Photo by Vinh Thang on Unsplash
by Ella Hormel
While Mom is in bed, I drive my little brother around the city looking for a store that’s open on Christmas Eve so we can put tangerines in our stockings. It’s a family tradition my little brother insists we uphold even without Dad. But the city is dead and we can’t find tangerines, so the best we can do is pick the strange, orange berries from our neighbor’s tree. My little brother, who now connects everything he sees and feels to facts about animals, tells me that bluebirds have stomachs capable of digesting berries that if we eat, might stop our hearts.
In the morning, Mom cooks breakfast because that’s her way of apologizing—sunnyside eggs crisped at the edges and the bacon Dad likes, which she bought out of habit. This year, there is no tree and no presents underneath—just three stockings we filled with treasures found around the house and the orange berries that I tell Mom not to eat because they might stop her heart.
Ella Hormel is a writer and MFA candidate at University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she received the Harvey Swados Fiction Prize. Ella’s work can be found in Smokelong Quarterly, Passages North, The NYT’s Tiny Love Stories, and elsewhere.
