Brigitte McCray, author of “Like Two Ornaments On Far Sides of A Tree”, has previously published fiction and poems in Mystery Magazine, LampLight Magazine, Devilfish Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Mythic Delirium, and elsewhere.
Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net award and she was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Brigitte McCray earned her MFA in creative writing from Virginia Commonwealth University and holds a PhD in English with a minor in women’s and gender studies from Louisiana State University.
*****
Madeline Adams strolled through the neighborhood, having taken to a daily constitution since her divorce. It was, after all, why she was so adamant about buying her husband out of half the house. She always loved the neighborhood, a little haven in a suburban city where, at this time of year, families went all out for Christmas.
There was the Jones’ house with its collection of white lighted deer and tasteful wreaths in every window, like a photograph on the front of a holiday card. Here was the Stewarts’ house, far more colorful, twinkling red and green on each bush. Inflatable snowpeople. A mechanical, dancing Santa as tall as Madeline shouting “ho, ho, ho” at her.
Madeline and her then husband Jerry never won. Not for trying.
She’d been raised by a single mother in a small apartment complex where they ate TV dinners, even for the holidays. The best they could do was string lights around the front door. No one certainly handed out prizes for decorations, like the association did for her current neighborhood.
Madeline and her then husband Jerry never won. Not for trying. One year, Jerry had even pulled a Clark Griswold, stapling the entire roof with lights. They stopped trying during the separation, when they couldn’t be bothered because of all their fighting. Last year, Madeline had opened the hall closet and stared at the large box filled with Christmas decorations and felt too exhausted. This year, she’d bought new decorations and had managed a string or two of lights in the yard and a small tree easily spotted from the front window.
Now, it was the Dubusk family who couldn’t be bothered. Madeline reached their small ranch as one of the older women in the neighborhood powerwalked past saying, “Bit dull for our neighborhood, huh?”
She agreed, but sometimes she wondered why they bothered. After all, they were a gated community. People weren’t driving around to look at their lights. The Dubusks didn’t even have a security system. The neighborhood itself was the security system. Who would have thought they needed to be protected from each other?
Their yard was bare. The curtains were open, but revealed not a tree or a single candle. They’d decorated the previous year, and the year before that. But like Madeline’s previous year, those decorations were probably still boxed up in a closet. She’d seen them having shouting matches in their driveway. She’d heard the whisperings of divorce.
Passing their fence, she remembered their dog door when she attended one of their barbeques a couple of years before, and she wondered who would get their large dog in the divorce.
Back at home, Madeline drank wine as the night tugged forward. Every so often, she could hear the “ho, ho, ho” of the Stewarts’ Santa. Eventually a tad tipsy, she yanked out the Christmas box, still full. She could think of a good use of those decorations from her old life with Jerry. The bareness of the Dubusk house made her think of the bareness of her heart, and she stifled a sob, deciding she’d decorate their house. What if the couple woke in the morning and saw decorations, a surprise gift, the surprise so strong that they’d lose the urge to fight?
The clock read midnight. She’d never done anything illegal in her life, not even smoking a joint in college, but she filled a bag with decorations and set out.
In front of their house, Madeline held the large bag of lights and garland to her chest. She’d even packed a few small Santas and elves and a tiny Christmas tree Jerry once used for the center of their kitchen table. Madeline looked right and left. She appeared to be alone. She quietly opened the fence to their backyard.
She’d lost a bit of weight since the divorce, but she still had to wiggle her way inside the dog door, where she was faced with a growling dog. On her hands and knees, she whispered, “Shush, baby. It’s okay.” Madeline held out her hand. The dog sniffed, snorted, backed up, and then trotted off to another room, as if confident Madeline was no threat.
With her bag, Madeline tiptoed through the kitchen to the living room, slightly lit from the street lamps. Like a Grinch in reverse, she placed the small tree on a coffee table and strung some colored lights up around their fireplace, decorating the mantel with the small elves and Santas. Her hand hit a family picture frame, and it nearly crashed to the floor. She gasped, but caught it. The photograph showed a once happy couple in a seaside tourist spot all tan and smiling.
As she tucked the empty bag under her arm and started to tiptoe to the kitchen, bright lights flicked on.
Sam Dubusk stood in his pajamas holding a baseball bat, ready to swing. His wife, Carol, cowered behind him, eyes wide.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” He asked.
Madeline opened her mouth, but how could she explain?
“Call the police,” Carol said.
But Sam slowly dropped the bat. “It’s okay. She’ll leave, won’t you Madeline?”
“She’s broken into our house,” Carol said, no longer cowering, her face red and her nails digging into his shoulder. She glanced around her living room. “You broke in to decorate our house? She’s nuts.”
Sam said, “She’s not nuts. She’s about as nuts as you for—”
“I’m the one who’s nuts? You want to let a criminal walk out of our door without any punishment.”
And then they were both screaming so loud about old things and old hurts that they seemed to have forgotten her. They were just like Madeline and Jerry, like two ornaments on far sides of a tree.
Madeline bent over and plugged in the strings of lights, plunging the couple into colorful brightness.
Then, she slipped out to her new decorations and new life.
*****
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