Page 18 of Pining for You

What I want to say is, I met the most amazing girl and she was beautiful and smart and funny and perfect and how do you know if you’re in love?

But again, I keep it to myself. This time because if she’s calling about what I suspect—that she’s not coming home—I’d rather we get to it, so I can start trying to get over my disappointment.

“Great!” Naomi says, but doesn’t bother to ask any follow-up questions. “So listen,” she goes on, and that is all I need to hear to know my night is over. I physically deflate like that Snoopy as Flying Ace blow-up in January. It’s the way she says listen, like it really means okay, prepare yourself. And the next sentence is one I could have scripted: “I’m sorry to say this, but I’m not going to be home until late tonight.”

“Again?”

“I’m sorry, Pop-Tart. It’s Christmas. You know how it is.”

For some families, Christmas means spending time together. Another thought I keep to myself, because I know that for my mother, this year the holiday means extra cash by way of extra shifts, at the farm or at her old boyfriend’s bar. She didn’t tell me how much Michelle’s rehab cost this second time around, but I asked a chatbot once for an estimate and—wow—getting off drugs is expensive. On top of it, my mom is paying back the damages from the shoplifting, a small fire, and a car accident Michelle caused when she relapsed at the end of the summer and sent our little family into this crisis. Again.

There’s a parallel universe where the relapse didn’t happen. Michelle would be home, hanging a few last ornaments on the tree. Naomi would be putting a big dinner on the table and I’d be cuing up Elf. Then we’d wrap last-minute presents and sing along to vintage Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton while drinking eggnog.

But that’s not this universe and honestly even when my mom’s not working, Michelle seems to be the only thing she wants to talk about. Not our beloved traditions and happy memories or anything that would put us in the joyful holiday spirit, but the person who stomped all over them.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Naomi says, but it feels hollow.

“Sure, yeah,” I say. I don’t bother to ask how, because if I keep talking, my voice might break, and I’m really trying to avoid that. Once, after an especially rough night with Michelle, Naomi thanked me for “being so mature about all this.” She told me she was proud of me for that, and I have tried to live up to that ever since.

Then again, if this is what it means to adult—having to swallow your feelings and forget about magic and sacrifice Christmas and comfort and joy and your parents’ attention—hard pass.

There’s an awkward beat, and I can practically hear Naomi’s frown on the other end.

“Okay, well…,” she says. “I also wanted to ask, have you thought any more about Friday?”

And there it is. The question I’ve been dreading most of all.

“You mean Christmas Day?” I ask, stalling but also trying to subtly drive home my displeasure at her calling it “Friday” as if it’s just another day.

Two days ago, Naomi threw me a curveball by asking if I would consider joining her on Christmas to go visit Michelle upstate, rather than staying home and celebrating our usual way—watching the Disney parade with hot cocoa and buttered cinnamon toast, opening presents, and taking a walk around the neighborhood together to deliver cookies in every mailbox.

“That’s the one,” she says, with a tone like she’s losing patience.

“Yeah. I, uh… I’m still not sure,” I say. “It’s been really busy with work and everything. You know how Joany is. Just been too focused to think about it.”

“I do, but is it really much to think about?” Naomi says, now clearly exasperated. “I just think it would be nice for us to be together, don’t you? You love Christmas.”

That makes me exasperated too. I do love Christmas. But what she’s talking about is not Christmas. How can it be in a totally foreign place without any of our traditions?

“I know it’s been hard,” she says after a beat. Which… understatement of the century. “But I know you don’t want your sister to be alone on Christmas. She loves it too.”

I let my head flop back on the couch and stare at the ceiling. She did once.

It infuriates me that my mother thinks she needs to tell me that. As if I’m not haunted by the ghosts of Christmas Michelles Past. Like I don’t think about the Christmas mornings I’d push open her bedroom door, and though she wasn’t even close to being awake, she’d lift up the covers and say, “Okay, Pop-Tart, climb in,” and we’d wait together until Naomi was ready to do presents. Or the late-night scheming sessions every December over what gift to make or get for our mother. Or the way she always managed to give me something for Christmas that I never expected or asked for, but then could never live without—like that red copy of A Christmas Carol.

Of course I know that Michelle did love Christmas. But how do I know what she loves now? Or if she loves or cares about anything or anyone? And how does my mom think she knows what I want? It feels like we’re all strangers these last few months.

I take off my glasses and rub the bridge of my nose, but Naomi can’t see me, so she continues, “I would consider it a gift, if you’d do it for me.”

Now I really have to practice being a grown-up—one who would not throw this box of cookies clear across the room like I want to right now.

My mother has no idea how hard I worked on the gift I’ve already gotten for her. Or how much I have “considered” our situation even before she asked this question. But it’s like she implanted a little remote-control guilt-mobile in my gut at birth, and she decides when to turn it on and hit the gas pedal. So as much as I’m fuming at her, I still can’t stand the idea of disappointing her.

By the time those emotions finish battling, they’ve canceled each other out, and I’m just freaking exhausted.

When I still don’t respond, she finally says, “Just actually think about it, okay? I need to let them know soon. They need visitors’ names in advance.”

“Okay,” I say, mostly because I just can’t wait to be off the phone.