The Christmas Light (2 page)

“Thankfully, sheets are easy to wash. Now if that was Homer, it’d be a different story! Tigers pee a lot!” Avery looks at her. “It’s true! That’s why it’s a good idea to keep Homer here … so he won’t pee in your bed.”

Jennifer smiles and listens as Dr. Becke continues to draw words or feelings out of Avery. If darkness implies a world where nothing is seen very well—no clear answers or person or where she’s going or even where she is now, then Jen knows more than she wants to know about it. If it suggests a sense of uncertainty or of feeling lost and afraid, then she’s an expert. Each time she’s in this office, she hopes for just a little light to walk out with.

“I’ll see you next week,” Dr. Becke says, touching her arm on the way out.

“And what about my wedding ring?” Jen whispers, holding up her hand.

Dr. Becke smiles. “It comforts her. You and Michael aren’t divorced. She knows that. It might help her get through this bed-wetting episode.”

Jennifer can remember those first three years with Avery when her mouth would spread wide in happiness on seeing her or Michael. She knows that kind of gladness exists in Avery; she just has to find a way to unlock it again, that’s all.

Avery is quiet on the drive home. Although Jen points out the Christmas decorations on Grandon’s town square and at the gazebo, Avery barely smiles. There was a time when she couldn’t wait to hang the bulbs and ornaments on the Christmas tree and neither Jennifer nor Michael could even suggest that one of them place the angel on top! It’s been a full week since Thanksgiving and Avery hasn’t mentioned decorating a tree. Truth is, Jennifer doesn’t feel like it, either, but knows she has to. “We should stop at the Christmas tree lot,” she says, looking at Avery in the rearview mirror. “We could bring it home and make a day of it tomorrow!”

“I don’t want to,” Avery says, looking out the window.

Jennifer sighs, careful to keep her disappointment from showing. “I don’t really want to, either, but it never really feels like Christmas without one.”

Avery keeps her eyes on the passing buildings. “It doesn’t feel like Christmas without Dad.”

Jennifer takes a breath, wondering why Avery never says this sort of thing to Dr. Becke. Six months ago she got up on a bright summer day, walked to Jennifer’s bedside and said, “Dads aren’t supposed to leave.”

People struggle every day to find a new normal. Jennifer knows that. She tires of people telling her that children are resilient or that they bounce back faster than adults from adverse circumstances. People who say that have never been with a child who’s struggling to find a new way to do life. Jennifer had hoped the revelation was a breakthrough for Avery and that she would break into tears but she simply plopped down on the bed and turned on the TV.

“There’s a Christmas tree lot just another mile or so down this road.”

Avery looks at the back of her mother’s head. “I don’t want to decorate a Christmas tree. If that’s your thing, then you do it.”

Jennifer catches her eye in the mirror and wonders how a six-year-old can sound so grown-up. “It needs to be our thing together.” Jennifer tries her best to sound cheery and confident but she knows that neither she nor Avery wants to do this.

Elhart Trees sets up residence at the far end of the strip mall each year. She can see the red banner from the stoplight. As she pulls into the parking lot she hears Avery sigh behind her. She gets out and opens the back door. “I already see one that looks like it could be perfect.”

“Then you go get it and I’ll wait here.”

Jennifer winces. She can never outsmart her daughter.

“Looking for a tree?” Jennifer turns to see a man in his sixties wearing blue jeans, a red flannel shirt, and a Carhartt jacket. “I only cut down the sturdiest and prettiest trees I grow.”

“If they’re so pretty then why do you cut them down?” Avery asks from inside the car.

He leans over to look at her. “Because I can’t keep all that pretty on my property. That’d be selfish. Just like if you stayed home and nobody ever saw you.” Jennifer smiles and reaches for Avery’s hand. “You just come get me or my grandson over there and we’ll strap the tree to your roof.”

“I don’t want to decorate the tree,” Avery says. “It’s Mom’s idea.”

Mr. Elhart nods. “I see! You know, you would be amazed at how many people come here and tell me they are just not in the mood to decorate a Christmas tree. But do you know what happens when they have all the decorations on and they plug the lights in the first time?” Avery shakes her head. “That bad mood just disappears. It’s like a magic trick! Did you know that it has been scientifically proven that you cannot sit in a room with a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and sip on a cup of hot cocoa and be in a bad mood?” Jennifer grins, listening.

“That’s not true,” Avery says.

The farmer shrugs. “I’m just telling you what I’ve read but you go home and try it and let me know.”

To appease her mother and to get this over with as soon as possible, Avery marches to a tree roughly the same height as her mom and points to it. “I like this one.”

“So do I!” It doesn’t matter if Avery is rushing through the selection process; Jen’s just glad that for a moment she’s shown a little interest.

Mr. Elhart and his grandson strap it to the top of the roof and Mr. Elhart opens the door for Avery. “Still in a bad mood?” Avery nods. He brushes his hands off and whisks a few pine needles from his jacket. “I wish some of those scientists could be at your house in the next few days so that they could study you and write down the effects of decorating a Christmas tree.”

“Why?”

“Because I know that Christmas trees always make things brighter. If they didn’t, I may as well be growing something else. “

He closes the door and Jennifer thanks him, hoping that he’s right. It may not be a happy or glorious time, but for a moment or two, she’s hoping the shadow of unbelief and sadness will fade, if even just a bit. Maybe neither one of them will manage to believe with all their hearts but she hopes that Avery will see that she and her mom and Christmas are most worth believing in.

TWO

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

—V
IRGINIA
W
OOLF

Ryan Mazyck loads six-year-old Sofia’s suitcase and his duffel bag into the backseat of the truck, holding the door open. “Hop in.” He watches as she climbs into her booster seat and latches the seat belt.

“How long is this trip again?”

He slides behind the wheel and turns the key. “Just a couple of hours. Remember? We’ve been to visit Aunt Gloria and her husband, Marshall. It’s the length of one movie or four TV episodes. So do you want to watch four
Jake and the Never Land Pirates
or
Frozen
?”

“Frozen!”
She hands a DVD case to him. “Put it in please.”

Ryan inserts the DVD and looks at her over his shoulder. “Put your headphones on.”

“Why? Don’t you want to sing along with me?”

Her face is so sincere that it makes him laugh. “Sure! I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Ryan hadn’t expected this life ten years ago when he and Julie walked down the aisle. They had met in college in a business marketing class. She was petite and blond and laughed out loud at his jokes. When he looks in the rearview mirror he sees a tiny version of Julie. He has made this trip to Grandon only a handful of times in the last three years. Despite his best intentions, a lack of time and too much busyness have made the visits infrequent, but each time he travels this same familiar road, he remembers.

Three years ago he had been helping Gloria and Marshall with a simple bathroom redo. He told her the work she needed done would take no more than a couple of days, so he spent Saturday and most of Sunday with her and Marshall. He knew three-year-old Sofia would be sleeping when he arrived home that night after his two-hour trip but he would lean down and squeeze her just the same. He also knew that he and Julie would sit up talking into the night, catching up.

When he arrived home, the house was dark, except for a soft light in the living room. He walked through the kitchen and found Julie sitting in the living room on the swivel chair, the one they had found at a garage sale and had reupholstered. She was fully dressed and wearing her coat. “Did you just get home?” Ryan asked.

“No. I was just leaving.”

She wasn’t looking at him and Ryan stepped farther into the living room. “Just leaving? It’s ten o’clock. Where are you going?”

She looked up at him and her eyes were a hard blue. “I thought you would be home sooner.”

Ryan stood in front of her, looking around. “What’s going on, Julie?”

She rubbed her palms along her thighs and lifted her shoulders as if she was shrugging. “I’m not happy, Ryan. I haven’t been for a long time.”

He felt his breath choking him and sat on the sofa. His heart struggled to beat and his voice lodged at the back of his throat. “What? Where’s Sofia?”

“She’s in her bed sleeping. I was going to take her with me but it got so late that she fell asleep, so I took her to bed.” She wasn’t looking at him again and Ryan wanted to take hold of her head and make her face him. “I’ve met someone. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. He makes me happy. It’s kind of ironic how the whole thing happened.”

Ryan felt a laugh coming from somewhere deep within his chest and it surprised him, being louder than he anticipated. “Ironic? That’s the word you choose for meeting another man and leaving me?”

Julie stood and walked to the front door. “Maybe it’s for the best that Sofia fell asleep early tonight. That way she can be here with her bed and the things she loves, for the time being.”

“You are one of those things that she loves, Julie.”

She looked at him and the silence was heavy and perturbing between them. “We can work out custody later.” She left him sitting alone in the living room. He stayed there all night.

He and Julie shared custody of Sofia for the next year but Julie’s new life was taking her in a new direction. She married Derek and became stepmother to his three children. When Derek got a promotion, which meant a move to Arizona, Julie wanted to take Sofia with them. Ryan felt his world crumbling. “Don’t make this situation ugly, Ryan,” Julie had said in the attorney’s office.

Ryan never raised his voice, shook his finger, or banged on the table. Instead he whispered, “This is Sofia’s life. I don’t think of it as ugly but it would be devastating if she lived in Arizona. You know I’m a good dad, Julie. You know I have always worked hard for this family. You know I would do anything for her. Don’t take her away from me. Please. She loves the house and her room and her dog.”

Julie relinquished primary custody, and in ways that Ryan still thinks of as miraculous, they worked out a plan where Sofia would be with her mother several times a year. In the past three years, Ryan has stopped questioning the signals that he missed or the circumstances in which he failed her as a husband. It wasn’t what he wanted or the life that he had planned but when he listens to the little voice behind him belting out the songs from
Frozen,
he knows he’d do it all over again.

“Are we finally here?” Sofia asks.

“We are here! This is Grandon.”

She looks out the window. “This is where we’re going to live now?”

He lifts his shoulders. “Maybe. It depends on which job I take. The job with Hazelton Construction will be thirty minutes away, so we could either live here or closer to work. But if I take the job with Anderson Construction, that would mean we’d need to move to Riverside, four hours from here. I guess it all depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“On what we discover in the next couple of weeks.”

He drives around the town square, stretching glittery white in every direction, and hopes his and Sofia’s future will be as bright as the snow around them.

*   *   *

“There,” Jen says, placing a magenta-colored bulb with a velvet ribbon around it on the tree. Elvis’s “Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)” can be heard from the portable CD player. Jen chose this compilation disc specifically for this song and others, thinking they would make Avery smile, but she hasn’t paid attention. “It’s really looking beautiful, isn’t it?” Avery is holding a golden bulb and blown-glass snowman in her hands, looking at them. “Just find a spot anywhere, sweetie.”

Avery looks up at her mom. “Why are we doing this, Mom? We aren’t going to have any presents.”

“Since when? Why wouldn’t we?”

She talks into the bulb, turning it in her hands. “Naughty people don’t get presents.”

Jennifer reaches for another ornament, putting a hook on it. “You’re thinking of Santa’s naughty and nice list but there is no way you would be on the naughty list.”

Avery hangs the snowman. “We’re both on it.”

Jen laughs. “What? How did we end up on the naughty list? We pay our taxes, we obey the law, we don’t go around making life difficult for other people. Just this morning, I took Mrs. Lenox’s mail to her that was accidentally put in our box. Most people would throw away her mail just so they wouldn’t have to knock on her door, but I marched right up there and knocked on it and smiled as I handed her her mail. No one who faces Mrs. Lenox ends up on the naughty list.”

“It’s not the naughty list, Mom. It’s the bad one.”

Jen stops her work and looks at Avery. Elvis is annoying in the background. “What do you mean, Avery?”

She’s holding a small reindeer ornament so tight that Jen fears she will crush it. “Dad isn’t here.”

Jennifer kneels down, tucking her legs under her. She reaches for Avery and pulls her down in front of her. “Dad’s not being here has nothing to do with you or me.”

Avery’s face is like an art museum, with its most shining and beautiful works covered in canvas. “Yes it does.”

Jen shakes her head, holding Avery’s arms. “No. Listen to me. That’s not how it works. None of this is your fault. None of this is my fault.”

“He went away.” Her eyes are about to spill over.

“But not because he chose to.”

“God did it.”