I

When the little girl woke up, she found cookies in her shoes.

It was December 6, St. Nicholas Day, her parents told her.  That’s the day when Santa comes and takes your Christmas list and leaves you cookies if you were good, a switch if you were bad.  Santa left her cookies!  The little girl squealed in delight, in excitement.

Do you want to try one, her mother asked.  The little girl put one in her mouth.  She chewed.  She swallowed.  She smiled.  It was the best thing she had ever eaten in her life.

You can eat another one, her father said.  But the little girl wanted to save them so that they would last longer.

By the time she ate her second cookie, it was hard and stale.



II

Trust is fickle.

When you are trusted, it’s easy to keep that trust.  You can be out with friends or something and just tell your parents that you were at the library or something doing schoolwork.  If you get decent, steady grades and overall seem to be a good kid, then you can get away with murder.  Your parents will eat up all your explanations for your whereabouts, no questions asked.  No suspicion, no nothing.  Trust.

But once you lose that trust, it’s almost impossible to gain it back.  You can apologize and really mean those apologies, you can repent, you can ditch your "bad influence" friends, you can act like the dream child, but they still won’t trust you.  You can feel like shit, stay in your room, even have a few tears come to your eyes (though you don’t want to admit that to anyone), but they still won’t trust you.  You can stop eating chocolate as a form of penance, you can hold your head in your hands and groan in frustration, you can beg, you can plead, you can wish, you can hope, you can pray, but even so, they still won’t trust you.

I know.  Trust me.


III

The little girl is my sister.  She’s five.

Yeah, my parents waited eleven years before having their second child.  They had me when they were pretty young, I guess.

She’s the only one in our family who is trusting.  She’s still innocent too.


IV

“You’re grounded, Jacob.”  Okay, I deserve it.  I deserve more punishment than that, honestly.

“How could my son do something like that?”  I wish I knew.

“Don’t you feel any sort of-oh, remorse or something?”  Yes, more than you’ll ever know, it seems.

“What were you thinking?”  I wasn’t.

“You should at least apologize to him.”  I already have, three times: in person, in an e-mail, and also in a snail mail letter on your nice stationary.  I’ve even called and apologized to his parents, for God’s sake.

“I never suspected you would be the bullying type.”  Neither did I.

“I’m just so embarrassed whenever I see his parents.”  Yes, so am I, except a hundred times more embarrassed than you.

“I thought I could trust you, but I guess I can’t.”  You can.  I won’t make the same mistake twice, I’m not that stupid.  I know I didn’t really prove my intelligence last week, but overall I’m not completely moronic.  It’s common knowledge that people learn from their mistakes.

“I don’t know what to do with you now.”  I don’t know what to do with myself.


V

There was a boy new at school and there was a group of friends and they took the new boy along with them, but the new boy was kind of a loser and a dork and was saying all of these annoying things so the group of friends started picking on the new boy until the new boy got kind of upset and then the group of friends decided to beat him up and they played rock paper scissors and flipped coins until one was chosen and he didn’t want to do it but they picked him they were his friends, his friends, his friends, so the chosen boy went forward and punched the new boy after listening to his friends egging him on, he hurt the new boy, the new boy had bruises, his nose was bleeding, he was crying but he didn’t even try to hide it.

I dream it every single night.


VI

Once the little girl woke up in the middle of the night and heard shouting.

She slid out of bed to see what was happening.  She was curious, but mostly she was scared.  She crept down the hallway in her nightgown that made her feel like a princess.

She stopped at the end of the hallway and crouched by the entrance of the living room.  It was like an adventure story, she thought.  The princess in her beautiful white nightgown finding out everything going on in her beautiful palace.  Maybe she would see the evil sorcerer and know what he was planning next.  Then she would tell her mother, the queen, and the queen would stop the sorcerer, but everyone would know how the princess had saved the day.

She peered into the living room.  She saw the queen and the king, both looking angry.  Her brother, the heir to the throne, was sitting in a chair, his head in his hands.  The king and the queen were talking to him in outside voices because they were so mad.  The prince just held his head in his hands, his shoulders moving sometimes.

The princess didn’t know what was happening.  Maybe the prince had spilled a glass of  milk or something.  The king and the queen always got annoyed when the princess spilled milk.  It would all be okay.

The little girl crept back to bed.


VII

How can you repent when no one will forgive you?  Don’t they realize that their unforgiveness makes it all harder?

“I want to go to the park!” she squealed one Sunday morning.  “Jacob, can you take me to the park?”

I looked at my parents.  They both shook their heads.

“Jacob has a lot of homework to do, sweetie,” my mother said.  “But maybe Daddy can take you to the park.”

“No, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob!” she begged, pulling on my shirt.  “Please, Jacob, please!”

“Come on,” I said to my mom.

“No.”

“Come on, not for me, for her.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I can take you to the park,” my dad said.

“No!  It’s only fun when Jacob goes,” she pleaded.  “Please, Jacob.  Only for a little.”

“Jacob, tell her you can’t take her,” my mom said coldly.

“I’m sorry, but I really do have a lot of things to do,” I said, lying.  “Maybe some
other day, okay?”

She accepted it, she bought the lie.  And then she started crying.

And there’s another person I’ve gone and hurt.


VIII

The little girl hated school.

Not her preschool, but her brother’s school.  Lately all her brother did was homework.  He had so much homework that he never had time to take her anywhere.  They used to have the best times.  He would take her all over, to the park, to get ice cream (his favorite was chocolate, so she liked chocolate best too).

She knew that her brother had to do homework.  Their mother had told the little girl that homework was very important.  Still, she wished that her brother still had time for her.


IX

Regret.

It’s worse than physical pain.  It’s worse than sadness.  It’s worse than sickness.  It’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my life.

I would rather be punched for the rest of eternity than feel like this.  I would rather be depressed yet blameless.  I would rather be sick in bed for the rest of my life.

Because then at least it’s not my fault.

I sent him a Christmas present, a hardcover copy of one of my favorite novels, and a note containing my fourth apology.  After I put the package in the mail, I felt even worse.

If only someone had figured out time travel.  I would go back and change it.  If only, if only I could change it.

I don’t know what to do.

Regret.

I need to be forgiven by my parents, by the new boy, by his parents.  But more importantly, I need to forgive myself.


X

The little girl had one special cookie left from her shoe.  She took it to her brother.

“Here,” she said.  “You can have it.”

“What?” he asked.

“You can have it,” she said, “but it’s not as good as it used to be.  If you don’t eat them right from the shoe, then they get hard and they don’t taste as good.”

“Hey, come on,” her brother said.  “I’m sure it’s still good.  Why don’t you eat it?”

“It’s for you,” she said stubbornly.  “You didn’t get any cookies in your shoe because you’re too old, but Santa’s a really good baker, you know.”  She put the cookie on his desk, gave it one last look, and her lower lip began to tremble.  It looked so good!  She wanted it a lot, but she wanted her brother to have it too.

“Let’s split it in half,” her brother said.  He started breaking the cookie in half.

“When will you have time to take me to the park?” the little girl asked.

“Soon,” said her brother.  His voice sounded funny.

“Tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, not that soon,” he said.  He gave her half of the cookie.  They both took a bite at the same time.

It was hard.  It was stale.  It wasn’t as good as it had been.  But it was what they had.

And so it was delicious.