Starfish
by Stephen Calhoun

It looked dumb. The way it hung there. I didn’t like it. Every year Mom got that thing out, and every year I didn’t like it. It was gross, all orange and bumpy. Now it was hanging there on my branches. Mom said I could decorate those branches, but I bet Daniel put it there. He put it there so my branches looked gross and everyone would hate them.

Daniel kept running back and forth to the tree, holding different balls and things covered in sparkles. Those were pretty. I liked the sparkles and the way they danced around on the carpet. Sometimes I held them and stared at them. I would move them around and around in the light until I got dizzy and needed to sit down. Mom told me to stop spinning. She said if I spun around too much I would throw up. She said the same thing about eating too many cookies. I ate a lot anyway, but I never threw up.

I only needed to get that ugly thing hanging on the tree. It was hiding behind some branches but I could still see it. I was very good at finding things. Sometimes Mom lost her shoes and she’d say, “Anna! Help me find my shoes!” Sometimes I hid Mom’s shoes on purpose just so she would ask me. She loved it when I found them and brought them to her. When she was in a hurry she didn’t like it as much. She would grab the shoes from me and tell me not to take them anymore.

I reached the tree and pointed at the orange thing in the back. It was gross. I didn’t want to touch it. I looked at Mom. She was sitting close to Dad on the couch looking at pictures. They would laugh and point. One of the pictures made Mom’s eyes fill up with water. I heard her say, “That was the first time I was pregnant,” but she didn’t sound very happy. 

“Mom!” I said, standing and pointing.

“What?” She kept on looking at the pictures. Her cheeks were red and bright. She looked like one of the dolls I had in my room, only her teeth weren’t as white.

“Mom!” I said again, lifting my foot and slamming it onto the floor.

“What is it, honey?” She stood and walked over to me. Dad looked at us from the couch holding the picture book in his hands.

I whispered, “Look at that thing. Can I take it down?”

“That?” Mom said, pointing directly at the orange lump that made the whole tree look disgusting.

“Yes, that!” I said, and curled my nose to show her that I thought it was gross.

“That’s a very important ornament. What’s wrong with the starfish?” Mom asked. She was smiling a little bit. She looked really pretty when she smiled. She looked around for some other decorations and began putting them on the tree.

“That’s not a fish. That’s something gross. That looks like something Leroy would chew on.” Leroy was Kaitlin’s dog, but she lived next door. When she came over she brought Leroy over too and we would chase him around the house. Sometimes when Mom wasn’t home we’d feed him chips and crackers straight from the bag. He ate them really fast and got crumbs everywhere.  

“That looks like something Leroy would throw up,” I said.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Mom said. I don’t know what dramatic means. Sometimes Mom says stuff like that.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “I put it there so it should stay!” He was still running back and forth hanging stuff wherever he could find a spot.

"But Mom said I could decorate all of these!” and I pointed to all the branches I could reach. “I don’t like that fish –”

“It’s a starfish,” Mom interrupted.

“I don’t like that starfish on the tree! Fish live in the ocean, not on Christmas trees. I don’t like it. It’s gross!” I crossed my arms making it clear that that thing didn’t belong on a tree. I put my finger in my mouth and began sucking on it. Mom didn’t like it when I did that. I didn’t care.

“Why’s it gross?” Daniel asked. He sounded sneaky for some reason. He sounded like he was about to pull a frog from behind his back and put it down my shirt. He did that once. One time he pulled a frog out of his pocket and put it down my shirt. Dad didn’t let him leave his room for the rest of the day. And it was a Saturday.

“It just is,” I said. “It’s all bumpy and dry. The back of it has little pointy things that look like they might eat my fingers.”

“Well,” Daniel said, and began walking towards the tree. “It won’t eat your fingers, but it might eat your face!” He pulled it off the tree and held it right in front of my eyes.

I screamed. The fish was attacking me. The gross, bumpy, pointy, hard fish was attacking me. It smelled bad too, like that milk Mom threw away that had chunks in it. Everywhere else in the room smelled good. Earlier Mom said she lit a candle made of cinnamon. The rest of the room smelled like candle, but this thing smelled gross.

“Daniel stop it,” Dad said. Daniel was insolent. Mom had used that word the other day. She said, “If you weren’t so insolent then I would let you stay up later.” I asked Daniel later if he knew what that meant. He said it meant he was the best child they ever had and that Mom loved him more. I think he’s lying.

Daniel looked at Dad. The fish was still in my face and I hit it out of his hand. It crashed into the floor and lay there. It looked dead laying on its back. When it was hanging in the tree I thought it might begin talking to me. Now it looked dead.

“Anna, please go pick up the starfish,” Dad said.

“But Dad, he was holding that thing in my face!”

“Go pick it up.” Dad’s voice never got very loud. It was always steady, like how the pastor sounded at church. I bet my dad would make a great pastor. He always wore a nice shirt and tie. I could see him standing in the front and talking. His voice would sound cool and steady as he said things like “Jesus loves you” and “Turn in your Bibles with me to John” and “Don’t forget to check the sign-up sheet in the hall.” He’d be fun to listen to as I colored in the papers in the backs of the seats.

I knew not to argue but I still didn’t want to touch that thing. I stood there and looked at the tree. 

“Anna, if you don’t pick that up you’re going to bed right now.”

This was the worst. This was the only night they let me stay up late. At first I thought they forgot. Earlier they took me upstairs and I put on my pajamas. I always wore one of Daniel’s shirts because they were big and hung down to my feet. I liked how they felt. They were loose and it felt like I was at swim class when I moved my arms. Mom walked with me into the bathroom and we brushed our teeth. I loved brushing my teeth. It was my favorite thing. It almost made going to bed worth it. I really loved it when Mom brushed her teeth with me. I would rub my toothbrush back and forth and watch her. When she brushed her top teeth, I brushed my top teeth. When she went back into her mouth, I went back into my mouth. Sometimes this felt like I was choking, or maybe going to throw up, but I never did. After she was done she took my brush and made sure I got all the hard-to-reach spots. Sometimes I’d lick the outside of my teeth. They tasted so good, like mint candy.

I knew I had no choice. I went over to the fish to pick it up. I stood there and stared at it. The bumps seemed bigger and crustier. I meant to pick it up. I really did, but I don’t know what happened. Right before my hand touched it my stomach felt weird, like I might throw up. I couldn’t touch that thing. I lifted my foot and kicked it as hard as I could against the wall. One of the legs broke off and the starfish slid into the kitchen.

“Anna!” Mom didn’t really say my name. She seemed to breathe in and a sound jumped out of her throat. I began crying. I don’t know why I kicked it. My dad picked me up and laid me against his shoulder. I could see my tears making his shirt turn dark. His nice, blue shirt looked like it was in a rainstorm. He carried me upstairs to my room.

I was still crying. My dad usually sat on the bed next to me and tried to say things to make me stop. He rubbed my back and I calmed down after some time. This time he laid me on the bed and put the covers over me. He didn’t sit down on my bed, though. He didn’t sit down at all. He put me into bed, then turned around and walked out of my room. I looked up and watched him leave. Where was he going? It was just a fish!

I got scared. Dad never left me when I was crying. Maybe I did something really wrong this time. One time I put some of Mom’s bright red make-up onto one of my dolls and Mom had said I’d done something really wrong. Another time I got up onto Dad’s work chair and began pushing buttons on the screen. I thought it was a TV, but nothing worked, so I began pounding on the letters below the screen. Dad came in and said I’d done something really wrong. But he didn’t leave me. He didn’t leave me in my bed.

My tears felt hot now and my face scrunched up. I stopped crying. If my family was going to be mean to me, I could be mean to them.

I think I fell asleep. I’m not sure. I remember thinking how I needed to be mean to everyone. My door creaked open and Dad came in. I could tell it was him because he walked quietly, like he didn’t want to wake me up. I could always hear him, but I liked pretending that I couldn’t and acting surprised when he said something. This time he didn’t say anything.

He pulled the covers away from my body and picked me up. He held me against his warm body by putting one arm under my rump. One time Daniel said that it’s called a butt. Mom didn’t like that word and put some soap in Daniel’s mouth. She said I should call it a rump. So Dad had one arm under my rump and I leaned my head into his shoulder, chewing on my finger.

The smell of candle was still in the house. It smelled like that food Mom made for breakfast sometimes. The music was playing too. It was soft, quiet, but I could still hear all the different sounds. They sounded sweet, like when Mrs. Delite sang at church. When she sang I closed my eyes and pretended that I was flying in the air. Not like when the choir sang. I closed my eyes when they sang too, but not because I felt like I was flying.

He carried me down the stairs. The house was dark. Kind of scary dark. But I wasn’t scared. At the bottom of the steps I could see a glow coming from around the corner. It was the Christmas tree. It looked beautiful, like the ones I saw on TV when we watched movies. Lots of different colors came from lots of different lights. Except this one was real. This one was right in front of me. The lights were around the tree, in the tree, everywhere! With all the other lights out, the tree looked like a ride at the fair.

I began wiggling in Dad’s arms, trying to slide down to the floor. I ran and touched the spiky branches, closing my fist around the ends.

“My Spider Man ornament is over here,” Daniel said. He was standing behind me and ran to the other side of the tree. I followed him and saw the little red and blue man swinging in the tree. I poked him and he began swinging faster. Dad gave Daniel that one a little while ago. Daniel loved Spider Man. He had all his books and dolls and even a costume that he wore sometimes. Mom didn’t let him wear it outside.

“Come back over here, Anna.” It was Dad’s voice. I ran over to him and he picked me up under my arms with my fingers still in my mouth. He put his arm under my rump again and I leaned my head into his shoulder. He put his hand on mine and pushed it down to my waist, away from my mouth. I wiped my fingers into his shirt.

“Do you see that?” Dad was pointing to the top of the tree. I couldn’t see it very well. All of my stuff was on the bottom. I looked to see what he was pointing at.

I couldn’t believe it. On top of the tree, with lights all around it, was that ugly, gross fish. Why did they put it on top of the tree? The one leg had grown back? It had a line of goo where I had broken it. I could still see a little black crack.

“Dad, take that down. I don’t like it.”

“But we have to have a star on top of the tree,” Dad said.

“But that’s a fish, not a star,” I said. Dad didn’t understand.

“It’s a starfish. Do you know why we put a star on top of the tree?”

I thought about it. I should probably know the answer. Sometimes in Sunday school people asked me questions. I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Jesus?”

Dad laughed. I don’t know why.

“Yes, I suppose that is the ultimate reason,” Dad said. “But do you know why we put a starfish on top of our tree?”

I didn’t say anything.

“The reason is your mother and I got that starfish on our honeymoon, which is an important time after two people get married. We said we wanted to have as many kids as the starfish has arms, so each arm is part of our life. It was a fun gift, and every Christmas we bring it out for you kids.”

I rubbed my head on Dad’s shoulder. “How many arms does a starfish have?” I asked.

“Five,” Dad answered.

I looked at Daniel. “But it’s only me and Daniel. Where are the rest?”

I looked at Mom. Her eyes looked really wet. She looked like she might cry. Dad walked over to her with me on his arm. He put his other arm around Mom and she rested her head on his other shoulder. Daniel walked over and sat down in front of Dad. We all looked at the tree. I couldn’t take my eyes off the starfish on top.

“I know,” Dad kissed my head. “Let’s just say that Mom and I are really happy and grateful to have you kids. Everyday we are thankful for you and your brother.” Mom sniffled a little bit.

I couldn’t stop staring at that gross starfish. But now I kind of liked it. It still looked weird. It still looked like a dog’s chew toy. But on top of the tree, it seemed OK. Mom and Dad liked it. I liked it too.

“Dad, sorry about breaking the starfish.”