Sudoku Xmas
by Susan McKenna
The family portrait was a little beat up. The crinkled corners of the Polaroid had pulled away from the backing, and small creases cut across the fading figures. The mother sat front and center, the five children flanking her. No father: he, of course, was behind the camera.
That was Christmas 1990. Kuwait had become a household word. The nightly news covered stories about American hostages used as human shields and premature babies left to die after Iraqi soldiers raided hospitals. Libby McGill’s family waited for her father to be deployed.
Colonel McGill had recently been transferred to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and the family now lived in Oakwood, a small affluent city just outside of Dayton, Ohio. Eleven-year-old Libby dreaded returning to school after the Christmas break. Most of all she dreaded questions about her presents.
The first day back, the popular girls showed off their Gap sweaters and Calvin Klein shifts with belted safari jackets from Banana Republic. Let’s see what you got became the phrase of the day as students greeted each other. Nike Airs appeared here and there, unused for walking, let alone running, since most students were dropped off, several in chauffeured limousines. Tans from trips to Hawaii and the Caribbean shone on preadolescent faces. New walkmans were on display, most in leather cases, one tiny cassette player sheathed in bright red metal.
“Settle down,” said Mrs. Broccoli. Her real name was Mrs. Brockman, but a bunch of sixth-graders could not resist the obvious nickname. “Put those things away. We’ll start the year with a quiz.”
As Libby answered questions about Lord of the Flies (Why did the other boys select Piggy? Why didn’t he fight back?), she wished she had something to show for herself: if not a whole new outfit, at least a Swatch watch on her wrist or new shoes like the other girls. Finished within ten of the allotted thirty minutes, she wrote a math equation at the bottom of the lined paper sheet:
2x - (3+22/2) = 10
She penciled in the answer—X = 12—without doing any calculations, and then sat still as her mind flew out the window and landed in a tree, the cold on her skin, the sun on her face. She wasn’t sure where the 12 had come from: she had simply felt it shine as naturally as the sun.
In her class for gifted students back in Massachusetts, Libby had discovered that when she looked at equations, the answers would emerge. She’d take a breath and let her mind travel.
“Time’s up,” said Mrs. Broccoli as she collected quizzes. She grimaced at Libby’s paper. “What’s this mess? I’ve told you, points off for doodling.”
Libby kept her head down. It was as though there were two Libbys. The one in the classroom in Ohio, miserable, the only new student in the school that year, the only kid from a military family tossed in with so many rich kids. Then there was the other Libby, the one outside with the roaming mind.
*
The week before Christmas break, three of the nastier girls had followed her home at lunchtime. She heard them gaining on her. She couldn’t turn around, couldn’t speed up her pace; her feet refused to respond. As the girls drew close, she kept her eyes on the sidewalk.
They pulled at her waist-length red curls—“Giddy up, Ginger”—and pushed her books into the muddy snow—“Pick ‘em up, nerd.” Her math puzzles landed face down. Penciled answers disappeared into the melting mess along with the cheap newsprint they rested on.
“Titty-Litty. Titty-Litty.” Libby wore two sweaters under her coat, like a protective suit of armor to camouflage her newly developed breasts. The most popular girl, the one with the sleek blonde hair, seized her by the shoulder, tearing the lining of her coat sleeve. “Where’d you buy that?” Libby’s wool coat with the brown velvet collar, graced with a Lord & Taylor label, had been purchased from an upscale consignment shop in whatever city they had traveled through on the way to the family’s next posting. It was the same every time they transferred, never knowing what to expect, never knowing if she’d fit in. She always kept her head down.
One of the girls picked up a small rock and threw it, hitting her on her shoulder blade. Libby didn’t know what to do. Her body wanted to run, but her feet were frozen in place. Her hair was drenched with sweat under the velvet collar. No one had ever thrown a rock at her before.
She spun around; another rock hit her in the chest. Something trickled down her back. Was it perspiration or was she bleeding? She could no longer feel her hands and feet. The sound of panting—was it hers?—blocked out voices as the girls’ faces seemed to recede into distant blurs, even as their hands came into focus, reaching, grabbing, pawing. Other-Libby beckoned from a tall tree, but Ohio-Libby’s feet remained glued to the ground. The girls held her by the arms, shoving her along, forcing her down a street in the opposite direction from her house. “Eyes front, you stupid soldier,” one said. Another shouted, “Don’t show your ugly face around here again.” One more called out, “Keep in line, stinky.” And the last epithet, “Spaz.”
The smell of singed wool suddenly permeated the cold air. Looking over her shoulder from what felt like a great distance, she saw the blonde ringleader light a match on a crumpled matchbook and throw it at her back. Libby planted one foot in front of the other, and then finally took off running. As she fled, she heard the crackle of pebbles landing at her heels, like an echo of the gunfire at her father’s shooting practice. A stone flew past her cheek, hissing like a wayward bullet.
She struggled to comprehend: why would anyone do those things to her? Every time they moved, she became the two Libbys—the popular girl back in Massachusetts with the long legs and the red curls looping down her back; the Libby in the new place with the bushy hair, the outdated thrift-shop clothes, and the answers to all the teacher’s questions.
She ran home, books clutched at her chest to keep her breasts from bouncing. The mansions rolled past her, like flat façades against the sky. Other-Libby would have run faster, but Ohio-Libby was trapped in this nightmare. A cut on her cheek stung in the cold. Her belly cramped. Was she going to throw up? She shivered, the smell of burnt wool and fresh blood commingling in her nostrils.
“We all have to put up with these things,” her mother said after pulling Libby’s confession out from between her hiccupping sobs. As a military wife, Mary Beth was glad they no longer had to live on the base. Still, she’d had her own experience with the mothers of the neighborhood, who twittered about their maids and laundry delivery services, fully aware that Mary Beth knew nothing of these luxuries.
“Why is your hair all wet? And what’s that on your face? Go wash up now. Lunch is almost ready.”
Libby stared into the mirror by the window. Ugly. Stupid. Stinky. Spaz. Tendrils of light sparkled on her wet eyelashes, and the sun reached out and cradled her body.
Libby pulled up her sweaters and shirt. In the mirrored reflection, she watched what appeared to be someone’s else’s hand retracing the grooves of the numbers she had carved into her belly the night before. A bird outside pecked at the giant copper beech she hugged each day before she left for school. A car drove by playing a song by the Beatles, something about Mother Mary. In the kitchen below, her mother spoke to one of the little girls, “There, there, sweetheart. One more bite and we’ll have Jell-O.”
As an adult, Libby would misremember that day, telling herself that her mother had let her stay home that afternoon. They would have watched old movies, eaten popcorn with extra butter, and poured Tab over crushed ice with lime garnishes. But it didn’t happen that way.
It would not have been possible, given that her little sisters would have been clamoring for their afternoon snack.
Instead, Mary Beth told Libby, “I’ll call the teacher and tell her you’ll be late. We’ll drive you back to school after lunch.”
When she walked in, Mrs. Broccoli hissed: “Tattletale.”
*
Under the tree that year, there was a large package with Libby’s name on the tag. More than anything, Libby had wanted a white Benetton shirt. She had imagined returning from break wearing that shirt, the one with white pearl buttons, inside of which black dots were centered like miniature spy cameras. She reached for her gift.
“Open stockings first, Libby.” Tom, the oldest child by one year, and the only son, followed the family ritual of passing out the stockings that dressed the fireplace.
Libby’s father stood to take his part in the holiday morning regime. “On your feet soldiers. Take formation. Tom, organize rank and file.” The five children, dressed in red flannel pajamas and nighties, stood in a straggly line. “Attention.”
William Wilfred McGill, the son of an alcoholic coal miner, had joined ROTC so he could afford college and escape the poverty he was born into. After being injured during the invasion of Panama, he’d been promoted to Colonel, the entrée to fulfilling his desire to offer upward mobility to his five children and give his wife Mary Beth access to a finer life.
Wearing his red pjs, sipping his first martini of the day, the Colonel, as he was known to all, stood tall and proud in front of his progeny, his troops. “Salute your commanding officer.” Tom and Libby pantomimed a hand salute, while the three little girls squirmed and giggled. “At ease, soldiers. Now drop and give me five.”
“That’s enough, Bill,” Mary Beth interjected. “Let the children open their stockings.”
Tangerines and chocolates, toothbrushes and sugar-free gum, ballpoint pens and spiral notepads filled each faded red stocking to the brim with one important item nesting at the bottom. The three little girls found Barbie dolls, previously used, poking their impossibly arched feet through the stocking toes. For Tom, a not quite vintage Eagle Scout compass in a worn green case. At the bottom of her holiday stash, Libby discovered a book of advanced Sudoku puzzles along with a box of pencils, a new metal sharpener, and a giant pink eraser.
“I found it at the Base Thrift Shop,” her mother said. “It’s from Japan, but numbers are universal so you can play in English.”
“It better be English,” the Colonel interjected. “We didn’t win that war for nothin’.” He leaned back in his overstuffed chair, legs crossed on the matching ottoman.
“Sudoku can be quite advanced. I wanted to find you a challenge,” Mary Beth continued.
“My girl will blast those puzzles right out of the book,” the Colonel added.
Libby had started playing math games in third grade when she was grounded during recess by the teacher who did not know what to do with the hyperactive girl who convinced the boys to stuff paper towels down the staff toilet until it overflowed. The girl who became bored with rudimentary games of pattern-building until Mary Beth brought home the first batch of gridded puzzles. While the Sudoku craze would not hit the United States for at least another decade, servicemen stationed overseas returned with puzzle books with some of the answers penciled in.
Libby began the tedious yet familiar task of erasing another player’s system. She envisioned the hand of a lonely enlisted man ordering the numbers. Tiny pink crumbs from the eraser sprinkled over her nightgown with Don’t Tease Me! embroidered on the front bib pocket that partially covered her new breasts. The warm red flannel also hid last night’s not-yet-scabbed-over incisions.
Sometimes her eraser tore the gray-tinged newsprint, and Libby’s numbers would fall through the slashes. She penciled them in through the shredded paper over the tracings of answers on the page beneath, the thin layers of newsprint like a palimpsest bearing the vestiges of ancient effacings, messages from warriors past.
“Is the Sudoku soldier dead?” she asked.
“Nobody is going to die,” the Colonel said. Topping off his martini, he glanced over at the hall closet where his gear bag hung, waiting for deployment to the Gulf. Each month, there was a bag drag, an inspection of the G.I.-green duffel’s contents—extra uniforms, toiletries, and chemical war gear, including a gas mask.
When it finally came time for Libby to open her large package, she knew right away, lifting it, that it was all wrong, that it wasn’t a box from Benetton, filled with that cherished white shirt wrapped in tissue paper. It was far too heavy. Instead, she found an old-fashioned hard-sided suitcase. Scratches crisscrossed the distressed leather, forming crevices like the cuts on her belly.
She remembered the popular girls mocking her wool coat. She remembered the old Tudor-style mansions moving by as though on a conveyor belt as she ran. The unhealed incisions from the night before stuck to her nightgown. She watched her fingers pick through the flannel at the crusted blood, looking for comfort since none was to be found in the unwanted present. What would the girls have said had they known what waited for Libby under the tree? Ugly. Stupid. Stinky. Spaz.
She looked out the window where Other-Libby waited, the Libby whose clothes were okay, the Libby whose thinking was appreciated.
“It’s very good quality. Expensive. Real leather.” Mary Beth stroked the suitcase. “I found it at the Base Christmas sale.”
Libby wondered what the suitcase had cost; she wished the money had been spent on what she actually wanted.
“For you to take to college someday.” Mary Beth waited for her daughter’s response.
Inside one of the pockets, Libby discovered a grocery list: ribs, Fritos, pint of Jack. Playboy, Camels non filter.
Another dead serviceman. “I told you I wanted that Benetton shirt,” Libby blurted out.
“That shirt would be a waste of money.” Mary Beth turned away. “The suitcase, you can use for the rest of your life. Besides, fitted clothing doesn’t suit you.”
Libby knew her mother was referring to her new breasts. Titty-Litty.
“I hate it!” Libby was on her feet. “What am I supposed to do? Hang it in the hall closet next to Daddy’s duffel?”
“That’s enough.” The Colonel was on his feet too. “Your mother works hard to find nice things. You’d better shape up or ship out, girl.”
“I hate you!” Libby yelled as she ran up the stairs. “I hope you die in that damn war.”
Her father’s voice followed her up the stairs, shouting that she disgusted him, that he was going to teach her a lesson. Her mother kept murmuring it was Christmas. The little girls were crying. Tom was silent.
Libby plopped on the upper bunk in the room she shared with her sisters. She opened her newly erased Sudoku and closed her eyes. She had already developed systems for the gridded puzzles. At first the techniques had been analytic; she’d ordered the numbers in matrices. By the time she had reached the medium level, though, the numbers seemed to move on their own.
She opened her eyes and let the figures glide.
As she worked the more difficult puzzles, the numbers took on personalities. The ones and the sevens were light and happy, the sixes dour and dingy. Libby imagined costumes: the sevens draped in Isadora Duncan flowing scarves, the sixes in Olde Sturbridge Village colonial garb. Her favorite was the nine. He wore a uniform, with medals and ribbons pinned above his left breast pocket. The number nine, was he the dead soldier? Was he the one who filled in the blank squares at night, not knowing he’d never return home? Was he the brave Sergeant 9 who held her hand when her father said she was disgusting?
Lying on her back, she unscrewed the blade from her pencil sharpener and pulled up her nightie. The blade moved carefully and deliberately, and then, with a quick slice of the tip, brave Sergeant 9 made the cut.
She pulled her nightgown down over the fresh lines beading with blood. She kept her eyes focused on the magical moving numbers and forgot about the stoning. Forgot that she disgusted her father. Even as the contours of her body blurred, she prepared to join Other-Libby beckoning from Beech Tree, but Sudoku Grid tethered her to the earth.
Arms cradling the Sudoku book, her body curled into a fetal position facing the wall, Libby sensed her family coming in and out of the room. Her mother was first: “Fifteen more minutes. That’s it.” Years later, Libby wished Mary Beth had acknowledged that she was already solving the problems in the new advanced puzzle book. “Think about the name,” her mother would have said, pointing to the Japanese characters for Sudoku. “It means most unique, like you, my smart girl.” Instead, her mother pleaded, “Please, Libby, I can’t take any more sadness. Please come downstairs.”
The Colonel arrived next. “You’re too pretty to be so fresh to your mother. I’ll be havin’ you court-martialed. If it weren’t Christmas, you’d be gettin’ a tunin’.” The Colonel had stopped spanking Libby when she reached puberty. She could tell he was uncomfortable around her. Probably because of Titty-Litty. They’d always been pals. She used to work her math puzzles every night at a special little table in his study. Lately, he’d been telling her to do her homework in the dining room with her brother.
She looked out the window at Beech Tree, who waited for her hug each morning and protected her on the way home. Except for the day of the stoning when his leaves were on the ground and the tree was as exposed as Libby. “Everybody at school hates me.”
“When I went to college,” her father said, “I waited tables at a frat house. They picked on me too. Those types, they never like the smart ones.”
*
Libby’s first math test at the Ohio school had come back with a red “F” slashed across the top of the page. “I’ll see you after class,” Principal Harmon, who taught advanced math, said.
The next day, Libby sat between her parents in the waiting room. She overheard the principal: “These military kids, always causing trouble.”
“You mean those Air Force brats?” asked a second voice. What was Mrs. Broccoli doing in the principal’s office?
“The other kids don’t like her,” Mrs. Broccoli continued. “Keeps raising her hand. She never lets anyone else have a chance to answer.”
Libby whispered, “None of the others raise their hands.”
“Shhh,” Mary Beth said.
Once they were all inside, Principal Harmon began: “We don’t tolerate cheaters. I don’t know what you got away with back East, but you’re in Ohio now.”
Mrs. Broccoli added, “We’ve seen this before with your type. Only the best families send their boys and girls to our school.”
Mary Beth stiffened in her slightly outdated Chanel suit.
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that test,” the Colonel pronounced.
“Anyone can see she didn’t do the work,” Mr. Harmon said. “She must have copied.”
“She doesn’t need to do those fancy figurings out. Let her take the test in front of you. Let you see what she can do.” Colonel McGill may not have gone to an exclusive school, but he knew how to defend his troops.
“She’ll have to do the calculations. She probably memorized the answers.”
They made her demonstrate. Libby drew each number tediously, pressing so hard she broke the pencil tip and had to stop and pull out her sharpener. The taste of Campbell’s Tomato Soup rose in her throat. Please, she thought, don’t let me throw up in front of these people. Someone seemed to be there, observing, telling her to sit up straight and keep on going. She felt the answers in her body, and watched her hand move, solving each equation step by step.
At the end, Principal Harmon sat still. Mrs. Broccoli was silent, for once. Then the Principal said, “She’ll never be able to do Trig and Calculus if she doesn’t learn the basics.”
“I know how to do calculus. I’ve already started on physics,” Libby blurted out. Her teacher in Massachusetts had arranged for Libby to audit classes at a local community college.
“Someone needs to teach her manners,” Mrs. Broccoli continued. “You’re not doing her any favors letting her think she’s the smartest person in every room.”
Mary Beth said quietly, “Maybe she is.”
When her mother spoke up, Libby was shocked. Could there be two Mary Beths? Her stomach ached as pain shot up and across her back and maneuvered down her arms into her icy-cold fingers. Keep going, the unseen voice repeated.
The Colonel stood up. “Time to go. Either discharge her or give her a medal. But don’t clip her wings for knowing more than her teachers.”
Driving home, her father said, “Libby, you’re an original. Don’t let that flock of sheep get to you.”
Mary Beth added, “It’s only the second week of school and you’re already in the principal’s office. You need to learn how not to attract attention.”
That night she began the cutting.
*
Gripping her Sudoku with sweaty hands, Libby returned to the bedroom and her father’s voice. “Show respect to your commanding officers. Now put that puzzle book away. And make sure you redact the answers at the back. We never cheat in this family. We follow orders.”
Tom was the last to arrive. “Don’t be stupid, Libby,” he said. “Do what I do. Keep your real self inside. Be who they want you to be on the outside. And don’t ruin Christmas.”
Don’t you know, Tom, she thought, but didn’t say out loud. Don’t you know Sudoku is where I live my real life? When the numbers fell into place, her body would relax into the same feeling she had when she touched herself at night, tension building and releasing as the numbers found structure. Her mind would still as she floated away, far from the scoldings of her parents and the taunts of her classmates. Far from the crisscrossing lines on her belly.
Downstairs, the Colonel posed his family for the annual Christmas portrait: “Ten-Hut. Arms at sides. Eyes front. Libby, fall into place. Tom, don’t slouch.”
Mary Beth was seated on her throne, a Queen Anne wingback with slivered stripes of red and gold that set off her green velvet robe. The five children surrounded their mother, Libby and Tom standing on either side, the three little girls kneeling in front.
Over thirty years later, this will be the picture Libby will show her therapist.
It was taken the last Christmas before Libby would skip two grades and enter high school, leaving Tom behind. The last before Libby would go punk, dyeing her red hair a lacquered maroon black. The last before Libby would get suspended for slamming the fingers of one of her bullies in a locker door. The last before the Colonel would be deployed.
“How do you feel about this picture?” the therapist will ask.
“Look how Mary Beth’s trying to get the Colonel’s attention. Notice how oblivious the little girls are. Tom seems scared. The Colonel’s taking the picture, needless to say.”
“What about you?” the therapist will persist.
“I was in trouble.”
“‘Sudoku Xmas’ is a fictionalized account of growing up under the command of Colonel William McKenna of the United States Air Force. Our parents wanted us to attend the top schools in whatever region they transferred to, and we five siblings had childhood experiences distinct from other military “brats”—we never lived on base. Ours was an interstitial existence, never fitting into the affluent cities we lived in, yet not having friendships with other military children who might have understood our peripatetic experiences.” —Susan McKenna
Dr. Susan E. McKenna taught visual studies, queer theory, and popular culture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for many years, and holds advanced degrees in communication, film studies, and photographic installation. While her theoretical and visual training informs every word she writes, it is in literary fiction that she has found her true calling.