prompt: rib, title: he's doing the best he can in misc. flash fiction

We’d been waiting on it for weeks: my uncle’s yearly request for a Christmas tree. He’s a virtual shut-in due to mental illnesses, has lived on the third floor of my grandparents’ house nearly-fifty years now, rarely meaningfully interacting with anyone outside of the family. Since COVID, it’s fallen largely on Ma and myself to deal with his incredibly-particular needs. I don’t think they’re much about his disabilities, not directly, more a matter of how set-in-his-ways a man can become in a situation of isolated dependence. He sends back bagged English muffins for being too cold, tomatoes for not being connected by a vine. He’s used to things being just so and now it’s on us.

Every year, the tree request comes later. We pass notes ahead through Gramma, but he invariably wants it last-minute. This year, two weeks before the holiday he finally sent a frantastic scribble along and I relented. The first time, the stands directly on my way home from work were closed, causing him to panic directly to his sister, when she was over helping with Grandpa’s insulin.

“THEY’RE CLOSED,” she rifled back, “MIKE’S DOING THE BEST HE CAN!” For all I say about my mom’s hyper-criticism toward me, I’ll give her this, she’s harder on anyone else who questions my judgement. Herself and my brother are the only ones who get to rib Mike. Family, despite having six letters instead of the usual four, is also an F-word.

I went back the next afternoon to find there were only three left, of course. I bought the smallest of the tree and placed it by their collective back-stoop. I asked my mom if she thought that was good enough for him. “IT BETTER BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THAT BIG BABY.” Two days later, we were informed it wasn’t good enough. Too tall. I offered my assistance in carrying it or cutting off the bottom. No dice. A nice chunk of my Saturday then devoted to driving to a chain store to pay fifteen bucks more for one-half of the tree I intentionally got from a small business.

The delivery of the smaller tree was not the end of it. Later, I was told to carry it up to the third floor landing and told that was the end. It was not the end. There was still the matter of the first tree. Eventually, I was told to carry it back to our house a block-and-a-half away, to put it on the curb with a Free Tree sign which I did through bitter December rain. Later, same evening, same rain, my brother called and conspired that it should instead be our secondary Christmas tree, and I grumbled it back on the front-deck. They decided it’d be offended to go unused, unlike myself, having been well-used as a tree-shuffler for madmen. Family, that F-word. Suppose it’s a fitting celebration of Jesus’ birth, though, spending days nailed to two trees. Irony being my only form of recompense these days.