Jingle Hells by Misty Evans

death. Wasn’t hard
to guess which furry culprit in my apartment had done the damage.
Father Leonard’s words rang in my head. A friend…find the solution
to the problem plaguing you…
    The only problem plaguing me had been
confronting Luc. That was over and done with, so why bother? As I
sat there, though, my gut told me I was missing something. I picked
up the Bible and opened it to Genesis, chapter one.
    I’d never read the Bible before, having
picked up the few stories I knew about from other books, movies and
TV. Once I started reading, though, I couldn’t stop. The original
man in the story, made from God’s image was now my man. Yet as I
pictured him living out the story, I couldn’t quite match up the
one in the Bible with the one who’d been sleeping in my bed.
    A painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden done in the 1500s had been reproduced at the beginning of the
chapter. The likeness to my Adam was uncanny. He looked almost
exactly the same, muscular and virile. And Eve…well, she was
voluptuous, more so even than Delilah, and her face had an ethereal
appearance. I tried to put myself into the story in her place, but
again, I couldn’t match us up.
    While Adam and Eve’s story in reality wasn’t
very long, it packed a lot of drama. I could sympathize with Eve’s
inability to resist Satan and I liked that Adam made the choice to
eat from the apple and stay with her, even though it meant bye-bye
paradise. What I didn’t get was the fact that if God had only
allowed them to eat from the Tree of Life to compensate for eating
from the Tree of Knowledge, they could have lived forever in Eden
and been happy. God, however, was not up for competition.
    I dredged on through more of Genesis but
eventually fell asleep. When I woke, Adam was bending down beside
me and smiling. His eyes reflected the lights on the tree, making
them twinkle.
    “Merry Christmas,” he said and kissed
me.
    The Bible had slid to the floor and I
nonchalantly kicked it under my chair with my foot before the kiss
ended. I rose, adjusted my shirt and ran my fingers through my
hair. I’d wanted to be dressed in my Santa costume before he
arrived. Now I’d have to save it for later. The clock on the wall
and the smell of the ham said it was lunch time. “And merry first
Christmas to you.”
    Adam pulled me over to the tree and pointed
at the wrapped gifts snugged around it. “You’re giving me the
cat?”
    Glancing down, I saw the calico lying on her
side with a bow on her head, a tag attached. To Adam, From Amy, it
read. How had she done that? Taken a bow and tag from another gift
and somehow slapped it on her own head?
    Well, why not give her to Adam? She liked
him and apparently hated me, so… “Only if you want her.”
    He bent down and scooped her into his arms.
“Of course, I want her.” He removed the bow and scratched her head.
“How did you get her to lie under the tree like that?”
    “She’s very…” I searched for the right word
and the cat meowed at me. It sounded like a warning. “Creative,” I
settled for.
    “Should we eat first or open presents?”
    He was just like a little kid, full of
anticipation. Of course I gave in. “Emilia’s not here yet, so let’s
open our gifts to each other. When she gets here, we’ll eat.”
    I made Adam sit on my love seat and I
brought the gifts for him over. The cat went back to her spot under
the tree and I ignored her twitching tail and gold-green eyes.
    Everything was going along great—Adam loved
his T-shirt, car kit and fan attire. But as he opened the set of
holiday underwear and held them up, a weird noise came from the
cat. I can only describe it as part howl, part words, that sounded
like, “Oh, enough of this!”
    The hair on the back of my neck stood up and
I jerked around just in time to see the calico turn into…
    “Eve?” Adam said, agog at the naked woman on
her hands and knees in front of the tree.
    “Eve!” I echoed, knowing before I even