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I trail off.
It’s not the first time I’ve answered that question. It is the first time I’ve realized how lame it sounds.
But the saleswoman knows her craft, and she lets out a happy sigh over my tepid response. “Those are always the best starts. The ones that start out quiet, right smack in the middle of real life, when you don’t realize what’s happening.”
I hope she’s right. She probably is right because I’ve learned the hard way that the other kind of meetings, the ones that are anything but quiet and where you think you know exactly what’s happening . . . those leave a mark. When they start and when they end.
But if you’re lucky, very, very lucky, you find someone who can smooth over the edges of your mistake, someone who will wait for the memories and pain to fade.
I’m very, very lucky.
I’m claiming my do-over. My second chance.
“I’ll take the ring.”
“Excellent!” the saleswoman says with enough relief to signal she was worried I was going to ask about the refund policy on online purchases.
Me too, for a minute there.
But I’m in increasingly better spirits as I step back out onto Fifth Avenue, “Silver Bells” still blaring, the sky turning that wonderful, thick gray that promises the potential of a white Christmas for those staying in New York for the holidays.
With the jewelry bag securely in hand, I head back down the street, accepting a little Starbucks sample from a barista with a tray. It’s more whipped cream than caffeine, which I confess, I rather like. I could do without the peppermint flavor, though.
A cliché bout of cold feet, that’s all that was back there, I reassure myself. Tomorrow night, I’ll pop the most important question in my life to the woman I love. She’ll say yes.
And I’ll have one more reason to love Christmas.
FIVE
KATHERINE
December 23, 11:27 a.m.
My dad died on Christmas.
Not just Christmastime—thank you, stupid “Silver Bells”—but actual Christmas. December 25, nine years ago.
The logical part of me knows that the specific date shouldn’t matter. Realistically, would the holidays hurt less if he passed on December 22? Would this time of year be any less painful if he slipped away on December 26? Would my heart have felt less broken if he died in February? Or June?
I doubt it.
Rationally, it just shouldn’t matter what day of the year my dad finally decided to let go of his pain, to give in to the cancer.
But somehow, the day does matter. The specificity of the date feels particularly savage because there’s this very unique sort of countdown effect that comes into play in December.
Advent calendars. Those construction paper chains that kids make. The chalkboard displays outside neighborhood bars declaring, “Only 6 days till Christmas!”
Because nothing captures that holiday spirit like fifty-cent wings, I guess.
But anyway, the point is there’s an entire season built around the march toward Christmas Day. And it feels like a ticking time bomb of my grief.
A day-by-day countdown to the day when I’m guaranteed to hurt the most.
Every year, I tell myself it’ll be a little easier than last year. And perhaps that’s true. There’s a comfortable resignation that comes with the certainty of knowing I survived it last year, so I can survive it this year too.
In that way, perhaps the “countdown” effect actually works in my favor. It gives me time to prepare.
In theory, anyway.
In reality, there’s no amount of mental preparation that can properly brace me for the onslaught of memories that hit me on Christmas Day. Reliving those last, final moments? When Dad had enough?
Well.
Christmas sucks.
But here’s the kicker. My dad loved Christmas.
I mean, sure, yeah, lots of people love Christmas. But my dad really loved it. We’re talking the kind of enthusiasm rivaled only by Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf and kids under the age of ten. And once upon a time, I loved it because he loved it—and because he was all I had.
I grew up in Fort Wayne, on a cozy cul-de-sac that was probably a little slice of suburban heaven when it came up in the fifties. Alas, by the time I came around, it was a little rough around the edges. The trees headed toward rot, the street potholed, the paint on the houses was more chipped than not.
Still, it was the kind of place where everyone took the time to mow their lawn and pull their weeds. And even more telling, it was the kind of place where if you had to skip the weekly mowing due to a double shift at work, your neighbor would do it for you. And when that neighbor’s uncle was in the hospital, you made damn sure you returned the favor.
“Tight-knit,” Dad used to say about our little cul-de-sac. “We take care of each other.”
I’m sure he was right about that, but I always felt a little apart when it came to the neighborhood. The loose thread in that tight-knit little community.
