Our parents had always given us a present on Christmas Eve, and it had always been pajamas. I think all of us were sitting around after dinner on Christmas Eve, watching TV and trying not to think about what we were missing, when Darry came in from the kitchen, where he had dishes duty. We were all completely molded to our seats, staring blankly at the TV, and not one of us even turned around when he came in.
"Hey," Darry said, standing in the doorway. We all turned, finally.
"Merry Christmas Eve," he said, and tossed a present at each of us.
"Darry?" Soda said… "I thought…?" We had all agreed that we would just do something nice for each other this year, like take each other's chores for a week or something, instead of getting gifts. Although he had assured me that our finances were OK for now, I could feel the strain as we all spent money but hardly earned any.
"Open them up," Darry said.
As we all opened our gifts we each found Tulsa University pajamas.
"They don't have them with my number on them… yet." Darry said.
"Well, as your fan club president, I'll have to look into that," I said, and hugged him. "Thanks for remembering," I whispered into his ear.
He pulled away and squeezed my shoulder.
"What are you gonna wear to bed?" Soda asked.
"Oh, don't worry, kids, I have the real thing," he said. He slept in his Tulsa shirt a lot; I was always running into him in the morning looking like he was dressed for practice. He just said it was comfortable. I was glad when he clarified that it had been washed, he wasn't just going to sleep in his clothes from the day before.
As per tradition, we all changed into our pajamas and came back out into the living room to watch TV together. For the first time in so long, all four of us sat on the couch. I don't even remember falling asleep, just Soda whispering into my ear.
"Scout, it's bedtime. Can you sit up?" I guess I had fallen onto him.
"MMmm…" I didn't want to move.
"C'mon, time for bed," Darry said, as he lifted me off Soda and carried me to my bed. He laid me down on my cool sheets – Soda had been so warm to lean against. I shivered and he pulled the sheets up and tucked them around my neck. I felt him sit on the edge of my bed.
"Merry Christmas, baby," he said, kissing my forehead.
_____________
I woke up early the next day. I felt like a little kid again, having my secret. I had smuggled their gifts in my window, with Ben's help, after buying them, and wrapped them immediately, in the Sunday comics. That was another family tradition, Santa always wrapped his gifts in comics. I dragged them out from the back of the closet, put them out under the tree and went back to bed. I hadn't slept so well in a long time. Eventually I awoke to the last person I would have expected to be waking me up, Ponyboy. He was just shaking me gently.
"Scout, wake up."
"Pony? Is everything OK?" I couldn't imagine him being the one to wake me up unless something was wrong.
"Everything's fine. It's Christmas. Darry made breakfast." That made a little more sense. Darry and Soda were busy so Pony got sent in. He didn't cook, so much.
"OK," I said. "I'm up." I swung my legs over to the side of the bed. Pony sat on the bed with me, which was a little weird, I thought.
"Merry Christmas, Scout," he said, looking down at the floor. It was uncomfortable for us to look each other in the eye.
"You too, Pony," I said, hugging him, though it felt like he resisted me. I just wished we weren't so uneasy around each other. I felt kind of bad: I got along easily with everybody except Pony; he got along easily with nobody but Soda.
I stood up.
"So, let's eat," I said, grabbing Pony and dragging him into the kitchen.
"Merry Christmas, Sleepy" Soda said, as he latched onto me and spun me around, landing me in my seat at the table.
"Eat up," Darry said, filling our plates. He was getting really good at cooking breakfast, which was great since I couldn't seem to get up early enough to deal with it most of the time. He had always been an early riser.
As we sat there eating, I knew we were all trying to focus on what we had- each other, rather than what we had lost. But it was hard.
We finished up our breakfast and I took everyone's dishes to the sink. It wasn't my week for dishes, but since Darry had cooked, I offered to do them.
"I think that Santa came for you guys. You should go check that out," I said over my shoulder as I washed dishes. I guess nobody had been in there yet.
The three of them wandered into the living room. No less than a minute later Darry was calling me.
"Scout, come in here," he said.
I put the dishes down and came in. All three of them looked at me.
"What's this about?" Darry asked.
I shrugged.
"I mean it," Darry said, "How did you buy gifts?"
"Two-Bit drove me," I said. "So… open them!"
"Scout…" Darry was going to make it difficult, but I had expected that.
"Don't worry, Darry," I said. "Everything here is paid for. Two-Bit just drove me. He didn't even come in the store."
I had started to get used to the look Darry gave me then, he had been giving it to me a lot. I hadn't completely cracked it yet, but I think it read: I am not sure yet whether or not I should be upset with you, but I am considering it.
"Just open them," I said. Pony looked the most eager. "You go first, Pony," I said. "That one's yours." I motioned to the biggest one. The drawing pad was big.
He looked at Darry like he was asking permission.
"Go ahead," Darry said, giving in. Pony tore off the paper and I could tell he was excited. He's not the kind of kid to yell and scream with delight but his eyes lit up a little. He seemed really excited about the pastels – they were a little more expensive so he usually just stuck with colored pencils. He hadn't had pastels in a while.
"I hope you don't already have those books," I said. "I didn't recognize any of the covers from your bedroom floor."
Soda and Darry thought that was funny.
"Thanks, Scout. This stuff is great." He already had the pastels out of the box. He picked out a deep purple and made a mark on a fresh page.
"I told you," I said. "It's actually from Santa, not me. He just had me pick out the stuff. You know that's his special wrapping paper."
By now everyone was sitting down. "Ok, Soda, you next," I said. "That one's yours." He picked up the medium sized box and shook it. He was the only one of us who tried to guess before opening. "A toaster?" he suggested.
"I hope it's not breakable," Pony said, looking at me. I shrugged.
Soda opened it up and when he saw the picture of the radio on the box he stopped.
"Are you kidding me?" he said. "Seriously, Scout, how did you get this? Have you been robbing banks or something?"
"Yes." I said. "And selling drugs." Only Pony laughed.
"That's not funny," Darry said, which made me laugh.
"Well do you like it?" I asked.
"It's great," he said. "I just hope it's not stolen," he joked, "because I'm not giving it back."
"I told you, Two-Bit didn't even come in with me. Plus, getting that out unnoticed would have been pretty impressive, even for him." The box was not exactly pocket-sized.
"I don't know how you did this, Scout…" Darry started.
"You don't need to know," I interrupted. "Your turn." I picked up the smallest box. I had put the watch in a shoebox to make it look more substantial, compared to the other two.
Darry stared at me as he unwrapped it. I had put a ton of paper in the box and he had to dig for it. Finally he found it and pulled it out.
"A watch," he said. I could see that he got it, that he remembered what Dad had said and got the message I had been trying to send by getting it for him.
"Scout, you shouldn't…"
"But I did, Darry. And you know as well as I do that you should have it. So put it on," I said. "And I don't want to hear any lip about it," I added, just to be a wiseass. Darry looked at me and actually smiled.
"You're going to tell me how you got this stuff, you know," he said.
"You already know, Darry," I said. He thought for a minute.
"Patrick. Uncle Pat. That's what he wanted to talk to you about on the phone. Right."
"Good job, Sherlock," I said. "And don't get mad at me about it, either, because he wasn't taking no for an answer."
"I'm not mad at you Scout. But I feel bad, I'm sure he meant you to get something for yourself too.
"I got myself the gift of watching you guys open gifts," I said. Soda had opened up the radio and plugged it in and suddenly the room exploded in noise. Apparently the volume had been turned all the way up inside the box. He scrambled to turn it down.
"Looks like it works just fine," he said, grinning his crazy Soda grin. Pony was already lost in a drawing on the couch.
Darry was putting on the watch.
"Scout, can you come with me for a sec?" He asked, walking back into the kitchen.
"I'll be right there," I said. I went into my bedroom and took the envelope with the leftover money from Uncle Pat out of my drawer, then headed into the kitchen. Soda and Pony were both still intently playing with their new toys in the living room.
Darry was actually in his bedroom, and called me in. I sat on the bed next to him and handed him the envelope.
"What's this?" He asked.
"It's the leftover money from Pat," I said. "You can use it for bills or something, I guess," I said.
"I wish you would have bought yourself something," he said.
"I really didn't want anything," I said. All I want is to get them back, and I can't. I didn't want to spend the money just because it was there," I said. "I know we need it."
He didn't deny it.
"I want to give you something," he said. "I can't pretend I bought it, because I didn't, but I want you to have it today, since we all got something and you didn't."
"OK…" I said. He reached into his top dresser drawer and pulled something out in his hand.
"Close your eyes," he said. I did. He took my hand and extended my fingers, slipping something onto my thumb.
"Open," he said.
I opened my eyes to see my mom's Irish Claddagh ring. It was too big for any of my fingers but fit perfectly on my thumb.
"Mom's?" I asked, disbelieving. Darry nodded.
"But I thought…?" We had decided to have them buried with their wedding rings.
"It wasn't her wedding ring, Scout." He was right. She had worn it on her opposite hand from her wedding ring.
I covered my thumb with my other hand and pulled it to my heart.
"I can't bring them back for you, baby," he said. "But Mom would have wanted you to have that."
I could hardly speak. "Thank you Darry," I said, as I pulled him into a hug. Somehow, I didn't cry.
"Merry Christmas, Scout," he said.
A/N: OK, one more chapter to work out a few issues and then it's back to the events in the book. I appreciate you sticking with me here. It gets better soon!