of course there was the one year I was depressed and never trimmed it.” She shot him a look. “Terrible, right? Eh, I was going away to my sister’s anyway. Came home to a naked green tree and threw it out on the curb. But every other year I’ve decorated a tree. None of these artificial ones for me. I like to smell the pine. Even the year my husband died, I made sure to get a goldarn tree and decorate it. Eddie always helps me. It cheers me up.”

Dex hadn’t bothered to do anything special about Christmas for years now, despite his mother’s and sister’s examples. He’d been living alone in Portland, Oregon, since graduating from PSU, and figured he could always go home for some Christmas cheer. After his parents died, the only family he had left were Jan and Rowan. It made him sad to think about Jan and the cancer diagnosis that had left them stunned, followed by a far too rapid decline, and then death four months later. Poor Rowan. She hadn’t wanted to live with her father—she’d hardly seen him in the last nine years—and Jan had asked Dex to raise her. He’d said yes, of course, and had moved back to Eugene and into Jan and Rowan’s condo in February.

He should have gotten a tree this year. Another instance of failing as a guardian. He stopped in front of the door, which Mrs. Alcott opened for him. “Enjoy your tree and your holidays, Mrs. Alcott. Will Eddie be spending it with you?”

“Yes, he’ll be over, and we’ll have my brother and sister-in-law and some cousins.”

“It sounds nice.”

“I’m lucky to have such a wonderful son. He’s a musician, you know, and teaches music.”

Dex nodded dutifully, despite having heard this same story week after week. Not to mention been shown pictures of Eddie from babyhood on up. “Middle school, is it?”

“Middle school and high school both. The jazz bands and the concert bands.”

“A noble profession, and not for the faint of heart.”

Mrs. Alcott laughed. “He’s so good with those kids.”

Lifting the plate, he said, “Thanks again for the cookies, and keep up with your exercises.”

R
OWAN
TRUDGED
along the sidewalk outside of school, laden with book bag, clarinet case, and oversize purse.

Dex pulled up beside her and leaned over to open the passenger door. “Hey, Miss R., going my way?”

Her morose expression didn’t alter. She opened the back door and slung her bag and clarinet case on the seat, then climbed in the front.
Slam.

“My ears!” Dex joked. Silence. Rowan clearly was not in a joking mood. “What’s up, Noodle?”

“Nothing,” she muttered as she pulled out her phone. She studied it, shutting him out.

Dex suppressed a sigh. He didn’t understand twelve-year-olds. He especially didn’t understand twelve-year-old girls.

Rowan had been a happy baby and a real cutie-pie as a child. He’d doted on her and they’d always had fun. Patty-cake and peek-a-boo had given way to videogames and bowling, waterparks and laser tag. Then Jan died. And now the poor kid was going through puberty with no mom, just a gay single uncle who had no idea which tampon brand to recommend.

“Should we get a tree?”

Silence.

“Rowan.”

“What?”

“Do you want to get a Christmas tree?”

“I don’t care. Can we get Burger King for dinner?”

Dex frowned. He’d lectured her enough times on fast food. He was a pretty good cook and tried to follow a healthy diet. “No. I bought artichokes and some salmon for dinner, and we have that leftover brown rice.”

With a big, put-upon sigh, Rowan went back to her phone, staring at it like it held the answer to the universe.

But Dex wasn’t put off so easily. “I mean it about the Christmas tree. Didn’t you…. I mean, you guys always had one, right? Maybe it would cheer you up.” He stopped at a red light and glanced over to catch her glaring at him. “Um, or not.”

“Nothing’s going to cheer me up, Uncle Dex. So don’t even try. It wouldn’t be the same without—” Her lip quivered and she turned to look out the window.

Aw crap. That went well.
“Okay. Well, let me know if there’s anything special you want to do, that’s all.” He caught her nodding as the light turned green. “And on second thought, let’s go to Burger King. We can drown our sorrows in a Whopper and fries.”

She turned back to him and gave him a tremulous smile. “You’re the best, Uncle Dex.”

D
EX
FROWNED
at his work laptop, pushed back from the dining room table, and stretched his arms over his head. Charting bored him, but it was the price he paid for doing something he loved—working with people and watching them get stronger and regain their abilities. He’d been glad to find the home health job when he’d moved back to take care of Rowan. After he was done with visits he could do his charting from home, and Rowan didn’t have to be a latchkey kid after school. Being here every afternoon and making dinner for them every night meant he had no social life—okay, sex life—to speak of, much unlike being a single gay man in Portland, but that was okay for now. The kid wasn’t going to be twelve forever.

Yawning, he checked the time on his phone. Rowan should be back soon from her afternoon band rehearsal. Sure enough, he heard the key in the lock and the front door banged open—the front door with its new adornment of a Christmas wreath made from fresh pine boughs. He wondered if Rowan would notice.

“Hello, Noodle. Welcome home!”

She nodded, head down, texting.

He tried again. “Notice anything different?”

“Huh?”

“The door!”

She glanced behind her. “What about it?”

He sighed. “I got us a holiday wreath. It’s on the other side.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rowan wandered to the kitchen, still lost in her phone.

The landline rang—a rare occurrence. Dex knew without looking that it was either Gwendolyn Barrett, Rowan’s paternal grandmother, or a sales person. He reached for it and saw Gwendolyn’s name on the display. “Hi, Gwen.”

“Dex, darling, how are you?” Gwendolyn’s patrician accent betrayed her Boston Brahmin roots. She came from money—”old money,” Jan had told him with an impish smile, not impressed at all—but despite her regal appearance and manner, Gwendolyn Barrett was good people. Dex liked her a lot.

The same couldn’t be said of her son, Thomas Barrett. Jan’s ex-husband had left her and three-year-old Rowan for Washington, DC to be some hotshot lobbyist for the oil industry. Along the way, he’d started a picture-perfect second family, with a picture-perfect second wife. All the more reason for Jan, Rowan, and by extension Dex to want to have nothing to do with him.

Gwendolyn was a different story. Although she had moved to DC to be close to those grandchildren, she’d never stopped being a loving grandmother to Rowan.

“Fine. And you?”

“Surviving quite nicely, thank you. Are you all ready for Christmas?”

What does that mean?
Dex wondered. How did people get “ready for Christmas?” Mrs. Alcott seemed to have a handle on it, with her festive bass and her gingerbread cookies. Dex figured Gwendolyn had her own version, something like decking out her elegant Georgetown townhouse from top to bottom and scheduling cocktail parties featuring eggnog and Christmas music.
Bah humbug.
Why was he so bitter? He’d never cared about Christmas before—had he?

“Sure. I’m ready.” He hadn’t actually thought about it. Rowan was going to be with Gwendolyn—or Gaga, as she called her, Gwendolyn having refused to be called “Granny” when Rowan was born—and her father in DC. This was a trip engineered by Gwen, who had always maintained close ties with Rowan, despite the divorce and subsequent estrangement. In fact, it was Gwendolyn who’d stood for Rowan’s choice to remain in Oregon with Dex, against Thomas’s feeble gesture—mostly for show—that Rowan come live with him. Rowan had been out to visit Gaga several times, enduring the forced “togetherness” with her father in order to spend quality time with her beloved grandmother.

“What will you be doing while I’ve got Rowan?”

Not a thing, actually. If he’d still lived in Portland, he would probably be out partying with some friends. Maybe he should go up there for the holidays, but the idea wearied him. He really hadn’t thought this through. “Working, probably. Home health never sleeps.” Which was technically true, but as a physical therapist, his services weren’t exactly so essential that he’d need to work on Christmas Day. He had no fucking idea what he’d be doing.

“Oh, now, that’s a shame. I should have thought to include you in my invitation to Rowan. You’d be welcome to spend the holidays with us in DC, you know. I’d be happy to get you a plane ticket.”

“Oh. Um, thanks, Gwen, but I… uh, need to be around here. For, you know, work.”

“All right. But know that my door is always open. May I speak with Rowan?”

“Sure, sure. Hey, send me the details on Rowan’s itinerary, okay?”

“Absolutely. I’ll have Charlene e-mail them to you by tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” Dex held the phone by his side and called, “Rowan! It’s your grandmother on the phone for you!”

Rowan burst out of her room, showing the first excitement he’d seen in days. She grabbed the mobile phone and darted away. “Gaga? Hi! Yeah, yeah, I can’t wait!”