Once More with Feeling (17 page)

When Evan insisted on the way home that they set up the tree and start decorating it right away, putting the task even above his favorite six o’clock rerun, Laura agreed. She was excited, too. As far as she was concerned, it never really felt like Christmastime until the tree was up. And she was definitely in need of a little boost in the spirit department.

She even built a fire in the fireplace for the occasion. She was determined to make her first Christmas on her own as wonderful as possible. The promise she’d made to herself at the support group the night before was still ringing in her ears. She and Evan laughed hysterically as they tried to remember the words of the Christmas carols she insisted upon singing while they carried the cartons of decorations down from the attic. She tried to sing the less familiar ones to keep him entertained.

“Who was Good King Wenceslas, anyway?” Evan demanded, lugging a box down the stairs. Peeking out of the top were tacky gold garlands that Laura loved.

‘The man who invented Scotch tape,” she replied earnestly. “Think about it, Ev. How could any of us have a real Christmas without Scotch tape?”

With the roaring fire, the fragrance of pine, and the dusty cardboard cartons promising goodies dial had been forgotten for the past eleven and a half months, all the elements were in order. Her heart fluttered as she took the brand-new red tree stand, the finest K Mart had to offer, out of its box.

Still, as she contemplated the task ahead, she wished she’d forgone one or two of her college English courses and opted for something more practical—like mechanical engineering. While this was precisely the kind of thing Gertrude Giraffe could carry off without a hitch, Laura was anything but confident about the undertaking. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d always thought of setting up the tree as the husband’s job. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the metal tree stand into the corner of the living room. The Christmas tree had always gone next to the fireplace, but this year it would have a new place, she’d decided.

“Bring that baby over here,” Laura instructed. “Now, what we need here is a show of upper-body strength. Pretend you’re a Ninja Turtle—

“Come on, Mom. You know nobody likes the Ninja Turtles anymore.”

“Okay. Pretend you’re He-Man—”

“He-Man’s worse. Only babies like him.”

“Barbie on steroids?”

“Mo-o-o-m!” Evan chortled. Then, growing sober: “What are steroids?”

“You’ll learn all about them when you play high school football. In the meantime let’s see if together you and I can lift up that tree and get it right smack in the middle of this—bull’s-eye!”

Tightening the screws against the pine tree’s trunk, Laura felt a surge of triumph. She really
was
doing it. She’d accomplished this formidable job not only with ease, not only with grace, but without having to argue about which side of the tree had more bare spots.

“Not bad, huh? Not that I can be totally objective, of course, but all things considered, I’d say this is the best tree we’ve ever had.”

“Oh, Mom. You say that every year.”

“Sure I do. It’s a Christmas tradition, like giving fruitcake to people you secretly don’t like.” Laura turned to the boxes of decorations lined up along the couch. “Now we can—”

“Mom!” Evan screeched. “Look out!”

Their precious little
Tannenbaum
began leaning to one side, slowly, and then it toppled over, taking the metal stand with it. She could have sworn it was laughing at her. Or at least trying to get back at her for those metal screws she’d slammed into its trunk.

Evan looked at it forlornly. “Dad never had any trouble making the tree stand up.”

“Oh, sure he did. Everyone does. We just made a point of protecting you from the more stressful aspects of the holiday.” She was on all fours underneath the tree, fumbling with the screws once again, silently cursing the defiant bit of flora, which was rebelling against having been wrested from its natural habitat by sticking its spiky needles into her neck and up her nose.

Yet in the end, the human spirit triumphed over nature. “Voila! Pretty cool, huh?”

“Do you think we should be careful not to breathe when we’re close to it?”

“This tree is as sturdy as ... as the
Titanic.”

“The
what?”

“Uh, a famous ship that ... How about if you try to find the lights? That’s the next step. Meanwhile I’ll start unpacking the ornaments.”

She held her breath as she opened the first box and confronted the ghost of Christmases Past. Taking out the pieces one at a time, holding them in her hand, forced her to reexamine memories that she hadn’t had to face since the year before, when she’d packed them away.

Gingerly she pulled out the four ceramic apples she’d bought the first year she and Roger were married. Delving into a clump of tissue paper, she unwrapped a cardboard star, decorated with gold glitter, with Evan’s baby picture in the middle. She’d made that one to commemorate his very first Christmas. Underneath was a wooden sailboat with Santa at the helm. She’d bought it for Roger as a stocking stuffer just the year before. She remembered having thought about attaching a tiny wedding ring to the side—as a joke—but in the end had decided against it.

The visions that came to her were not all sugarplums. There was coal in the Christmas stocking as well. Laura reminded herself that even in the best of times, she’d ended up decorating most of the tree with only the help of a toddler who couldn’t be trusted to handle anything breakable.

In fact, the norm was for her to spend nearly every Christmas Eve alone. Somehow, Roger had always had more important things to do. For one thing, he left his shopping to the last minute, claiming that the day before Christmas was the ideal time to avoid the crowds. That meant he toiled away late into the night, hiding in the basement, wrapping the presents Laura wasn’t allowed to see.

Some years he wasn’t in the house at all. He was out delivering gifts, or helping his mother with the tree, or painting a handmade wooden present out in the cold garage in the hope that it would dry overnight. Laura and Evan were left on their own to admire the sparkling lights on the tree and speculate about whether or not Santa would have managed to get ahold of this toy or that.

That had been the reality. Even so, Laura felt a pang of sadness, becoming suddenly very aware of the fact that she was a single mother. At least this year, doing the tree by herself was her choice. Then she realized something else was missing: the usual knot of anger in her stomach over the fact that once again she wanted something from her husband that she simply wasn’t getting. All around the country, happy families were carrying out their traditions ... together. But no matter how hard she’d tried, her life never quite seemed to work the way she wanted it to.

“Hey, Mom?” Evan’s voice brought her out of her reverie. “We got trouble.”

“What now?”

He held up the Christmas-tree lights, a tangle of green wires and colored bulbs. “We’re never going to straighten these out!”

His voice was quiet, trembling just a little. Laura realized that he was afraid. Afraid that this year the Christmas tree would have no lights or perhaps that there would be no joy, none of that special feeling that made fires in fireplaces glow with holiday magic, and the evergreen come alive, and the simplest Christmas carol resonate like a magnificent cantata.

Maybe he feared that Christmas, like everything else in his life, would never again be as wonderful as it had once been.

“Oh, Evan!” she cried, kneeling down to throw her arms around his bony shoulders. Suddenly he seemed very small and very fragile. “Of course I can fix those lights. And if I can’t, we can run out and buy new ones. We’re going to have a wonderful Christmas, I promise.”

“As good as last year’s?”

“As good as last year’s. Maybe even better.”

Evan pulled away, never one to sustain a hug even a second longer than he had to. “Does that mean you’ll get me Sega Genesis?”

“We’ve been through this a hundred times, Ev.” Laura sighed. “You already have Nintendo, and those videogame systems are too expensive to go out and buy—

She stopped, having recognized the glint in his eye, the hint of a smirk on his lips. “You’re kidding, right? You’re just trying to give your dear, sweet old mom a hard time, aren’t you?”

Grinning, Evan shrugged. “Couldn’t resist.”

Laura stuck her tongue out at him. When she got the laugh she was looking for, she grabbed the lights and foraged around until she found the plug.

“Here,” she instructed, handing it to him. “Hold this, you pip-squeak. I’ll bet you a zillion dollars I can have these going within ten minutes.”

“Wow! It used to take Dad hours!”

“My fingers are smaller and nimbler. They also happen to be capable of performing magic.”

Evan watched with wide eyes as she began straightening out the recalcitrant lights. One by one she liberated the colored bulbs, working until they looked more like the familiar strings and less like a cruel Christmas joke.

“You’re good!” Evan said admiringly.

“You’re darned right I’m good.” Wanting to prove just how good, she undid a knot the size of a popcorn ball. “Hey, Ev?”

“Yeah?”

“We really are going to have a nice Christmas. I’m not going to let you down.”

“I know, Mom.” He thought for a few seconds, then said matter-of-factly, “I guess you never do.”

Laura bit her lip. She pretended she was simply concentrating. It wouldn’t do to mix salty tears with electricity.

****

Tis the season to be jolly, Laura reminded herself as an enthusiastic shopper jabbed her in the stomach with his elbow. Like her, he was desperately fighting his way through the crowd around a display table in Macy’s accessories department. The three simple words printed on the sign rising above it,
TWENTY
-
FIVE
PERCENT
OFF
, evoked in otherwise normal human beings a competitiveness rarely seen off a football field.

She had no choice but to join in the game. Christmas was only three days away, and she had to buy gifts for Claire and Julie. Ordinarily, shopping for her two best friends was one of Laura’s favorite holiday tasks. It was almost as much fun as shopping for herself. She loved scouring the bins of leather gloves, the glass cases with rows of silk scarves, and the displays of costume jewelry hanging like baubles and beads at a Middle Eastern bazaar. Her usual strategy was to pick out something she liked, then buy it in the most garish color available for Claire and the most sedate shade for Julie. This year, however, it was turning out to be a chore.

When she finally edged her way to the table, she was disappointed to find only piles of slippers in the shape of barnyard animals.

She turned away, discouraged. The store was too hot and too crowded. Most of the sales help looked as if they were amazed that people had come into the store. She was contemplating giving up, wondering if one of those enterprising mail-order companies could magically whisk some wonderful trinkets to her door overnight, when a display of brightly colored fabrics across the floor caught her eye.

A surge of hope rose up through the despair, and Laura headed toward what looked like silk scarves. It was only after she’d hurled herself through the throngs that she realized the confused masses of color weren’t scarves at all. They were neckties.

Laura was in the men’s department.

She stood frozen to the spot, blinking, unable to focus on either the decorations or the merchandise. Her surroundings melted into a blur. Instead, what Laura saw were women shopping for presents for the men in their lives.

In an instant her eyes filled with tears. What she had striven so hard to forget had crept up on her here among the piles of silk and cashmere and suede. It hit her on a visceral level, causing her stomach to knot, her shoulders to tense, her temples to throb.

You’re alone. It’s Christmas, and you’re all alone.

Laura found herself recalling the year before. The scene popped out of her memory, playing before her with cruel clarity. She’d been in this same department, in a spot less than fifty feet away, standing in line for what seemed an eternity. Even though the store was as hot as it was today, she’d been wearing her winter coat, preferring that to carrying it. The salespeople, who appeared to have been heavily sedated, moved in slow motion and looked completely baffled every time a customer presented a credit card. The other shoppers were cross, buying gifts for their loved ones with the same spirit and goodwill with which they waited in line at the Motor Vehicle Bureau.

For a fleeting moment it had occurred to Laura that she didn’t have to be doing this. But she’d already invested a good twenty minutes picking out the perfect pair of plaid flannel pajamas for Roger. And she had her heart set on buying her husband a three-pack of Calvin Klein briefs— purple, blue, and fire-engine red. Buying Roger racy underwear for Christmas was one of her favorite traditions.

She thought about forgetting the whole thing, dropping her selections on the counter and rushing over to Houlihan’s for a margarita and a plate of nachos. But she didn’t. She was still throwing herself into all the usual Christmas preparations as of last year, going through the motions of creating a holiday in the Briggs-Walsh household that, at least on the outside,
looked
happy. She hadn’t yet been able to give up the pretense, or bring herself to admit that she was fighting a battle that couldn’t be won.

Now, all of a sudden, Laura could tolerate no more. She turned and fled, desperate to get out of the men’s department, longing to leave Macy’s . . . yearning to exit her own life. It was not only the haunting memories that sent her racing from the store, but the realization that while she’d rejected her old life, simply picked up and walked away from it, she had yet to come up with anything better. She was in a holding pattern. She was waiting ... but for what?

Ever since she’d been a little girl, organized, conscientious Laura Briggs had made a point of knowing where her life was going, what was coming next. Now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t conjure up what her future held. She didn’t know where she’d be living. Aside from continuing to write, she was unable to imagine how she’d spend her days. And when she tried to envision the faces of the people who would be surrounding her, all she saw were bodies with faceless heads, their features indecipherable.