“Well, not everyone can afford to bring expensive champagne.”
“But everyone does like to drink it,” I say, which probably reminds her of the year Brad drank too much champagne, told her she was a bitch, and spent the night throwing up in the attic bathroom. “Right, Meli?”
Yes, I am provoking her. A little.
Meli is filled-to-bursting with icky stuff—resentment, bitterness, self-righteousness, a permanent conviction of being wronged—and it has to come out. If you’re trying to be nice, The Ick comes as a surprise, and then it hurts more.
I like my pain to come when I’m expecting it, if possible.
“While you chose to focus on DRINKING today, Sarah—”
“It’s just a trip to the liquor store, Meli—”
“—I chose to focus on doing an activity with MY CHILDREN,” she says. “And if no one wants our cupcakes, that’s their loss. Being a single, childless person, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
BAM, there it is. And it’s low, even for her, given that my fiancé, Quill, whom I was definitely planning to have children with, died in a car accident just over two years ago.
“And of course you can spend your entire day at the liquor store or the mall or the SPA if you want to!” she continues as I stand there blinking at her logic and trying to remain cool. “You always get to do just as you please. Travel. Sleep in. Go to parties. Buy designer handbags, or whatever it is you spend your money on.”
“I am horribly selfish, it’s true,” I say, starting to seethe and mad at myself for letting her get under my skin. “And I do like handbags.” I smile brightly and come closer to her. “Can I help you with those cupcakes nobody wants?”
“No thank you.”
“Okay fine. But I think it’s awesome you brought them. Like, wild-rebel awesome.” I reach up and shut the back door of the van for her, knowing she won’t be able to do it without putting the tray of cupcakes down.
“I don’t need your help!” she snaps.
“Just trying to keep my light pure.”
“Pure? You? That’s hilarious.”
“Okay, sis,” I say, and then, because I can’t help myself, I reopen the back door of the van and then head up the walkway, leaving her there to figure out how best to close it.
Petty? Oh yes.
But who knows? Maybe I’ve saved someone else having The Meli Ick shoot onto them. I can take it.
***
Dad is in the large foyer and greets me with a big smile and a hug, and then takes my coat. I pull my heels out of my handbag and am just putting them on when Mom circles in, eying me from head-to-toe.
“I want it on record that I am wearing gold,” I say with a gesture downward at my very short, somewhat backless, very golden dress. Last year I wore black. And the year before that, right after Quill’s death, ripped black sweats. “The sequins itch like crazy, by the way.”
She laughs, kisses me on both cheeks.
“Full marks for the gold, Sarah,” she says. “What there is of it.”
“You look lovely.”
“Merci.”
Mom is statuesque, if you can be statuesque at five-foot-nothing, in a floor length gown made from what looks like a mix of silk and organza—all golden, of course.
“Oh, get ready for Meli’s cupcakes. And she’s crying.”
“Already? What did you do?”
“I was charming,” I say, and hand her the champagne. “I can’t help it if her life is a veil of tears.”
“Come, dear,” Mom says, and pulls me into the empty dining room where she uncorks one of the bottles and pours us each a glass. Through the French doors I see Meli arriving and standing awkwardly—Brad and the kids are obviously already raiding the candy dishes in the basement. Her grievances multiply as no one comes to greet her for an entire twenty seconds.
“You shouldn’t bait her,” Mom says, as we watch Dad finally swooping in to take the cupcakes.
“How else would I entertain myself?”
“Oh Sarah.” Mom gives a rueful shake of her head. “How are you … feeling?”
“Fine.”
“We all miss him, you know.”
“I know.” I take a swallow of champagne. “He was more fun than me.”
“Dear, YOU are family.”
“Quill would have been family too.”
“Dear …”
“Please, can we skip the Time to Let Go speech?”
“Certainly we can,” she says, with a gentle squeeze of my arm. “But he’s gone, Sarah. And you need to—”
“I’ll get clear. I promise.”
“When, dear?”
“Who knows. Maybe tonight!” I say, with painfully fake enthusiasm.
“Tonight would be an excellent time,” Mom says, dead serious.
“I’m working on it. Okay? Cut me some slack.”
Mom gives me one more long, concerned look, nods, then floats back out to the party to resume her hostess duties.
Which leaves me alone in the dining room with the champagne bottle.
I finish the first glass and am thinking about pouring a second and even imagining the third when I feel Quill; his hand over mine, pulling it back, away from the champagne.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“No, don’t you,” he replies, his voice more in my head than not. “I know it helps. But it doesn’t really.”
I close my eyes because I know I won’t see him. Not with my eyes. I don’t even know for sure it’s him because it’s equally possible that since he died in that highway pileup, I’ve simply created this ghost of him. To make sure I don’t lose any more of him, to make sure I remember. But I never see him. So, I reach out with my other four senses, trying to hear/smell/taste/touch him.
“You know, your sister ate three of those cupcakes out in the driveway before she could make herself come in,” he says, his husky whisper sounding like his mouth is right beside my ear.
I shudder. Laugh. Feel a pang of conscience about Meli.
I was nicer to her when Quill was alive.
“You look gorgeous. Hot and at the same time positively angelic.”
“In spite of my black soul?” I say, eyes still closed but one tear now making its way down my cheek.
“Sarah, Sarah … I think your soul is more … purple.”
“Color of a bruise,” I say.
“Bruises heal. I know things.”
“Thank you … for coming. I hate these events without you. This night especially.”
There is a flutter of a feeling, like hands on my shoulders and then arms around my waist.
And I know I am standing alone in the dining room in my golden dress, eyes closed, crying, and talking to myself for anyone to see, if they happen to look.
I know.
And maybe doing this just makes the missing him worse because it’s not like he can even so much as wipe away a tear, or stay for more than a couple of minutes.
And I can’t, won’t ever, look into his big blue eyes or run my fingers through his hair or inhale the scent of him first thing in the morning, again.
“You have to go,” he says. “They’re going to take a photo and dinner is ready.”
“I want you in the photo. Hey, maybe I’ll be able to see you.”
“I’m in lots of photos already. And anyway that would freak everyone out.”
“I don’t care about them.”
“Yes you do. I’ll be at the bar.”
“Ha. Good luck with that.”
“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink …”
It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I’m holding him here when there might be somewhere better he could go, something better he could be doing.
Or somewhere he could get a proper drink, at least.
“Will you stay?” I say, suddenly anxious.
“Sarah … yes, I’ll stay. But …”
I hold a hand up to stop him saying it. “Don’t.”
“Okay, I’ll s
tay.”
And with that, I feel him dissipate, which is to say I stop feeling him at all.
***
Getting through the photo is a challenge. It’s less an achievement of twenty-six people smiling and looking attractive as it is of none of us being in tears, all of us, as per Mom’s insistence, having our chins out, and no one coming to blows over things like my brother Chip making fag jokes, somehow unaware of the passage of time during which this became totally unacceptable, and all the while standing next to my eldest sister, Elsa, and her partner, Linda, in plain hearing of their three kids.
“Don’t hit him, Linda,” my youngest brother, Hart, says, because she looks like she might. “Once we get the time machine perfected, we’ll just send him back to the 50s.”
“Hey, I’m not talking about chicks,” Chip says, like this should be mollifying. “You girls can do what you want.”
“My mistake.” Hart snorts. “You’re a veritable Renaissance Man.”
“This from a guy who looks like a yoga teacher,” Chip says, patting his expensive suit for reassurance.
“Yoga teachers are hot, Dad.” This from Chip’s thirteen-year-old daughter, who will be in trouble for it, if he manages to recall, later on, which of his six children said it.
“Can we please focus?” Dad says from his center-back position in the photo.
So, we get it taken with all of us at least looking forward, chins out, and not snarling; for all the world like every other occasionally happy/miserably dysfunctional family.
***
For dinner, we gather at the back of the house where we all sit at the long, polished barn-board table that sits in front of a giant bank of windows overlooking the backyard and eat.
And eat.
And drink.
Meli drinks nothing, eats very little dinner, but then at dessert has two pieces of pie, ice cream and, pointedly, cupcakes.
“Poor woman,” Quill murmurs in my ear. “Whatever you think of her reasons, the feelings are real. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so miserable.”
“What about me? When you died?” I say, trying not to move my lips.
“Yes, but … that was cleaner pain, Sarah.”
“Well, it’s not my fault!”
“What’s not your fault?” says Hart, who’s sitting beside me.
Crap! I’ve said that last thing in full voice.
“Nothing, sorry, arguing with myself …” I say.
“Is this what’s going to happen to me if I keep living alone?” Hart says, obviously a little worried about me but trying to make light of it.
“Definitely,” I say.
“Maybe I should get a dog …”
I laugh, even though Quill is gone again, because Hart can always make me laugh.
When all the eating is finished and everyone is sitting around groaning and trying to digest, my wondrous grandmother, eighty-five with glossy, shoulder-length white hair and bedecked in a bright yellow caftan, flowered Doc Martens, and a headband made of giant silver stars, sits down at her harp and plays.
Gran and her harp are near the fireplace, and I get up from the table and move closer, leaning on a ribbon-festooned wooden beam. I watch Gran’s fingers fly over the harp strings and let the music soothe me.
During one of the final pieces, Gran catches my eye and winks.
I grin and wink back.
And then, without missing a note, her eyes move with precision to the empty space beside me and she frowns—more with puzzlement than disapproval—then turns her gaze back to me.
I try to look away but it’s Gran, so I can’t.
Plus I can’t because if she … sees or senses ... what I think she does, that would mean he is not a figment of my imagination.
Which is both amazing and terrible.
Her frown disappears, only to be replaced by a look of deep sadness.
I nod. Yes, me too. I am sad, Gran.
She nods back, then launches into her last piece, an obscure Hungarian Christmas carol I’ve always loved.
And I try not to cry as the years of hearing this piece of music, in this place on this night of the year, before and during and after Quill, tumble forth in my mind’s eye, and the years ahead stretch out, strange and cold and unknown.
After the final notes fade up into the ether, we gather back at the table, stand holding hands, say a short prayer, and for a few crazy/deluded moments I feel we are all one.
And happy.
And normal.
And then Mom leads us to the basement to get the snowsuits.
The snowsuits.
They are one piece, form-fitting, and white with an overlaid pattern in gold lamé that could be either flames or the rays of the sun, rising up from the waist, over chest, back and shoulders and onto snug-fitting hoods.
Think Olympic bobsledding. Think Solid Gold Dancers. Think Charlie’s Angels.
Think Superheroes.
Disco Sunrise Superhero Angels.
The suits are equal parts magnificent and ridiculous, and the fact that we all willingly wear them definitively conveys that we are not, in fact, completely normal.
Every Christmas Eve, the twenty-six of us, all ages and shapes and sizes, are slipped and stuffed and squeezed and zipped into these legendary snowsuits that have gone from awesome to hideous and are now almost back to awesome again, in my opinion.
The suits have their own dedicated, padlocked closet in the basement and only Gran and Mom are allowed to go in and get them. And they are only ever worn on this one night of the year, (not that anyone is clamoring to wear them any other time) lest their “magic” be lost.
There is a suit for each family member: child and adult, blood relative and in-law. Gran made and designed them in the 70s, and no one ever sees her making new ones, but somehow there are always enough, and they always fit. (Though some of us look better in them than others.) I’ve been told that somewhere in a safety deposit box is the original pattern, should we need it.
We will never run out of these snowsuits, in other words.
We will never fail to venture out in public on Christmas Eve, looking like some kind of whacked out après ski-weirdo-cult.
And however bizarre they are, nobody, ever, can make fun of the snowsuits.
They are serious business.
***
Outside, fresh snow is falling and the kids—all ten of them—are immediately hooting and running. Mom joins them, fast on her feet with her own whoop, and runs down the driveway, along the street and up to the top of the neighbor’s front yard.
There, she lies down in the snow, makes a perfect snow angel, gets up and runs back to the street. The kids follow, and soon all the adults too—making angels everywhere and anywhere, each bragging more than the last about how close they’ve gotten to each house.
Dad does it, Mom does it, Brad, Meli, Hart, Linda, Gran, Chip and his downtrodden wife, all the kids, Gran, me, we all do it. No one is allowed to skip this, or stint in their participation. This means we are like a band of hooligans terrorizing the neighborhood with our wild weirdness.
Many of the neighbors are expecting us, and they come out and cheer, chuckle, and take pictures, and some maybe go back inside and make fun of us, but screw them. Every year the reactions are a mixture of amused, bemused, confused, and enthusiastic.
Except for Mr. Healy—who loves to come out and shake his fist at us—he’s not confused, he’s pissed off. Annually and perpetually pissed off. Tonight Gran makes a special trip right up to the space under his front window, makes an angel there, then gets up and grins at him.
“There,” she says. “You old coot!”
“I’m telling you one more time, you stay off my property or I’m going to teach you a lesson!” Mr. Healy barks.
“You’d have to catch me first, old man,” Gran says, and takes off at an unbelievable speed for her age.
For a good hour, we rampage around the neighborhood, until the neighbors are over it and go back
inside, and we are panting and tired and glowing and presumably/ideally/temporarily cleared of all negative energy.
Fun will do that. Weird, defiant fun really does it well.
And now that we are glowing, we move to the other purpose of the outing.
We all run, trudge and/or stagger back up Mom and Dad’s driveway and follow the path to the right and back around the house, through the backyard and the gap in the trees, to the field.
The field is actually an abandoned bunny hill from a long defunct private ski club, and Mom and Dad keep it clear of trees and brush so we can have somewhere to do our thing in privacy each Christmas Eve.
This time Gran goes first, as is her right.
She gets herself to the middle of the field, chooses a spot, falls gracefully backward into the snow, makes a perfect angel, then gets up ever so carefully, making sure to step out without marring the angel.
Everyone is quiet as we watch.
At first nothing happens, but then the pressed-down snow begins to glow, out from the center and filling outward to the edges until it has filled the snow angel.
No matter the number of times I’ve seen this, I am breathless as I always am, seeing the first angel on Christmas Eve.
The angel, a being made entirely of light, floats up to an upright position, glides toward Gran, wraps its golden form around her like an embrace, and then lifts up and off, finally fading out of our sight as it goes toward wherever it’s going.
We don’t know where they go, only that our family has, for as long as anyone can remember, had the talent and responsibility to help bring them into being every Christmas Eve.
And we know they are bound for wherever the need is greatest, and we hope we are not the only people in the world with this talent, since there is an enormous amount of need out there—more than our angels could possibly fill.
There is a murmur of wonderment as we watch Gran’s angel go …
and then we get to work, with the in-laws standing watch.
This is not the wild, careless neighborhood angel-making we did earlier. The snow angels must be perfect and we ourselves must be clear, spiritually and emotionally speaking—we call it having The Glow or The Light.
None of the kids ever has a problem keeping their light pure, and every year they make the most angels. Most of the adults are okay too, but now and then one of us is too mixed up or negative or depressed or whatever, and then we can’t make as many angels, or worst case scenario, none at all.
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