Free Burning Bright: Stories by Ron Rash

chopped up, is all.”
     
    H e wanted to stay awake until his father returned, so he helped his mother spread the last strips of tinfoil on the wood. His mother struck a match and told him it was time to light the tree. The kindling caught and the foil and cans withered and blackened, the fishing bobbers melting. His mother kept adding kindling to the fire, telling Jared if he watched closely he’d see angel wings folding and unfolding inside the flames. Angels come down the chimney sometimes, just like Santa Claus, she told him. Midnight came and his father still wasn’t back. Jared went to his room. I’ll lay down just for a few minutes, he told himself, but when he opened his eyes it was light outside.
    He smelled the methamphetamine as soon as he opened his bedroom door, thicker than he could everremember. His parents had not gone to bed. He could tell that as soon as he came into the front room. The fire was still going, kindling piled around the hearth. His mother sat where she’d been last night, wearing the same clothes. She was tearing pages out of a magazine one at a time, using scissors to make ragged stars she stuck on the walls with Scotch tape. His father sat beside her, watching intently.
    The glass pipe lay on the coffee table, beside it four baggies, two with powder still in them. There’d never been more than one before.
    His father grinned at him.
    “I got you some of that cereal you like,” he said, and pointed to a box with a green leprechaun on its front.
    “Where’s the ring?” Jared asked.
    “The sheriff took it,” his father said. “When I showed it to the jeweler, he said the sheriff had been in there just yesterday. A woman had reported it missing. I knew you’d be disappointed, that’s why I bought you that cereal. Got something else for you too.”
    His father nodded toward the front door where a mountain bike was propped against the wall. Jared walked over to it. He could tell it wasn’t new, some of the blue paint chipped away, one of the rubber handle grips missing, but the tires didn’t sag and the handlebars were straight.
    “It didn’t seem right for you to have to wait till Christmas to have it,” his father said. “Too bad there’s snow on the ground, but it’ll soon enough melt and you’ll be able to ride it.”
    Jared’s mother looked up.
    “Wasn’t that nice of your daddy,” she said, her eyes bright and gleaming. “Go ahead and eat your cereal, son. A growing boy needs his breakfast.”
    “What about you and Daddy?” Jared asked.
    “We’ll eat later.”
    Jared ate as his parents sat in the front room, passing the pipe back and forth. He looked out the window and saw the sky held nothing but blue, not even a few white clouds. He thought about going back to the plane, but as soon as he laid his bowl in the sink his father announced that the three of them were going to go find a real Christmas tree.
    “The best Christmas tree ever,” his mother told Jared.
    They put on their coats and walked up the ridge, his father carrying a rusty saw. Near the ridgetop, they found Fraser firs and white pines.
    “Which one do you like best, son?” his father asked.
    Jared looked over the trees, then picked a Fraser fir no taller than himself.
    “You don’t want a bigger one?” his father asked.
    When Jared shook his head no, his father kneeled before the tree. The saw’s teeth were dull but his fatherfinally broke the bark and worked the saw through. They dragged the tree down the ridge and propped it in the corner by the fireplace. His parents smoked the pipe again and then his father went out to the shed and got a hammer and nails and two boards. While his father built the makeshift tree stand, Jared’s mother cut more stars from the newspaper.
    “I think I’ll go outside a while,” Jared said.
    “But you can’t,” his mother replied. “You’ve got to help me tape the stars to the tree.”
    By the time they’d finished, the sun was falling behind