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Not everything about Bright Covenant was bad, I guess.
“I miss the luminarias,” says Hope over dinner, just a few nights before Christmas.
My father frowns. “Look at this as an opportunity to appreciate what we had in our community. And remember how lucky you are to have everything you do right now.”
There’s something in Hope that’s extinguished by his words. He and my mother are constantly telling us to look on the bright side, to count our blessings...but what they’re really saying is Don’t feel so much. Don’t allow your irritation. Don’t allow yourself to miss things.
Except there’s hope in anger. There’s hope in resentment. It means you still expect better, that you still want something.
There can even be hope in missing things. If you can long for something you once had, you might also look forward to the day it’s yours again.
Maybe I didn’t feel empty at all when we came here. Maybe I’d just been told one too many times that the only acceptable emotions were gratitude and joy.
“I miss the secret Santa thing,” I say to Hope. It is, perhaps, the first time in my life I’ve directly contradicted my father’s message.
Something goes cold in his eyes as he looks my way. “That gift exchange was incredibly wasteful. Cheap trinkets you didn’t even want.”
Why is my five-dollar gift exchange a problem for you, but your eight-hundred-dollar suits are not? How convenient that you get to sit in judgment of all of us, but none of us are allowed to judge you back.
A few months ago, thoughts like these would have troubled me. I’d have seen them as a sign that I was on a bad path.
Now they kind of feel like a sign that I’m on the right one.
Our holiday is quiet. There are no cookies, no visitors. I wanted to do luminarias on our path, but my mother said we couldn’t—they’re a fire hazard, and we’d be inviting someone to set our house on fire again.
On Christmas morning, we watch a livestream of the two-hour Bright Covenant service. It’s unbearably long, this service without most of what made it interesting before—checking out the boys in my cohort, quietly laughing at the little kids who wouldn’t behave, the way tone-deaf Mrs. Teller would bellow every song at the top of her lungs.
We exchange a few gifts, and then my dad goes to his office, and my sisters and I start helping our mother cook a big Christmas dinner.
“Maybe Dad should help us this year,” I say as I peel potatoes.
My mother frowns at me. “He can’t help. He’s working.”
I turn toward her, a half-peeled potato still in my hand. “What work could he possibly be doing on Christmas?”
My mother’s lips pinch tight. “Grace,” she says with a tired sigh. “It’s not your place to question him.”
Exactly. It’s yours.
You should be the one asking how it’s possible that his perfectly normal job, which has less responsibility than his previous one, keeps him so very busy that he can’t contribute in any way.
“Lauren’s dad is president of a bank, and he’s able to take two weeks off to go to the Caribbean.”
“Think of how much good the money for that trip could have done if he’d tithed it,” my mother replies.
She has, quite intentionally, missed my point.
Two days after Christmas, I’m about to take Faith to the park when I get a notification from Calcul8: This is the perfect chance to get ahead of your schoolwork!
My hands shake as I go into the app, first looking over my shoulders to make sure no one is watching.
FORD
Can you meet me really quick? I’ve got something you might like.
We haven’t spoken once since he said, “You seem very sure of yourself” and walked away. I should let it end the way it did, but I can’t stand to.
ME
