Christmas
Valerie and I had lots of fun furnishing the front room for our young guests. She declared bunk beds too childish, so we chose a sleek teak Danish modern twin-sized trundle bed. We added a pair of desks and dressers and two lounge chairs with good back support that could be pulled up to the desks, and we were done.
“My, you girls are efficient.” Roger peeks in on his way to the garage, and watches us spread bright Madras covers on the beds. “This looks like a dorm room. If you aren’t careful, these boys will never leave.” He lopes on to the garage, which he’s fortifying with cabinets and workbenches. Workers are out back finishing a terraced path that goes down to the creek. Carlo’s eyes must be popping out, trying to take all this in through that little hole he cut in the hedge.
Valerie has been all in a bother about how to set up the living room to accommodate Father Mike’s weekly T-Group sessions with the boys he has chosen for leadership training. I made the mistake of telling her about Laura’s work with the girls. True to form, she’s thinking the young ladies need their own T-Group and she’s just the person to organize it.
Roger and I reflect nightly on how different our move to the Glass House is turning out to be. We expected that I would spend my days in the studio working on my collages. He would take up his golf game again and get involved with projects around the house. We thought Valerie and Andy would be gone much of the time. That’s not the case.
Andy has moved his business to the Bay Area. He spends so much time meeting with clients at the dining room table he hasn’t even started to look for office space. Valerie has crammed the tiny fourth bedroom that separates their suite from ours full of fabric rolls, paint swatch books and decorating magazines, and dubbed it her hobby room.
Between Valerie greeting interior designers at the front door, and Andy ushering clients in through the back door, it feels more like an open-air marketplace than a home. When I walk through the house, I feel like I’m at Stanford Shopping Center; something different catches my eye every time I enter a room because Valerie carts home new stuff every day. She is taking nest feathering to lengths I never imagined.
R
Two days before Christmas, I pull up in front of the house with my nephew and park the car in the driveway. I haven’t been able to park in the garage since Roger started his improvement project.
“Gosh Auntie Dee, this house is amazing.”
Valerie apparently hears us drive up. The wind has gotten up and her long hair whips around her face as she runs barefoot out the front door. Danel moves quickly toward his cousin, and gives her a bear hug that lifts her off her feet.
“Valerie!” his voice booms.
“Danny!” She sings his name, holding on to the last note. And just like that, Danel Americanizes into Danny.
When I saw my nephew last year at Moragarena he was twenty-four years old and still a bit of a boy, certainly not in stature, but in manner. He was full of crazy ideas. He wanted to start a business. He wanted to start a band. He wanted to run with the bulls in Iruna. A year later, he seems a bit more focused. He’s a stocky kid, well-muscled, with springy brown curls groomed into submission and eyes the color of root beer sparkling under heavy brows. He accepts a beer at cocktail hour, and is eager to join the men in a conversation about the American economy.
After the dinner dishes are cleared, Valerie organizes us into a tree trimming party. Andy puts Bing Crosby’s White Christmas album on the record player, and we chat about nothing while we hang shiny red and gold colored globes on a silvery tinsel tree.
For now, we carefully avoid any talk about why Danny has been sent to us. We don’t ask about Domeka. Valerie plugs in some newfangled color wheel she purchased when she bought the tree at Macy*s. As it rotates, the tree catches the light and changes color: red, green, blue and gold. I wonder how long this new fashion will last. Not long, I’m figuring, but I understand Valerie’s desire to try something new. Aren’t we all doing that?
Goldie whines at the patio door, and Andy volunteers to take her for her nightly walk. As Roger and I and head off to bed, I look back to see Valerie and Danny sitting on the sofa by the used brick fireplace. The orange and rose reds, charcoals and washed out whites of the aged stone stands in stark contrast to the floor to ceiling glass. Radiant heat relieves the Ibarras from the hassle of burning wood in the factory-clean inner hearth. A fire log throws off a comforting glow, but not much heat. It seems appropriate. It’s comfort we are seeking this year.
The cousins sit with their knees touching, hands in motion, trading stories of the passing year’s events; Valerie’s marriage, Danny’s travels through Europe after he graduated from University of Navarra in Pamplona, Valerie’s teaching, Danny’s decision to major in applied mathematics instead of religious studies.
That Danny showed interest in the priesthood surprised all of us, but Alaya’s family is deeply Roman Catholic. I suppose many young men who have a passionate nature are drawn to religious life. How easily I accept Mike’s calling, but I would not be happy if Danny had answered that same call. Something inside of me yearns for nothing more than to see little Dannys and Valeries come along. That could have happened for Mike, if it had worked out that way, but marriage is forbidden to the Roman Catholic priests. I make no apologies for my prejudice.
On Christmas Eve, the young people attend mass at Saint Nicholas. Andy is a lapsed Catholic and Valerie is just confused. That’s my fault. I didn’t raise her in any faith. I am still working out my own faith. Roger believes that all good people go to Heaven. That he is one of the good guys I am sure. That his theology holds water I am no longer so sure.
For a family that has spent money in such a hedonistic way furnishing this house, we are surprisingly frugal with gift-giving. Our joy is in being together.
On Christmas night, as I relax by the tree, a glow fills my eyes like bubbles rising in the glass I cradle in my hand. Warm tears blur my vision, sting, and release a flood of desperation. When Roger returns from his walk with Goldie, he finds me sitting in my white leather chair in our bedroom, sobbing into my owl pillow for my sister. Here I sit, safe and warm, enjoying the company of my beautiful daughter and Alaya’s precious son. A world away, Alaya and Elazar sit alone in their ancient farmhouse kitchen. One son is in jail. The other, I truly believe, will not be going home any time soon, if ever.