“Lydia is fine. We’re decorating today.”
“That’s the spirit,” Linda says and winks at me, pops a Tootsie
Roll into her mouth.
I want to cry when five o’clock hits, and again when I come home
to a circle of cardboard boxes in the middle of the living room. Bent,
creased. Greasy at the edges from so much use, so many hands pulling
them up, touching them. The Florida Orange box is dead center, its faded
fruit more yellow now than anything. The tree we’ve already erected in
the corner, its bare limbs stark against the white wall. In the boxes are its
ornaments. The ornaments and the special Nativity couch pillows and
Roger’s village. Dead center, marked with a Sharpie-wet RV in the cusp
of the orange. I thought he got everything when he loaded the Subaru.
All those damn bird houses lodged in the back like Tetris pieces, a whole
carton devoted to his students’ science fair projects, his three copies of A
Brief History of Time and Space. No room for the Christmas village? Or
perhaps forgotten in the basement—out of season, out of mind.
“I just need space, Nance,” he’d said, clunking the trunk of the car
shut. “Just a little space.”
Lydia pops around the corner with her best friend. They contrast
each other nicely, Lydia with her dark hair and brown eyes and Amber
with hair to match her name, eyes so blue they disappear sometimes.
“Did you notice outside?” Lydia asks as she bends to open a box.
Amber stays off to one side and smiles politely at me. I don’t know how
to deal with these 17 year olds and their sudden, off-putting politeness.
That boy in the bank going to Alpine this weekend, talking small but
talking nice; Amber, my daughter’s beautiful best friend, smiling shyly,
giving me space. What gives?
“No, what about it?”
“Mr. Thomas strung up lights for us.” Lydia pulls out wadded
tissue paper, boxes containing delicate glass balls and porcelain figurines.
She unearths a tilted yellow angel: the tree topper. It looks like Amber,
blonde hair long and cheeks rosy as apples. She sets it aside for later.
“They look really good,” Amber offers when I don’t say anything
at first, when I stand there fingering my car keys for too long.
“That was nice of him,” I say and Lydia looks at me and I look at
her and we pull the ornaments from their boxes and place them, gently,
on the lower limbs of the Christmas tree.
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