She had been careful not to look for it under the tree. She did not want to see a telltale shape, feel for weight or texture, guess at all. For a month she’d been dropping hints, doodling guitars in the blank margins of the funny papers, strumming the air with her hands. But the box that her parents put into her lap was too small. When she opened it, she found a beautifully bound copy of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and a new pair of knitted gloves.
Rachel loved books, especially good ones, and hated how cold her hands could become on the walk to school. But she had wanted a guitar so very badly. Her parents hadn’t known that, of course. And if they had? Guitars weren’t cheap. And, regardless of the expense, her parents had always believed that if Rachel paid for her whims, she would learn discipline and good sense. If she wanted a guitar, she’d just have to buy it herself, much as she’d had to pay to have her ears pierced. (“It’s barbaric,” her mother had said, “to put holes in your ears.” And Rachel, after a week, agreeing, had let the holes close over like wounds.)
“Thank you,” she said, lifting her face into the light of the Christmas tree, smiling, nested in torn wrapping, her lap bright with ribbon. “It’s the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen. The gloves are great, too.” And she had meant every word, from her heart.
When Rachel told Estelle what she’d got for Christmas, Estelle was appalled. “That’s even worse than this,” she said, pulling a lime green turtleneck out of a box on her bed. “I told them I wanted a pink angora sweater. That’s all. Pink angora or nothing. So they get me this.” She flipped it back into the box. “I got the sales slip from my mom, but she told me I’d have to go on my own to exchange it. Which is her stupid way of getting even.”
Rachel sat on Estelle’s bed and stared. She was filled with awe, disdain, and raw envy. She disliked herself for wanting the chance to indulge herself the way Estelle had done, to open the floodgates and let things pour out, unchecked. But she knew that she would not do so. She knew that it would take far more than a disappointing Christmas to make her lose control and risk losing, too, the things that mattered most to her. Rachel planned never to show her parents any sort of discontent, for she did not want them to doubt at all the way she loved them, loved Belle Haven, loved things just the way they were and the way she hoped they would always be.
What Rachel did not realize was that her parents knew her right down to the bone.
“She’s something, that girl,” her father said. He was sitting in his favorite chair with a cup of coffee and a seed catalogue. It was not yet New Year’s, but he had already begun to anticipate the spring.
“Hmmm.” Her mother settled next to him on the wide arm of the chair, plucked the catalogue out of his hands, and flipped quickly from lima beans to hollyhocks. “What did she do?”
“Hey. Gimme that.”
“Hang on a sec. Here. Look at this. No, this one. The old-fashioned kind with the single petals.”
“Good. We’ll plant some by the corner of the porch.”
They looked over the marigolds together. “So what did Rachel do?”
“She never said a word about that guitar.”
“What guitar?”
“The one she wanted for Christmas.”
Suzanne Hearn closed the catalogue on her thumb. “Rachel wanted a guitar for Christmas?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“She never said anything to me. And neither did you.” She smacked his arm with the catalogue. “That was mean.”
“You know we can’t afford a guitar. And who would teach her to play it? Guitar lessons cost money. Besides,” he said, “I’m not convinced she’d stick with it. Let her borrow one and give it a try, then we’ll see.”
“I wish I’d known. I might have worked something out. A used one, maybe.”
“No sense in worrying about it. She’s up there reading that book as we speak. She’s not upset. Why should you be?”
“Hmmm. I’m not so sure.”
“About what?” He took the seed catalogue out of her hands, flipped back to beans.
“You know Rachel. When’s the last time she seemed upset about anything? Sometimes I can tell that she’s worried, but she seems quite up to sorting things out by herself, so I usually let her.”
“Good.”
“Not good. She’s just a kid. Maybe we ought to …” Suzanne closed her lips, shook her head.
“Ought to what?”
“I don’t know. Give her some of what she wants without making her ask for it. ’Cause she won’t, most of the time. She ought to be doing what kids her age are supposed to do, for God’s sake. Like every other kid in Belle Haven. This all seems too easy on us.”
“You want to buy her a pack of cigarettes? Put her on the Pill?”
“Don’t be an ass, Fred.” She leaned against him so that he was squashed into a corner of the chair.
“Then don’t you be.” He pushed her back up, fondly. “Rachel wants to behave herself. Let her. She’s all right.”
“I don’t know. They say the straightest arrows are the ones that end up causing the biggest fuss in the end.”
“Who’s they?”
“They. People.”
“I’m people. I say let her be.”
As was their wont, Suzanne and Frederick Hearn agreed that Rachel’s small struggles would strengthen her, that her self-absorption would help her to know herself well, to understand her choices, to make the right ones. And if their happiness was Rachel’s greatest concern, so be it. They could lead her, direct her, with little fuss, away from the things that might harm her. Toward the things that would make her happiest in the end.
They laid their plans carefully. Rachel followed
