FAMILY TREE
When I was almost up to the front porch steps, the door opened a crack and Grandma Madison appeared. “Rose, you’re home. Good, good. Come on. We’re going to get a Christmas tree. It’s about time. Jim!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, making me jump. “She’s here. Let’s go!”
“Right now?” I exclaimed. A field trip to pick out a tree was the last thing I wanted at the moment. “Do we have to—”
“Yes, we do. Jim! Come on! She is standing
at the door
!”
Jim showed up behind Grandma, towering above her. “Hey, Rosey,” he said with such cheer that I could tell it was false. By the time he shut the door and locked it, Grandma was halfway to the driveway. Jim hopped down the steps and took me with him.
“What is going on?” I asked, suspicious that they were covering up something. “You guys are acting weird.”
“We didn’t expect you home so soon,” he said lightly. “All your presents are sitting unwrapped on the kitchen table.” He smiled in such a mischievous way that I almost believed him, until I saw the look in his eyes.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t buying presents this year,” I said.
“I was helping Grandma wrap hers when you came home early and surprised us.” He knocked on the front of the car as he circled around to the passenger side. “You sit in back,” he told me.
Grandma unlocked her station wagon and doors opened and slammed as we got in. She turned the key in the ignition, her eyes visible in the rearview mirror as she backed out of the driveway. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without a tree, so we’re going to get one, bring it home, string up the lights, and decorate it,” she said, listing the various tasks like items to check off on a grocery list. “We should have done this weeks ago,” she added.
“But Dad is the one we always go with—”
“Your father isn’t interested in getting a tree this year,” Grandma interrupted. “If he was, he would have already taken you two.”
Jim was quiet, staring out the window, and I didn’t speak the rest of the ride either. Only when we pulled into the parking lot at the Christmas tree farm did things begin to lighten up. Kids were running around with their families, excited to pick out a tree, and the smell of freshly baked pies floated our way from the nearby farm stand when we got out of the car. There was a bin filled with jingle bells, and every time someone picked them up they rang out. Jim immediately walked up to the most Charlie Brown tree in sight, with branches going every which way, the lower ones already turning brown. He touched the top
and a cascade of needles fell to the ground. “How about this one?” he proposed with a grin, though his eyes became sad. “Mom would have liked it. Don’t you think?”
“Yes. But she would’ve gotten mad if we’d actually brought it home,” I said. “Come on.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him farther down the center aisle while Grandma lagged behind. When she caught up to us, we were ogling a giant evergreen that would never fit in the living room.
Grandma shook her head. “No,” she said. A smile played at her lips, though.
After arguing about the pros and cons of certain trees for almost an hour, we finally found one we agreed was perfect in height, size, and shape. While Grandma Madison paid for it, Jim and I got rope and strapped it to the top of the station wagon. The mood in the car on the way home was decidedly better, even lively, as Jim and I strategized about decorations and Grandma Madison added her opinion. Soon we were turning up the driveway, and I was actually excited to begin the decorating. Jim and I untied the tree, and careful not to break any branches, we followed Grandma into the garage as she directed us left, then right, so we didn’t knock into anything. But the instant we walked through the kitchen I found out why Grandma and Jim hadn’t wanted me to go inside earlier.
Dad was passed out in the living room, his body only half on the couch.
“Oh my god,” I said when I saw him. It looked like a storm
had hit. Shattered glass lay everywhere and Mom’s collection of student artwork had been knocked off the shelves onto the floor, some broken in pieces. Her African violet was tipped on its side, the dirt spilling out and most of its fuzzy green stems snapped in half. “Dad,” I said with dismay. Tears filled my eyes and began to roll down my cheeks.
“Rose,” Grandma barked, and put out an arm, like she might be able to protect me.
I turned to her. “You guys just left him like this?” I shouted. “What did you think would happen? That he’d clean up by the time we got back? That some sort of miracle would occur while we were gone and he’d get sober?” I looked at Jim. He was still struggling to get the tree the rest of the way into the living room. Deep down I knew it wasn’t their fault, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault other than Dad’s, but they were here and I was tired of him not getting better and of me having to be the responsible one, even with Grandma Madison and Jim around.
Grandma didn’t say a word, her arms twitching at her sides, like she wanted to wrap them around me or maybe steady me, but couldn’t quite make her limbs move. Jim just stared at me, holding the tree upright, so tall it cleared the top of his head by a foot.
“You guys try taking care of him when he’s like this for once! You clean up this mess,” I said through gritted teeth, trying not to scream. Just when it seemed like my family might be turning a corner and that things would get easier, something
happened to set everything back. “Have fun putting up the tree by yourselves,” I spat, and stormed off to my room. I got into bed and pulled the covers over my head to shut the world out.
During the night my eyes opened and wouldn’t shut again. It was only two a.m. and I was exhausted, but my body refused to cooperate. I got up to make some tea, hoping it might help me go back to sleep. I reached the hallway outside my room and heard Grandma’s voice.
“Ellie never would have stood for this. Pull yourself together,” she said. “Your kids need you. Rose especially. You’re forcing that girl to act like a parent. You have a problem, James.”
“I do not have a problem,” Dad said, his voice hoarse. “Give me that bottle of ibuprofen. I have a headache.”
“I bet you do.” I heard the clatter of pills against the sides of a plastic container, the shake of someone spilling them into their palm. “You’re hurting your children and you have to stop.”
“If I’m hurting anyone, it’s myself.”
“Do you really think Rose wants to see you like this? Do you really believe your son wants to deal with this when he comes home from college on break? They need to be able to depend on you.”
“Ellie was the one who—”
“You are still their father and not only are you coming home
drunk and forcing them to witness it, but you are
driving
, James. You are
driving home drunk
.”
“But—”
“No buts. You could kill someone,” Grandma hissed. “You could land yourself in jail. You could kill
yourself
and then where would Rose and Jim be? Without a mother
and
without a father. Is that what you want?”
I covered my mouth in shock. Grandma was saying all the things I’d wanted to say but hadn’t had the courage. But then I heard sobbing, big, heavy, uncontrollable heaves, and my chest tightened, and my throat, all the way up into my cheeks and eyes. Ever since the day of the funeral Dad had been so stoic I didn’t think I would ever hear him cry again.
“I know, I know,” Grandma Madison soothed.
“I can’t do this, Ma,” Dad wept, “I just can’t.”
The sobbing grew more intense and I turned around, tiptoeing to my room. I couldn’t listen anymore. I closed the door softly behind me and got back into bed, pulling the blankets over my ears, closing my eyes, hoping that if I fell asleep I might forget.
The next morning we pretended like nothing had happened. I didn’t know who had cleaned up the mess in the living room, but it was gone. The dirt and glass and broken pieces were wiped away as if they had never been there, and everything gleamed.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU
It wasn’t until Christmas Eve that Jim and I finally began to decorate the tree. We were trying to decide on holiday music. We were getting good at not becoming overly sad. I tapped my finger against my chin, thinking. “Hmm, I know: let’s listen to the only good song to ever come from Mariah Carey’s lips.”
“As you wish,” Jim said, searching for it on the playlist.
After the incident with Dad, Jim and I had gone into a holiday frenzy, decking the halls like mad, as if this would help us forget or at least put a barrier between that night and the present.
“I don’t want a lot for Christmas / there is just one thing I need,” Jim sang off-key, grabbing an ornament. “I don’t care about the presents / underneath the Christmas tree!” he went on as he placed the sparkly orb high up on a branch I couldn’t reach.
“Your voice is awful,” I shouted over the music, laughing. “Did anyone bother to mention that you are not Mariah Carey?”
“Like your voice is any better,” he said, in between lyrics.
“Point taken,” I said, joining in and singing extra badly on purpose to make him smile. We discovered that the best antidote to
sadness was singing every lyric loudly and out of tune. We knew them all by heart, much to Grandma’s dismay. “You’re hurting my ears,” she kept telling us, and at one point she even shouted, “You’re going to get coal in your stocking if you two keep on like that,” and put up her hands, stomping off to the kitchen.
“Did she really just say that?” Jim asked, shaking with laughter.
Any other year and in any other circumstance, Jim and I would never have acted this way, so unself-conscious about what we would normally consider embarrassing behavior. But if it took making idiots of ourselves and overdoing the holiday cheer to get through this Christmas then so be it. We put holly on the railings and across the shelves and mantel. We strung lights outside. Jim hung mistletoe in every doorway, which, aside from reminding me of Chris, I found amusing. “Are you hoping Kecia will visit?” I asked each time I saw him hanging another bunch.
“Maybe,” he responded cryptically. “So what if I was? You laugh now.”
And I did, right up until Will rang the front doorbell.
Grandma Madison answered, calling out, “Rose! The invisible truck driver is here to see you,” and walked away without inviting him in, leaving Will standing on the front porch in the snow and the cold.
“Grandma, you’re so rude sometimes,” I hissed on my way to the door.
“So that’s Grandma Madison,” Will said, looking past me until she disappeared into the kitchen.
“The one and only. Don’t mind her, she can’t help what she says,” I said, unable to hide the big smile on my face about this unexpected visit.
“Why did she call me the invisible truck driver?”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s a long story.”
“So I brought the wreath you wanted,” Will said, holding it up.
“Thanks. Um, sorry, now I’m the one being rude, do you want to come in?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
He hesitated. “I would, but I really only have a sec. I’ve got to get home to Mom and my sisters. You know, Christmas Eve and all that stuff.”
“Of course. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Thank you for bringing this by,” I said, taking the wreath. “It was really nice of you.”
“I wanted to see how you were doing, too,” he said.
I gestured at the front of the house. “We’re doing our best, hence the crazy amount of decorations.” Every inch of the porch was strung with lights—the planters, the bushes along the front, even the furniture. Jim had spent hours out here getting everything perfect. Most of the lights were white, but when he ran out of those, he broke into the old-school, multicolored strands with the giant ugly bulbs. “I think we might be overcompensating.”
Will laughed and his eyes darted to the top of the door.
We were standing under mistletoe. I was going to kill Jim. “So, um, Merry Christmas, I guess,” I said awkwardly.
“You, too,” Will said, and I thought he was about to leave, but instead he asked, “You’re coming to the New Year’s tournament, right?”
“If you still want me to.”
He nodded.
I rocked back and forth on my heels, feeling the weight of the giant wreath I held against my body. “Can’t wait,” I said, my voice shrill, as thoughts flew through my mind about the fact that, at least theoretically, Will had an excuse to kiss me. If he wanted to. Or I could kiss him, if I wanted. Did I?
We
could kiss each other. It didn’t even have to mean anything. It was a tradition, just what people did when they were standing under mistletoe.
Will wore a funny look on his face. “Okay, well, Merry Christmas.”
“Bye,” I said, quickly closing the door right as Jim broke into hysterics. “Not funny, Jim!” I shouted, stomping after him, wreath and all, looking for something smaller with which to hit him.
“Oh, but it’s so funny, Rose,” he taunted, dodging me. “Though I was hoping it would be Kecia so I could shove you out of the way.”
“What are you, twelve?” I said, chasing him into the living room, where he proceeded to hide behind the tree.
“Voices,” Grandma called from the kitchen, sounding tired. “Please lower them.”
At one point we almost knocked over the tree, which sent Grandma into a rant, but all I could think was that if Mom were here, she would be smiling and laughing and running around with us.
Christmas morning arrived and we gathered around the tree. The branches were heavy with ornaments, and silver tinsel glittered from top to bottom. Dad managed to get up early with the rest of us and we sat with mugs of coffee in our hands, trying to wake up, and trying hard to forget the obvious, too. I was glad this day was finally here. It meant that soon the first Christmas without Mom would be behind us.
“Where’d you get that, Rose?” Dad asked me, standing up and coming over for a closer look. He smiled as he reached for the tiny crystal pendant dangling from my neck, taking the heart into his hands and pulling it into the light where it sparkled and sent little flecks of rainbow shining onto the ceiling.
This morning I’d decided I was ready for something new from my Survival Kit. Before the sun had a chance to peek above the horizon, I reached into the paper bag. My hand closed around the tiny crystal heart and I smiled. Surely the heart was
supposed to be about love, and love seemed a good next step, especially on Christmas.
“Mom gave it to me,” I said, plain and simple, letting the word
Mom
roll off my tongue and take flight. I imagined her flitting around the room like a firefly, lighting up at different moments to remind us she was there, alighting on the very top of the Christmas tree like a star. “This is the first time I’ve worn it.”
“It’s pretty,” my father said, putting his arm around my back and pulling me into a hug. When he let go of the heart I caught it between my fingers and closed my eyes, almost believing that Mom had planned on giving it to me for Christmas, one last present to enjoy. This was close enough to the truth that I let myself have this wish, and on today of all days I felt I was allowed.
“I love you so much, Dad,” I said, and got up on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. It was wet with tears.