Fuel the Fire

by Krista Ritchie

  Rose knows this.

  But Ariel? I calculate my choices quickly, and next to each name in this precise order, I write: Marry. Kill. Fuck.

  I pass her the napkin, her eyes pierced as she reads. “Why are you fucking Rapunzel?” She looks horrified at that notion.

  “Because I don’t want to fuck a mermaid.”

  “She grows legs.”

  “You’re describing the maturation of a frog.” A tadpole starts with a tail and internal gills and then begins to form legs, but I don’t need to explain this to Rose. “And still—surprising to absolutely no one—I’m not fucking an amphibian.”

  She snorts into laughter, her hand trying to cover her mouth to hide its existence as it escalates.

  I begin to laugh too, and I lace my fingers with Rose’s, dropping her hand to our sides so I can see her full smile.

  Jane giggles behind us. “Mama!” In unison, we both swing our heads towards our daughter. She’s raising her tiny bowl of peaches above her head. “Up!”

  Her first words.

  The bowl slips from her grasp, clattering on the floor, mashed peaches spilt. I gauge Rose’s reaction to the mess. Her free hand is pressed to her lips. “Did you hear her?” she asks me, eyes flooded with emotion.

  My smile widens, more overwhelmed that their love for each other trumped Rose’s innate tic that spikes at the sight of chaos. I hug Rose to my side. “I heard, darling.”

  I’m not even minutely religious, but today, Christmas morning with my girls enveloped in happiness, feels as spiritual as I’ve ever come to in life.

  [ 18 ]

  ROSE COBALT

  “Moffy descends upon the box with a strong, baby grip and a devilish twinkle in his eye,” Daisy narrates beside the eight-foot tree, decorated in elegant gold bows and shimmering ornaments.

  She braces a video camera while bells clink on her socks with each bounce around the spacious living room, filled with Christmas spirit: stockings along the mantel, snow falling behind the windows, gifts stacked beneath the tree; wrapped both carefully (me) and haphazardly (Loren), and the smell of vanilla coffee and cookies sweetening the air.

  Loren probably believes that I love traditions and festivities because it’s another day I can decorate our home, another day to boss people around and orchestrate everything to my liking. I’m a perfectionist, but seeing a leaning gingerbread house and a poorly constructed snowman is fine with me. Parties have always meant something else. Every person I love will be together. My sisters, most importantly.

  The other details are just extra.

  “Devilish?” Lily’s eyes widen in horror. “He doesn’t look devilish.” On the soft cream-colored rug, Lily peers down at her baby nestled between her legs. Moffy eagerly grabs onto the red-wrapped box, unknowing of its purpose.

  Loren sits next to his wife and helps his son tear the paper. Everyone is dressed in some sort of holiday pajama. Moffy and Jane in Christmas onesies. Daisy with stripped leggings and a white tank that says: Elf you gonna love me! Lily in a gray snowflake-printed onesie with pom-poms and a hood. Lo and Ryke in respective red and green flannel pants. Me: all black pajama set. But I do have stylish, red ornament earrings.

  Connor is the only one not participating. Out of principle, he said. He’s in gray cotton pants, and I don’t press him to change. I love him, weird quirks and all.

  “Moffy looks adorable,” Lo confirms. “The devilish baby is sitting on the devil’s lap.”

  And of course, he turns to me.

  While on the couch, I protectively hold Jane closer, Connor’s arm around my shoulders. “You do realize this is being recorded, Loren?” I grimace into a smile. “So now your niece will see how much of a dick you are.”

  “And now she’ll hear her mom’s foul-mouth,” Lo retorts and then slow claps.

  Ryke joins in, sprawled on the loveseat with the thickest, messiest hair, as though he just rolled out of bed. Daisy handed him a Santa hat earlier, but he’s too lazy to put it on, the red velvet cap still on his chest.

  He finally catches my hot gaze and raises his hands in defense. “I’m in support of foul fucking language.”

  Daisy hops over a present, almost dropping the video camera—everyone may be too sick from the jumpy footage to watch anyway. “I can edit it…” Daisy starts, but then stops at my glare.

  “I don’t want Jane’s first Christmas edited.” I would really like the video to be level too, but I don’t mention it. I’m not that rude.

  Daisy mock gasps. “Who suggested such a thing? They should be fined with a dozen chocolate chip cookies.”

  Without budging from his lounged position, Ryke gestures for her to near him. “I can give you something better, Calloway.” I try not to read far into his blatant sexual innuendo. Their flirting has the same boundaries as their personalities. They both rip through danger zones and No Trespassing signs.

  Daisy whips her head to him. “Cake?”

  “Better than fucking cake.”

  She feigns confusion. “There is no such thing.”

  He flips her off and then gestures to her again. She skips over to him, careful to avoid crushing the many assortments of presents.

  Seeing them together reminds me that Ryke’s surgery is in about a week, the day after Connor’s birthday. With the horrendous weather—cold, rain and snow—Ryke has had almost no opportunity to climb since he went to the gym. Which wasn’t really his preference of climbing anyway.

  When Daisy reaches Ryke, he clasps her hips and lifts her shirt a fraction, kissing the small of her back. She glows, her smile illuminating her features. I’ve never seen Daisy as radiant as she is in Ryke’s presence. I just truly hope it can last, even without him.

  “Hey, Santa,” Daisy grins, slowly spinning around.

  He raises her shirt again and kisses below her belly button, which is cute but also a bit inappropriate due to the setting. I’m too used to groping from Loren and Lily (which is a thousand kinds of shield your eyes) that Ryke kissing my little sister’s body is tame in comparison.

  I live in a weird world, and I wouldn’t trade this atmosphere for any other.

  “Alright,” Lo cuts in from the floor. “No Christmas flirting.” Moffy has unwrapped a plastic Spider-Man action figure, meant for infants his age. “And can we all not refer to Ryke as Santa Claus? I don’t want to confuse my kid.”

  “I agree with Lo,” Lily says with an adamant nod. “You’re not Santa.” She also cups her hands over Lo’s ear, whispering to him. I’m almost positive it has to do with him banning all Christmas flirting.

  “Fuck all of you,” Ryke says lightheartedly before putting his head up my sister’s shirt and kissing her…ugh, you know what—I don’t want to know what his lips are touching.

  Connor leans closer, passing me our joint crossword, folded from this morning’s newspaper. Since his right arm is behind my shoulders, he filled it out with his left-hand, annoyingly ambidextrous. Like he needs another talent in his arsenal. My eyes glaze over the square boxes, the descriptions scratched out and the title written in his neat handwriting: Fornication.

  Instead of doing a normal crossword, we just fill the boxes with words pertaining to our chosen category. Fornication. I swear Connor is trying to make me aroused or incensed.

  He filled in ten boxes with the word: Acrophilia

  Also known as the fetish of fucking someone in high altitudes. Like in the mountains or on rooftops. Also known as Ryke Meadows.

  I shoot Connor a quick glare, but he’s tickling Jane’s foot, putting her on his lap while I concentrate. I want to use the word fellatio, but the only eight boxes available uses the “p” from acrophilia which screws up everything. There is no damn “p” in fellatio.

  I could go with testicles, nine-letters somewhere else, but I don’t think that fits the category well enough.

  “About this fictional character…” Connor begins.

  Lo interjects, “They’re going to believe in Santa Claus and the
Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and everything else that you think is a crock of shit.”

  We’ve never had this conversation, not outright, but there have been numerous moments where it almost surfaced.

  I hold my pen on the newspaper too long, an inkblot bleeding into the thin sheet and almost staining my pajamas.

  Ryke is out of Daisy’s shirt, and she sits on his lap, his arms wrapped snugly around her waist. She powers off the camera.

  I snap my fingers at her. “Keep it on. Unedited remember?” I’ve had too many people edit my life. My children won’t see the edited version either.

  Daisy switches the camera on. “I don’t understand why Jane can’t know the truth while Moffy knows the kid version.” In my youngest sister’s head, there is a happily ever after for everyone. And my black heart understands, too well, that happiness for all is a cruel myth.

  Lo crumples the red wrapping in a ball. “Because Jane will ruin it for him.”

  “And for every other fucking child in Kindergarten,” Ryke adds. He nods to Connor and me. “Your daughter will literally be that kid who fucks up Christmas.”

  This issue hasn’t been important to me, not enough to disagree with Connor; so my opinions aren’t as strong as everyone else’s.

  “And what was your childhood Christmas experience exactly, Ryke?” Connor asks. “How was Santa so special to you?”

  Ryke shrugs. “The way it is for every kid.”

  His answer is too vague to appease Connor. “Describe it for me.”

  Ryke sighs in frustration. “I don’t know.” He shakes his head in deeper thought.

  Jane drops her stuffed lion at Connor’s feet and tries to climb down his legs to reach the toy. I bend forward to collect it, passing the animal to her. She clings to it with such fervor that my black heart nearly softens. I stroke her head. I love every little piece of you.

  “Eloquent,” Connor says.

  Ryke combs his hand through his wild hair. “Wasn’t Christmas just your mom and you?”

  “I’m assuming it was for you,” Connor says, both raised by single mothers. I thought they’d find common ground through this tiny similarity, but it hardly strengthened their uneven, slightly bent relationship. I know Connor trusts Ryke. I know Ryke trusts Connor. Analyzing anything beyond that gives me an unwelcome, pulsing migraine.

  “Yeah,” Ryke says, “so when I saw a present from Santa underneath the tree, I got fucking excited. It felt like…” He struggles for the precise words.

  “Like someone else cared about you,” Connor finishes.

  Silence heavies the room, Ryke not denying this fact.

  Lo frowns, as though realizing the true loneliness of his brother during holidays. Loren spent Christmas with us, the Calloways, and his father. My grandmother, with her chewy stale fruitcake and god-awful hyena cackle, adored Loren and always bought him gifts.

  One year, I may have broken his Game Boy after he compared me to Angelica from Rugrats, and then he shaved my Furby, proving that he is just as much Angelica as me.

  “It was like that for you too then?” Ryke questions, wondering why Connor is so anti-Santa when they “seemingly” share this bond. Connor was just being a vague asshole, so Ryke would spill more truths. I know, for a fact, that the first time he had Christmas was at Faust. Even then, it’s not the same as spending it with your family.

  Connor says, “I never celebrated holidays with my mother. She found them pointless. I understand that fictional creatures can make you feel better, but we shouldn’t have to construct a lie just for that emotion. Jane will be comforted with the knowledge that Santa isn’t real and everyone else is living in fantasy.” He values the power that his mother gave him, able to see the world from the “real” viewpoint.

  Loren sighs now. “Come on, man. Being a kid means getting to believe in the impossible. It means believing that fairies exist along with spells and magic, and that on your eleventh birthday you’ll receive a letter from Hogwarts. It means thinking your presents arrived from a workshop in the North Pole and not the store down the street. And Connor…” Lo’s face twists at a thought. “I’m really sorry your mom took that shit from you. If you had even a semblance of it growing up, you would realize how special it is. Don’t take that away from Jane.”

  I balk at the idea of taking something from Jane, anything at all. Naturally, I want to give her everything and more—all the things that I never had. Like a sympathetic mother, not a controlling, overbearing one.

  I look at Connor while he mulls over Loren’s speech. “You know,” I say, “we can see who figures out the truth first: Moffy or Jane.” This may entice him to keep the charade for Jane, so she can believe in magic too.

  Lily crinkles her nose. “That’s evil.”

  “Well, it is coming from the devil,” Lo says, breaking some of the tension. He flashes a half-smile at the video camera. “And Jane, if you’re watching this when you’re older, just know it comes from a place of love.” He can barely say that with a straight face.

  I clap. “You’re so convincing that my heart is starting to unthaw.”

  “You have a heart?” Lo quips.

  “Did someone gift me something sharp for Christmas?” I ask, a threatening gleam in my eye.

  Lo shoots everyone a look like whoever gave her a weapon is goddamn crazy. Then he lands back on me. “Stay away from my balls.”

  “You have balls?” I snap, not as good at sarcasm as him.

  “You’re mixing your dreams with reality. You haven’t cut them off yet.”

  Ryke pulls Daisy closer to his chest, watching everything through the video camera screen with her. “This is the most fucked up baby’s first Christmas video,” he mutters.

  “Okay,” Connor suddenly says, a hush falling upon the room. Jane prattles a few soft syllables and looks up at her dad. He tells her, “Tu seras magnifiquement naïve.” You will be beautifully naïve. I know that he’s at peace with this concept when his lips rise in a genuine smile. Lo must’ve convinced him.

  Daisy whispers to Ryke, “Is this good?”

  He can translate for everyone, but instead of reiterating word by word, he nods. “Yeah. He’s going to let them believe.”

  “Thanks, man,” Lo says, his son sounding out noises while he whacks the action figure on the rug.

  Connor nods. “I think you all still have my presents left to unwrap.”

  Daisy stands to hand them out, passing the video camera to Ryke. While she works on finding his gifts beneath the tree, I return to the crossword and find twelve boxes, horizontal and using the “p” from a two-box word: DP.

  A nearly perfect word comes to mind, but it’s slightly tainted by its definition—which may cause Connor to arch a what the fuck brow.

  “Stumped?” he asks, staring over my shoulder at the giant inkblot beside Fornication and no progress on my end.

  “No,” I snap. Stumped. I’ll stump him. I lick my bottom lip and neatly write the letters: s-c-o-p-t-o-p-h-i-l-i-a. Scoptophilia.

  A fetish for looking at erotic photography or watching sexual acts. Like through mirrors. Or with sex tapes.

  He reads my new answer as I pass him the paper and collect Jane off his lap, hugging her with two inflexible, solid arms. My little gremlin hardly cares that I suck at hugging—she still smiles. I couldn’t love her any more than I do. My heart is full.

  When I steal a glance at Connor, both of his brows are raised in confusion and intrigue. We’ve never watched those tapes together. Hell, we could barely talk about them until Scott returned. They’ve been this toxic stain in our relationship that we’ve covered with a rug instead of removed with bleach.

  We’ve finally begun scrubbing at it.

  His fingers brush my neck, questioning in the electric stroke. My hairs prickle, and we lock eyes. I can’t say whether or not I’d want to watch them—if they’d just stir something worse. I can’t know because we’ve never tried.

  I hear Lily whisper something to Lo
like mind reading—which is ridiculous, albeit a cute thought. Connor can’t read my mind, but maybe he can read my wants and desires and insecurities. Anyone who knows me well enough can, and Connor, of everyone, understands me the most.

  “Here you go.” Daisy plops a package beside me, a heavy square object perfectly wrapped in light blue paper. We peel our gazes off each other.

  Connor skims the crossword. “You should all open them at the same time.” He’s already filling in the crossword. Really?

  Daisy hands the last present to Ryke, and we all begin to tear at the smooth, crisp creases. I open presents like I plan to save the wrapping paper for later, but every year, someone (Loren Hale) throws away my stack of neatly folded pieces. It’s extremely rude. His defense is always: I’m saving you from becoming a hoarder.

  So I’m the slowest to reach the present.

  Everyone is already shouting exclamations.

  “What the fuck?” Ryke says. He hasn’t unwrapped the present all the way, so I can’t see.

  Lo laughs and looks to Connor. “If you hated it, love, you could’ve just told me.” Moffy’s empty bouncer is in my damn view of Lo’s gift.

  “Huh?” Lily holds her hefty set of The Chronicles of Narnia.

  I gape. No, he didn’t. That was the present Lily gave him last year for Christmas. He asked all of us to give him presents that we enjoyed. We chose books as the overall theme.

  “You re-gifted?” I ask him in distaste.

  Loren must have A Song of Fire and Ice beside him, a stack of five books. Daisy is holding The Iron King by Julie Kagawa, a young adult fairy novel, I believe.

  I haven’t even finished peeling off the paper of mine, but I’m certain a vintage copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest lies beneath, my present to Connor last year.

  “Open them,” Connor says, unconcerned. He spins his pen in his left hand.

  When I finally unearth The Tempest I flip open the cover. Sticky notes lie inside the margins. Dozens of them, his neat scrawl in blue ink. I thumb through the pages, my heart racing. He annotated it.