Friday was my day off from the Shop'nSave in Machias, so that's when I decided to cut the Christmas tree. But first I stopped in to see my mother and get the chainsaw. Dad died last year, so I liked to check on Mumma when I could. Her woodstove was stoked and the kitchen was hotter than a Baptist hell, and sharp-smelling from balsam-fir tippings. Mumma was making Christmas wreaths with Mrs. Tuttle, the leakiest basket in Alderboro--you tell her something and next thing you know it's spilled all over town. Her and Mumma were watching Ricki Lake, a show I didn't care too much for. Ricki was talking with female-to-male sex-changers. The audience was even louder than usual, screaming and acting like idiots. They yelled that the sex-changers was unnatural and against God's rules. Mumma and Mrs. Tuttle nodded their heads.
"God, Mumma," I said, "I don't know why you want to watch a bunch of frigging morons and pervs every day."
"Ricki Lake is entertainment, Monica," Mumma said. "You just can't believe what they'll do next down there in New York."
"Cities make people crazy," said Mrs. Tuttle.
I said goodbye soon's I decently could, and Mumma walked me to the door. It opened right to the woodshed, which was cold and smelled of cedar. Royal had a Husqvarna, but I sold it with the rest of his logging equipment, so I got out Dad's Poulan.
Mumma said, "Monica Dixon Mahaney! What on earth are you doing with that chainsaw?"
I didn't look up from checking the gas and bar oil. "Getting a Christmas tree." More than enough.
"But you ain't had a--" I hadn't had a tree for three years, not since Royal died. Married at sixteen, widowed at eighteen. But we didn't talk about that. "Well, you be careful with that thing. Where you cuttin'?"
I hooked a thumb at the back field and Grampa Dixon's woodlot. He had about four hundred acres. Not much left of them old woods, after two hundred years of Dixons cutting cords for the long Maine winters.
"Come in when you get back. You'll be wanting a hot cup of tea," Mumma said, and shut the door against the woodshed chill.
Outside it was even colder. The inside of my nose crackled as I went through the long, pain-in-the-ass process of starting the chainsaw. Least I didn't forget how. When I let go of the deadman switch, the chain stopped spinning. I shut off the engine and the silence like to hurt my ears.
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