I sleep in until ten the next morning, on this Christmas Eve Sunday. The sky hangs gray; not much difference between night and morning. For a split second, I forget about last night and the bad news. But then I remember again. That’s the problem with waking up: eventually you remember.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Dad says when I blunder into the kitchen in pink flannel pajamas, my eyes full of sleep and grouchy denial.
“Morning,” I mumble. “It’s not exactly ‘good.’”
“Every day, no matter how sad, has something good in it,” Dad says. He cracks eggs into a red bowl.
I just shrug, shake my head, bite the inside of my cheek hard so that I don’t start to cry. That’s a trick I learned when I was little. Keep the pain on the inside.
“I have something for you to think about, Lily,” Dad says. “It’s a big decision, but unfortunately you have to make it pretty quick.” He whips the eggs, puts butter in the frying pan, turns on the stove. Sizzle fills the room.
“What?” I sink down into a kitchen chair, running my hands through the tangles in my hair.
“Well, here’s the thing, Lily. Grandma called early this morning, and she’s thinking about the funeral. She’d really like for you to be there, and so she found a great deal on holiday airfare on some website. She’d pay half and I can cover the other half, but you’d have to fly today.”
“Today?”
Dad nods. He pours the eggs into the hot butter, stirs, scrambles.
“Grandma’s all ready with her credit card as soon as you give her the word. I can get you to the airport in less than an hour. You’d have to pack your bag pretty quick. We’d stop first and get you a cell phone—”
“My own phone?”
“Just one with minutes for a texting plan. Like, to keep in touch with quick stuff. Or for emergencies.”
What other kind of emergency could possibly happen? My grandpa already died.
“So I know you’ve never flown, sweetheart, and I’m really sorry that I can’t afford to get myself a ticket, too. But I know you’ll be fine! You’re a smart girl and you’re brave.”
“I’m so not brave!”
“You’re smart. And you have a great big heart. And that great big heart is exactly what Grandma Violet needs right now.”
“But . . . what about Christmas? It’s Christmas Eve!” I pick at a little rip in the plastic tablecloth, making it bigger.
“I know,” Dad says. “And I’ll save it for you. Some things can wait. Even your favorite holiday.”
I look at the tree. I look at the star. I look at the plates of cookies and treats, made by Dad and me. I look at the wrapped gifts under the tree.
“Promise? You promise to wait?”
“You can count on me,” my dad says.
And I know I can. Dad pours me a big glass of orange juice, puts some eggs on a plate for me, and hands me the bottle of ketchup.
“How long do I have to decide?” I ask.
“Take a little walk after you eat breakfast and think about it,” Dad says. “And whatever you decide will be fine.”
Trudging up one of our hiking trails, I’m thinking and thinking and thinking. But what if my mother is mean to me? What if the elephant charges me or smothers me? What if I’m scared, all alone, way up high in the sky? What if I get lost? What if I can’t figure out the airport? What if the plane crashes? What if Dad has a heart attack while I’m gone? What if, what if, what if? My entire mind has turned into one big question mark.
I’ve never been on an airplane. I’ve never gone anywhere alone. I’m twelve. I know nothing about flying or Florida or funerals. I’ve never even been to a funeral!
What to do, what to do, what to do? That’s what I’m thinking with each crunch of my boot against frozen ground, with every crackle of dead leaves, with every snap of tree limb that I break with my steps. The air is so cold that the tiny hairs freeze inside my nose, and it feels as though I’m frozen from the inside out.
What should I do?
And then I remember how Grandpa Bill saved my life when I was six. I remember how it felt to be cuddled in his arms. I remember how he’d blow bubbles for me, and we’d see each other’s faces through the bubbles as I looked up. I remember how he was always there for me when my mother was not.
“Yes,” I say out loud, to the hard ground and to the bare-limbed trees and to the quiet gray sky.
“Yes, I’ll go. I’ll be there, Grandpa Bill. I’ll be there for you. And I’ll try to be brave.”
And then I jump as a bird startles me, flapping its wings on the branch of a tree. I gasp, then almost laugh.
The bird flies away, into the West Virginia winter sky, leaving me behind to finally make up my mind.
“I’m going to fly, too,” I call after the bird. “Just like you.”