Page 56 of Mr. Naughty List
“Can I pet him?” RJ asked.
“This is Iris, and she’s a lady. But you can certainly pet her,” Rutty said.
RJ stepped forward and ran his hand over the horse’s neck. She turned to gaze at him with big eyes, but then went back to nuzzling Rutty. RJ patted her some more, enjoying the texture of her hair.
Rutty gestured toward a stall with the door open. “It’s in there. Go on. Have a look.”
“Better not be a pony, Dad,” Aaron teased. “I’m past wanting one of those.”
Rutty laughed and continued to pet the horse in front of him. “Nah. It’s something better.”
Aaron stopped dead outside the stall and stared with his mouth open. “No way! Where’d you say this was?”
“Candace’s basement, believe it or not. It’s held up well, hasn’t it?”
Aaron whistled. “You can say that again. It’s gorgeous. Just like I remember.”
RJ abandoned the horse to go see what had made Aaron’s eyes go wide as saucers. It turned out to be a six-foot-tall, silver aluminum Christmas tree. It looked vintage, not like the new ones he’d seen in Costco. He knew the silver style had come back into fashion, if his shopping excursions with his mother the week before were any indication of current fake Christmas tree fads.
“This was my Grandma’s,” Aaron said, noticing that RJ had crept up next to him. “Her Sapphire Regal, she always called it. Every year she used to put it up, and then she’d tell me, ‘The others can have their Douglas firs and Scotch pines, I’ll have my Sapphire Regal.’ She loved how it glittered with the colored lights on it.”
“Couldn’t find the box for it. It was put together like that beneath a couple of blankets,” Rutty said. “Truly shocked it’s still so nice. Good thing that basement’s always been dry as a bone and rodent free. Thought you’d want it.”
“I…well, I guess I do.” Aaron sounded surprised by the fact.
“We found some of her old ornaments too. That box there in the corner of the stall. Candace kept some for herself, and I took the one I liked best when I was a boy. Left the rest for you. Don’t tell the other cousins. By the time they all chose out what they wanted, you’d end up getting nothing but half of a bulb to share with one of Blinker’s boys.”
Aaron snorted. “I’ll keep my trap shut. Besides, they all have plenty of Grandma’s things.”
“That’s God’s honest truth.”
RJ watched Aaron carefully as he drew closer to the silver, glittering tree. His smile softened, and he touched it carefully. “I’m not sure how to get it home, though.”
“It’ll fit in the back of the SUV,” RJ offered. “We’ll just lay the seats down, wrap it up in those blankets again, and it’ll make it just fine.”
Aaron grinned. “Isn’t that convenient? That I’m out here with you, and you’re borrowing that SUV, and this will just happen to fit? I think you might be onto something when you said the universe was setting us up.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll get my suit out and start prepping for a wedding,” Rutty said with a laugh. “Ain’t no use fighting the universe…or as we call it out in these parts: God.”
“Never mind my dad. Christianity’s in the water here.”
“I’m a Christian,” RJ said, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels.
“You are?”
“Sure.” RJ shrugged. He never went to church, and half the folks he knew from the church his mom had attended when he was little would turn their back on him for a million reasons, but he still believed. For one thing, he liked believing, for another…well, it just felt right.
“Okay,” Aaron said. “I’m…uh, not exactly not-a-Christian.”
“Undecided then.” RJ smiled. “Keeping your mind open. I like it.”
Aaron smiled and nearly rolled his eyes, but then he said, “Yeah, Dad. I want to take it home.” Then he winced. “Oh, hell. Constance is going to wreck it.”
“We’ll figure something out,” RJ said. “And maybe she won’t mess with it. Like, as a gift to you. A kindness.”
“Constance isn’t kind,” Aaron said, contemplating the tree with one hip cocked, his lips twisting up worriedly.
RJ pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly googled:how to keep cats away from a Christmas tree?He held out the phone to Aaron. “Look, babe, there are like twenty sites that give suggestions. This one says to put orange peels under the tree skirt because cats hate the smell of oranges.” He paused. “Do you think that’s why they used to hang oranges on the trees back in the old days? So Victorian cats stayed away?”