Phoenix was deeply absorbed in a book on autopsy reports and didn't notice the door open. He jumped about a foot in the air when the light turned on, accidentally slamming the book down onto the table. He removed his earbuds and exhaled. His ears ached for the return of the soft winter jazz.
"Sorry, Wright!" Mia said from the hallway. Her voice sounded strained. Phoenix stood up and walked over to the door to see his boss dragging a large coniferous tree into the room. It took a few tugs to get it through the doorway, but she somehow managed to do it.
"I didn't think you'd come back at this hour," Phoenix said, looking down at his phone. It was almost midnight. "That's a…big tree."
"I wanted to surprise you… But I guess I already did!" Mia said, chuckling. She stared down at the tree with her hands on her hips. "It's a Douglas fir," she said proudly.
"Wow, how did you get this here?" he asked. Mia shook her head and smiled.
"Fey magic. I shan't say more than that." She winked.
The tree was huge—probably more than ten feet tall. Phoenix stared at it in bewilderment while Mia dug through her bag. She eventually produced a festive-coloured piece of plastic. "It's a Christmas tree stand," she said to Phoenix's puzzled expression. "Would you help me stand this up?"
The lawyer and her protégé struggled to get the tree upright, but it was clear the ceiling was much too short to accommodate such a powerful force of Christmas. The top of the tree made a ninety degree with the ceiling angle once they finally stepped back to admire their work.
"I guess we don't need an angel," Phoenix said, trying not to laugh.
Mia's eyes widened. "I knew I forgot something…remind me where the angel goes?"
"You put it on the top of the tree. A star would work, too."
Mia picked up a legal pad from her desk and wrote something down. "I won't forget next year," she said. "I'll get us an angel for the top of the tree."
Phoenix couldn't hold it in anymore. He began to laugh. "Wait," he said. "Are you taking notes about how to decorate for Christmas?" She was certainly a lawyer through and through.
"Hush, Wright. It's my first Christmas, don't expect me to know everything right away." She set down the legal pad and admired the tree once more. She seemed so proud of herself, Phoenix thought. He, too, would be proud of himself if he managed to bring the world's largest Christmas tree into the office.
She tilter her head. "I don't have anything to decorate it with, but it looks so bare and sad," she said. "I guess I'll have to buy some ornaments tomorrow."
"Are we trying to attract Santa's elves to our office?" Phoenix joked.
Mia smiled.
"No, nothing like that," she said wistfully. "I was feeling a little down this month and wanted something to cheer the place up. Christmas always seems so fun and I wanted to participate this year."
"Does your religion have a winter holiday?" Phoenix asked. He knew Mia had once told him the name of her faith, but he couldn't recall what it was. He didn't know anyone else who shared the same beliefs.
"Not unless you count the Season of Sadness we have in January, but no one has truly observed that for generations. Too depressing," she said.
Phoenix nodded. "Makes sense," he replied solemnly.
Mia threw her head back and laughed. "I'm just kidding, Wright! No, we don't have a winter holiday. Sometimes we observed the winter solstice, but not much else."
Phoenix felt his face turning red, but Mia took no notice and kept talking.
"Growing up, my sister always wanted a Christmas tree. She watched a lot of cartoons and knew the holiday inside-out and backwards. But our aunt thought it would be blasphemous, so we never got to have one," she said. She rolled her eyes. "I think she just believed it would be too much work to go cut down a tree for no practical reason."
"Then I'm glad you finally got one," Phoenix said. "You should invite your sister in to see it."
Mia crossed her arms and smiled. "I keep asking her to visit, but she hasn't gotten around it. Maybe soon," Mia said.
Inspiration suddenly struck Phoenix. He turned around to his desk and opened the top drawer. His hand groped around inside until he finally pulled out a long string of paperclips strung together. He liked to connect them to one another when was stressed (he was stressed a lot. It was a very long chain).
"What's that?" Mia asked.
Phoenix pulled the chair over from his desk and stood on it for a better reach. He draped the paperclip chain around the tree like a garland. It was long enough to wrap around the tree multiple times.
He hopped down from the chair. "Our first decoration," he said.
Mia grinned. "Ah, so that's where our paperclips have gone. I was starting to worry we had a thief in our midst."
It quickly became a game between the two—who could hang the most ridiculous ornament? Mia countered his paperclip garland with a series of binder clips, but Phoenix was prepared for this and landed a devastating blow: a tiny calculator keychain. They both erupted in laughter as Mia pushed Phoenix out of the way to reach the tree before he did, causing him to crash to the floor and accidentally take Mia with him. She managed to crawl away and hang a roll of masking tape onto one of the branches. They continued to hang miscellaneous office supplies from the tree until nothing small enough remained. Phoenix simply set a granola bar onto one of the branches and dramatically took a bow.
"This is the perfect tree for a lawyer," Mia said. "Our clients will be so impressed."
They stared at their handiwork until Phoenix gasped softly. "Chief, we've forgotten something!" he said.
"What is it?"
Phoenix turned around and pointed to Charley. "I think he wanted in on the action, too. After all, he is a tree…kinda." He had no idea how close Charley was to being a tree.
He plucked a few binder clips from the branches of the overgrown fir and hung them gently from Charley's leaves. He smiled at the ridiculous situation and turned to Mia. But she wasn't smiling anymore. In fact, she looked a bit upset.
"Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have done that," Phoenix said quickly, and moved to take the clips off the plant. Mia stepped over and raised her arm gently.
"No, no, that's fine. It's pretty funny," she said without humor. "You should add a star to the top. I think he'd like that."
"Heh, okay."
Phoenix found some yellow sticky notes and drew a star like the absolute third grader he truly was. Sure, he'd finished three years of art school, but he'd be damned if he could actually draw a star. Portraits and studies in perspective were much, much easier.
He pulled the note from the pad and stuck it to the top of Charley. He looked over to Mia, who was sitting at her desk.
"Is everything okay?" Phoenix asked with concern. "I hope I didn't cross a line or anything. I'm sorry if I was acting unprofessional."
Mia smiled. "No, you've been a major help," she said, and exhaled. "Someone close to me made the same joke about Charley a couple years ago. We put a few ornaments on it, too. He's…he's gone now."
Phoenix looked down. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"We talked about getting a tree for the office, but it never happened. The closest we got to anything festive was a holiday coffee blend. I had been excited to celebrate Christmas for the first time, but then... well, we were never able to."
Phoenix remained silent, unsure of what to say.
"But it's not the time to be sad, is it?" Mia said, smiling widely. "We have the best Christmas tree in Los Angeles."
She rambled on about decorations, gifts for lawyers at other firms, and holiday networking events coming up. But the mood never really recovered, and when the conversation died down and Phoenix saw his boss in the reflection of the window, she was discreetly looking towards the plant. Phoenix didn't press the issue.
It was much too late to stay in the office, so Phoenix wished his boss a good night and packed his things. He didn't know if Mia went home that night, and he never found out.
When he came in the next morning, Charley's decorations had been moved back to the larger tree, and Phoenix's star was gone. Mia was writing at her desk with a cup of coffee placed next to her stack of papers. The room smelled like chocolate peppermint.
Phoenix didn't bring it up, and neither did Mia.
Many years later, Phoenix continued to bring (smaller) firs into the office at Christmas. He decorated them with office supplies and ornaments gifted from other people throughout the years. Maya had given him a small Steel Samurai on a sleigh, and Gumshoe gave him a festive Blue Badger bulb. He even received some thoughtful tokens from Edgeworth, though the man would be hard-pressed to admit that. Ema sent him a small florescent beaker, refusing to name the substance inside that made it glow. Kristoph gave him some ornaments shaped like poker chips. Trucy even made him gingerbread men to hang every year, but he always ate them before they reached the office.
He put the ornaments on the tree each year, often with the help of someone who gave him a trinket that particular year. Each person seemed to make the same joke: oh, what about that tree! They would point to Charley and chuckle at their own cleverness. Phoenix tried to smile and go along with it, but he never hung anything from Charley's branches. No one seemed to really notice or care.
It was not until he arrived at the office late one December morning to see Trucy and Pearl decorating the plant that he knew his resistance was probably silly. The girls giggled as they wrapped strands of popcorn around the Slender Palm Lily (Phoenix knew more about biology these days) and tried to balance a small figure on the top of the plant. Upon closer inspection, it looked like the Pink Princess with a halo.
Phoenix started to object but quickly decided against it. His protectiveness over the plant was not about Mia's feelings, of course—she wasn't here. Rather, it was about his own sentimentality.
"I don't think Charley deserves to hide behind the door if he's going to get all dressed up for the holidays," Phoenix said, bending down to pick up the plant. It had certainly gotten heavier over the years. "Let's move him over by the window."
He carried the pot across the room, lifting it up comically high to show off his strength. His arms screamed in protest.
"Wait, Daddy," Trucy said. "There's something stuck to the bottom"
Trucy pulled something from the base of the ceramic pot. Phoenix set the plant down next to the window and took it from her. He flipped it over.
It was a faded sticky note with a star crudely drawn on it. Trucy glanced at it and went back to pulling decorations out of the carboard boxes.
Phoenix's heart ached, but he smiled.
"Trucy, can we put this star on the top? We can put the Pink Princess on the other tree."
"Sure, if you want. I could draw a better one—"
"No, this one is important. He pulled some tape from the roll and stuck it gently to the highest branch. Charley had certainly grown since the last time he did this.
"I think it's perfect now," he said. Trucy rolled her eyes.
"You're weird, Daddy," she said, but she didn't attempt to move it. She could see how it was important to him even if she didn't understand.
"I know," he said, admiring his handiwork. The leaves were drooping from its excessive holiday spirit, but he knew Charley could take it. He could take it.
The star had a faded smiley face drawn in the middle. Phoenix didn't need an angel because his star had been touched by one.