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The snap in her eyes is almost alarming in its intensity, and I turn and walk back home, trying to keep my dignity intact after failing to come up with a suitable retort. But the truth is, her reaction has shaken me.
It won’t ruin anyone’s Christmas to wait a few days before littering their yard with tacky decorations. And I really am trying to do her a favor by helping her acclimate to the Orchard Street culture.
Am I overreacting?
There’s probably nothing more effective than the faint smell of other people’s chimney smoke, the arrival of dusk, and the cold tang of November in the air to inspire reminiscences. But as I think of the most stinging accusation from Paige—that I’m trying to ruin her daughter’s Christmas—I find my memories drifting back to the handful of Christmases I can recall before it was ruined for me too.
I wander down the hall to my grandfather’s study and the leather-bound photo albums he’d kept there. I pull one down and leaf through it, repeating this several times until I find the one that coincides with my childhood.
Settled in his leather armchair, I go through it slowly. We must have visited Creekville twice that year, once in the summer and once at Christmas. I’m missing one front tooth in the pictures; that would have been the summer after kindergarten and the Christmas of first grade.
My grandmother loved Christmas. Pictures of me sitting between her and my grandad show us wearing Christmas sweaters and smiling at the camera. There’s another one of us making Christmas cookies, our faces pressed together and grinning as I hold up a gloppy icing mess that was possibly meant to be a stocking.
There are over a dozen pictures like this. Me sitting in a pile of discarded Christmas wrapping, playing with a Lego set. Carolers who had come to the front door. Grandad and me standing in a barely-there dusting of snow and laughing at our tiny snowball.
As far as Christmases past went, this was the last good one. The next year, my parents had bought a place in Richmond, eager to host their first Christmas. Grandma and Grandad had come that year, but only Grandad had returned to Creekville.
I’d never been able to come back here after that. I couldn’t. It had taken twenty-eight years for me to feel ready, and there were some days when I bumped into a memory in this house that made me wonder if I’d still come back too soon.
I close the album and tuck it under my arm, carrying it out into the living room. Now that I’ve finally faced it, I know I’ll want to go through it again, the memories of those childhood Christmases bittersweet but with far more of the sweet.
I set it on the coffee table, and my hand brushes against the ornament Evie left for me. I turn the little seahorse over, studying its glitter flourishes and the curve of its tail. She’s only seven or eight, so the ornament can’t be that old, but it still shows sign of wear in a couple places, as if she’s spent a good deal of time running her fingers along its familiar ridges and curves.
It’s loved the way all shabby things are—with uncritical eyes—and if I am a Grinch, this uncomfortable feeling in my chest must be my heart growing.
Maybe it’s time to make peace with Christmas. To make sure my neighbors enjoy a peaceful Christmas Present. It may never be my favorite holiday—that would be El Colacho, a baby jumping festival in Spain—but there’s no reason it can’t be Evie’s without a few simple adjustments from me.
I turn the ornament over one more time before setting it on the photo album, a small shrine to the best parts of Christmas. The Ghost of Christmas Past has done its work. Ironically, the word “ebenezer” refers to an altar built in remembrance, and as I remember the uncomplicated time before grief and guilt, I wonder if Marley Ellis didn’t have a little something to do with all of this.
Chapter Fourteen
Paige
Icouldgotherest of my life without ever seeing Hill the Pill march up my walk again and be perfectly happy.
But here he comes in his V-neck sweater glory, his jaw set.
I turn up the volume on my phone, which controls the speaker set inside the window. It’s a cheap Bluetooth thing, but it’s gone from playing softly to blasting, and that’s all I need it to do right this second.
As he gets closer, I sing along, and since I possibly know every Christmas song ever made, I don’t miss a single word as I belt out, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Most avowed Christmas haters loathe this song especially, so the only way it could be better is if it were playing, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
I brighten. It’s a good idea, and I pull it up in my playlist as Hill the Pill reaches the porch steps.
“Hello,” he says.
Hello. He’s so stiff and formal. I nod back, a tiny smile of satisfaction escaping me as Thurl Ravenscroft sings about being cuddly as a cactus.
Henry nods. “It’s nice to walk up to my theme song.”
I study him for a second, then press pause. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I know two,” he says. “The other one’s a knock-knock joke.”
Another joke. What is going on here? “Can I help you with something? Do you need me to turn my music down?”
“If I asked you to, would you turn it up louder instead?”
“You’re beginning to understand how this all works.”
