Shelf
Legacy Name: Shelf

The village children shrieked with laughter as they raced down the icy lane. One lost his balance, plunging into a snowbank that cushioned his landing. A rainbow assortment of mittens reached in to help him up.

It was a week before Christmas and no child could resist the lure of the storefront displays. The baker put out alluring candied loaves and sugar cookies. The toy store came alive with battery-powered figures and a locomotive with real steam. Even the shabby little antiques shop had a wreath on the door.

The toys there had no bright colors or moving parts that could catch a child’s eye. Many wore a thin coat of dust as evidence of their caretaker’s arthritis. Button eyes stared sadly at the crowd that passed without sparing a moment for those sparks of imagination that had fallen to the mighty power of technology.

The bells on the wreath jangled as a woman stepped inside, nearly losing her hat to the wind. Her coat had been patched multiple times and her left glove had a hole that stretched from the thumb to the center of the palm. She shivered, stamping the snow from her boots as she looked around the shop.

Most of the floor space was taken up by tables with dull finish and lamps with brass fittings. A cracked display case held a few pawned rings and a necklace of pink pearls. The toy display was toward the rear, an enticement for bargain-seeking shoppers seeking a few stocking-stuffers to browse. Housed above the rag dolls and wooden sailboats was a shelf lined with Nostalgic Friend beanies that still bore their tags.

At the center of the display was a handsome brown kitten with wide brown eyes and white-tipped paws that looked ready to leap to the floor. The woman had sworn she would not return home until she had some gift for her daughter, and now she knew what that gift would be. She rang the bell on the counter.

The old caretaker shuffled in from the back room, eyeing the woman’s patched coat. “No charity here. Try the baker, he’s softhearted.”

The woman blushed. “I’m not looking for charity. I want to buy a gift for my daughter. I was wondering how much you’d sell that kitten for.” The woman rummaged through her small purse, coming up with a battered wallet. A few crumpled bills poked out, but that was not what caught the shopkeeper’s eye. Inside the plastic flap was a photo of a little girl dressed in red. She smiled for the camera, her amber curls forming a halo around her head.

The caretaker stared for a long moment at the photo. The kitten was the prize of her collection, worth well more than she’d paid for it. She knew at least three collectors that would pay a handsome price for the doll. She’d also known another little girl in red who had held her father’s hand and begged him not to cry when all he could provide his family was a small joint of ham on Christmas morning. She looked into the mother’s eyes and saw the same hopeless exhaustion. “I couldn’t give that one away. You’d be doing me a favor by clearing the shelf space.” She placed the doll in the mother’s hands. “ I think I have some gift wrap around here somewhere.”

The mother concealed her tears by taking a moment to read the tag.

The mother placed the beautifully wrapped present under her meager evergreen sapling on Christmas Eve after putting her daughter to bed with a promise that this year the weather would not prevent Santa from coming.

She woke five hours later to a bouncing five-year-old announcing “It’s Christmas!” at the top of her voice. She followed her daughter downstairs, covering a yawn with her hand. The little girl was awed by the small red box with the green ribbon that had surely been tied by elves. The mother swung her daughter into her arms and plopped her down on the sofa. “I want you to wait to open your present until I get the camera, alright Sophie?”

“Okay.”

She should have known better. As soon as her back was turned she could hear the paper ripping. She hurried back, hoping to still capture the look on her daughter’s face.

Wrapping paper was strewn over the floor. Gone was the shabby living room with its sorry sprig of spruce, replaced by a magnificent evergreen hung with beautiful ornaments. A tower of presents lay beneath. The mother ran to the kitchen as a delicious smell filled the apartment. A feast was laid out, complete with a basted turkey, potatoes and greens, and three kinds of pie. She ran back to check on her daughter, sure that this was some strange and wonderful dream.

Sophie sat in the middle of the room, cuddling a beautiful brown kitten that purred her contentment. On the collar she wore hung a massive diamond. Lying by the child’s foot was a red plastic tag. When the mother picked it up to read the little poem again, the inner fold was blank.

Story by Pureflower
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