Birthday present
Mon 28 Jun 1999
It was Tuesday, and Mary and her Dad were sitting in the back yard after weeding. It was a warm and humid afternoon in late summer. They were tired after working and watched as flies buzzed around lazily.
“You know,” said Mary’s Dad, “It’s your mother’s birthday on Friday.”
Mary had known it was coming, but in a behind-other-things, to-be-thought-of-in-a-while kind of way. “Oh,” she said, surprised it was so soon.
“Just reminding you,” said her father. He stared at the plant bed they had dug over and scratched his ear. “In case you were thinking of making her something.”
He didn’t say buy her anything because Mary had no money. There was a reason for this, but unless you are a close friend or an even closer relation of Mary we won't talk about it. She had to pay for something that got broken and that’s all anyone else needs to know.
So this year she would have to make something for her mother’s birthday. And she had three days.
“Oh,” she said again. Then, “Right.”
It’s hard to make someone a present. For a start you have to decide what you’re going to make and it can’t be anything too difficult or it may never be finished in time. Mary only had until the end of that week for her mother’s present. There wouldn’t be time to grow stuff or send away for recipes or ask many people for help. It would have to be designed and made by her with whatever she could find at home and at school.
It had to be something she was able to make as well. That was difficult too. Mary wanted to give her mother something as nice as could have been bought in a store, but she knew she couldn’t. It would have to be something quite different, something one couldn’t buy, but that has other problems. Sometimes you give someone what you think is a wonderful present, something you would love to have given to you, and they go Thanks and put it away in a cupboard. Mary wanted her mother to be happy with what she could make.
“You've gone very quiet,” said her father. He sounded worried.
“I’m thinking,” Mary said.
She thought all that day and the next day until lunchtime. Then she stopped, because there were no more hours for thinking. The rest of her time, what with school and meals and piano lessons and homework, would have to be making the present.
She had had three ideas, though she wasn’t really happy with any of them. One was to make a photo album of colored paper like she had seen once on a television program, with covers that were made of old photos. But the more she thought of it the more it became like something one could buy at K-Mart but with different pictures. And she had half forgotten the program and how the presenter had made the covers. Another idea was a special noticeboard for the kitchen, something they could all pin shopping lists and coupons on so they weren’t lost or forgotten. But she wasn’t sure she could make one with a cork cover in the time, and she would have to buy the cork as there was none in the house. And she had no money.
So it came down to her third idea, the one she actually made. I can’t tell you what it was because it never happened, at least not in the way Mary intended, and as she wouldn’t say no-one ever found out what it was really meant to be. But as it turned out it didn’t matter anyway.
On Wednesday afternoon after school she asked her father to help by making some space in the back of the garage for her. And maybe he could show her how to do some things.
“No problem,” he said, and cleared a big space on his workbench for her. “Use anything you need.” There was lots of stuff around, wood and metal and paint and paper, though none of it looked like anything you could make a present out of. It looked like the kind of stuff you repair houses with, which it was.
“Mmm… Thanks,” said Mary. She didn’t have a good feeling about the present just then, but it was all she could do for her mother’s birthday so she went ahead as she had planned and made a drawing. Her father looked over her shoulder as she drew it.
“I don’t understand,” he said when she had finished.
“This bit opens up,” said Mary, pointing.
“Yes, but… doesn’t that one get in the way?” he said.
“No, that’s at the back. And it would bend even if it wasn’t.”
They looked at the drawing. After a moment Mary realized there was a problem with another piece, not the one her father had mentioned, that really would get in the way, so she made a new drawing with some changes. “I like this better,” she said.
“Ok,” her father said. “You’re making it. Let me know if I can help.” He went to the other side of the garage and started working on the lawn mower. Mary stared at her drawing. She suddenly realized all she had to do before it would be finished, and sighed.
“I was feeding Cosmic the other day,” her father said suddenly, not looking up from what he was doing. “And I thought, you know, hamsters travel long distances in the wild on those tiny little legs. I was wondering how they manage and then he ran across his cage and showed me.”
“How do they do it?” asked Mary.
Her father looked up and smiled. “One step at a time.”
The way he said it made her realize he was telling her more than how hamsters went on long journeys. “You mean, I shouldn’t worry too much about how I’m going to finish this but just start?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he said.
So she did.
Two days later, just in time, her mother’s present was done. But it was still hard to figure out what it was. As it turned out it didn’t open, so you couldn’t keep things in it, but it didn’t quite shut either, so it wouldn’t have floated in a bath or a pond. It was too heavy for a paperweight and too light for a bookend, too big for a Christmas tree decoration and too small for a garden ornament. Parts of it were blue and parts were red, but not so you could say it was one color or the other. It looked like it ought to be square and fit up against other things, but it didn’t, not quite.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said as her mother unwrapped it. “It didn’t turn out like I wanted.”
Her mother looked at the present. “But it’s wonderful,” she said.
“No,” Mary said. She sniffed, disappointed in what she had made. The pretty, brightly printed wrapping paper lying beside it made it look even worse to her. “It’s not.”
Her mother took her arm and sat down beside her. “You’re not seeing the same thing I am,” she said. “Or at least not the same way. You see a present that didn’t turn out like you wanted. But I don’t know what you meant it to be like and I don’t need to. I see what’s in front of me and there is so much to love and admire.” She touched it with a finger. “This corner is so neat. You never used to shape wood this well.”
Mary looked at the corner. That part was good, she had to admit, the two pieces of wood coming to an almost perfect edge. It had taken time using sandpaper stretched over flat board to make them like that.
“And the color is wonderful, like an old piece of patterned velvet. How did you do that?”
Mary almost said she made a mistake, but then she looked again and it went from being not-blue and not-red into a rich purple violet that changed with the way the light hit it, made of careful brush strokes and depth and fine unexpected spider’s webs where the two wet colors had run into each another. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I could do it again if I wanted. And with other colors.”
“I’m sure you could.” said her mother. “You learned a lot about painting and so much else as you made this. Sometimes the best things happen by accident.” She touched the present again, “And look at these screws. You fitted them so the tops are just level with the wood. You must have drilled a space for the head of the screws as well as holes for them to go through the wood without splitting. You never did that before.”
“I asked Dad about it,” said Mary. “He lent me his good drills and I practiced on some old wood.”
“And the shape,” said her mother. “It’s almost square but not quite. It’s funny, but like it’s laughing at you, not you at it.”
They both looked at it for a moment. It was true, it was funny. Like when someone reaches out to touch you and then pulls their hand back, with a laugh, before they do.
“I see so much here,” said her mother. “So much you have never done before, and so much you learned while you were making it. It’s like two pictures in one. The past, when you couldn’t do any of this, a moment ago. The future, when you will do so much more, a moment ahead.”
“So it’s a past and future present,” said Mary.
“A past and future present,” said her mother, smiling. “The best I could ever have or imagine.”
So from that hour the past and future present sat on her mother’s dressing table. It was one color in the morning and another in the evening, one shape when you came in to the room and another when you left. It was quite unpredictable and from that day on whoever saw it asked about it. There weren’t always easy answers, but there were always more questions. Though Mary and her mother gave each other lots of other things for years afterwards it was the one thing they thought of whenever anyone spoke of birthday presents. And her mother always thought it was the best ever.