They May Not Mean To, but They Do: A Novel by Cathleen Schine Page B

answer.
    “Molly, I miss you,” she texted.
    “Never again” said the text that came back.
    *   *   *
    There were certain things about the Christmas Hanukkah season that Coco did not like. First of all, she felt guilty for having a Christmas tree, not because she was Jewish, but because it was such a waste. A living thing cut down for nothing.
    “I understand not eating meat,” Daniel had said the first time it came up, when Ruby was two. “I understand being a vegetarian. But you’re not a vegetarian. And even if you were a vegetarian, you would eat vegetables. Vegetables would die so you could live. Isn’t a Christmas tree like a vegetable? It grows out of the ground. It’s like a big stalk of broccoli.”
    “We don’t eat Christmas trees. It doesn’t die so I can live. It dies so we can decorate it.”
    “We could eat it. We could chop it up and cook it after Christmas.”
    “Very funny.”
    Coco hated waste. It was that simple. The death of the pine tree was not the issue. She was not a fool, she was a science teacher, and she understood the importance and beauty of decomposition, how it brought new things to life. But the planting and cultivating and harvesting of what was essentially a big bauble, a bauble on which to hang other baubles—that was unconscionable.
    “It provides employment,” Daniel said.
    “Those Canadians who drive down every year and sell them on the street?”
    “It provides enjoyment!” he said, pleased with the rhyme.
    She sniffed her disapproval.
    “Ruby really, really wants one.”
    Then, of course, Coco said “Okay!” instantly. For Ruby, anything.
    And now she made a big, happy fuss over the tree each year. She did love the smell, the look of them lined up on the sidewalk, the ritual of carrying the tree home. Once it was standing in the living room, though, and opened its fragrant branches, spreading the outdoor smell through the house, Coco had to fight off a flicker of sorrow. Like any useless bunch of carnations or daisies, the Christmas tree would shrivel and die. She cheered herself with the thought that the city now had a policy of gathering the trees up and using them for compost.
    Choosing presents helped to cheer her up, too. Each potential recipient of a gift presented a puzzle to be solved. This year, she had solved two problems at once—a gift for Ruby, who was so unpredictable and in-between these days, and a more immediate use of the Christmas tree than compost.
    She’d been a little unsure about the kit of science projects she’d gotten the girls. It used marshmallows, which of course they would like. It was, however, educational, and educational gifts sometimes fell flat. But when they opened their gifts on Christmas Eve, the science kit was both Ruby’s and Cora’s favorite. Cora immediately took herself off to watch marshmallow after marshmallow swell prodigiously in the microwave. And because the kit included a slingshot, Ruby, in her new Tom Sawyer phase, was delighted. The rubber tubing, the patch of leather, the plastic Y-shaped stick did the trick. She had been lobbying for a frog for Christmas, but without any real conviction.
    “Best of all,” Coco said, handing her another package, “you can make a new, stronger slingshot from the Christmas tree!” It was a whittling knife.
    “This is the best Christmas we ever had,” Coco told Daniel that night. The tree had been put to use, Cora went to bed wearing every wearable gift and clutching a new stuffed dog and a bag of marshmallows, and Ruby went to bed clutching her knife.
    “I hope Ruby doesn’t cut a finger off in her sleep,” Daniel said.
    “It’s a jackknife. It’s all folded up. Would you say that if she were a boy?”
    “No. Then I’d be sure there would be cut-off fingers. Don’t let my mother see the knife.”
    “Didn’t you have a jackknife when you were a kid?”
    “They said I could have a BB gun when I was twenty-one.”
    “Typical.”
    “I had a compass