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December 30, 1991
Dear Nada,
Happy Holidays! I survived my Christmas and I hope you have a good Christmas next week. I spent most of Christmas Eve sitting on the patio at Nikki’s parents’ house. On Christmas Day, Nikki attempted to cook dinner for my dad, Forti, Prio, and me. We had pre-cooked turkey from the freezer. Nikki cooked it under the broiler in the oven, so the outside was crunchy and the middle was cold. She served it with lumpy mashed potatoes and watery, near-flavorless gravy. My dad took the first bite and said it was delicious. Then Forti, Prio, and I tried a bite at the same time. As soon as Prio swallowed, tears started falling from his eyes. He screamed at my dad, “You liar! This is yucky!”
Puffs of air escaped Forti’s lips as she started to cry. “What’s wrong?” asked my dad.
Forti pushed her plate toward the middle of the table. “I want Mommy.”
It broke my heart to see my brother and sister so upset. I got up, walked around the table, and pulled them both toward me to hug them. Then I started to cry for reasons other than the disastrous dinner.
Nikki yelled, “I’m sorry I ruined your Christmas!” as she knocked over her dining room chair in the process of running to their bedroom and slamming the door. My dad silently cut the crunchy away from the cold parts of the turkey, took a loaf of bread from the cupboard, and made four sandwiches. We cried as we ate them with plain potato chips. That was my Christmas dinner. Nikki and Dad comforted my siblings’ hurt by not speaking to them until they took us home that evening. They just mumbled, “Goodbye,” and walked out the door.
Andy has been gone for ten days and I still have not heard anything from him. He should have received my letter and Christmas card, but I haven’t received anything in return. I miss him so much. Maybe he has been too busy visiting with his family and celebrating Christmas to have time to write me back.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve. I’m babysitting Forti and Prio while my mom and Aunt Shari go out. I wonder if I will ever stop thinking about what would be different on certain days if Emily was still here, because as soon as I wrote down I would be babysitting my brother and sister, I wanted to write I should be babysitting Emily while my Aunt Shari and Uncle Matt go out. But I didn’t because I think I have written that so many times you are probably getting tired of it. Anyway, I hope you have a good Christmas holiday January 6th and 7th!
Your friend,
Ami
*****
I lay on my bed, my right ear attached to my stereo with a headphone earpiece blasting NKOTB to avoid waking up Forti who was napping in anticipation of staying up long enough to ring in 1992. My left ear listened for the mail truck. If there was no letter from Andy, it would be two days before I would even possibly hear from him. By then, he would be back home for almost two weeks.
I heard the squeak of the mail truck’s brakes stopping at our neighbor’s mailbox. I yanked the cord of my headphones and could still faintly hear the music, so I pushed the pause button on my tape player. I closed my bedroom door behind me as quietly as I could and hopped down the stairs. I watched the mail carrier put letters into my next-door neighbor’s box. He drove toward our mailbox. Stop, stop, stop, I pleaded in my head. He slowed to a stop, reached his arm out of the window, and pulled open the mailbox door. He shoved several white envelopes in; I waited until he was a few houses down the road before I went out. I put on my shoes but didn’t tie them or take a coat. I flipped through the letters in front of the mailbox while standing on the side of the road in the snow; bills, greeting card envelopes addressed generically to “The Sinkeys,” and our weekly fat envelope of coupons, but nothing for me specifically and nothing from California. Numbness swept over me and I shivered, suddenly cold.
I dropped the mail on the kitchen counter and went to my room. I was face down on my bed with my pillow over my head before I remembered Forti had been sleeping. I stretched my neck back over my shoulder. Her bed was empty. I folded the pillow around my head and cried. Did something bad happen to him? Did he forget about me? Has he been too busy? Did it hurt him too much to think about writing me? Did he ever care about me at all?
I cried until I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remembered was opening my eyes to see my mom’s face peering under the pillow.
“Taking a nap?” she asked.
“I guess so.” I pushed the pillow off my head and sat up, hoping the redness of my crying eyes had faded.
“Good idea. Forti and Prio are adamant they’re staying up until midnight.” My eyes had not yet adjusted from being buried under my pillow, so I could barely see her through my squinted eyes. “Come downstairs; we’re getting ready to leave.”
I squinted at my clock: 4:15. “Already?” I asked.
“Grandma is making us come over for chili before we go out.” She turned toward me from the doorway to my room. “Real good plan, isn’t it?”
“Sure.” I sighed and pulled myself up from my bed.
“Are you coming?” my mom yelled up the stairs. “I want to show you how to cook the pizza snacks before we go.”
I leaned my head out into the hallway, bracing myself on the edge of the door and the door casing. “I’ve made those a dozen times.” I hollered down the stairs loud enough so I hoped my mom could hear. She popped her head back, pivoting on the ball on top of the last railing post at the bottom of the stairs.
“Fine,” she said. She threw her hands up in the air. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”
I pushed the door closed hard but not quite a slam. I plopped into my desk chair and hit the top with both elbows. A pen bounced to the floor. I held my hot cheeks in my hands for a few seconds before pushing my face through them toward the desktop. I grabbed the hair behind my ears with each clenched fist and silently screamed, pushing air up in my throat and straining it against my eyes until I could see tiny sparks of light.