The Christmas Unicorn

The greatest gifts aren’t always under a Christmas tree.

“We’ve been through worse,” chirruped Francis as Babbie maneuvered his chair along a pocked and rutted road.

The hem of the innkeeper’s cape dragged in the dirt. With the moon up, the river to their right, and a steep hill blocking the wind, their walk was strenuous, but not overly so. She prayed it would stay that way clear to Aberdyfi Inn.

"And when was it worse?”

“There’s the time we had that ragamuffin from Handsworth who was supposed to play a dead king. But no stage directions for him. ‘I’m king in this here drammie,’ says he, ‘and I’ll bloody well die where I please.’”

“Oh Franny, you shouldn’t use such words.” Babbie tried to hide her amusement.

“You see,” her son said triumphantly, “We’ve been through worse.”

She smiled. Worse… What about the day a child pushed you off a cliff, never to walk again? Or the day my parents drove me from the house for conceiving out of wedlock? Those were worse…even if Johnny—

“Mama! Halt.”

Distracted by her thoughts, Babbie didn’t see the rope across the road. She stopped before running poor Franny into it. “What’s this?”

“They’ve blocked it,” her boy said matter-of-factly.

Dreading what she would find, Babbie stepped over the rope and walked several yards until she saw a swirl of river water lapping across the road.

“Retreat,” he said, then imitated a bugle blowing.

With a sigh, she turned the chair around.

“We’ve had worse,” her son said.

“Confess.”

“When a pot boy delivered Mercutio a pewter of ale in the middle of Queen Mab, and the audience near pissed itself laughing.”

Chuckling, she gave his shoulder a playful slap. “No cursing.” 

One Christmas Eve following my father's death in 1994, I told the story of the unicorn in its original form, almost word for word the way he used to. When I got to the part about seeing the figure of a unicorn on the door, my husband said, "Look over there."

Annoyed to have the story interrupted, a glanced where he pointed. Sometime during the story, the man I married snuck this brass unicorn onto our door. Way to go, hubby.