[NWC 2014] Christmas Eve

[TheNewGirl]

Christmas eve. He sat at the dining table, set for eight places though he dined alone, and sighed as the empty tree caught his gaze. Its bare branches indignant, silent. The box with the lights was in the corner, lid opened, neat coils untouched inside. The ornament box hadn’t made it out of the closet, but it, too, stood open, its contents carefully wrapped in paper towel but for a few at the top of the box, which had been unwrapped. His fingertips had rustled gently across the surface of the first ornament with a sound like ancient paper when he palmed the ornament, turned it over in his hands, and then returned it gently to the box. He closed his eyes, drew a deep breath through his nose, and held it there as if by holding her scent he could summon her. The ornament he had picked up was a palm-sized orb, deep purple, with a delicate gold script scrawled around the circumference. Twenty years since you taught me what true love is, and I’m still learning. Merry Christmas, Jan.

The box still held the faded scent of grapefruit and patchouli. He remembered every ornament in that box, with an intensity that tore through him like a serrated blade to the heart. He blinked hard against sudden tears, drew in a trembling breath around the lump in his throat, and pushed himself to his feet. He looked like he had aged fifty years in the past thirty seconds. He thought the lights would be easier, but her scent clung to everything. So now he sat alone at the dining table, staring down the bare tree to keep his eyes from drifting to the box of ornaments.

Jan always loved Christmas. Under her enthusiastic care, their home transformed from tidy suburban to winter wonderland—stockings on the false mantle, a tree so decked out in ornaments you could hardly tell it was a tree at all, special table settings with the good china, everything. Even when she was sick, even that last year, when things got really bad, she insisted with a will of pure steel that the house be decorated to her standards. He had ended up wheeling her through their house, minding the IV cords while she set the table and hung the ornaments. He helped her reach the higher branches, placing the ornaments exactly as she dictated. And when the house was done, she’d sat back in her chair, sighed a happy little sigh, and smiled a true smile for the first time in months.

He had kept up the tradition for a couple of years after her death. Everyone says that helps- keeping up old traditions. Says it brings them closer, eases the loneliness. But it’s all a load of [censored]. He thought he was doing it wrong the first year, like he was expecting too much or that maybe it was just too soon for the holiday to be anything but painful. He’d bulled through it, frantically dredging his memories to ensure that everything made it to the proper spot, just like she always did it. He invited a dozen people for dinner, and tried to pretend his grimace was a smile. That was the last time he had anyone over for the holidays.

It all came down to that box of ornaments, and the ghost of a scent that invaded his senses every time he approached it. It was the ghost of Christmas past, but it wasn’t the refuge it should have been. The memories of Jan, of decorating for Christmas, only underscored the ghost of Christmas future: the emptiness, the lonely ache.

He blinked rapidly, breaking his staring contest with the tree, and glanced down. Better to just live in this Christmas present. Better to not think of the empty years that stretch before you, as if this year is the first and only time you’ll be lonely on Christmas.