Mothers Special Gift
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The Last Minute Gift free porn video
Dahlia looked on with mounting dread as the first snowflakes of the evening drifted down from the heavens. As she peered through the frozen pane a worrisome frown drew in her cheeks and bunched wrinkles into her forehead, adding years to a face that was so much younger. There was a small piece of her that wanted the snow, but it lay sleeping in her memory.
Bang! The neighbor’s door whooshed open. Eric and Monica hurdled out into the roar of December cold. Outstretched arms and toothless bright smiles stabbed at the night. They were laughter and youth and vessels for joy. And they were on a mission to catch … magic!
‘Catch a snowflake on your tongue,’ Monica yelled to her brother, ‘and Santa will grant your special wish!’
‘Really?’ Eric asked with wonder, his eyes as wide as a five-year-old’s ever can be. Then he stretched out his tongue so far it made him gag.
Moonlight peeked through the clouds for only a moment, stirring sparkle into the deep blue ocean of Dahlia’s eyes and thawing a memory that, perhaps, was never more than just a dream. Thirty years sailed back through the depths of her eyes, and a video inside her head began to play. She was five years old now, bundled in layers with mittens and boots. She squealed like a pixie, racing to catch up with Eric and Monica. Her boots punched holes deep into the frost, yet that hardly seemed to slow her down. ‘I want to play, too!’ Dahlia screamed. ‘I want to catch magic!’ But with each step she took, she sank deeper and deeper into the powdery snow until, eventually, the shrill of her voice was snuffed out and her body covered up by a blanket of white. And then she was gone.
Dahlia gazed at her own reflection in the window, at the crow’s feet that were just beginning to highlight the corners of her eyes, and wondered whether she had ever been five. Damn it, this house is so quiet! Then she turned and started the long climb upstairs to her grandmother’s room. With each step she took, she felt as if she were sinking a little bit deeper into a smothering eternity of frost.
* * *
‘Oh, you’re awake!’ Dahlia said, making a conscious effort not to follow it up with, ‘thank God.’ She loved her Grammy Rose. She loved her with all her heart and for as far back as she could remember, which stretched almost to the time she was three. Rose was forever grateful her Dolly had no memory of the horrible accident that had taken both her parents lives so long ago, and nearly both of theirs as well.
Waking Grammy was the singular chore in life Dahlia dreaded most. There was always so much gunk to be cleared from her throat. And lately, blood. The medication she was on helped enormously. But day after passing day, Grammy Rose grew steadily worse. There were times when Dahlia swore the sessions with the aspirator went on for hours, though in reality, it never took her more than a few minutes to clear away the slugs of mucous from her throat and lungs. Suppression of tears was rapidly overtaking the aspirator as the chore Dahlia hated the most. There were times, afterward, when she had to press both hands tight to her mouth and race down the stairs to conceal her sobs.
Grammy never heard her granddaughter crying. But she always knew.
‘As long as you’re awake,’ Dahlia said, ‘is there anything you’d like me to get you while I’m out? It’s almost Christmas, you know.’
It’s almost Christmas. The words echoed like a mausoleum inside Dahlia’s head. She silently cursed herself for waiting so long this year. She’d never been one to give last minute gifts. It wasn’t that long ago, she recalled, her Saturdays were spent running to the mall, weeks before Christmas, seeking out the perfect gift for the only one on her list. Shopping was so much easier back then. Grammy was more mobile and had many more interests. There was no Great Recession to stretch her workweek into Saturdays with no increase in pay. Excuses. Tonight she would be running to the mall for a different reason. Like footsteps in the snow, Dahlia thought, as she looked at the white bed sheet pulled close to Grammy’s chin. She was on a mission to catch … something. But she had no idea what it could be.
‘Christmas comes every year,’ Grammy said in a voice that matched her withered frame.
‘Yes, I know, Grammy. You’re wearing the bobbin lace nightgown I bought you last year. The year before that, I got you the rabbit fur slippers that you love so much. Year before that, I got you …’ Rose cleared her throat to speak. Dahlia fell silent.
‘I cherish every gift you ever gave me, Dolly. Honestly, I do. I treasure every trinket, every smile. Each day you share with me is a gift from God. But you work so hard for your money, dear. So hard. Please don’t waste any more of it on a dying old woman. You know what they say. You can’t take it with you.’
Dahlia had been so brave to this point, but Rose had never spoken of her own death until now. Words she had long dreaded to hear had finally crossed the frail woman’s lips, and no amount of denial could ever make them unsaid. A mighty dam had held invincible until now, but it finally ruptured. In the reality of the moment, it never stood a chance. Tears flooded from Dahlia’s eyes. She cried openly in front of her Grammy Rose, like a little girl whose mother and father were about to be taken from her once again. Only this time, it was happening with slow, debilitating cruelty. This time, the underdeveloped memory of childhood would not be there to blanket the pain.
‘Get me a Christmas tree.’
‘Huh?’ The words were so unexpected. Dahlia was startled.
‘Do you remember when you were a little girl? You were a baby, really. You couldn’t have been more than three years old. It was your first Christmas after the … after that time.’
Dahlia’s tears halted abruptly. Rose never spoke of events near the time of the tragedy, which happened less than a week before Dahlia’s third birthday. She had always been mindful to snap off conversation whenever she caught herself talking about ‘that time.’ But tonight, Dahlia sensed, was a night of miracles. She shuddered to silence and sharpened her ears to catch her Grammy’s every word.
‘I brought home a Christmas tree from Carlton’s that year. I put it up on a pedestal in front of the large bay window that overlooks the pines. As far as its size, it wasn’t anything special. It only stood three foot high, if that. But it towered over you. It was a silver tree, with aluminum limbs and tinsel for needles, and frosted all white with make-believe snow.’
‘Oh, yes! I remember that tree!’ A memory that might have gone lost forever suddenly flashed through Dahlia as if she’d been struck by lightning. ‘And it rotated!’
‘Yes, ma’am. It had a motorized base. Spun the whole tree around, once every minute. I kept the motor shrouded in a glittered white blanket. As far as you could tell, that little silver tree ran on pure magic.’
‘I remember there were a thousand twinkling lights. Purple and pink and coral. And shiny globes of silver and gold ornaments with bright red ribbons tied on top.’
‘You do remember. Only there was hardly room on that little silver tree for a thousand lights.’ Rose laughed. It was the first time in months Dahlia had heard the melody of her grandmother’s laugh.
‘The way your face lit up when you saw that magic silver tree for the first time. You stared at it for over an hour. I will never forget that day. The miracle of Christmas was written all over your face. It is the fondest Christmas memory I have.’ Dahlia started crying again. She wasn’t quite sure why.
‘We haven’t had a Christmas tree in this house in years, Dolly. I know you’re too old to believe in Santa Claus, but I’d like to share a Christmas tree with you one last time before I go. Any old tree will do. Please do this for me.’ Then after a pause, and she winked when she said it, ‘Besides, you never got me what I really wanted.’
‘Oh, hush! You kno
w that I would if the right man came along.’ A smile tore loose from Dahlia’s heart and escaped as a laugh. This was so Grammy Rose — nagging her for family to the last of her days. She squeezed her hand gently, not knowing what else she could say.
Dahlia glanced up at the clock. How did it get to be so late! It was the last shopping day before Christmas, and the stores would be closing in only a couple of hours.
* * *
The snow was coming down much harder now. What would normally have been a ten minute drive into town took nearly three times that long. Dahlia found a parking space away from the drifts and nearly skid her rattling Corolla to a stop. She looked around her at the hundreds of cars half buried in snow. It was beyond her imagination how so many people could be out on a night like this, braving these elements. But life goes on.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am. We sold out our entire stock of Christmas trees days ago.’ The sales associate wore the red and gold smock of Ditman’s Furnishings. His plastic nametag read, ‘I’m Dave, here to help You!’ He was as polite and helpful as he could be under the circumstances. One of Dave’s previous customers had been interrupting their conversation with ‘I’m still waiting’ every thirty seconds, complete with syncopated foot tapping. Meanwhile, not ten feet away, another pair of shoppers was nearly coming to blows over who snatched the last Fluffy Watkins doll off the shelf first.
Dahlia stole a glance at the salesman’s wristwatch. Oh, no! Time was running short. Panic settled in the pit of her stomach and started spreading its icy fingers outward.
‘Is there any place else you know that might still have Christmas trees?’ She ransacked her memory for what her grandmother had said earlier, while helium-voiced chipmunks sang Christmas Don’t Be Late through the store’s speaker system. ‘What about Carlton’s?’
The salesman gave her a quizzical look. ‘You mean Carlton’s Home and Garden?’
‘Yes. That Carlton’s. Do you think they might have anything left?’
‘I don’t know where you’ve been, but Carlton’s went out of business some 15 years ago.’
Dahlia stared wordlessly at him, with the look of a child who’s just been told Santa Claus is dead.
‘I’m still waiting,’ Mrs. Busybody chimed in again, tugging now at the poor salesman’s smock.
Dave dug deep and pretended to ignore the diminutive woman’s claw tugging at his smock. ‘Look, I’d really like to help you. But at 8:45 pm on December 23rd … well, nobody waits that late to go shopping for a Christmas tree.’
The intensity in Dave’s slate grey eyes drew Dahlia’s attention. He combed his hand through a thicket of wavy black hair as he thought to himself. She was aware he was genuinely trying to help her much sooner than she heard the words he was actually speaking.
‘And tomorrow’s Sunday, too,’ he muttered half to himself. ‘Nothing will be open then.’
‘Eight forty-five! Oh, my god!’ Dahlia’s face went so white the salesman feared she might fall over in a faint.
Something ripped. A plume of stuffing and pink fuzz shot into the air from where Fluffy Watkins had formerly been the center of an insane tug-of-war. The man clutching the larger fragment fell backward into the women’s section. He toppled a display rack, which then buried him in an avalanche of lacey braziers while Alvin, in a piercing warble, pined for a hula-hoop.
Dave tuned all of it out. But when Mrs. Busybody pinged ‘I’m still waiting!’ one last time, the strain of it all was more than patience could bear. With the tempered clarity of a cold blooded killer, he looked down on the woman and said, ‘Shut the hell up, you obnoxious, selfish old crone. Can’t you see I’m with another customer?’
Now he had two women blanched white as ghosts on his hands. He ignored, once again, the chaos around him and focused his attention back to Dahlia. ‘Morgan’s is still open for another hour. They might have something, if you’re willing to settle for an artificial tree.’
‘Yes!’ Color returned to Dahlia’s face. ‘I mean, that’s really what I wanted all along. Can you tell me how to get there?’
Dave was rather surprised that anyone could get so excited over an artificial Christmas tree. He scribbled directions on the inside of a shoebox lid as fast as he could and then handed it over to Dahlia.
It was so out of character for her, she may well have fainted after all if she had time to think about what she did next. She thanked the very kind salesman as she took the lid and then kissed him firmly on the cheek. And then for good measure, she planted another one on him, full on the lips.
Dahlia was speeding through the exit when a roundish man in his late 50s approached here-to-help-you Dave. Mrs. Busybody smirked with satisfaction from behind his protective girth. ‘I need to have a word with you, Mr. Clarkson. Can you please step into my office?’
* * *
‘Twas the night when angels, like drunken sailors, did sing. The car would not start! Dahlia wished sex upon her car as she hammered her fists against the steering wheel. She turned the key once more. It made the sound Flipper the dolphin makes when he wants to be noticed, but that was as close as her frozen four-banger engine came to turning over. Again, sex was wished upon the car, as well as upon Toyota of America, the weather, and every living thing that creepeth within fifty feet of her worthless, sex bewished car. One passerby dared to look in on her, his breath close enough to reflect in long streamers of fog off her window. Dahlia grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes to slits. She lowered the glass, ready to give this jerk the full, unfiltered bandwidth of her rage.
‘Do you need a lift somewhere?’ a familiar voice drifted in over the lip of her window.
Dahlia was confused. ‘Who … who are you?’
His face was hidden by the bulky fur-lined hood that he wore. And it didn’t help matters, either, that he no longer wore the red and gold smock of Ditman’s Furnishings.
‘You know, even if you do manage to start your car, you’re never going to make it anywhere in this blizzard.’
Silence beamed outward at the figure through the open window.
‘It’s me. Dave.’ He pulled back the parka hood to reveal his face. And then, with equal measures of pride and sarcasm, he concluded, ‘here to help You.’
Snowflakes clung to his exposed shock of black hair as if drawn by a magnet. It gave the illusion of accelerated aging — ten years with every blink of her eyes. Dahlia was not thinking clearly. She remained silent, and a little bit scared, wondering what this odd sort of stranger could possibly want.
Dave pointed to the smear of red on his left cheek. ‘This is your lipstick, I presume?’
Dahlia blushed. She was so terrible with names! But she never forgot a kiss.
‘I have a four-wheel drive customized Tundra with 400 horsepower and oversized, steel studded snow tires. It can take you anywhere you want to go, even in this weather. How about it?’
‘What about your job?’ Dahlia asked sheepishly. ‘Shouldn’t you be inside working?’
‘I just got fired.’
‘What?! I mean, what for? Who gets fired two days before Christmas?’ She had completely forgotten about his momentary loss of cool in front of Mrs. Busybody. More likely than not, his outburst never even registered in her mind.
‘It doesn’t matter. It was a temp job. They wouldn’t have kept me on past New Years, anyway.’ Everything is temporary, Dave tried once more to convince himself. He decided it was best for now not to bore a stranded motorist with irrelevant details, like the fact that he’d been working at Ditman’s for the past seven years. Or that he was recently divorced.
‘Come on out of there. Morgan’s will be closing in forty minutes.’
That snapped her back. Dahlia clambered out of her car as fast as she could. The snow was pummeling down now, much harder than she could ever remember. Hand
in hand, the pair shuffled and skid across the slippery black ice of the parking lot to Dave’s four-wheel drive.
‘Stick out your tongue,’ Dahlia said, as they stopped at his car.
‘What? What for?’
‘Catch a snowflake on your tongue,’ Dahlia sang, spreading her arms and cocking back her head, ‘and Santa will grant your special wish.’ In less than a heartbeat a snowflake settled and melted on her outstretched tongue.
‘And how do you know that?’
‘Because I just got mine!’ she winked.
Dahlia smiled into Dave’s eyes. And then she planted another kiss on his lips. It was a long and lingering kiss that made both of them forget, for the moment, all about the cold.
* * *
‘I’ve been in my share of snowstorms,’ Dave swore, ‘but I have never seen anything like this. I’ve got my floodlights on, and I can’t see more than two feet in front of me.’
‘Are we lost?’ Dahlia’s voice betrayed her growing fear. ‘I haven’t seen a road sign in miles.’
‘I haven’t seen the road in miles,’ Dave laughed. ‘Maybe I should stop and see if there’s any pavement beneath these big ol’ tires.’
Dave had a manner about him that put Dahlia’s mind straight at ease. She had sensed it the moment they met in Ditman’s, and she felt it now, once again. She smiled in his direction. And then, unconsciously, she leaned in a little closer to him, as if she drew strength from sheer proximity to a man who could laugh in the midst of a deadly snowstorm.
Using the line of trees as his guide, Dave did his best to keep the big truck on solid ground. But the wind was picking up now, and even the trees at the side of the road were quickly being swallowed in the ubiquity of white.
‘There’s a light!’ Dahlia pointed excitedly at a red-orange glow in the distance.
Dave wheeled his 400 hp monster straight for the light, seeming now to care not at all whether he was on a road or not.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Dave muttered to himself. But Dahlia heard him anyway.
‘You don’t believe what?’
Dave shut off the engine. The answer came in unison as they both read it off the weather beaten sign rimmed in flickering neon light.’Carlton’s Home and Garden. Open till 10. Tonight only.’
‘There must have been more than one,’ Dahlia said.
‘Yeah. I guess so,’ Dave answered, knowing full well that old man Carlton held true to his oath that he would sooner die than franchise out.
Dave climbed out of his car like he was stepping into a dream. ‘Let’s go on inside,’ he said. ‘As long as we’re here.’
* * *
‘May that I help you?’ the overly pretentious Mr. Bennington inquired as Dahlia paused to examine the aluminum Christmas tree that shimmered beside the sales clerk’s checkout station.
‘This tree is perfect,’ Dahlia proclaimed. It wasn’t perfect, of course. It showed bare spots, and some of its limbs had been bent from customers’ kids fawning over it for weeks. But at this late hour Dahlia was willing to settle for almost anything.
‘No, it is not’ the salesman contradicted hastily, his nostrils on full display to the ceiling. ‘This Christmas tree is a display model, and it is not for sale.’
‘Then would you be so kind as to pull one just like it from stock,’ Dave interjected, his impatience as thinly veiled as the other salesman’s arrogance. If he didn’t know getting a Christmas tree was so important to Dahlia he might have laughed at the incongruity of such a condescending man dressed in a curly-toed green elf costume.
‘I am so sorry, Sir. But we haven’t any more of them in stock. Not of this model, nor any other Christmas tree. We are completely sold out.’
‘Okay, fine. Then you can sell us the display model. It won’t be getting you any more sales this year anyway,’ Dahlia argued quite logically.
Dave scratched his head, wondering exactly what Dahlia meant by us.
‘I am most sorry, Madame. But that is not how we do business here at Carlton’s.’
What planet is this guy living on? Dave wondered to himself. They were in a Home and Garden in god-knows-where, Minnesota, not in some frivolous specialty store on Rodeo Drive. He glanced around him. The hardwood flooring was badly scuffed. The walls looked as if they hadn’t seen paint in ages. In all the store he could not identify a single item that was more recent than 1985. And where were all the customers?
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