digital artwork by Alex Deiters

ets were piled in a mound on a white wood bench in the foyer. I picked out Paula’s red coat and hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted to give her my present anymore, but I went through with it anyway by slipping the little black velvet box into her pocket. Then I walked slowly back into the Murphy’s dining room, where Gregory had almost fnished ripping into the presents that all of our mothers had meticulously wrapped. I saw my red, white and blue box labelled “Puzzle of The United States” in a stack to Gregory’s left in front of his mother, who had a piece of paper on which she was noting who gave her son what so that Gregory or she could write thank you notes.

Just as the birthday boy had ripped open his last gift, his father emerged from the kitchen with a large rectangular chocolate cake, cut into squares, which he set down next to a stack of paper plates and a pile of silver forks. It was all so neatly timed I wondered if they had practiced it. As I was inching up to the front of the line for the cake, I tried to catch Paula’s eye as I reached for the smallest square left.

Paula sat next to me on a couch as we ate our cake from paper plates balanced on our laps. I wanted to whisper to Paula of the present awaiting her in her coat pocket, but I was afraid of two things: frst, that I would spill crumbs on the Murphy’s clean rug, and second, that Paula would say something that would cause more jeering and chanting, so I ate my cake cautiously and silently. As we were fnishing eating cake, the rush of parents, including Paula’s, arriving to drive their kids home brought a confusing and swift end to the party.

On Monday morning, Paula was in the coat room surrounded by a gaggle of girls. I could see in the spaces between them Paula’s extended left hand on which she wore my present, a shiny diamond ring. To keep it from slipping around on her fnger, Paula had neatly ftted a pad of Kleenex or cotton on her fnger beneath the ring.

After we stood and said our morning Hail Marys, one for our parents, one for our bishop, and one for all Sisters of Mercy, Sister Grace bent over Paula as she was just settling into her desk in the front row by the window and then started walking with her toward the hall. The room reacted with an audible sucking in of air and then a gathering wave of whispered “Wooos” until Sister squelched all sound by clattering her large wooden rosary beads hanging from her waist and fxing her eyes on all of us. The two of them then disappeared into the hall through the room’s front entrance. As I stared down at my desktop and frantically searched my imagination for what Sister Grace might be saying to Paula, I looked up when the whispering wave started building again and then hushed when Sister Grace and Paula reentered the room. I could see that Paula’s fngers were bare. Although I tried, I couldn’t will her to turn her head to look at me in the back row by the cloakroom. She was always attentive during class, but she seemed especially attentive this day. I had to wait for recess to learn that Sister Grace had told her that I shouldn’t have given her my mother’s ring and that she would be keeping the ring until my mother or father retrieved it.

“I’m sorry, Paula,” I said as I felt redness rising into my face as I did during the party when all the kids were chanting at me. “How did she know I gave it to you?”

“I told her.”

“How did you know?”

Paula just tilted her head and her deep blue eyes widened to look at me, seeing me as the silly child I was, someone far less aware of the ways of the world than she.