Since Indy isn’t old enough to care, Sam and Pearl decide to put off opening gifts until the afternoon, in the hope that Reuben will be better. There are phone calls to make and take, making the holiday connection to far-flung relations and friends, to break up the day.
Once Reuben comes around, in the late afternoon, it takes him a while to understand it is Christmas. He is distressed to discover they are still waiting the holiday on him and insists on coming downstairs and having their tree.
For Indy, the unwrapping is a kittenish festival of ripping bright-colored paper and snatching after ribbons. The contents of the packages are less interesting than the outsides. Everything goes directly to her mouth to be gummed and gnawed and drooled upon. Eventually she drops whatever it is to the floor and forgets it. Her chin is discolored with dye from various papers and ribbons. Sam has decorated her as well with three self-sticking bows from his own packages and they bob loosely upon her curls.
Reuben unwraps a pair of pajama bottoms from Sam and Pearl unwraps the top, a mild joke that amuses them enough to have been worth the effort. Sam also gives his father assorted oldies, including a few forty-fives—Reuben likes old wax, old vinyl, not just old rock—scavenged from cut-out racks and has-bins. Their gifts to Sam are utilitarian—socks and shorts and so on—but there is a new basketball.
When everything is dispensed, Reuben looks around as if he is confused and frowns.
“Isn’t there one more thing, sugarbabe?” he asks Pearl.
She frowns too and then her face relaxes.
“I must have left it upstairs. I’ll go get it.”
When she won’t let Sam do it for her, he suspects the byplay with Reuben was just theater. He takes the baby for her but Indy is restless and he puts her on the floor among the discarded wrapping. She slaps and grabs relentlessly.
Sam waits expectantly, wondering if Pearl could somehow have smuggled a puppy upstairs during the day. But she returns with a good-sized box. As he unwraps it, he can’t suppress a little disappointment. He didn’t really expect a pup, any more than he expected to get a Harley, though he had cut out and pasted a picture of one next to the stick-figure dog on his Christmas list. He smells the leather before he folds back the layers of tissue.
The dog is instantly forgotten. As he shrugs on the bike jacket, he registers the zippers, the buckles, the fact that it fits, which means it was made to order—serious buckage. He knows his eyes are shining when he thanks them. It’s reflected in the delight they take in the success of their gift. Reuben and Pearl reach out blindly to squeeze each other’s hand and the mutual confidence in the gesture hits Sam harder than the gift itself. To cover the depth of his emotion, he models the jacket with brio, sweeping back his hair dramatically and snapping his fingers.
Their applause is interrupted by a petulant drumming at the back door. Pearl rises but Sam gestures her to stay where she is—he is already up and moving. He recognizes his sister’s fist.
Though the sleet has stopped, it’s still raw and cold. On the back porch, Karen clings to a mildly intoxicated and fuzzy young man. She has none of the Styleses’ height and is as slight as her mother but in the face she is the spit of the photograph on the mantelpiece of Reuben’s mother in youth. From that lady too Karen has inherited a disproportionate abundance of bosom. With her red eyes and nose, her hair and makeup looking like an unmade bed—like she just rolled out of one, anyway—it’s a safe guess she’s spent the weekend partying. Flinging her arms around Sam, she kisses him smearily. Her breath is as boozey as a cordial-centered chocolate and she moves sloppily. She notices his jacket and rubs the chest of it.
“Oooo, Sammy! Sex-ee!” she squeals.
Her carrying voice draws Pearl with the baby on her hip and Reuben close behind her from the living room.
For a moment the kitchen is a confusion of embraces, Karen at once teary and laughing. Sam and Reuben and Pearl exchange quick worried glances as Karen makes over Indy. Fueled by whatever she’s done up on, her emotions are too highly colored and rapid. She is in a state like a cheap Christmas-tree ball, little more than a brittle shell of brilliant color.
Sam introduces himself to her companion, who seems to be a good-tempered shit. The guy’s name is Bobby Somebody and he calls Karen “Kare.” Bobby gives her very warm, pleased looks, which suggests to Sam ol’ Bobby hasn’t known Karen very long. Probably picked her up Friday night and is still under the impression he’s found himself a good-time-loving girl. She hasn’t emptied his wallet while he sleeps yet, or stolen his credit cards, if he has any, or wrecked his car, or any of the other tricks she pulls sooner or later with every guy who’s still around when she wakes up.
Indy panics at Karen’s too-enthusiastic jouncing and the shrill strange face in hers. Reaching small frantic hands for Pearl, she bursts into tears. Karen nearly loses her grip on the baby and clutches her too tightly, triggering a shriek of pain. At that, she all but throws Indy into Pearl’s anxious arms.
Shushing the baby, Pearl retreats to the rocking chair, where she offers Indy the most reliable comforter. Though it is a discreet act, the baby’s head disappearing under Pearl’s loose shirt and the shawl she tugs down from the back of the chair, Karen’s Bobby turns red in the face. Karen giggles inanely.
“Sweetheart,” Reuben tells Karen, “there’s something under the tree for you.”
It’s a decent exit from the kitchen. Sam trails his father and Karen and Bobby to the doorway and loiters there, as if to shield Pearl nursing Indy by the woodstove from any further
