Marjorie picked up her knitting from the couch beside her. She often did this when the conversation got a little intense. With her eyes focused on her needles and loops of yarn, her daughter Anna continued.
“Mom, one thing I keep thinking is, you know, she did show up for us after Dad died,” she said. “Helping clean out the closets, all those painful things that absolutely have to happen but nobody ever wants to do.” She drew a breath. “What I mean is, that’s not a small thing, people who show up when they’re really needed.”
“True,” replied Marjorie. “That’s very true. I just wish she’d show up more now. Like with the holidays coming up. Must it always be a crisis?”
“Must it always be a crisis,” Anna repeated to herself, as if filing the question in her brain. “Jeremy!” she called out, raising her chin and her voice while her feet remained folded beneath her on the ancient upholstered chair. “My mom wants to know if it must always be a crisis!”
“Sure seems that way,” came a muffled reply up the basement stairwell.
“You almost done?” Anna called out again.
“Dropped a part!” came the yell from below. “So I am now on very intimate terms with this basement floor!” Jeremy enunciated each shouted syllable with passionate, almost Shakespearean intensity.
Anna smiled. “He’ll find it,” she said.
“Yes, I’m certain of that,” said Marjorie, eyes still fixed on the yarn and needles held in her knotty old hands. “Having hot water again will be nice. But about Aunt Linda. We’re very different people. And I know she means well. And I love her dearly. Who do you think I’m knitting these for?”
“What is it?”
“Mittens,” Marjorie said, holding one up, making it wave. “I make her a pair every year. Have since I first learned how. It’s kind of a holiday tradition.”
“That’s lovely, Mother! I’ve never seen Aunt Linda wear mittens, though. Not once, that I remember. She always wears some kind of stylish leather gloves.”
“Right. Linda’s far too chic to wear something like this. And because of that, I never bother to mail them to her. I guess that’s another tradition. I know she wouldn’t appreciate them. To her, these wouldn’t even be a gift. Just one more thing to figure out what to do with. One more thing to manage.”
Anna blinked.
“Success!” came a shout from the basement.
“Hooray!” shouted Anna in reply. She unfolded her legs and leaned forward. “Mom, when did this start?”
“The mittens? Linda was twelve and I had just turned fifteen.”
“Did she wear them back then?”
“That first pair, yes. Not the second, not the third. Soon she was in high school and it would have been out of the question. Mittens just weren’t her style. Too fuzzy, maybe. Not grownup enough. But I think that’s what I always wished for Linda: more fuzziness in her life. That kind of warmth. When I found the next couple pairs I’d given her still unused and spotless at the bottom of the bin where we all kept our winter gear, I stopped giving them.”
“But you kept making them?”
“I did. At first just for practice, I think. I was kind of proud of my handiwork. And I make them for others, too, you know.”
“I always love mine,” Anna said with emphasis. “I wear mine out! The ones I don’t lose, anyhow. But then what?”
“I just… didn’t stop,” Marjorie said.
“Why? I mean, what kind of gift is that?”
Marjorie paused. “Well, for one thing,” she said, “I guess it means each year I always spend some time thinking about Linda as the holidays approach.”
“That’s the gift?
“Maybe it is!” said Marjorie, brightening. “But of course I always send her something, too.”
“That’s a lot of pairs of mittens, Mom.”
Marjorie directed a faint smile down at her colorful yarn. “Yes it is. I guess more than sixty now!”
Hearing the sound of boots clumping up the basement stairs, they turned to look. Jeremy appeared in the basement doorway.
“Do you mind if I tell him?” said Anna.
“Tell me what?” Jeremy set his toolbox down heavily off to the side and then dropped himself just as heavily onto a chair at the dining room table.
“Oh my dear,” said Marjorie. “It’s really not that big a thing.”
“You know how my mom makes mittens? She just told me that every year she also makes a pair for Aunt Linda. And she has, since she was fifteen. But she doesn’t give them to her!”
“What… happened to them all?” asked Jeremy, eyebrows raised.
“Well, at first I used to save them,” Marjorie said, her hands still moving. “That was a long time ago. I thought things might change. And I liked them. They were pretty. Then as the years went by it started to feel strange and maybe even a bit morbid, seeing those unused mittens stacked side by side on the shelf. Mittens are for fun! They’re for making wet snowballs, they’re for giving and for losing and for getting holes in.” Marjorie let her work drop and went on, very evidently feeling pleased with herself. “They’re also about being really glad when your hands are cold and you realize you’ve got those mittens stuffed in your coat pockets. So I started giving them away. Somebody always needs mittens.”
“Did you ever give me any of the pairs you made for Aunt Linda?” asked Anna.
“I don’t think so. I guess it’s possible. It’s been such a long time. But I think I always made yours just for you.”
“Anna,” Jeremy said, his cheek in his hand, elbow resting on the table, “When we first met I used to write letters that I never gave you. Thoughts I wanted to share. Sometimes with pictures I drew. Things I’d seen.” Jeremy looked upwards, taking inventory of his recollections. “And cartoons, even!”
“What!?” Anna’s eyes grew wide, incredulous.
“It’s not that uncommon,” he said, now returning her gaze.
“For you it sure is!”
“Yeah. I noticed that, back then. And…”
He took a moment, shifting back, his hands now folded on the table.
Anna stared.
“So…” he said with a little shrug.
Anna stared.
“Here we are, still,” he concluded.
Anna’s face softened. She felt tears rising. Welcome ones. And as if registering this atmospheric shift, Marjorie let her knitting fall into her lap once again and looked up at her daughter, then glanced around the room.
Suddenly the lights and decorations didn’t seem so old and tired anymore. It was going to be a sweet, enjoyable Christmas after all.
“And Mom!” chirped Anna. "Somewhere out there, just think: all those mittens! So many warm hands! What a gift!”