Chapter 20
Christmas Eve
The household is slow to rise, not quite ready to face any lingering contempt; better to let it settle like dust so we can ignore it again.
I delay my appearance upstairs for as long as I can, but when it is clear that everyone else is together, I find myself joining them, on autopilot, not in control of my body.
It is natural to want to be with them, still my default setting.
In the living room, Luke is laying out the Christmas puzzle pieces on the table, and Olivia is searching the television cabinet for our It’s a Wonderful Life DVD. Even my parents have progressed past the use of DVDs, but they keep the player for this one day of the year.
Elsie is drinking coffee at the bench, a plastic bag in front of her that I know contains a new set of pyjamas for each of us.
She is already wearing hers – green satin with a cream trim, and her face looks untroubled, almost relaxed.
I am always struck by her beauty, an ongoing refutation of everything I am being told to feel about aging from the targeted ads on my phone.
Maeve is in her high chair, eating chopped fruit.
The mango smells like sweet sunshine, and I let myself enjoy the scent and the calm of the scene.
It may be easier to recall memories filled with friction, but perhaps that is perceptual laziness on my behalf; perhaps I need to work harder to store more moments like this.
‘Nora, your posture is terrible. You need to start lifting some weights; scoliosis runs in the family, you know,’ Luke says, looking over from the dining table.
I straighten my back; he is not wrong, and the tone of his voice is.
. . comradely. It is almost as if my verbal freak-out earned me a modicum of his respect, which is convenient and truly messed up.
Elsie begins to fuss, and the morning moves forward, stillness adjourned.
Somehow, Dad being hospitalised for a heart attack–like panic episode has not deterred us from our schedule of rigidly planned holiday festivities.
Change the schedule, are you mad? Dad is taking it slightly easier than he would otherwise, staying seated on the couch while the rest of us get moving, but no one seems to want to mention anything beyond that.
It is a new day, and there will no doubt be new grievances on which everyone can focus.
But then, here I am focusing on the fact that other people tend to focus on grievances.
She is a dirty hypocrite, folks. I think about bad phone calls, and time, and how I should look for the good even half as much as I look for the bad.
‘Should we watch the movie after breakfast, or start with the puzzle and the gifts?’ Olivia asks.
‘I’d like to get a photo of everyone in their new PJs,’ Elsie says, opening the bag to start handing them out.
She hands Olivia matching sets for her and Maeve – pink with red candy canes and bows.
Luke and Dad’s bundles are also matching, a Christmas red and green plaid with button-up tops and shorts.
Mine are the last to come out of the bag, and I laugh when I see they are covered in cartoon images of the Grinch.
If it is a jab at my lack of holiday spirit, I choose not to receive it.
Tension cannot take hold without my participation, and anyway, they are quite cute. I thank Mum and take the gift.
‘You were obsessed with that movie,’ Olivia says, quick to smooth the bumps of the gesture with her gentle voice. ‘I swear we must have watched it a hundred times over the years.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Luke says, kissing her on the cheek.
‘Maybe we could video-call with Laura when we’re all dressed – she might like to see what Christmas in the Byrne house is like,’ she replies.
Luke’s grin loses brightness, and he nods in a noncommittal way.
Elsie might be probing with that suggestion, after what she heard yesterday, or she might be trying to pretend it never happened.
Luke can decide how he wants to perceive it; I choose not to cultivate agitation on his behalf.
We reconvene after showers and fry-ups, ready to win Christmas Eve with our show of festive togetherness.
There is not a dry eye in the room by the time the movie is finished, and it hits me harder than ever.
Our lives are interconnected, each of us precious, worthy, part of a bigger story, even if we are not aware of what that is at the time.
Perhaps I am George on that bridge. Dad places his hand on my shoulder over the back of the couch, bringing me back my self-awareness.
My sobbing is drawing uncomfortable looks, I soon realise, dissolving the sense of collective emotion I had felt part of for a moment.
I have again done too much, taken things too far.
Maeve is watching me with curiosity, rather than discomfort, at least.
‘Puzzles and present time, I’d say,’ Dad announces, and we move on quickly to the next activity.
Since we were children, we have been allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve, something that held more personal significance when my meticulously planned list was the highlight of my year.
Now, I do not care so much for gifts, or the expectation of proper receivership of said gifts, but it is nice to carry on some traditions and this one is pleasant to witness, perhaps even more so now I do not have a stake in the outcome.
Elsie selects the gifts that everyone will open, a new and authoritarian approach to the ritual that diminishes the excitement somewhat, but it is okay, really.
Understandable, easy. She wants to enjoy the enjoyment of her family as they open the gifts she has selected for them, whereas on Christmas morning she is often too busy in the kitchen to do much else.
Luke is delighted with his leather valet tray, a luxury organiser for his watch, phone, headphones, and keys.
We pass it around, all smelling to confirm the leather is sumptuous and well finished.
Dad is just as thrilled with his new gardening gloves and hat, joking that they are too nice to be anywhere near the dirt.
Olivia is gracious as she opens a voucher for a deluxe facial at the local day spa, not mentioning the potential difficulty in using it from her home in London.
She exudes genuine joy witnessing Maeve’s delight at the wooden flower garden building set Mum picked so well for her.
We all watch on as Mum unpacks it for her on the rug, and Maeve holds up each piece in wonder, marvelling at these never-before-seen delights.
Almost two might be the very best age at which one experiences Christmas.
Elsie asks Olivia if she can open the gift from her, and Olivia passes her a small rectangular gift, talking fast about how she hopes she likes it, how she struggled to choose between a few different versions, how she kept the receipt so she can change it if she likes.
Mum gasps when she sees the new earrings, small gold hoops with a single pearl dangling from each.
‘They’re gorgeous, Olivia. Stunning. I will wear them tomorrow, Grandma will love them,’ she says.
Elsie hands me my gift to round out the morning.
I can tell it is a book, they wrap so well, and when I peel back the paper to read the title, about building productive habits, I find my best grin and thank her for her thoughtfulness.
Olivia widens her eyes at me from across the room.
I flash mine back, and the moment that passes between us is worth a million not-quite-right gifts that may or may not have come with good intentions.
We collect the wrapping paper strewn across the floor and move over to the dining table for the next event.
The Christmas puzzle is a custom carried over from Dad’s upbringing; in a household of puzzle-lovers who did not know how to communicate with one another, they found comfort instead in the joint completion of a task.
Here Dad assigns everyone a job – he and Luke will sort the edge pieces, while Olivia, Mum and I are to group the inner pieces into colour and picture matches.
Maeve is happy to play with the box, packing and unpacking it with her new wooden flowers.
There are a thousand pieces to this North Pole scene, and a lot of them are plain white on account of all the snow.
We sink into a comfortable silence, working away.
Without talking, I find peace again in us all being here, together.
It is soft, relaxed, flowing like a song.
Perhaps Dad’s family were on to something, after all.
Perhaps not talking, working together on a task, is the key.
It is not lost on me how immersed we all are in this puzzle, how that might hint at something more shared than unique to my experiences.
But nobody wants to have that conversation, so I continue enjoying the quiet.
There are not many memories I have been able to hold on to from the remainder of the summer before I started university.
The tape is blank, the images not lost because they were never captured to begin with.
Disconnecting from myself, avoiding and dissociating and shutting down meant my brain could not record my experiences in the way it was supposed to, just as a stomach might not properly absorb nutrients if there is a more serious illness at play.
It is something I have been trying to figure out with Dr Montague, but she has her work cut out for her so it may take some time to fully comprehend.
And she still has not replied to my email, so for now I am on my own, a little lost in the dark.
Here is what I have found: