Just Once

Melanie took Sarah by the hand. Together they skipped down the boulevard forcing Jason’s long legs to take even larger strides to keep up.

“Thanks for helping me with our final geography assignment Sar,” Melanie said, smiling happily. “There was no way I would have passed on my own. Old Grizzle Guts would have kicked me off the team for sure.”

“No worries Mel,” Sarah replied, stepping into the swing of Mel’s up tempo mood, her short legs pumping hard to keep up.

“You’re so clever Sar,” Mel went on. “I don’t know how you can read all that stuff, and then remember it.”

“That’s because she’s a nerd,” Jason butted in.

“She is not.”

“I just like reading Jace,” Sarah said pausing to catch her breath, “and I guess it just kinda sticks.”

“See Jace, she’s clever, not like you.” Mel stopped as they drew alongside the two-storey apartment building where Sarah lived with her father.

“Thanks again Sar,” Mel said, giving her friend a big hug. “Dad would have gone bonkers if I’d been thrown off the team, and then no Christmas.”

“I still think she’s a nerd,” Jason butted in So where’s my hug.”

“Oh, she is not you big dummy.” Melanie stretched on tip toe to quickly kiss him on the lips still holding Sarah’s hand. “Does she look like a nerd? Look how she’s dressed. Top of the wozza parka; tight jeans hugging her cute little backside. Glasses dummy, where are the glasses? Nerds where glasses.”

“She wears glasses in class,” Jason replied. “Ten kisses on the way home Mel, ten.”

“Only so I can read what’s on the blackboard Jace,” Sarah defended herself, conscious she was in the way now.

“Come on you big hulk,” Mel said. She let Sarah’s hand go and threw her arm around Jason's taut waist. “Take me home. See you Sar, have a merry Christmas,” Mel called as she and Jason continued down the boulevard.

“Later,” Jason added over his shoulder. His hand wandered down Mel’s back to rest on her curvy bottom.

“Yeah, catch you guys later too,” Sarah said in a whisper as the couple briskly disappeared around the corner.

Sarah walked through the front door of the building and began slowly climbing the long staircase to their second storey apartment. Her shoulders slumped against the loneliness that now overcame her. As darkness descended light snow began to fall outside. Slowly the usually drab streetscape changed to a majestic sparkle. A group of small children began piling the snow as soon as it fell, snow ball fights erupted and snowmen started to take shape.

She opened the door to the apartment and her high spirits disappeared completely as she walked inside. It had been a fabulous afternoon with her “group” from school, a burger and coke at the takeaway, but now she faced the bleak prospect of another Christmas Eve alone in the cold empty apartment. She let out a soft sigh as she gazed around the sparse room.

Sarah stared at the small Christmas stocking neatly pinned to the corner of the mantelpiece. It was carefully placed out of reach of the hungry flames that would later arced outwards if she could get the fire going. Small tears dwelled at the corner of her normally bright blue eyes; the stocking would probably not be needed tonight. It had been hung in hope, as it had every year since she first pencilled her name on the tag in small child’s hand. Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand she slumped to her knees in front of the fireplace. The pre-set kindling took to life at the touch of a match struck on the side of a box left purposefully on the corner of the hearth.

Soon a crackling fire broke the silence of the apartment generating warmth but not cheer throughout the spacious room. A Christmas tree freshly cut and still moist from earlier rain towered next to a corner window facing the street below. The pungent smell of pine soon mixed with the smoke to fill the room.

“Oh, just once,” Sarah cried as she knelt on the floor staring trancelike into the dancing fire. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks. “Just once why can’t he be here for Christmas Eve with me?”

Every year his job took precedent and Christmas Eve was busier than ever despite has army of helpers.

With a sharp pop a large ember, glowing red, flew out of the fireplace onto the rug immediately in front of her. The acrid smell of smouldering carpet quickly filled the room. Without thinking Sarah picked it up and gasped in pain as the angry hot coal immediately brought blisters to her gentle fingertips before falling back into the fire.

Tears of pain now joined those of despair as Sarah wandered absentmindedly into the kitchen. She placed the injured fingers under a cold running tap to ease the burn. Returning to the main room she paused at the window to look onto the street below. She forced back another sob as groups of families arm in arm, some laden with presents went calling on each other. All along the snow covered boulevard lights sparkled above the sound of laughter and distant carols that carried clearly to where she stood.

“Oh just once,” Sarah repeated to herself. “Why can’t he be here for me on Christmas Eve and take me carolling down the boulevard? I know a lot of people, particularly the younger ones, are depending upon him tonight, but just for once.”



“Come on Sarah, this won’t do,” she admonished herself. “Dad works hard so let’s Christmas things up a bit for when he does get home.”

She went to the hallway closet. After rummaging around for a few minutes she found the box of Christmas decorations and returned to the spacious parlour. A short time later the tree was covered with a glittering array of hanging decorations; brightly covered glass balls, figurines of Santa, reindeers and angels, even Mickey Mouse and Pluto, while the mistletoe hung over the doorway in the traditional manner.

Standing back to inspect her handiwork Sarah imagined spending Christmas Eve surrounded by happing laughing people. The mother she had never known would be busy in the kitchen preparing a traditional turkey feast with all the trimmings. Then when seated around the table gaily decorated in red, white and green Father would carve the roast and Christmas crackers would burst. Dinner would be a symphony of sparkling cutlery, brightly coloured plates full bellied laughter and popping corks. Then they would all retire around the tree and presents handed out. She anticipated the excitement she would feel at receiving that special gift or the thrill of seeing the look of delight in another’s eyes telling her she had chosen well.

“Christmas Sarah, Christmas. Get with it,” she said setting the table for two. Father was usually so tired when he did get back on Christmas morning he would often go straight to bed and sleep the entire day. He tried hard when they eventually did get to dinner but it was never as she imagined it to be. With a spring in her step and the pain in her fingers now forgotten Sarah remembered the two Christmas crackers left over from last year and placed that special bottle of beer in the refrigerator for her father.

“Music, we need music,” she said to herself skipping over to the radio that sat on a corner coffee table.

The Christmas carols were momentarily stopped for a newsflash, the announcer encouraging people to take extra care this night, the falling snow was creating traffic havoc, and the emergency rooms doing a roaring trade they did not want. In addition there had been an earlier report of a jetliner having a near miss with a strange object or objects in the sky.

“People just need to be more careful,” Sarah agreed, placing another log on the fire as she headed back to the kitchen. As the carols resumed a background lullaby she waltzed past the window gazing out at the merriment below.

“Maybe it is better to be up here in a warm room rather than out on the cold,” she thought.

“Wait, there goes Mel and Jace,” she exclaimed out loud, waving madly to her friends through the foggy window. “And who’s that with them, oh my God, it's Thomas?”

Thomas was the class heartthrob and word was going round that he had a crush on Sarah, a feeling she was more than willing to reciprocate.

“Oh, how cool would it be to be out walking with them,” Sarah swooned forgetting about the cold. She imagined rushing into his arms as he swung or round and round, rugged up against the cold in the snow near bridge by the river.

Thomas turned to wave at friends Sarah could not see. “Oh,” she said with a whisper, “ he wants me to join them.” Forgetting everything her father continually told her about going out after dark when he was at work and leaving the fire unattended she raced outside to join her friends.

“Just once wouldn’t hurt,” she thought bounding down the stairs, out the door, over the sidewalk and onto the road.

“Hey guys wait for…’ she called.

The driver of the speeding car that careened around the corner just as Sarah raced onto the road had no hope of stopping on the wet and slippery surface. The car’s front bumper threw her high into the air like a rag doll before she fell back onto the trunk bouncing face first into the bitumen.

As the ambulance left the scene of the accident on the way to the morgue a tired and determined man walked around the corner and up the stairs to the two-storey apartment building. Climbing the staircase to the second story he was surprised to find the door to the apartment wide open.

“Sarah,” he called cheerfully. “Are you there? I left work early, a near miss made me realise some things are more important. Come on Sarah, we’re going out, the Jones have invited us to join their Christmas dinner.”

“Sarah, are you there…?”