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I come up behind her, wrapping her in my arms. “I usually dread doing the tree, but having you here, I actually liked doing it.”
She looks over at the mantel, which my mom decorated with lit garland and lanterns. “It’s so pretty. Your mom’s really good at decorating.”
“You have to go see the rest. She does the whole house, even our bedrooms. There’s probably a tree in my room right now. She might’ve put one in yours too.”
“I doubt it. She knows I’m leaving.”
“Not for another week.”
Nova turns to face me. “Easton, I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“Okay, we can start,” my mom says, coming down the stairs with Jenna right behind her.
“I’m too old for this,” Jenna whines. “Why do we still have to do this?”
“Because it’s tradition.” My mom picks up a box of ornaments and sets it on the chair. She opens the box and takes out a tiny truck ornament. “Oh, Easton, remember this one?”
“Mom, I remember all of them. We do this every year.”
“This was from Easton’s first Christmas with us,” my mom says to Nova. “He was obsessed with trucks so we got him this ornament, along with about ten new trucks from Santa.” She laughs.
“Ten?” Nova says, her eyes bugging out. “How’d you play with all those trucks by yourself?”
“I didn’t. I made friends. But none of them were as fun to play with as you. Remember when we had that contest to see who could make the biggest dirt hill to race down?”
“Yeah, and I won,” Nova says with a smug grin.
“You played with trucks?” Jenna scrunches up her nose.
“I was kind of a tomboy,” Nova says.
“Jenna, help me hang some of these,” my mom says.
Jenna rolls her eyes as she walks over to the ornament box. “This is so dumb. Why do even need ornaments? The tree looks good enough with the lights.”
My mom sighs. “Just hang up a few and you can be done.”
“Fine.” Jenna grabs three at once and tosses them on the tree. “There. Am I done now?”
She didn’t attach them to a branch and one of them falls on the wood floor and breaks. It’s a ceramic angel that has Jenna’s name and date of birth on it.
“Jenna, that was from your first Christmas!” my mom says, scrambling to pick up the broken pieces.
“Who cares? It’s ugly.”
My mom gets up, covering her mouth as tears slide down her face. “I’ll be right back.” She races out of the room.
I storm up to Jenna. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t want to do this. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid to Mom. You can’t give up a few minutes of your precious shopping time to help make Mom happy?”
“Why should I? She doesn’t care if I’m happy! She hasn’t even spent any time with me since your girlfriend moved in. And now she’s fighting with Dad because ofher.” She points to Nova.
“Just go upstairs. We’ll do this ourselves.”
